By the time Notre Dame kicks off their season in College Station later this month it’ll be 154 years and nearly 10 months since the first college football game was played in the United States. Some might argue otherwise, but college football is still alive and thriving heading into 2024.
This season comes with plenty of newness, most notably a beefy 12-team playoff coming just 11 years after the introduction of the playoffs for the first time in the sport’s history. It’ll be an opportunity to re-shape the sport, but also for 2024 specifically, we now look to wash away the sins of Michigan winning a National Championship. Let this be a biblical flood then.
Here is the 2024 pre-season top 20 from 18 Stripes:
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 0-0 | vs. Clemson |
| 2 | Oregon | 0-0 | vs. Idaho |
| 3 | Texas | 0-0 | vs. Colorado State |
| 4 | Notre Dame | 0-0 | at Texas A&M |
| 5 | Missouri | 0-0 | vs. Murray State |
| 6 | Ohio State | 0-0 | vs. Akron |
| 7 | Alabama | 0-0 | vs. Western Kentucky |
| 8 | Florida State | 0-0 | vs. Georgia Tech* |
| 9 | Kansas | 0-0 | vs. Lindenwood |
| 10 | Ole Miss | 0-0 | vs. Furman |
| 11 | USC | 0-0 | vs. LSU |
| 12 | Oklahoma State | 0-0 | vs. South Dakota State |
| 13 | LSU | 0-0 | vs. USC |
| 14 | Arizona | 0-0 | vs. New Mexico |
| 15 | Oklahoma | 0-0 | vs. Temple |
| 16 | Tennessee | 0-0 | vs. Chattanooga |
| 17 | Penn State | 0-0 | at West Virginia |
| 18 | Louisville | 0-0 | vs. Austin Peay |
| 19 | Utah | 0-0 | vs. Southern Utah |
| 20 | Clemson | 0-0 | vs. Georgia |
*Indicates week 0 game.
Just on the Outside
Texas A&M
Kentucky
Auburn
Michigan
Iowa
Kansas State
NC State
All of these teams could be solid and I’m sure a couple will end up flirting with being ranked by season’s end. Kansas State has an interesting ceiling but I’m guessing they will dearly miss Collin Klein’s offensive system while breaking in a young quarterback. The Aggies should get a nice Elko bump in year one, although let’s hope Notre Dame beats them right away.
Kentucky, Auburn, and NC State just don’t have much offensive fire power to make me think they’ll win a ton of games.
Here’s hoping Michigan’s offense falls off the face of the earth and the program immediately regrets hiring the feel-good coordinator from within. An under .500 season would be nice.
I’m not sure why anyone would doubt Iowa making some noise, what am I doing? They miss Oregon, Michigan, Penn State, and USC in the regular season–in some places the top 4 out of the 5 teams in the Big Ten. I’m sure Iowa will find a way to win 10 games and end up ranked pretty comfortably.
How Many Losses for the National Championship Participants?
In the 12-team playoff era with teams coalescing into a couple Power conferences (12 out of our pre-season top 20 teams come from either the SEC or Big Ten) this is the beginning of the ‘teams are going to be losing more games and winning titles’ era. In our National Championship Game prediction those teams will combined to have played Clemson, Kentucky, Alabama, Auburn, Texas, Florida, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Boise State, Ohio State, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Washington before league championship weekend.
Would anyone take the over on 2.5 combined losses for the National Championship participants?
Swift Death for the Little Guy
I mentioned this in the Top 50 Games to Watch for 2024 article recently–there’s not much out there to look forward to at the small conference level. Washington State and Oregon State have been punted to more irrelevance. SMU, BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, TCU, UCF, and Utah were all little guys not that long ago but are part of the power conference meat grinder now.
Will anyone from the small leagues legitimately deserve to be ranked in our top 20 at all this season?
Bet the Over?
