2024 Week 1 12-team College Football Playoff prediction
By Josh Yourish
Week 1 of the 2024 college football season isn’t officially over, Florida State and Boston College still have to bring us home on Labor Day, but the dust has settled enough to predict what the 12-team College Football Playoff will look like, with only one or two games to go off of.
The Big Ten and the SEC are both jockeying to get four or even five teams into the CFP field, so the first ranked Big Ten/SEC matchup between No. 23 USC and No. 13 LSU carried even that much more importance on Sunday night.
Both programs were desperate for answers on defense this offseason with USC turning to former UCLA defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn and the transfer portal for answers and LSU relying on mostly the same players from last season’s atrocious group but overhauling the defensive coaching staff under new DC Blake Baker from Missouri.
Instead of the shootout everyone expected, new starting quarterbacks Miller Moss and Garrett Nussmeier each threw for over 300 yards, but continually stalled in the red zone. Ultimately, it was USC that got the ball last, and Moss drove the Trojans down the field like an experienced veteran, not a redshirt junior in just his second start. Woody Marks scored the game-winning touchdown with eight seconds remaining and now the Big Ten has the upper hand.
Rank | Team | Bid | Previous Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Georgia | SEC Champion | 1 |
2 | Ohio State | Big Ten Champion | 2 |
3 | Miami (FL) | ACC Champion | 4 |
4 | Kansas State | Big 12 Champion | 3 |
5 | Notre Dame | At-large | 8 |
6 | Alabama | At-large | 6 |
7 | Oregon | At-large | 5 |
8 | Ole Miss | At-large | 7 |
9 | Penn State | At-large | 10 |
10 | Texas | At-large | 9 |
11 | USC | At-large | NR |
12 | Memphis | AAC Champion | 12 |
On Saturday, in the ACC/SEC’s biggest head-to-head contests, Georgia dismantled Clemson and Dabo Swinney’s entire program in Atlanta before Miami responded with a huge blowout win over Florida in The Swamp. With too many losses at the top of the ACC, for now, my CFP predictions give four spots each to the two powerhouses of the Power 4.
For my prediction, there is little change among the top four, each of my projected conference champs took care of business, but with its win over Florida, Miami swapped spots with Kansas State. Also, after Virginia Tech, my longshot dark-horse pick out of the ACC, started the season with a loss as a two-touchdown favorite at Vanderbilt, the Hokies are gone and will almost certainly never return to the top group.
USC naturally grabs the No. 11 spot after beating LSU and will be tested again with a trip to Ann Arbor on September 21. The biggest game on Lincoln Riley’s schedule this year is at home on October 12, when Penn State comes to town, but even if the Trojans drop that one, and drop the final game of the regular season to Notre Dame, they’ll still sneak in at No. 11.
Oh, and about Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish bullied Texas A&M, winning a rock fight down in College Station 23-13. I had Notre Dame in at No. 8 heading into Week 1, but Marcus Freeman’s squad will be favored in every game the rest of the way and should easily claim the No. 5 seed as the top at-large, arguably the best spot in the CFP.
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