College football is the only sport in the world where a team can win all its games and not win the ultimate championship. This is mostly true. There are complexities with boxing and horse racing and the Ivy League, but the spirit of the claim is accurate: In virtually every other sport in the world, if a competitor goes undefeated, they will win the championship awarded by the highest governing body under which they fall. In college football? It’s possible to go undefeated and lose. It’s somewhat common, even. It happens now and then, and it might happen again this year, though Florida State could always claim a national title if they were to beat Georgia in the Orange Bowl, and like UCF and dozens of others throughout history, they might even get the NCAA to recognize it. Whether Florida State wins all its games or not, though, and whether Florida State claims that championship if they do win, it’s possible in college football to go undefeated and finish as a runner up, and this is highly unusual in the sporting world.
This is, however, far from the only unusual thing about college football. It’s unusual to have a sport that allows for overlap between highly regionalized conferences and a national competitive division. It’s unusual to have 133 teams in a division when the regular season is only twelve games long. It’s unusual to have one final pseudo-regular season game in between the end of the real regular season and the start of the real postseason. Yet Army vs. Navy is happening on Saturday, and it presents no existential threat to college football’s soul.
We said recently that college football is a sport retrofitted to tradition. Like most sports, college football arose organically, schools forming teams, those teams playing other schools. When interest arose in naming a national champion, it was immediately difficult. Travel considerations, the physicality of football, and the breadth of competition necessary to identify deserving champions rendered the process messy from the outset. Jokes are made, sometimes deservedly, about how many schools claim how many national titles, but go back and read about the seasons covered by the Dickinson System and try to square those circles. The very thing fans love about college football—the tradition, the history, the tribal element which can only exist when teams represent cultural slices as narrow as a single college—leads to undefeated non-champions. “College football is the only sport in the world…”, those frustrated with Florida State’s exclusion begin, but they could just as well end the sentence with, “…that becomes this personal.” Were college football of a nature that naming its champion was easy, it would lack many of its pieces we adore.
Efforts have long been made to “fix” this national championship system, to give the people the undisputed national champion they want. Those efforts have usually ended in controversy. 2003 and 2004 were each a mess. 2014 was awkward. 1990, 1991, and 1997 each produced split results between the AP Poll and the Coaches Poll, while 1994 could have easily done the same. With each iteration, the wheels began turning on a new process, one fans hope will finally allow us to have college football as we know it but with an agreed-upon champion at the end.
Most sports don’t have disagreements about who won their championship. There’s the occasional cheating accusation, and there are “asterisk” discussions, but only one team wins the Stanley Cup every year. Where college football sets itself apart is, in part, in its earnest effort to name a champion who is not only deserving, by having won the right games, but has a reasonable claim to being the best team. It is very hard to satisfy this desire. It is hard to make sure your champion is, believably, the best team in your sport.
To have a true champion, a sport must do one of the following things:
1. Limit the size of the league such that every team can play every other team, preferably both at home and away. The Premier League does this in England, and you could argue that the NFL has something resembling this approach (if the NFL gets much larger, the regular season may have to become shorter, and playoff/schedule controversies will become serious). In a lot of ways, this is what the NBA does, partly by limiting the number of great teams to a handful through the accidental encouragement of anti-competitiveness and tanking.
2. Accept that the best team will often not win the championship and embrace that the champion is more a champion of a tournament than a season. I’d argue this is how a lot of hockey fans accept the Stanley Cup.
3. Abide by the preposterous notion that a tournament featuring few games and lots of teams is devoid of randomness. This is how college basketball works, and the World Series has become like this in recent years. (It’s probably not a coincidence that both Major League Baseball and the NHL are suffering ratings anxiety regarding the final stage of their postseason.)
It’s hard to have a true champion. That’s why the word “mythical” often accompanies the words “national championship” in historic accounts of college football. It is very hard to have a sport as large as college football and perpetually identify an annual champion who is, believably, the absolute best team. Individual games are too uncertain, and schedules are too unequal.
