Believe it or not, this is the strongest College Football Playoff field ever and Clemson should be the title favorite over LSU, Ohio State, and Oklahoma.
Championship week went pretty much like many expected, with no real big surprises. The playoff field is set and now the chatter has become about who can come out on top. Even with fewer games, there was no shortage of topics for a new edition of College Football Believe it or Not.
Editorial Note: Michael and Patrick will be taking a short winter hiatus, and the Believe it or Not column will be back on December 30.
Believe it or not, this is the strongest playoff field yet
Schmidt: Believe it
Normally, there is one or maybe two undefeated teams at the end of the regular season but this year gave us three with LSU, Ohio State, and Clemson. This field is absolutely loaded with just those three teams who have a great chance to win the national title. But when you throw in Oklahoma and Jalen Hurts, it leaves no doubt in my mind this is the strongest playoff field we’ll see to date.
All four of these offenses rank among the nation’s elite and have quarterbacks who are going to win Heismans, be No. 1 picks in the NFL Draft and will leave incredible legacies behind when they’re gone.
Oklahoma doesn’t have a dominant defense to the degree of Ohio State or Clemson, but they’ve been markedly improved from last year. LSU’s defense has normally been a strength but has been overshadowed by their prodigious offense, but with Grant Delpit and other starters getting healthy at the right time, there may not be a single weakness on that team.
There is no layup like Michigan State or Washington this year. It’s going to make for great TV. I can’t wait for Dec. 28 to get here.
Collins: Not
This will undoubtedly rank up there with some of the strongest fields to participate in the College Football Playoff, and if you are basing it on overall records, then yes, 2019 has the most undefeated teams. But I don’t think it’s really the strongest field.
For me, the strongest field was in 2017-18. All four playoff teams – Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, Alabama – came into the playoff with one loss each, but that’s because the competition within their individual conferences was so much stronger. Eventual champion Alabama was so good they were awarded a playoff spot without even having the virtue of playing in a conference championship game, less yet winning it.
Georgia and Oklahoma battled it out in one of the most memorable Rose Bowls in history, and while Clemson was suffocated by Alabama’s stellar defense, it was a tight game early and was probably closer than the 24-6 score would indicate.
This was also the playoff field that gave us our first real look at Tua Tagovailoa and what he was going to bring to the Crimson Tide.
When the smoke clears, perhaps this field will look stronger by virtue of the games they play, but walking up to it the day after Selection Sunday, I’d still rank it number two.
Believe it or not, the playoff committee got it right
Schmidt: Believe it
Thanks to Utah and Georgia losing, the playoff committee didn’t have much wiggle room to screw it up. They almost did when Committee chairman Rob Mullens said Georgia was in consideration for the No. 4 spot, but that correctly went to Big 12 Champion Oklahoma and not the two-loss SEC East champion. The only real criticism you can throw at the committee is whether LSU was deserving of the No. 1 spot over Ohio State. Both have played a tough schedule and dominated their opponents along the way. It was a narrow margin and the committee got it right by giving the top spot to LSU after their complete showing vs. Georgia in the SEC Championship Game.
After Ohio State struggled vs. Wisconsin in the first half of the Big Ten Championship Game vs. Wisconsin, the door was open for LSU to pass them up, and that’s exactly what happened. It was that close, but the committee got it right with LSU, Ohio State, Clemson, and Oklahoma.
Collins: Believe it
This was probably the easiest selection job the committee has had since the inception of the College Football Playoff.
Three selections were no-brainers, and the fourth probably took all of five minutes to debate. The only real question was whether to put LSU or Ohio State at number one, and they nailed that one as well.
The only gripes should come from ESPN, who had to try and figure a way to stretch a selection show that could have been over in 15 minutes to four hours without much to debate about at all.
“Stretch it out, Kirk. We still have three more hours.”
Believe it or not, Pac-12 needs playoff expansion to survive
Schmidt: Believe it
I’m not a proponent of expanding the playoff to eight teams, but Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott should be after his league was left out of the playoff for the third year in a row. Utah had a chance if they were able to beat Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship Game but failed spectacularly in their biggest game in years. That made it an easy call to leave the Pac-12 out.
With Ohio State, Clemson, the SEC powers and Oklahoma playing as well as they have in the last few years and their programs stabilized with elite coaching, it’s hard to envision a scenario where the Pac-12 gets in next year or the year after that. It’s not going to be USC, which would have jumped to the top of the line of programs with a chance if they hired Urban Meyer or at least moved on from Clay Helton, but decided being stuck in mediocrity was the right move.
The best chance the Pac-12 has at getting a chance to compete for the national championship is campaigning for the rules to be changed to benefit you. But they may need to expand to 12 teams just to be safe, because eight may not be enough.
Collins: Not
First of all, nobody needs playoff “expansion”. A possible optional play-in game to select the fourth entrant when needed? I’m ok with that. But let’s table this whole idea of watering down the field.