Virginia Tech: 8.5 wins
This seems high for a Virginia Tech program that hasn’t won 9 regular seasons games in any of the last 6 years. However, if you look at little closer it could be great value. Tremendous value, even. The Hokies return damn near every starter from last year and they seemed to be turning a corner once they fully committed to quarterback Kyron Drones. He’s a super athletic quarterback who might be a sleeper pick for ACC Player of the Year if the offense gels around him. The schedule is pretty friendly, too. No Florida State, Louisville, NC State, and it’s an off-year from the Notre Dame-ACC relationship. They should be buoyed by a 4-0 start, too.
Bet the Under?
Michigan: 8.5 wins
There’s just no way, right? There’s no way this garbage program is going to keep momentum going. This is a major rebuild with a hallowed out coaching staff and the threat of NCAA sanctions and such looming. Vegas knows what’s up.
All of the top 13 teams inside the Coaches/AP Poll are sitting at 9.5 wins over/under or better…except no. 8/9 ranked Michigan who is a full game lower at 8.5 wins. An absolute sham of a 2023 schedule is also traded for Fresno State, Texas, USC, Washington, Oregon, and Ohio State. A team with as many question marks as Michigan could easily go 2-4 against that slate.
College Football Playoff Prediction
As a very pro-playoff guy I’ve got some things to talk about that have come into focus with these predictions laid out for the first time right before the season begins.
1) The rule that the 4 highest ranked conference champions get the first round byes won’t be around very long, I don’t think. Was that a bargaining chip to get everyone quickly to agree to a 12-team playoff? I don’t foresee SEC and Big Ten teams giving up first round byes to the likes of Kansas for very long. One could argue blowouts happen all the time to everyone but a couple Big 12/ACC teams sitting at 10-3 or 9-4 only to get blasted in the quarterfinals following a comfortable bye isn’t going to sit well with many around the country.
2) Oklahoma State would be the first Power program left out of the new 12-team playoff with our predicted rankings. They might go 11-1 without any wins over a ranked opponent and don’t face Kansas or Arizona during the regular season. They have no margin for error (their last 2 months of scheduling is utterly putrid) if they aren’t going to win the Big 12 outright. They have a case for the easiest Power 4 schedule this year, although Arkansas/Utah/Kansas State within their first 5 games is a tricky start.
3) Interested in re-matches? Notre Dame-USC would be a re-match of the regular season finale played 20 or 21 days earlier–depending on which day the first round is played, and remember this could be a game on TNT! Notre Dame-Florida State would be a re-match from November 9th as well, with the Irish potentially winning the first game game but not getting seeded higher (or a bye) because of the rules handing them to conference champions. So, despite a better record (theoretically with these predictions) or the same record, and the head-to-head win, Notre Dame would have to cede to the Seminoles.
4) I had to re-read the rules and get some help from the 18S writers room to make sure this is accurate. It’s probably important to broadcast these points as much as possible as we enter this much larger tournament for the first time. Talk to your friends so they know too:
- The 5 highest ranking conference champions get auto bids to the playoffs. This was originally listed at 6 but with the implosion of the Pac-12 it’s been reduced which means just 1 team from the AAC, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt share a lone auto-bid.
- The next 7 highest ranked teams, regardless of conference, get into the playoffs.
- There are no maximum or minimum requirements for a conference to earn a playoff bid. This means we could see half a dozen SEC teams make it or alternatively a 12-1 Mountain West-champion Boise State (ranked 14th) gets in if the best team in the Big 12 is a 9-4 Utah team that finishes ranked 17th. I suspect we’ll see a lot of Power 4 conferences get a nice little bump for winning their league title games to avoid this ‘mess’ though.
- There’s no minimum ranking requirement for the 5 highest ranking conference champions to make it in. In other words, a 8-4 Liberty team ranked 25th would get in over the 12th ranked team in the final CFB poll IF Liberty won the C-USA and are the highest ranked team among the other small conferences champions.
- The 4 highest rated conference champions get the first round byes.
- Independents such as Notre Dame, Oregon State, and Washington State are ineligible for a first round bye due to not being able to win a conference championship game.