The 12-team playoff is going to bring about more consensus regarding the national champion. It’s going to produce some classic first and second-round matchups we wouldn’t otherwise have, games between teams like Ohio State and Georgia in the Columbus snow. It’s also going to produce fewer classic do-or-die games in total, games with the weight behind them of Ohio State vs. Notre Dame this September, or Texas vs. Oklahoma this October, or Michigan vs. Ohio State this November, or all of Alabama vs. Georgia, Florida State vs. Louisville, and Washington vs. Oregon II this weekend. The Iron Bowl will be a riot, but the stakes will often be lower than we’re accustomed to them being. A game like 2019 LSU vs. Alabama will be more like Eagles vs. 49ers yesterday—a good game, but a game about seeding, not a generational event like when Joe Burrow went to Tuscaloosa. (The greatest argument I can muster for this four-team playoff is that 2019 season and that 2019 LSU team.) In ways like this, the 12-team playoff is going to make college football more like the NFL. “It would be ridiculous if the NFL determined its playoffs this way,” many complained yesterday, but how angry is that same many over college football consolidating its strength into two super-conferences? Money isn’t the only thing driving conference realignment. Or rather, that money isn’t flowing out of the ground from some natural spring. It’s coming from the same average sports fan viewing interest that’s driven playoff expansion. Many of the same people putting on ashes and sackcloth over Florida State’s exclusion yesterday were furious months ago that Washington and Rutgers would be in the same league. People want a true champion, but they want tradition too. It’s hard to have both at the same time.
Florida State’s Strength of Schedule
As for the committee’s decision: Yes, it’s inconsistent. No, they didn’t take the four best teams, a list which wouldn’t have included Washington and would probably have included Georgia if they were being honest about who they think is best. No, they were not acting upon explicit orders from ESPN. Had they gone by strength of record, the best neutral arbiter of what each team accomplished, Florida State would have been in but it would have been Texas out. There was no 4-team playoff that would have made sense this year. The committee had to do something nonsensical.
What the committee did, in the end, was make the exact decision it was designed to make. It was designed—by the conferences, which are built by their schools, a list which includes Florida State—to identify consensus playoff teams and then fill the gaps using a list of criteria which included things like conference championships, head-to-head results, and injuries to key players (i.e., starting quarterbacks with less effective backups). The committee was designed to be a little bit inconsistent, but it was ultimately designed to give college football the best playoff possible. In a year which ended with a shocking seven teams with traditionally deserving résumés, this resulted in Florida State getting phenomenally unlucky. I don’t like the word “screwed” as it pertains to Florida State’s situation. Florida State got unlucky. This was not a decision to leave Florida State out. It was a decision to put Alabama and Texas in. Had Jordan Travis not gotten injured, Florida State would have been in and the committee would have likely chosen one of Georgia, Alabama, and Texas to be the last team, with the other two unlucky, like how Ohio State and Georgia are unlucky right now by historic norms. But Jordan Travis was injured, and the College Football Playoff—which Florida State’s ACC helped build—was designed to consider this.
Still, Florida State’s strength of schedule probably didn’t help. Or rather, Alabama and Texas’s strength of schedule did help. If Alabama or Texas was 12–1 with a schedule like Florida State’s, this would have been different. But Alabama and Texas’s schedules were much stronger than Florida State’s. Here are the thirteen opponents on each, listed by final CFP ranking or by our college football model’s estimation of that ranking (on average, our model underestimated SEC teams’ rankings more than ACC teams’ rankings this year, so these numbers are actually probably a little too kind to FSU). The list is unadjusted for home vs. away, but that should come out in the wash given how similar the home:away ratio was for each of the three teams.
