Final 2019 college football rankings: National Championship seals No. 1 for LSU

As the 2019 season ends, and the LSU Tigers are crowned national champions, we explore where all 130 FBS teams fall the final college football rankings.

Just like that, it’s over.

Following months of news, speculation, discussion and debate, and after 1,041 games featuring FBS teams, we watched as the LSU Tigers beat Clemson 42-25 in New Orleans to emerge as national champions.

Joe Burrow set a new NCAA record for touchdown passes in a season to cap what was arguably the best single-season ever for a college quarterback. Top receiver Ja’Mar Chase surpassed 200 receiving yards for the third time this year and caught two touchdown passes (the sixth multiple touchdown performance for the sophomore) to increase his national lead to 20. Thaddeus Moss – Burrow’s security blanket – also scored on a pair of touchdown passes from Burrow.

The LSU defense was solid as well. After falling behind early, defensive coordinator Dave Aranda’s unit shut down Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence. Lawrence finished 18-for-37 for 234 yards and didn’t throw a touchdown pass, losing for the first time as a college signal-caller. The sophomore looked uneasy the entire second half as Patrick Queen, Grant Delpit (who sealed the game when he forced Lawrence to fumble with 3:53 left on the lock), Derek Stingley, Jr. and the rest of the Bayou Bengals turned up the heat.

Simply put, the Tigers deserved it. LSU began the preseason at 25-to-1 odds to win the national title according to most sportsbooks. But after a long season, Ed Orgeron’s squad survived challenges from one of the strongest fields in recent memory to win it all.

In addition to defending national champion Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State also spent time as the No. 1 ranked team in the country. Oklahoma was a worthy playoff participant and Georgia and Baylor would have been had they won their respective conference championship games.

But now that all is said and done, we decided to look at the entire 2019 college football landscape. And using the final 2019 CFB Winning Edge Team Strength power ratings as our guide, we rank all 130 FBS teams at the end of the season.

Defining CFB Winning Edge Team Strength

There are three primary categories that combine to create the CFB Winning Edge Team Strength power ratings. First and foremost, Roster Strength is designed to capture the current state of a team’s roster by using individual player ratings (and cumulative position and unit ratings) that include talent projections, experience, career production and health. Secondly, Head Coach ratings work similarly, and use historical data specific to each head coach and his coaching staff regardless of what team he was coaching at the time (and not just his current program). Finally, Team Performance is a cumulative rating comprised of statistically driven game grades from the current season. All ratings use a 65-100 scale (similar to what is often used in sports video games).

It’s worth noting Team Strength ratings are forward-looking and are designed to project which teams would be favored against one another on a neutral field. Team Strength does not take strength of schedule into account, nor does it put any weight on a team’s previous won-loss record, or the outcome of head-to-head matchups.

In other words, Team Strength is not a resume metric. It doesn’t care about the past; only the future.

Too High? Too Low?

While scrolling through our final rankings below, there are a few teams that might stick out as being too high or too low.

For instance, some fans will notice three of the top five teams (and five of the top nine), hail from the Southeastern Conference. Whether or not you would consider it SEC bias, the first ingredient in Roster Strength is each player’s 247Sports Composite talent rating. SEC teams generally have the highest-rated recruiting classes, and that is reflected in our rankings.

Further down the line, others are sure to notice Utah is ranked No. 10, ahead of both Oregon and Texas, despite the Utes losing in blowout fashion in subsequent games. Washington, which finished 8-5 overall and 4-5 in conference play in the mediocre Pac-12, comes in at No. 14. UCF, ranked No. 21, is the highest-rated team from a Group of Five conference despite not even qualifying for the American Athletic Conference Championship Game.

Arguments could be made that several of those teams are rated too high given the results on the field. Nevertheless, we are comfortable with our power rankings formula. And remember, Team Strength is forward-looking. Therefore, we are confident that if, for example, UCF were to play Memphis next week, the Knights should be favored.

How so? The Tigers were inarguably the best team on the field in the AAC in 2019. However, head coach Mike Norvell left for the Florida State job before the Cotton Bowl, and he was replaced with Ryan Silverfield as the interim head coach. Though Silverfield was eventually promoted to the full-time job, CFB Winning Edge’s policy dictates Silverfield received an interim coach’s generic 75 Head Coach rating. For Memphis, that meant losing more than 10 points from its coaching profile, and as a result, dropping from No. 20 (ahead of UCF and every other G5 team) to No. 32 in the overall rankings.

A team like Boston College, which comes in at No. 107 as the lowest-rated team in the ACC, was similarly impacted. The Eagles took on Cincinnati in the Birmingham Bowl without Steve Addazio, who was fired, and elite running back A.J. Dillon, who sat out in preparation for the NFL Draft.

Therefore, BC lost roughly five points in Head Coach rating, and Dillon – the centerpiece of the Boston College offense – was a maximum 100-rated player, was replaced by 80.43-rated David Bailey at a position of great importance. The 38-6 loss to the Bearcats played a small role as the 73.4 Team Performance rating BC posted in the loss was its second-lowest game grade of the season (behind only the home loss to Kansas in Week 3).

FAU faced a similar situation following the departure of head coach Lane Kiffin to Ole Miss, and the Owls were missing several key contributors in the Boca Raton Bowl. Despite blowing out SMU 52-28 in the game, CFB Winning Edge would favor the Mustangs in a rematch.