- Ranking ≠seeding, and this one is important! We’re still going to get the weekly rankings from the CFB committee starting later in the season but think of them more as a way to show future seeding than anything. As Notre Dame fans we’ll know this well as being ranked no. 1 does not equal the no. 1 seed for us. Also, a pair of conference mates being no. 1 and no. 2 only to meet in the league title game means the loser is guaranteed not to get a top 4 playoff seed even though they may finish 3rd or 4th in the final CFB rankings.
- Seeds are final, there is no re-seeding throughout the 12-team tournament.
- First round games can be played at ‘other sites designated by the higher-seeded team.’ Which begs the question which Power 4 conference team will be the first to abandon a campus game in favor of a more sterile NFL playoff atmosphere? My bet is it’ll definitely be someone from the Big 12 moving the game to Arlington, Houston, Phoenix, or Las Vegas.
- After the first round, the no. 1 team plays the winner of the 8/9 matchup, the no. 2 team plays the winner of the 7/10 matchup, the no. 3 team plays the winner of the 6/11 matchup, and the no. 4 team plays the winner of the 5/12 matchup.
- The semi-finals will see the no. 1 seed play the winner of the 4/5 matchup and the no. 2 seed play the winner of the 3/6 matchup. But that assumes chalk. In our prediction above, if Ohio State and Kansas spring quarterfinal upsets they are then playing against each other by staying in the same bracket for the semifinals. Or put another way, in our prediction Notre Dame does not re-seed and face Georgia in the semi-finals.
Hardest Schedule
Florida
Most places have the toughest schedule for 2024 a toss up between Florida or Mississippi State, and the Gators have to travel to Starkville on September 21st. Looking at this from a pre-season perspective, Florida’s schedule is insane. It’s almost too much and makes you question if this will endanger the health of their football players. But ya’ll signed up for these mega conference and sometimes the chips are going to fall in a brutal way, especially for programs with a traditional tough out of conference rivalry like Florida has with the Seminoles.
Using last year’s FEI rankings, Florida plays the 3rd, 7th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 30th, 37th, and 47th best teams from 2023. On the bright side, they do miss Alabama, Missouri, and Oklahoma. Still, their final 2 months of the season are an enormous grind.
Easiest Schedule
Kansas
This is a big reason why I have Kansas winning the Big 12 and making the College Football Playoff. They do travel to Illinois in week 2 in what I guess could be described as a test? Their other non-league games include “home” games (remember their stadium is under renovation) against Lindenwood and UNLV.
From the Big 12, the Jayhawks miss top teams Utah, Oklahoma State, and Arizona. That leaves toughest games of Kansas State, Iowa State, West Virginia, and TCU.
If you’re not picking Kansas, then a good look at Missouri is in order (and another reason for a playoff selection). The Tigers have a shameful out of conference schedule (Murray State, Buffalo, Boston College, UMass) and somehow were gifted an easy rode in the SEC. They miss Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Texas.
I am so glad you mapped out what the actual playoff bracket will look like. I was going to come down and do it if not. I am 100% with you, people have not mapped out what this actual schedule will look like for playoffs. Texas as the 5 seed had an easier path right? Number 12 liberty at home, 3 touchdown favorite then kansas at a neutral site. Georgias reward for winning the sec is neutral site against ohio state then rematch neutral site against texas. That’s brutal. The worst position to be in is the big ten/sec championship game loser. There is no way those teams and conferences will stand for that.
I said awhile back as long as notre dame had as much clout as the number 2/3 teams in the big ten and sec, nd is fine and will remain Independent. I feel more strongly about that now than ever.
Also where do I sign up for a season that has nd playing oregon in the semifinals?!?
My mouth is watering at the thought of playing a playoff game against SC in South Bend in December.
On a related note, Sam Hartman’s greatest contribution to Notre Dame was “Fight Off”
Coming out of the weeds for a moment just to poo on Michigan…
Key losses from last year:
Their D has some very legit talent still – most notably preseason All-Americans CB Will Johnson and DT Mason Graham and top-level transfer LB Jaishawn Barham – but they still lost a bunch of guys and the entire defensive staff.
And their schedule is about to take a massive jump.
