Which 2014 CFB Playoff Participant Is Most Likely to Be Back in 2015?
While its performance in the Rose Bowl might indicate otherwise, having Florida State included in the first College Football Playoff served as a great passing of the torch from the BCS era to this new semifinal age. The defending national champion bridged the gap from one format to the next, providing some stability in a time of major change.
Will we get another dose of familiarity next time around?
The first playoff participants all figure to remain among the top teams in the country in 2015, despite their various significant player departures. It wouldn't be a surprise to see one or more of the lot of Alabama, Florida State, Ohio State or Oregon back in the semifinals, as from 2010-2013 at least one team that finished in the top four of the final BCS standings was among the final four the following year.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
If we had to pick just one, though, the best bet right now looks to be Ohio State. Based on what each team will lose, what's coming back and who they're set to play in 2015, the Buckeyes have more pieces in place to make a return trip than anyone else.
Follow along as we break this down in more detail.
Holes to fill
| Alabama | 11 | 2-4 |
| Florida State | 9 | 3-6 |
| Ohio State | 7 | 0-2 |
| Oregon | 8 | 1-3 |
Florida State showed that you can win a title, lose a lot and still stay near the top, as did Alabama. The schools had a combined 15 players taken in the 2014 NFL draft, yet both matched their regular-season record from the year before.
The losses for each of those teams figures to be far more significant this time around, though.
Alabama has to replace eight senior starters, including quarterback Blake Sims and 60 percent of its offensive line, and that doesn't even include the expected departures of juniors Amari Cooper and T.J. Yeldon. The Crimson Tide's defense doesn't take as big of a hit, even with safety Landon Collins expected to turn pro early, but the linebacker corps loses some key pieces that need to be replaced in Trey DePriest and Xzavier Dickson.
FSU's departures are far more widespread than Alabama's and will be impacted as much by graduation as the NFL draft. The Seminoles had eight senior starters on offense, and combined with redshirt sophomore Jameis Winston announcing Wednesday he was going pro, a complete overhaul of that side of the ball is expected. Defensively, defensive end Mario Edwards and cornerback P.J. Williams have already declared, while cornerback Ronald Darby and defensive end Eddie Goldman could both leave as well.
Oregon's lineup won't lose too much, in terms of quantity, with eight seniors and a handful of projected junior departures, but in terms of quality the losses could be the most significant of any team. First and foremost, there's reigning Heisman winner Marcus Mariota, the junior quarterback who sits No. 1 on Bleacher Report NFL draft expert Matt Miller's latest big board. The Ducks have three offensive linemen and several key defensive players to replace as well, though none are as significant as Mariota to sustained success.
That leaves Ohio State, which figures to be in the best shape to replace those losses of any of this year's playoff teams.
OSU is in line to graduate seven starters (as well as big-play receiver Devin Smith, who is technically the No. 3 wideout in an offense that goes with two receivers for its base formation) and might even elude the siren song of the NFL draft. The most likely candidates to leave early are left tackle Taylor Decker and defensive tackle Adolphus Washington, but Tim May of the Columbus Dispatch reported that both are expected to return.
"I think another year, barring something drastic happening, it can only benefit me," Decker told May, who wrote that Decker was projected as a potential second-round pick. "My draft stock can only go up."
A look at the Buckeyes' depth chart for the national championship game shows that, including Smith, there are only 11 seniors listed among the 62 players on offense and defense. Many of the backups are sophomores and juniors, who have gotten plenty of reps this season, which would help ease the transition to becoming starters.
Depth was built throughout the season by the other playoff participants, but not to the level that OSU did. And combined with the lack of impact departures, the Buckeyes figure to head into 2015 best resembling this season's product.
Questions to answer
It's not always as simple as being able to plug in reserves and newcomers to replace starters and expect things to continue as if nothing happened. You don't give the keys to the Camaro to the teenager who just got his license, not without making sure he can handle the ride.
With that in mind, we have to look at the kind of issues that need to be addressed by playoff teams during the offseason. Each one has at least one major question that requires an answer, and how hard that query is to solve will factor into a team's chances to repeat as a semifinalist.
Alabama has to break in a new starting quarterback for the second year in a row, but offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin managed to turn unproven backup Blake Sims into a star in 2014, so the uncertainty at that position doesn't figure to hold as much weight as this past offseason. Instead, it's what to do about that defense.
Despite finishing 12th in total defense in 2014, the Tide was torn apart down the stretch by Auburn, Missouri and Ohio State, all of whom were able to throw deep and take advantage of tempo to throw off Alabama's complicated and methodical schemes.
"Their system is built on a system of checks and substitutions from the sidelines and from players on the field to be able to defend every nuance of an offense after seeing where it lines up," Bleacher Report's Marc Torrance wrote. "When teams go fast, Alabama can’t substitute the way it wants to and make all the necessary calls."
For Florida State, the biggest question won't be so much about replacing Winston or any single player but how the program responds to a second straight season of mass departures to both graduation and the draft. Alabama and LSU are comparable teams to look at in this area, and while the former has managed to remain among the top four for four seasons despite so much turnover, the same can't be said for LSU.