The Race for No. 1

Because of its highly rated roster, and Nick Saban’s maximum 100 rating as a head coach, Alabama spent the majority of the 2019 preseason ranked No. 1 in overall Team Strength. However, the Crimson Tide dropped to No. 2 ahead of the season opener against Duke due to several first-half suspensions and a season-ending injury to All-American linebacker Dylan Moses. The personnel changes (including multiple true freshmen earning the starting nod on defense) dropped the Crimson Tide’s Roster Strength enough to push defending national champion Clemson in the top spot when the season kicked off.

The Tide shot back up to No. 1 after beating Duke 42-3 and stayed there for more than two months, until the 35-13 victory over Tennessee Oct. 20. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered an ankle injury in the win against the Vols that knocked him out of the lineup for the following game against Arkansas. With the 100-rated Tagovailoa gone from the Alabama depth chart and replaced by Mac Jones (who had a 79.34 rating at the time), the Crimson Tide were against surpassed by Clemson.

Ohio State, which had the No. 1 Team Performance rating at that point, was a close No. 3. Despite being incredibly impressive all season, LSU struggled to break into the top four of the Team Strength ratings until late in the season.

Personally, it made me very nervous for Clemson to be ranked No. 1. At that point in the season, most major college football analytics groups (specifically those that do not account for injuries – unlike CFB Winning Edge, which makes daily updates to depth charts) had Alabama and Ohio State jockeying for the top spot. Many sided with the Buckeyes.

Clemson was a much different team in the early weeks of the 2019 college football season than the one that blew out Alabama for the national title. Among the most notable differences from one season to the next, the Tigers were forced to completely replace one of the best starting defensive line units in recent memory, and also moved a former wide receiver to one of its starting cornerback spots.

On offense, quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw a few ugly interceptions against the likes of Georgia Tech and Louisville, and the Tigers were nearly upset by North Carolina before stopping a two-point conversion. The near-catastrophic loss, coupled with a weak strength of schedule, sent Clemson falling in the national polls from a preseason No. 1 in the AP Top 25, to second or third.

And despite Lawrence bouncing back in a huge way in the second half of the season, and the Tigers fielding a dominant defense throughout, Clemson was seeded No. 3 in the final College Football Playoff committee rankings.

Though a steady climber and legitimate playoff contender, LSU was largely an afterthought in the CFB Winning Edge power ratings until the Tigers beat Alabama (and a not-fully healthy Tua) Nov. 10. Though LSU entered the College Football Playoff as the No. 3 team in our ratings, huge wins over Texas A&M, Georgia and Oklahoma closed the gap considerably between LSU and Clemson. And when the game kicked off in New Orleans, after factoring in 1.5 points for the not-so neutral field of the Superdome, LSU had climbed to No. 2 as CFB Winning Edge made Clemson a 0.78-point favorite.

We were too low on LSU for too long. The Tigers didn’t reach No. 1 until it was all over (and Orgeron received a boost to his Head Coach rating to push LSU over the top). But it’s not where you start. It’s where you finish. And LSU finished atop the college football rankings for the first time since 2007.

CFB Winning Edge Final 2019 College Football Power Rankings

1. LSU
2. Clemson
3. Ohio State
4. Alabama
5. Georgia
6. Oklahoma
7. Florida
8. Notre Dame
9. Auburn
10. Utah
11. Oregon
12. Michigan
13. Baylor
14. Washington
15. Wisconsin
16. Penn State
17. Iowa
18. Texas A&M
19. Minnesota
20. Kentucky
21. UCF
22. Iowa State
23. USC
24. Texas
25. Washington State
26. Tennessee
27. Oklahoma State
28. Cincinnati
29. Appalachian State
30. Mississippi State
31. Virginia Tech
32. Memphis
33. SMU
34. Navy
35. Louisiana
36. TCU
37. North Carolina
38. Boise State
39. Virginia
40. Louisville
41. Kansas State
42. Pitt
43. Air Force
44. Michigan State
45. Indiana
46. Arizona State
47. Louisiana Tech
48. Missouri
49. Oregon State
50. South Carolina
51. Miami
52. Duke
53. BYU
54. Ole Miss
55. Wake Forest
56. Nebraska
57. Cal
58. Tulane
59. UCLA
60. Arizona
61. Stanford
62. Ohio
63. West Virginia
64. Texas Tech
65. Florida State
66. UAB
67. Hawaii
68. Temple
69. Syracuse
70. Western Michigan
71. FIU
72. FAU
73. San Diego State
74. Buffalo
75. Wyoming
76. Marshall
77. WKU
78. Central Michigan
79. Colorado
80. Southern Miss
81. Fresno State
82. Middle Tennessee
83. Georgia Southern
84. Arkansas State
85. Houston
86. Illinois
87. NC State
88. Eastern Michigan
89. Charlotte
90. Kansas
91. Army
92. Northwestern
93. ULM
94. Purdue
95. Liberty
96. Utah State
97. Tulsa
98. North Texas
99. Miami OH
100. Colorado State
101. Ball State
102. Kent State
103. Troy
104. Vanderbilt
105. Georgia Tech
106. Toledo
107. East Carolina
108. Boston College
109. USF
110. San Jose State
111. Georgia State
112. Northern Illinois
113. Maryland
114. Nevada
115. Arkansas
116. Coastal Carolina
117. Rice
118. UNLV
119. South Alabama
120. Texas State
121. UTSA
122. Rutgers
123. New Mexico
124. New Mexico State
125. Old Dominion
126. UTEP
127. Bowling Green
128. Connecticut
129. Akron
130. Massachusetts

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