| Opponent | Alabama | Texas | Florida State |
| Best | #3 Texas | #4 Alabama | #13 LSU |
| 2nd | #6 Georgia | #12 Oklahoma | #15 Louisville |
| 3rd | #11 Mississippi | #20 OK State | #22 Clemson |
| 4th | #13 LSU | #25 Kansas State | #32 Miami |
| 5th | #21 Tennessee | #30 Kansas | #35 Duke |
| 6th | #33 Texas A&M | #36 Iowa State | #54 Virginia Tech |
| 7th | #38 Kentucky | #48 Texas Tech | #55 Florida |
| 8th | #43 Auburn | #51 TCU | #63 Syracuse |
| 9th | #70 Miss State | #67 Wyoming | #71 Boston College |
| 10th | #92 Arkansas | #75 BYU | #83 Wake Forest |
| 11th | #101 USF | #86 Houston | #90 Pitt |
| 12th | #113 MTSU | #96 Rice | #119 Southern Miss |
| 13th | Chattanooga | #99 Baylor | North Alabama |
This is not Florida State’s fault. Florida State went to the trouble of scheduling LSU. But Florida State’s toughest opponent is fourth on Alabama’s list, and at every single rung, Texas’s schedule outranks Florida State’s. One of the many tools college football used to create a functional playoff was the denotation of certain conferences as the Power Five leagues. But saying the ACC this season was on the level of the SEC or the Big 12 is absurd. Going 13–0 is only better than going 12–1 to a point.
The Future of the ACC
In this way, the ACC failed Florida State, who’s already mad at the ACC because it isn’t making as much money as the SEC and the Big Ten. Yesterday, I called myself a “college football institutionalist.” There are evidently ACC institutionalists out there as well, and they’re scared that this could lead Florida State and, in tandem, Clemson to leave the conference, further weakening traditional conference ties.
I’m not spectacularly worried about Florida State and Clemson leaving the ACC right now. This summer, reports held that neither the Big Ten nor the SEC actively wanted either as a full-priced member. This makes sense. They’re fine schools, but they’d be below the Big Ten average academically and they aren’t members of the Association of American Universities, something Big Ten schools are said to care about. Neither Clemson nor Florida State offers a new media footprint to the SEC, and neither football team is presently performing at a level where they can realistically compete for national titles, something that was true even before Jordan Travis became injured.
Still, it’s a reasonable long-term fear, and to be fair, Florida State has every right to be mad at its ACC peers. My question is whether the ACC would be better off without Florida State. Florida State was not a founding ACC member. Their roots there only go back a little more than thirty years. They and Clemson are outliers, football schools in what’s traditionally a basketball-first conference. Were Florida State and Clemson to leave, perhaps for the Big 12 (I doubt they’d do this, but the Big 12 would gladly take them, and they’d play better competition and make more money there), the ACC might drop to something in between the Big 12 and the Big East. It wouldn’t be a “power conference” (it isn’t going to be anymore anyway, it and the Big 12 are going to occupy a middle space between the Big Ten and the Sun Belt/AAC/MWC), but it would be a really fun basketball league, something its fans might enjoy more.
Where the ACC is handcuffed here is that football is valuable financially, and while Villanova’s used to not getting any football money, NC State is not. Where the ACC is also handcuffed is that the most valuable ACC brand is not Florida State or Clemson, but North Carolina. If the ACC loses North Carolina, the dream of being a basketball conference dies. The Big Ten *would* take North Carolina. The SEC would probably take them too, with no teeth in the Tar Heel State as of 2024. The ACC can lose Florida State and Clemson and might even be happier, albeit less rich, if it does. But it cannot lose UNC and maintain its identity. UNC is the true flagship of the ACC. So, if Florida State’s departure triggers UNC’s departure, then yes, the ACC is—excuse my language—fucked.
Two Teams, Four Teams, Six Teams
Would this have happened in a two-team playoff!
No.
And the SEC would have complained about its exclusion from the Michigan vs. Washington national championship, but they wouldn’t have had any serious sympathy nor would they have felt justified in doing anything about it.
Would this have happened in a six-team playoff!
No.
And Georgia would have been allowed in ahead of Ohio State as the wildcard, if we were using a format with five automatic bids and one wildcard.
The six-team playoff probably would have been ideal at the time they expanded to four. It would have been blasted for not having a spot for the Group of Five, though.
Bloggers v. Liberty
Speaking of the Group of Five, Liberty went undefeated, and if you compare Florida State to Liberty—two 13–0 teams with schedules decidedly worse than Alabama’s and Texas’s—your counterpart in the debate might try to bite your face off, like they’ve been eating too many bath salts again. Some of this is fair. Liberty’s schedule was a lot worse than Florida State’s. But among a certain subset………….
