Tag: 2021 college football preview

21 for 2021 College Football Topics, No. 20: The five winningest programs who haven’t made the College Football Playoff.

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– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

21 for 2021 College Football Topics 
21: 21 Thoughts, Wishes, Hopes

Off the top of your head, how many teams have made the College Football Playoff?

There have only been seven of these things, and with four teams getting into each one, that means just 28 spots have been available.

However, only 11 teams were able to get past the bouncer, and only four schools – Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and LSU – have won it.

Florida State, Georgia, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington – that’s it. Those are the only seven schools outside of the four who won it to get in.

That means only 8% of the teams playing college football have been able to play for the national championship only the last seven years.

As the equivalent, imagine if only 28 college basketball programs played in the NCAA Tournament over the last seven years. (Actually, that’s how it should be, but that’s for another day.)

While expansion is an obvious necessity – it’s about getting the opportunity – the exclusivity makes the College Football Playoff the least-gimmicky post-season in all of sports.

Say what you will, but there’s no fluke factor. You can’t luck your way into a College Football Playoff national title, and that makes it so strong – there were a whole lot of great teams that weren’t able to get in.

Which programs have won the most games and had the most success in the seven-year College Football Playoff era without playing in the tournament?

NEXT: The Group of Five stars

21 for 2021 College Football Topics, No. 21: 21 thoughts, wishes and hopes for the 2021 season.

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– Contact/Follow @ColFootballNews & @PeteFiutak

21. Oh yeah, COVID.

I’m in the camp that believes that by late August, going into a CVS to get a COVID vaccination will be as simple as buying a package of M&M’s – at least until the person behind the counter refuses to accept that I’m not a rewards member and demands to look up a phone number from 12 years ago.

I’m also in the camp that believes everything isn’t going to be 100% normal yet by the time the football season rolls around. However, there was a 2020 college football season.

It was twisted, weird, and borderline immoral, but it happened. If we could have college football through that, we’re getting something stronger and better this time around.

And we deserve it.

However, I have but one humble request …

20. “It’s so good to have (insert fans/band/whatever) back.”

Week 1.

Announcers, social media heads, and those who’ll romanticize this with plinky piano music and reverent tones, you get one week to go overboard with the gushing about how wonderful it’ll be to have the fans back in the stands, the sounds of the bands, and the feelings that one gets after something so loved was taken away.

And then that’s it. Just like it became nails on a chalkboard every time some play-by-play guy mused about how awesome it would’ve been if fans were around for some big play, it’s going to start to ruin every moment when it gets pointed out over and over again that most things are back.

19. The top three American Athletic Conference head coaches vs. the three top new guys the SEC hired.

“Dan Hawkins is the PERFECT fit for Colorado.” – 2006 me.

I’ve given up making any assumptions on whether or not a coaching hire is or isn’t going to work, so I’m 1000% certain that five years from now this might seem like a moronic take …

You take Bryan Harsin (Auburn), Josh Heupel (Tennessee) and Shane Beamer (South Carolina) and I’ll take Luke Fickell (Cincinnati), Gus Malzahn (UCF) and your pick of Ryan Silverfield (Memphis), Ken Niumatalolo (Navy) or Sonny Dykes (SMU) and my American Athletic Conference coaches are probably stronger than three of your new SEC head men.

Speaking of Mr. Malzahn …

18. The free pass time for coaches is over.

The conventional wisdom in the 2020 offseason was that coaches would get a bit of a break as they tried to keep everything rolling through a global pandemic.

Not really.

From Tom Herman to Lovie Smith, and from Kevin Sumlin to Jeremy Pruitt to Will Muschamp to Doc Holliday, some schools didn’t mind the whole buyout thing and just wanted to move on. That’s not to say that coaches who had miserable years – Jim Harbaugh, James Franklin, Dino Babers, Jeff Brohm, Les Miles – were given a break only because of the 2020 issues, but it was totally fair to give coaches a mulligan.

Not in 2021.

Because of the fun rule that seniors can return for another year – more on that in a moment – and because everything might be 78% back to normal, it’s win-or-bust time for any and all hot seat coaches.

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17. A desperate prayer I know will go unanswered.

As social media gets worse and worse, and the stupid and jerky become more and more emboldened, here’s asking for any and all to realize that 1) college football is just a silly game 2) played by college kids who 3) are going to make college kid mistakes.

The missed the 37-yard game winning attempt, or the personal foul penalty on a linebacker doing a goofy dance or something, will be memory dumped almost instantly.

That suggestively-violent dillhole tweet pounding those guys will live forever.

16. The ACC world will be much better if Florida State and Miami are awesome.

I know, I know, North Carolina, but we know how this works. The Tar Heels are great, and then they lose to Duke or Wake Forest or some team it’s favored to beat by 39.

It wasn’t all that long ago when Florida State was a national championship-level superpower. It was that long ago when Miami ruled the world, but the ACC could and should be phenomenal if the Seminoles and Hurricanes – and Tar Heels – can really and truly be good enough to challenge Clemson.

That’s not going to happen in 2021, but it would be nice.

NEXT: Top 15 2021 College Football Thoughts, Wishes, Hopes