This season feels different than any other college football season. There’s been more shuffling in the top 10 than anywhere else in the AP top 25 rankings it feels like, though that might not 100 percent be the case and with the parity this year, you just don’t know who you can trust to contend for a national championship.
Ohio State is at the forefront of the national title favorites with a win over the preseason No. 1 ranked team and staying afloat with the four wins that followed the Week 1 win, but who else can we really trust to win a championship this year? After all, Penn State, Texas and Clemson – who were all in the preseason top five – are not unranked and Notre Dame is fighting an uphill battle to get back in the CFP discussion.
Here’s the shortlist of teams that you can trust to win a national championship this year because everyone else has proven they just aren’t as good as their preseason ranking.
No. 1 Ohio State Buckeyes
I said it at the beginning of the year and I’ll say it again, halfway through the college football season: This is Ohio State’s championship to lose. They’re the only team that seems to know how to win the games they’re supposed to and win the big games altogether – though the jury is still out on how good that Texas win was.
The Buckeyes are the top team in college football and even if their offense has had its struggles, they have the best defense we’ve seen this year. There isn’t a team with a defense that scares you as much as Ohio State, competition aside. We’ll see how good this defense really is as the second half of the season progresses, but right now, no one's stopping them.
You can trust Ohio State because thanks to an expanded CFP, a loss to Michigan and possibly even missing the Big Ten title game for the fifth-straight season, won’t hold them back from a CFP appearance. Last year, it propelled them to a CFP run that won their first title in 10 years. This year, it could motivate them to win their second straight.
I wouldn’t bet against the Buckeyes this year, especially because there’s no other team that has played as well and consistently as them this year.
No. 2 Miami Hurricanes
You have to believe in Miami for one reason only and that’s the fact that they simply keep winning. Say what you want, they have wins over three ranked teams and those teams happen to still be ranked, which adds to their strength of schedule. It’s clear when the CFP selection committee meets in November to decide what the first playoff field will look like, the Hurricanes have a strong argument for a No. 1 ranking.
Entering the season, I wouldn’t have trusted Carson Beck to do anything like what he’s doing now. He struggled last year at Georgia and I thought those same problems would arise this year. Instead, he looks like the quarterback that might just bring “The U” back to the top. The rest of the season, the Hurricanes should coast through and they shouldn’t have too much trouble in the ACC title game, even if they have to face Florida State again.
Personally I feel like the only team that might be good enough to stop Ohio State is Miami and vice versa so those two teams being ranked one and two make sense. I’d be shocked if either loses before the CFP kicks off.
No. 10 Georgia Bulldogs
I will never count Georgia out of playing for a national championship. Kirby Smart has been phenomenal at winning the games that matter and while they lost in the quarterfinals last year to Notre Dame, when the Bulldogs reach the CFP, they don’t lose. Last year was their first loss in the CFP – albeit, more expansive than the previous four-team playoff. Smart is 3-1 in the CFP with two national championships.
This is a team that’s built on championship tradition and thinking the Bulldogs aren’t going to make it based on how this season has gone just doesn’t make sense. They’re only loss is to Alabama and they defeated Tennessee on the road for their first SEC win this year. I don’t see a team in the SEC slowing them down, except maybe Alabama again.
If Alabama had played the way they did against Georgia all season, I wouldn’t bet against them. But right now, Georgia just feels like a team that’s going to lean on their championship tradition to have success in the CFP. That’s why they’re one of the few teams I’d trust to win the whole dang thing this year.