Who Checks the Right Boxes to Win the National Championship?
Not everything is new in college football this season, but it might have felt that way watching the conference championships last weekend.
Two Pac-12 teams won the Big Ten and the Big 12 respectively. A Big 12 team and an AAC team were playing in the SEC and ACC championship games. Up is down, down is up, and after a decade of a four-team College Football Playoff, we’re about to get the first CFP that’s been expanded to 12 teams.
There will be more games and this could be a battle of attrition where a team that has the most depth is the one left standing in the end. If that proves to be the case, it makes it even less likely that a Cinderella team is going to win a national championship.
There are boxes that have needed to be checked in order to win the CFP in the last 10 years. That will likely change as this new CFP evolves and possibly expands again, but it’s still worth looking at which of the 12 teams are entering the playoff with the best chance of winning it based on previous champions.
I dove into what matters the most for CFP champions a couple of years ago and using that as a guideline with the added date from Michigan’s win* last season, there’s things that I monitored for Notre Dame and the rest of the field. I looked at the stats that have mattered to see how the Irish and the other contenders stack up against one another.
Top-8 in OF+
OF+ is the combined offensive rating for FEI and SP+. Nine of the 10 CFP champions have been ranked in the top-8 in this metric.
Out of the 12 in this season’s bracket, only six finished the regular season hitting that mark: Ohio State (3rd), Oregon (2nd), Notre Dame (7th), Penn State (5), Georgia (6th), and Indiana (4th).
Yes, that’s the correct ranking for Notre Dame. It’s been an incredible rise for them to get there after a sluggish start to the season on offense. This is only the second time the Irish have had an offense ranked in the top-8. The other was 2015 when they were 6th.
History is not on the side of the other seven teams. Texas (14th) has not performed at a high-level with quarterback Quinn Ewers being consistently inconsistent. Tennessee (25th) has been carried by their defense and while experiencing up and down quarterback play as well.
SMU (12), Clemson (13), Boise State (11), and Arizona State (18) each have good offenses. They certainly have good enough offenses to win a CFP game. They might not have offenses that are good enough to win multiple CFP games.
Top-15 in DF+
This is the same rating, but for defense. Eight teams hit the threshold: Ohio State (2nd), Oregon (11th), Texas (1st), Notre Dame (3rd), Penn State (7th), Georgia (10th), Tennessee (4th), and Indiana (15th). All six of the teams in the top-8 in OF+ are there with Texas and Tennessee joining them.
Those defenses have been fantastic this season and if either of these teams win, there’s a very good chance their defenses will be the primary reason. Those defensive lines are nasty.
SMU (18th), Clemson (21st), Boise State (38th), and Arizona State (30th)...it’s been fun. It’s not happening for them.
All 10 CFP champions have had a top-15 defense. I know all Notre Dame fans would feel so much better about the defense if they had players like Boubacar Traore, Jordan Botelho, and Ben Morrison healthy for this run, but it can’t be denied that the level of play has continued to meet the standard.
Joe Moore Award semi-finalists
I mentioned this when this was announced, but Notre Dame’s offensive line being named a semi-finalist for the best offensive line in the country is significant. Nine out of 10 teams who held that crystal football at the end of the season had O-lines that were semi-finalists for this award.
This is good news for Notre Dame, Tennessee, Texas, Oregon, Ohio State, and Indiana. Not being included in the first mark against Georgia and Penn State.
It’s worth noting that Ohio State has last two starters to season-ending injuries and their line play has taken a step back since then. I think Irish fans probably feel a lot better about Notre Dame’s offensive line with how things have gelled and the way they finished the regular season than any Ohio State fan does about their line.
Top-15 in explosive passing plays (20+ yards)
This is stat that is worth monitoring going forward because though seven of 10 CFP champs finished in the top-15 in this category, Michigan’s 2023 team did not and only four of the top-12 qualify this year: Texas (3rd), Georgia (6th), Clemson (11th), and SMU (11th).
Oregon (tied for 19th), Arizona State (tied for 25th), Indiana (tied for 25th), and Penn State (tied for 25th) aren’t slouches, but this isn’t anywhere close to what we’ve seen from passing games in college football like Clemson in 2018, LSU in 2019, and Alabama in 2020. Miami and Ole Miss finished first and second in receptions of 20+ yards and neither could crack the top-12 let alone the old top-four of the previous CFP.
It must be mentioned that Notre Dame has the least explosive passing offense in the field. However, it’s them and Boise State as the only teams in top-15 in 20+ and 30+ yard running plays.
A minimum rate of havoc
Here’s what I wrote about it in 6 Thoughts a couple of weeks ago.