Secondly, we aren’t talking about the Sun Belt Conference or Conference-USA here. This is the Pac-12. This is USC, Oregon, UCLA, Washington, and Stanford. These are stalwarts of college football, and missing the playoff field for a few seasons (or longer) isn’t going to damage the conference beyond repair.
Yes, changes need to be made. They need to better negotiate television revenue. They need to hire coaches with better recruiting angles. They need to have schools update facilities. There’s always room for improvement, but it’s not a disaster in the making in the Pac-12.
College football is cyclical, and as the transfer portal becomes more and more utilized by players who aren’t getting the time as a stater they believe is deserved, Pac-12 schools will start benefitting from the unexpected gifts.
However, to be fair, Patrick is right on one big point. USC blew it.
Believe it or not, Lane Kiffin will be a smashing success at Ole Miss
Schmidt: Believe it
Success is relative. I’m not predicting Lane Kiffin will lead Ole Miss to SEC titles and playoff berths. However, I think he will be a smashing success when it comes to injecting some excitement, enthusiasm, and optimism in a football program that was in dire need of it for the last few years. He’s already won with the level of anticipation met with his hire when the news broke on Friday night of his impending hire. The Ole Miss football Twitter account helped spike the excitement with various “train” gifs and memes hyping up the Lane Train experience that’s headed to Oxford.
It’s nice to have a coach with a big personality in a division and a conference full of them. Of course, he’ll need to actually win games, which he did at Florida Atlantic, where they are coming off a second Conference USA Championship in Kiffin’s three years with the Owls. That level of success had been foreign to FAU before Kiffin and they may realize winning is a lot harder without him in Boca Raton.
I’m excited to see how Kiffin coaches against his former boss, Nick Saban, once a year, which should result in some fireworks and at least a few juicy quotes from each side. I’m stopping short of predicting Hugh Freeze-like success at Ole Miss for Kiffin unless he wants to pay recruits, but I think Kiffin will have them competing for a bowl appearance next year and eight wins by 2021. Rebels fans will definitely take that.
Collins: Not
There are several ways to define “smashing success” and I’m not sure any of them apply to what will happen to Ole Miss by the time Lane Kiffin’s feet start going to sleep again and he starts looking for the next best job.
Kiffin has always been his own worst enemy. A pretty decent coach who lets his mouth get him into trouble.
He’ll have some initial success at first, and probably pull off a few big recruiting wins, but as things usually happen with him, his schtick will get old (for parents, fans, and players) and he’ll piss off the wrong person before making an unceremonious exit under a cloud of questions.
Bowl game appearances? Probably. Smashing success? Almost certainly not.
Believe it or not, Clemson should be the national title favorite
Schmidt: Believe it
I don’t have a problem with Clemson being ranked No. 3 because of the teams LSU and Ohio State to get here, but I think Clemson is the team to beat in the playoff. The reigning national champions feel like they’re getting a bit of the national fatigue that hit Alabama in the last few years where fans are over them winning all the time and are eager for new blood to have a chance. Well, there’s no new blood in the mix despite Alabama being out, but still, Trevor Lawrence hasn’t lost a college game and the Tigers look even better than last year’s title team.
The offense is humming with Lawrence looking like the best player in the country, and that includes Joe Burrow who will win the Heisman on Saturday. Travis Etienne, Tee Higgins, Justyn Ross and the Clemson offense is unstoppable and I don’t think anyone can slow them, although Ohio State might make things tricky if Chase Young can’t be blocked.
The biggest reason is the Clemson defense which is led by Isaiah Simmons who won the Butkus and has made up for the loss of the War Daddies on the line who went pro after last year. Brent Venables is one of the top defensive coordinators in the nation and he’s transformed this unit into an attacking, versatile group that has been difficult to move the ball on.
LSU has never been in this position, Ohio State is led by a first-year coach and first-year starting quarterback and Oklahoma doesn’t have the defense to keep up with the other three. That leaves Clemson as the most complete and the national title favorite.
Collins: Not
Before the Dabo-disciples completely lose their minds on me, I’ll preface this by saying Clemson absolutely belongs in the playoff this year, and they absolutely deserved the number three seed. They are a high-quality team with great players and a coach who has motivation down to a science.
That said, this is not Clemson’s strongest team and Trevor Lawrence is far from the strongest quarterback in the field. In fact, of the four starting quarterbacks we’ll see, Lawrence is probably at the bottom of that list.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The problem with looking at Clemson as a favorite is this.
The ACC is god-awful this year. It’s absolutely the weakest Power-5 conference, and it may even be weaker than the American and the Mountain West. Clemson has been the equivalent of Kramer “dominating his dojo” of nine-year-olds, and Dabo’s constant whining about how Clemson is perceived sounds eerily like Kramer’s statement of “Well, it’s not the size of the opponent, Elaine, it’s, uh, the ferocity.”
Clemson had a nice run this year, but Ohio State is a much more complete team. And even if the Tigers should manage to survive the Fiesta Bowl and the Buckeyes, there is no possible way they are going to make LSU struggle at all.
For more NCAA football news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided, including Heisman Trophy and College Football Playoff rankings, be sure to bookmark these pages.