I find this funny, and I think this is a small enough segment of society that it’s perfectly harmless. I’m disgusted by words and actions of Jerry Falwell Jr. myself, and I don’t doubt he still enjoys support in certain Liberty circles (though Liberty is far from a monolith, and we at The Barking Crow have no problem at all with most Liberty students and supporters, though we disagree profoundly with a lot of them on LGBT issues and many other moral, political, and theological matters).
But as someone who spends far too much time on The Internet™, I can’t help but notice that the people who are normally first to mention undefeated mid-major teams, those who offer the harshest conspiracy theories as to why the NCAA Tournament doesn’t feature more small schools in basketball, those who hate that a team can go 13–0 and not win a national championship no matter what schedule that team plays…are mute when it comes to Liberty. You would think these folks’ conviction that the powerful are out to get smaller brands would be grounded in some principles. It turns out the culture war comes first. The culture war always comes first.
It’s not about strength of schedule. Not for most. A 13–0 Toledo would be getting a lot more attention in the blogosphere.
And yes, I’m sure the culture war angle goes both ways.
The Orange Bowl
One fun possibility, to leave us with a non-culture war taste in our mouths:
Two of the last three times Georgia didn’t make the playoff, they really treated their bowl game like an exhibition. So while Florida State will be a massive underdog, the spread on that game is going to come with a lot more uncertainty than it would were the game been a national semifinal. Florida State has a very good chance of beating Georgia in the Orange Bowl. Good for them if they do.
**
For archival purposes, our college football model’s ratings and probabilities post-Selection Show:
| Rank | Team | Movelor | Conference | Average Final CFP Ranking | Make Playoff | National Championship | Expected Wins | Bowl Eligibility | Make Conference Championship | Win Conference |
| 1 | Michigan | 46.2 | Big Ten | 1 | 100.0% | 39.8% | 14.0 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 10 | Washington | 34.2 | Pac-12 | 2 | 100.0% | 9.0% | 13.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 6 | Texas | 39.3 | Big 12 | 3 | 100.0% | 21.5% | 12.9 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 2 | Alabama | 43.7 | SEC | 4 | 100.0% | 29.7% | 12.7 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 11 | Florida State | 33.9 | ACC | 5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.3 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 5 | Georgia | 40.5 | SEC | 6 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 12.7 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 3 | Ohio State | 43.6 | Big Ten | 7 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 7 | Oregon | 38.9 | Pac-12 | 8 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.9 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 14 | Missouri | 29.7 | SEC | 9 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.2 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 4 | Penn State | 40.6 | Big Ten | 10 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 21 | Mississippi | 26.2 | SEC | 11 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.2 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 32.9 | Big 12 | 12 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 8 | LSU | 36.3 | SEC | 13 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 15 | Arizona | 29.3 | Pac-12 | 14 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 27 | Louisville | 23.8 | ACC | 15 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.6 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 9 | Notre Dame | 36.3 | FBS Independents | 16 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 34 | Iowa | 21.9 | Big Ten | 17 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.3 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 25 | NC State | 24.3 | ACC | 18 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 19 | Oregon State | 27.2 | Pac-12 | 19 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 36 | Oklahoma State | 21.3 | Big 12 | 20 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.3 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 17 | Tennessee | 28.7 | SEC | 21 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 16 | Clemson | 29.2 | ACC | 22 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 53 | Liberty | 17.2 | Conference USA | 23 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 13.1 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 20 | SMU | 26.4 | American | 24 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.9 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 13 | Kansas State | 32.3 | Big 12 | 25 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 31 | James Madison | 23.5 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 28 | Troy | 23.7 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.6 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 69 | Toledo | 13.0 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 71 | Miami (OH) | 13.0 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 52 | Tulane | 17.4 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 11.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 84 | New Mexico State | 9.4 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 10.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 81 | Ohio | 10.2 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 60 | Memphis | 15.4 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 67 | UNLV | 13.1 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 9.2 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 47 | UTSA | 19.0 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 23 | Kansas | 25.3 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 26 | Utah | 24.2 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 33 | West Virginia | 22.1 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 74 | Jacksonville State | 11.5 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 79 | Fresno State | 10.9 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 38 | Boise State | 21.1 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 100.0% |