Oregon, Texas, USC, and Washington are as many non-traditional B10 P5 teams as they’ve faced in the last eight seasons *combined*. The last time they had multiple P5 OOC conference games was in 2015, when they opened with Utah and Colorado State. Their conference schedule between 2023 and 2024 exchanges Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, Nebraska, and Purdue for Oregon, Washington, USC, Northwestern, and Illinois.
And, you know, they can’t cheat anymore.
Would you take the over or under at 7 wins for Michigan?
No way they finish in the top 25. They will take a big step back.
For reference, here’s the schedule
I would take the over on seven – their schedule is much harder than they’re used to, but the back end is still awful and most likely Washington will take a big step back. The actual line of 8.5 is thought provoking though.
As E noted above, they “could easily go 2-4 against” Fresno, Texas, Oregon, Washington, USC, and Ohio State. ESPN’s FPI has their most likely record as 8-4 with a 7% chance of winning the conference (compared to 38% for Oregon, 26% for Ohio State, and 22% for Penn State).
If I were a betting man I would likely take the under on 8.5 but it’s a razor thin confidence margin for me. As much as I hate on them I’d be somewhat surprised if they don’t sweep the bottom half of their schedule, which means beating say Fresno (89% win probability per FPI), Washington (61%), and one of Texas (35%)/Oregon (35%)/Ohio State (26%)/USC (66%) would allow them to hit the over.
Seven wins would be delightful but it would require them going 1-5 in the good half of their schedule or dropping at least one game in which they have an 80%+ win probability. 80%+ win probability translates to 2-ish scores, so that would be a significant upset. But hey, we can hope.
BTW – I was being a bit coy with the number of top 20 F+ teams they played last year. They did play two, Ohio State and Penn State, but Maryland ranked 21st. Still, **** those guys. And their next highest ranked opponent was Rutgers at [checks notes] 52nd, so the point doesn’t really change much anyway.
Probably getting my hopes up here but I think they might face some actual punishment in the Stallions NCAA case, because:
-This is an issue that’s clearly in the NCAA’s wheelhouse and is not likely to draw public backlash or a lawsuit, i.e., it doesn’t have to do with athlete compensation.
-Other B1G coaches apparently found Michigan’s type of scouting to be so unusual and egregious that they broke omerta to report Michigan to the B1G. In other words, there is no “everybody does it” defense.
-Michigan has never really disputed that the scouting happened or that it was illegal. Harbaugh admitted as much in his plea deal with the B1G last season.
-The contrast between Michigan’s pre- and post-Stallions performance is striking. There is no way to argue that the scouting didn’t have any effect.
-The NCAA’s ruling in the COVID recruiting case makes it clear that they think Harbaugh — and maybe by extension Michigan — is a serial cheater who flouted NCAA rules for years.
Here’s hoping. I would love to see their obnoxious national championship* come crashing down around them.
I’ve spent too much time thinking about this. But does Harbaugh actually leave if he didn’t get caught?
Personally, I don’t think so. Who bails on their alma mater right after winning a national title and with everything in place to keep the party rolling?
I know the party line is that he wants to win a Super Bowl, but if that’s true, why did he go to the Los Angeles Jets?
Hadn’t he wanted to go back to the NFL even before investigations of these things came out?
Harbaugh had one foot out the door for three years, and even without the Stalions drama his stock only could’ve gone down – the Big Ten was getting more difficult and they were set to lose a ridiculous number of kids, I think 37, to early declaration or expired eligibility. He was as aware of that as anybody. He definitely would have left.
Oh there’s a decent chance of actual penalties because Ohio State is pissed. The powers that be wouldn’t give a damn about an angry Purdue, but one of the big draws is unhappy.
Yea 7 as over/under is a little aggressive I suppose. I think I agree that 8-4 is the most likely record but then I’m adding in one more unexpected loss that is typical for teams that are not necessarily well-coached. I’m not convinced the move to Moore is going to be seamless.
