Who Would Make A 24-Team College Football Playoff Field Ahead Of Week 9?

I’m rather astonished by the reality faced by Oregon, USC and Texas A&M. They’re not represented anywhere at all in my latest projected 24-team College Football Playoff field. In a 12-team format, only USC still stands a chance of receiving an invitation to the tournament. But that’s like saying a ripe banana dropped into a blender stands. As long the Trojans can keep the remaining teams on their schedule from hitting purée, they’re golden. We’ll see. Meanwhile, every other team seeded here feels less like we’ve shaken the traditional College Football Tree of Life free of dead branches and dry leaves and more like we’ve discovered this brush ain’t easily cleared. Only three teams left are still undefeated, and every other team has demonstrated what I wrote about in August, and again in my most recent top 25: It has never been more difficult to win a college football game. Part of the reason for this is the SEC finally joined the rest of the Power Four and now plays a nine-game conference schedule. Another reason is, this season, teams only get one bye week, and that means injuries influence outcomes more often. Finally, fans — particularly the ones with millions of dollars to light on fire for the sake of name, image and likeness — have become increasingly impatient for ultimate success. Indiana, TCU, Cincinnati, Boise State, Tulane and James Madison have accelerated the importance of making the CFP because they made it, and Your School hasn’t yet. The aforementioned teams — no, not Your School — played for the national title or won the whole damn thing after absolutely crushing their head coaching search and building a roster through the transfer portal in what turned out to be magic years. This has made the 24-team CFP even more sexy for programs like Florida (eek), Wisconsin (yeesh), Iowa (oof) and USC (whoops) to raise a banner that says, “We Got In,” and for coaches to mark themselves safe from firing. But there are basically two moods for you and me, as we watch our teams and their teams play ball while looking at this projected 24-team field. Under this format, my selection criteria is really quite simple: If you see your team seeded below, you’re probably feeling one of two ways: Mood No. 1: Of course we’re making the playoff, RJ — in which case I hope you are sitting unbothered, sipping on sumtin sumtin with the blacked out windows rolled up in your blacked-out Rolls-Royce Phantom. Mood No. 2: Hope is a dangerous thing, RJ. It’s dangerous, I know. I hope you see no more than four games from bringing home the national championship. And if you do know that I, an Oklahoma fan, envy you. All right, let’s talk through this. HYPOTHETICAL 24-TEAM FIELD IN 2026 AUTOMATIC QUALIFIERS: POWER FOUR CHAMPS, HIGHEST-RANKED GROUP OF SIX TEAM 1. Miami, ACC champion2. Ohio State, Big Ten champion3. Georgia, SEC champion8. Utah, Big 12 champion24. Boise State, highest-ranked Group of Six team The top-4 seeds here look like they could make up the top-4 seeds in any past or future iteration of the CFP. All of these teams look good and none of them have losses that look especially bad, even Georgia with its loss to Auburn and Notre Dame with its loss to BYU. In fact, Notre Dame had a worse loss two years ago to Northern Illinois — at home! — and not only did that Fighting Irish team still make the CFP in its 12-team format, but it also reached the national title game. Among these programs, though, Miami looks like a team that has yet to see its confidence truly shaken. Even in its double-overtime victory against Florida State in Week 7, there was more of a sense of embarrassment about how the game played out rather than the prospect of the Hurricanes losing it. How teams make us feel is generally how most folks begin to think about who could or in the past should win the national championship. When there isn’t much difference between how good we actually think a team is versus how good that team actually thinks it is, that team plays to expectations. Miami is the only team most folks think might be the best, and they sure as hell think they’re the best. HYPOTHETICAL CFP AT-LARGE BIDS: FIRST-ROUND BYES 4. Notre Dame5. Indiana6. UCLA7. Kentucky HYPOTHETICAL CFP AT-LARGE BIDS: FIRST-ROUND HOME GAMES 9. Alabama10. Florida11. Texas12. Tennessee13. Texas Tech14. BYU15. Ole Miss16. Houston I simply would not want to play any of these teams at home. Not a single one. Every program, even Houston, can absolutely fill a stadium with home fans who can make the game into an absolute nightmare for opposing teams. The idea of playing at the Swamp or in Provo or at Texas at night just doesn’t fill me with a whole lot of confidence. Yes, Texas, which was the first team out of this playoff last week and played itself right back in this week. Ask Notre Dame how much fun it was to play BYU at home at night. Ask Ohio State about playing at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium under the lights. All of these programs can put together an event, an atmosphere, and provide the ingredients necessary to create one of the loudest and most hostile environments the sport has to offer. That also means each one of these teams is capable of making a run toward the national title game, just like Ohio State and Notre Dame did in 2024. HYPOTHETICAL CFP AT-LARGE BIDS: FIRST-ROUND AWAY GAMES 17. Missouri18. Oklahoma State19. LSU20. Northwestern21. SMU22. Wake Forest23. Arizona24. Boise State (automatic qualifier) I put together a list of quarterbacks. I’m constantly working at this list. I’m constantly working on a lot of lists. It’s kind of what I do here — rank ‘em. The exercise, while easy to perform, I like to think is difficult to master. I like my lists to not just be good but be useful and approach an accuracy that feels true to me. Putting names next to numbers is easy. Being clear about the differences in those rankings, and why, is more challenging. With that in mind, there are two quarterbacks among teams seeded Nos. 17 to 24 that I would pick over the others behind them because they’ve demonstrated an ability to maximize their talent and the surrounding talent. Drew Mestemaker is playing like a first-round NFL Draft pick. He’s thrown for at least 300 yards in 11 out of his last 19 games, including an ongoing streak of six consecutive 300-yard passing games against Big 12 competition. Folks forgot that Sam Leavitt was the engine that powered Arizona State to a Big 12 championship and a College Football Playoff berth with Cam Skattebo riding shotgun. At his best, that’s who Leavitt is: a player who elevates the game of his teammates, and over the last two games he’s done that. Against his last two opponents, he’s thrown for an average of 338 passing yards with seven passing touchdowns and zero interceptions. Between Leavitt and Mestemaker, I see the level of quarterback play necessary to perhaps lead a team to the two road victories and two neutral site wins it will take for teams seeded this lowly to win the national title.