Ranking every College Football Playoff team in history

With the fifth installment of the College Football Playoff now complete, we look back at all 20 teams that have made it and rank them against one another.

At this point, it somewhat feels like the College Football Playoff system has been in our lives forever. Of course, that’s not the case and, in truth, we aren’t that far removed from the BCS system. The 2018-19 season concluding signifies just the fifth year that we’ve been treated to the Playoff system and the fruits that have sprouted as a result of it.

Of course, Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers captured the fifth National Championship of the College Football Playoff era on Monday, Jan. 7 as they dismantled an Alabama Crimson Tide team that many would have called unbeatable throughout the regular season and even the semifinal of the Playoff. They were, indeed, beatable and the Tigers showed that in emphatic fashion as they claimed their throne atop the sport.

The win for Clemson means that, despite five years of the College Football Playoff, only three programs have won a National Championship since the institution of this new system. The Tigers have won twice, as has Alabama, while the Ohio State Buckeyes won the inaugural CFP National Championship Game.

While the teams at the top have been familiar in the CFP over the last five years, though, we have seen several others have their shot at winning a championship. In all, 20 teams have earned trips to the College Football Playoff. Some of those 20 teams have acquitted themselves well, even in defeat, while others have left only questions about whether or not they deserved to be in that position at all.

Given that we’re five years in, though, it feels an appropriate time to look back at the 20 teams that have played in the College Football Playoff over the last five years and see how they stack up against one another. And that’s what we’ll do, ranking all 20 teams in the history of the CFP from worst to first.