I thought I was going to be a big fan of the college playoff back when it first started, but thus far it has been very “meh” and has not had many games that I felt compelled to watch. Because of that, my expectations for this new playoff are coming in at a super low level. Unfortunately, seeing rematches of late season games is not doing anything to raise my interest
Sorry to be such a downer about this, but just my 2 cents
Yeah, rematches are no fun in single elimination tournaments.
Football teams often change for better or worse throughout the season. I think if it would a bummer for a rematch of a recent (say November) game but I think it’s less of an issue if it’s a rematch of a game earlier in the season.
It really should have been a 1 vs 2 after bowl season. The playoff (and shifting, bullshit rankings) have been trash.
I have never heard of Lindenwood
They actually have five players in the NFL!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindenwood_Lions_football
If ND makes the semfinals I will pay double 18 Stripes subscriptions fees for a year.
Ohio State is super stacked this year minus QB – not quick Dorsey-era Miami, but might be the closest thing to it since then (or at least the McElroy-era 2009 Bama team). I wonder what the odds would be for somebody betting UGA+Ohio State and giving the field for the natty… I’m not sure what side of that bet I’d be on.
Counterpoint: they have Ryan Day. No one has done less with more.
Not to be a huge Ryan Day defender, but they were a last-second FG missed away from being the team with the right to curb-stomp TCU for a natty. But, yeah, if this team doesn’t win the B1G and/or make at least the semi-finals they should fire Day.
I live in Cbus…..fun place to be an ND fan. They have been very open that’s is championship or bust given their $20 million roster. He and OSU should be embarrassed if they don’t win it all this year.
I mean they are a definitely a favorite but the problem with sports especially when there are single elimination tournaments is that the best team doesn’t always win. It still takes a bit of luck (on multiple fronts) to win it all. You just have to keep putting yourself in the position to be among the best teams every year just to have a chance in any one of those years to actually win it.
I attempted to recreate the win-probability matrix that @Brendan R used to post on here. It’s using the ESPN Analytics win %, since I wasn’t sure where to find full win probabilities anywhere else. (Also not 100% on the validity of these numbers, but they look like they could be correct)
i think you juxtaposed the TAMU line…if ND has a win probability of 58.8% then that should be the probability of 0 losses after week 1.
i’m stupid…these are win totals not loss totals /facepalm ignore me please
C’mon, guy
So, because I love you folks… I haven’t had the time to keep up with this since the ’22 season due to work being very busy, but I just updated my charts now to kick the season off in style. Not sure I’ll be able to keep up with these during the season but if I can I will.
TL,DR is that both models view us very similarly with SP+ being very slightly more bullish than FPI. Both have the highest probability record as 10-2; SP+ gives us a 45% chance of what I’ll call a playoff lock record (12-0 or 11-1) while FPI gives us a 39% chance.
Both models have us favored in every game. The SP+ predicted spread for everyone other than the Big Three – A&M, FSU, and USC – is at least two touchdowns, with the average predicted margin over those nine games (I promise I’m not exaggerating) at +28.
The SP+ win probability matrix:
Where do you get the breakdown of game-by-game probabilities? I have no issue updating these tables and plopping them in the game recap comments every week
For FPI, ESPN puts the win probability in the game preview page. So week by week I would go through each game on the team home page and see what it says there and update the spreadsheet.
For SP+ the info is behind a paywall at ESPN unfortunately. I have an ESPN+ subscription so I can access it, and given that it’s easier to update than FPI because they put it in a table, so I just paste that into my spreadsheet and I have lookup functions that will pull the numbers automatically.
It’s a little bit of maintenance but not terrible. The real holdup for me is that I haven’t had time to write up the weekly analysis posts that I used to do.
Here’s a read-only link to the spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rZ9QnCaUtlYPPet8oIeH-9AihfHe0_tZCGodAH6xqmY/edit?usp=sharing
Yikes! 8/12 games with a 90%+ win likelihood – this must be what it feels like to be Michigan (barf emoji)
And the FPI matrix:
Incredibly funny that there’s 2 rematches for ND in this CFP field considering that is probably going to actually happen to somebody
what a silly world we live in now