The Tigers lost 17 players who were part of the team that played for the 2011 title over the next two offseasons to early draft declarations, and while dropping from 13-1 to 10-3 wasn't much of a dropoff, this past season LSU slipped to 8-5 and has lost nine regular-season games in the past three years.
FSU held strong after one year of departures and got the ball rolling on the next batch of stars by integrating key underclassmen such as running back Dalvin Cook and safety Jalen Ramsey. But now the real test comes, of whether coach Jimbo Fisher's recruiting prowess and reputation for developing players (particularly at quarterback, where he figures to have numerous options both from the existing roster and incoming prospects) can maintain success.
"Even though we have a very experienced team, we played a lot of our freshmen," Fisher told Dan Wolken of USA Today. "We've developed them early, so it's not like they're coming in totally raw. And as the culture is created, it's not about winning but about working and practicing and about preparation and all the things that go into the winning."
When it comes to Ohio State's offseason to-do list, the most pressing issue is actually one that should be considered a good problem. The Buckeyes' ability to overcome the loss of not one, but two Heisman-level quarterbacks in 2014 means they could be dealing with the mother of all quarterback competitions in the spring and summer.
That assumes, however, that Braxton Miller decides not to transfer to another school and play right away as a graduate student, and that J.T. Barrett is able to fully recover from his leg and ankle injury suffered in late November. If it ends up that OSU has only two, or even just one, viable passer left when the 2015 season starts, however, this year showed that success isn't dependent on who is taking the snaps so much as how Meyer and his staff are able to get that passer prepared for action.
Oregon's biggest question might be the most simple, but also the most difficult. It's all about moving on without Mariota, a three-year starter who has attempted more than 92 percent of the Ducks' passes and accounted for more than 57 percent of the offensive output during that span. He hasn't been a one-man team, but he's been about as close to it as you can get.
Backup Jeff Lockie, a sophomore, figures to get the first crack at the job, but he's thrown only 40 passes the past two years. Morgan Mahalak, a 4-star recruit from the 2014 class, redshirted this season, while Oregon has a commitment from 4-star prospect Travis Waller as well. Any of those guys could end up being really good, but right now none come with the same anticipation of success that Mariota did while redshirting behind Darron Thomas and Bryan Bennett in 2011.
2015 schedule
| Alabama | 7/4/1 | 9 (4/4/1) | 96-58 |
| Florida State | 7/5/0 | 7 (3/4/0) | 85-78 |
| Ohio State | 7/5/0 | 9 (6/3/0) | 86-79 |
| Oregon | 7/5/0 | 6 (2/4/0) | 82-71 |
At this point last year, a look at the schedules that each of the top teams had to look forward to gave us an idea of how those schools would fare. But while we figured it would be a lot harder for Auburn to return to the championship game and for Florida State to go unbeaten based on their slates, it was difficult to factor in things such as bye weeks and other parts of schedule makeup.
But we have to make due with what's available, and in that respect the best barometers are comparing number of home, road and neutral-site games and the 2014 records of 2015 opponents.
From a strictly numbers standpoint, Alabama has the toughest schedule in terms of opponents. Every one of its SEC games next season will be against a team that played in a bowl this winter, including crossover opponents Georgia and Tennessee. Add in another high-profile neutral-site opener (against Wisconsin in Arlington, Texas), and the Crimson Tide will again get plenty of tests.
Same goes for Oregon, who despite facing the fewest number of 2014 bowl opponents of the lot gets most of them on the road. That starts with a Sept. 12 visit to Michigan State in a rematch of this season's best nonconference game and continues with Pac-12 trips to Washington, Arizona State and Stanford.
Florida State's ACC schedule isn't set in terms of when it will play those eight games, but the matchups and locations are locked in. And after getting the majority of its toughest foes in Tallahassee this season, the Seminoles have to play at Clemson and Coastal Division champ Georgia Tech while also visiting Florida.
That leaves Ohio State, which plays as many 2014 bowl teams as Alabama (nine) but gets two-thirds of them to come to Columbus, where the Buckeyes have only lost once in Meyer's three seasons. OSU's toughest road games bookend the season, first with the opener at Virginia Tech and then the finale against Michigan in the first of what should be a great series of games between Meyer and new Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh.
Final thoughts
While these arguments might not be strong enough to warrant putting the mortgage on future bets for 2015, the road ahead does appear clearest for Ohio State to make a return trip to the semifinals. It would also make for the best storyline, seeing how the Buckeyes had to battle back from the brink of elimination almost from the beginning of this past season.
Much as Florida State's inclusion in the initial Final Four worked for system continuity, so too would having the so-called "last team in" then follow this current run up with another trip to the semifinals. This new playoff approach was meant to decide things on the field, rather than have a formula pick two teams and not take into account the possibility of additional contenders.
OSU benefited the most from the new approach and showed how improving as the season went on is as important as the overall record. Now the Buckeyes get to move into the role of favorite, with the most pieces intact and the most favorable circumstances to get back to the semifinals.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