| 64 | Appalachian State | 13.7 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.5 | 100.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 70 | Wyoming | 13.0 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 50 | North Carolina | 18.4 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 63 | Air Force | 14.0 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 8.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 54 | San Jose State | 16.8 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 22 | Iowa State | 25.8 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 18 | Texas A&M | 28.0 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 46 | Miami (FL) | 19.0 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 95 | Texas State | 6.0 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 29 | Maryland | 23.7 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 42 | UCLA | 20.0 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 108 | Western Kentucky | 3.1 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 41 | USC | 20.6 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 44 | Duke | 19.4 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 48 | Northwestern | 18.9 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 87 | Bowling Green State | 8.3 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 32 | Kentucky | 23.4 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 89 | Coastal Carolina | 7.6 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 35 | Wisconsin | 21.5 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 7.2 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 77 | South Alabama | 11.3 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.8 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 72 | Syracuse | 12.3 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 37 | UCF | 21.3 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.7 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 40 | Texas Tech | 20.7 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 97 | Old Dominion | 5.7 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 49 | Virginia Tech | 18.5 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 96 | Georgia State | 5.9 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 24 | Auburn | 24.4 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 92 | Rice | 6.6 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 106 | Northern Illinois | 3.6 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 107 | Arkansas State | 3.5 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 100 | Utah State | 5.4 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 82 | Louisiana | 9.9 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.5 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 51 | California | 18.1 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 57 | Rutgers | 15.7 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.4 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 61 | Georgia Tech | 15.2 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 110 | Georgia Southern | 2.7 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 104 | USF | 4.4 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.3 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 114 | Eastern Michigan | 0.8 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.2 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 101 | Marshall | 4.7 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.2 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 102 | Boston College | 4.6 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 6.1 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 65 | Minnesota | 13.5 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.6 | 100.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 88 | Army | 8.1 | FBS Independents | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 90 | Navy | 7.3 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.5 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 30 | TCU | 23.6 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 39 | Florida | 20.7 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 43 | South Carolina | 19.7 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 45 | Washington State | 19.0 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 55 | Illinois | 16.5 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 56 | Nebraska | 15.9 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 62 | BYU | 14.0 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 66 | Mississippi State | 13.3 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 94 | North Texas | 6.2 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 113 | Colorado State | 1.0 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 118 | Central Michigan | -1.4 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 123 | Hawaii | -3.4 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 5.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 58 | Arkansas | 15.7 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 59 | Purdue | 15.4 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 68 | Michigan State | 13.0 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 78 | Wake Forest | 11.1 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 80 | Houston | 10.3 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 85 | Colorado | 9.2 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 93 | San Diego State | 6.4 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 99 | Ball State | 5.5 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 103 | UAB | 4.5 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 105 | Florida Atlantic | 4.0 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 112 | Western Michigan | 2.5 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 115 | Tulsa | 0.4 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 116 | Middle Tennessee | 0.1 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 125 | New Mexico | -5.6 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 133 | FIU | -13.5 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 4.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 73 | Indiana | 11.8 | Big Ten | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 75 | Baylor | 11.5 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 76 | Pitt | 11.4 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 83 | Virginia | 9.9 | ACC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 86 | Cincinnati | 8.7 | Big 12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 91 | Arizona State | 7.1 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 111 | Stanford | 2.5 | Pac-12 | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 117 | Southern Miss | 0.1 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 119 | UTEP | -1.5 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 120 | Buffalo | -1.7 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 121 | UConn | -2.5 | FBS Independents | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 122 | Sam Houston | -3.1 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 126 | Charlotte | -5.9 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 128 | Temple | -7.5 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 130 | Louisiana Tech | -8.4 | Conference USA | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 132 | UMass | -12.2 | FBS Independents | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 3.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 98 | East Carolina | 5.6 | American | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 109 | Vanderbilt | 3.0 | SEC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 124 | Akron | -4.4 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 127 | Nevada | -6.6 | Mountain West | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 129 | Louisiana Monroe | -8.4 | Sun Belt | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 2.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 131 | Kent State | -11.8 | MAC | NR | 0.0% | 0.0% | 1.0 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
