College Football Playoff: Projected top 4 after Week 1
After a wild first week of the college football season, here’s the projected top four for the College Football Playoff.
The long wait for college football was totally worth it. From last Thursday until Monday night, it was non-stop action.
Utah dominated Florida last Thursday to start College Football Week 1, while Nebraska did what Nebraska does and choked a win away late.
Colorado stole the show with its upset of TCU and Florida State scored probably the most impressive win during the first week of college football, beating fifth-ranked LSU 45-24.
To cap it all off, Clemson, a team many believed woud be a College Football Playoff contender, was thumped by Duke. The Blue Devils beat the Tigers for the first time since 1992 in one of the biggest wins in the history of Duke football.
The 2023 season will be the final time that we have a four-team College Football Playoff. Next year, it goes to 12 teams which is going to be awesome for college football.
Yet, we have one final season of the four-team format, and here’s our opening College Football Playoff projection after Week 1.
College Football Playoff contenders
Teams that just missed the cut this week are Alabama and Ohio State. Utah, Oregon, Texas, and others are right there too, but it’s pretty early.
Alabama and Texas will square off this week. We’ll also have more ranked teams playing legitimate opponents. So the race will start taking shape even more, but right now, we have just one team per league and we’ll explain why.
4. USC
The Trojans have looked really good through two weeks, although they haven’t played anybody of consequence. San Jose State is a solid program and they actually hung around for a bit, so I still have questions about the USC defense.
Caleb Williams is as good a player as there is in college football. The offense looks just as good and if the defense is actually better, the Trojans should be a playoff team.
Working in their favor is the fact that the Pac-12 is looking stronger after Week 1. Colorado could be a good win in a few weeks. Notre Dame is also looking strong, so if USC wins the Pac-12 win and finishes with just one loss, my bet is they make the field.