SMQ: How difficult is it to finish a college football season undefeated?

How tough is it to end a season without a loss? A new-look SMQ asks that question and evaluates Cincinnati’s chance to make the College Football Playoff.

Before we get into the meat of this week’s Sunday Morning Quarterback, I must first acknowledge this column’s relative absence from the Sunday space after every college football Sunday. Life takes weird twists and turns, and as a graduate student who is teaching a 16-week course for the first time as the lead instructor and also taking on additional duties as a teaching assistant I have been largely unable to keep up my previous writing pace at Saturday Blitz.

Since joining the website in 2016 I have enjoyed more than one undefeated season of writing. After tapping out more than 1200 articles here, it has been quite the journey. My pace has waxed and waned at points, but I look forward to many more years to come.

I say that acknowledging that this is one of those waning points in my time at Saturday Blitz, given the responsibilities of teaching on top of writing a dissertation to complete a PhD program. But I also miss that regular time writing here, so consider this the first chance to read a revamped Sunday Morning Quarterback that works in all of our schedules.

Each Sunday morning we will take four downs to reach the goal line of breaking down the big stories of the week. The first down will evaluate the overarching story line in college football that week. This year the second down will focus on Cincinnati’s Playoff chances as an homage to my historical coverage of mid-major football teams. The third down will offer a weekly projection of the College Football Playoff Top 25, and the fourth quarter will wrap everything up with a look ahead to the coming week.

It has been a pleasure writing for all of you out there so far, and I hope this new format serves as a new launchpad to engage with everyone in my limited opportunities to write. Let me know what you think on Twitter or in the comments below.

1st Down: How difficult is it to finish a college football season undefeated?

After 10 weeks of college football in 2021, there are just four undefeated teams remaining in the FBS. With 130 teams playing college football at this level, only 3.1 percent of FBS programs have any possibility of finishing the 2021 season undefeated.

Georgia trounced Missouri 43-6 in early play to lock in their place as the top team in basically every poll and computer ranking across the country. Big 12 leader Oklahoma sat idle in Week 10 after coming in at No. 8 in the initial College Football Playoff rankings. UTSA trounced UTEP 44-23 in a late game on Saturday night in El Paso. Cincinnati held on earlier on Saturday against Tulsa for a 28-20 victory to keep an unblemished record.

Two teams collapsed out of that dwindling group of elite teams grasping at perfection. Giant killer Purdue toppled No. 3 Michigan State 40-29 in West Lafayette, while No. 9 Wake Forest coughed up a two-touchdown lead to fall 58-55 in Chapel Hill against North Carolina.

At least one unbeaten team will lose before the regular season is complete. By the time bowl season is over, at least two undefeated teams will no longer be undefeated. It is highly likely that only one undefeated team is left standing.

Since the NCAA split Division I football into I-A and I-AA football in 1978, there has been an average of just one undefeated team per season. The 2004 season was the most controversial of the bunch, as USC, Auburn, and Utah all finished undefeated after the dust settled on the bowl season. That was the second time since 1978 that three I-A teams completed undefeated seasons in the same year; the first came in 1979, when Alabama went 12-0-0 while USC and Central Michigan both suffered a tie as the Trojans went 11-0-1 and the Chippewas finished 10-0-1.

More frequently, reaching undefeated status is a Sisyphean task. In 10 of the 43 I-A seasons played, no I-A football team finished unbeaten. On seven other occasions, a college program with a loss was named as the national champion while an undefeated team went unrecognized.

Speaking of one-loss teams, even finishing with just one loss is difficult. Since the advent of the I-A level, an average of four teams per season have ended the year with only one defeat on their record. Seventeen of those teams were named national champion either by the College Football Playoff, the Bowl Championship Series, or the AP and/or Coaches Poll in the pre-BCS era.

On average, 117 teams have played at the I-A level since 1978. In the current season, 130 teams play in what is now known as the FBS level of Division I football. At this point four undefeated teams remain and a dozen other teams still cling to one-loss status. The trend looks likely to continue this year, as several big matchups of top teams remain on the schedule.

Ultimately, reaching undefeated status is a difficult task that remains at least as difficult as—if not more difficult than—achieving national championship status. Though each of the past three College Football Playoff champions have claimed their crowns with unblemished records, their experiences are the exception rather than the norm during this era. Even during the BCS days, six of the 16 champions sported blemishes—and three of those six were named champions despite the presence of an undefeated I-A team in the mix.

In a sport where the championship remains as mythical as it was when Henry Farrell first coined the term “mythical national championship” at the end of the 1920 season, perfection is not a requirement (at least if you hail from a power conference). Should Georgia, Oklahoma, UTSA, or Cincinnati make it to January with a perfect record, they will join an elite club. If multiple teams reach that goal in 2021, it will be just the seventh time when two or more teams finished with perfect records absent defeats or draws.

So for fans of Wake Forest and Michigan State, don’t despair—your favorite programs still remain in elite company. And for fans of the other 10 teams still clinging to relevance with a single mark in the loss column, hope that your team is one of the four or so teams still under two losses when the dust settles by the new year.