Notre Dame’s havoc rate on defense is interesting because it’s skewed by playing the two service academies and their unconventional offenses that allow very little havoc against. With those games Notre Dame’s havoc rate is 18.2%. Only one CFP champion had a havoc rate of less than 18.6%.
But if we only take the havoc rate from the games against the 10 modern offenses, the rate is 19.6%. That matters quite a bit because 19.5% or higher was the magic numbers for 8 of 10 CFP champions.
We can include the Irish with eight other defenses when it comes to havoc rate:
Clemson 20.5%
SMU 19.8%
Indiana 21.2%
Oregon 20.7%
Boise State 19.9%
Tennessee 21.1%
Texas 22.1%
Ohio State 19.3%
Penn State 19.4%
I don’t think anyone should quibble with Ohio State and Penn State being ever so slightly under just like there shouldn’t be an issue with wiping those option teams off the board for Notre Dame.
And then there were two who didn’t meet the minimum:
UGA 16.4%
ASU 14.8%
There goes those Dawgs again. WOOF.
Hitting the mark on net points per drive
Taking from what I wrote back in January of 2023:
Brian Fremeau, the creator of the FEI ratings for college football, tracks net points per drive every season and it’s the difference between points scored per offensive drive and points given up per defensive drive.
No champion has finished below 1.37 (Clemson in 2016) and teams are becoming more dominant. Every champion has been at 2.28 net points per drive or more in the last five years. (Add Michigan to make it six years at 2.50)
Notre Dame’s best finish in net points per drive was 1.53 in 2019.
The best teams dominate. It’s as simple as that.
Before getting into Notre Dame, let’s start with that 1.37 number. SMU, Clemson, Arizona State, and Georgia are all below it. In terms of net points per drive ranking, it goes like this for the other eight.
1. Ohio St
2. ND (2.19)
4. Indiana
5. Texas
6. Oregon
9. Boise St
10. Penn State
11. Tennessee
I know Notre Dame has not gone through a gauntlet like they have in previous seasons, but being second shows how dominant they’ve been. And as I wrote in another 6 Thoughts column a few weeks ago:
Since 2017, every CFP champion has finished in the top-4 in net points per drive. Alabama in 2017 was 2nd (1.87). Clemson in 2018 was 2nd (2.26). LSU in 2019 was 4th (2.43). Alabama in 2020 was 2nd (2.59). Georgia won back to back national championships and were 1st in net points per drive in those seasons (2.70 and 2.43). Michigan* was 2nd last season (2.50).
I think we can say that Georgia is battle tested with how many close games they’ve had. We can also say that their luck probably won’t last. 24th in net points per drive is not even close to where they’d want to be.
Blue-chip ratio
Blue-chip ratio is the percentage of 4 and 5-star recruits a program has signed over the last four recruiting cycles. Every CFP champion has been over 50% and every national champion since 247Sports’ Bud Elliott started tracking it in 2011 has also won it.
There have been no exceptions, which means bad things for the teams like SMU, Boise State, Arizona State, Indiana, and Tennessee. Tennessee not being over 50% was surprising, but that and their offense is probably a sign for people to stay away from putting any money on them as a long shot to come out on top.
Oregon, UGA, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Texas, Clemson, and Penn State are each over 50%. In fact, each of them is over 61%. Michigan* is the only CFP champion since 2016 that was under 60%.
The portal can help make a team better, especially at the skill positions. It’s really difficult to find championship quality players in the trenches through the portal. Most of the guys have to be recruited as high school players.
Who checks the most boxes?
The shocking piece of all this is how unqualified Georgia is based off of how they’ve played. They haven’t dominated (net points per drive), the offensive line has been a disappointment (no Joe Moore recognition), the studs on defense aren’t creating negative plays (bad havoc rate), and this isn’t even mentioning the drops from their receivers or that their starting quarterback was seriously injured in the SEC Championship game.
Some might be surprised that Indiana checked five of seven, but not having the raw recruited talent on their roster was a reason why they struggled against Michigan and Ohio State and should face some challenges going up against Notre Dame. They are a very good football team, but not being able to match depth and top end talent will likely be impossible to overcome even if they were to advance a couple of rounds.
Out of these seven categories, not a single team checks all seven. There are four that check six of seven boxes. Oregon, Ohio State, and Notre Dame missed in the explosive passing category, but hit in every other. Texas is the other one that was six for seven, with their offense falling short of the top-8 in OF+. They did hit the explosive passing game piece, though, and it may mean that they could be a switch to Arch Manning away from having the offense where it needs to be.
These four are the top contenders to win the national championship: Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, and Notre Dame. None of them are juggernauts and they all are flawed. They also check enough of the right boxes to finish this season as a national champion.
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