Will Any College Football Team Go Undefeated in 2016?
An undefeated record used to be the ultimate measuring stick in college football. Back when polls determined national champions and bowl selection wasn't as structured as it is now, seeing that zero in the final loss column meant a team was title material.
Things have changed in a big way over the last several decades. In the 1990s, the Bowl Coalition and the Bowl Alliance led to the BCS, all of which tried to put the two best teams in a national championship game. More one-loss teams got shots at the title. In the 2007 season, two-loss LSU won it all.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Now with the College Football Playoff, the field for a national championship has doubled. Of the eight teams that have participated in the playoff so far, only two of them entered with undefeated records.
In today's college football, undefeated seasons aren't as crucial as they used to be. They're no longer the tickets to get into the title game party. Seven of the last 10 national champions have had at least one loss on their records.
| 2000 | Oklahoma (13-0) | Oklahoma (13-0) |
| 2001 | Miami (12-0) | Miami (12-0) |
| 2002 | Ohio State (14-0) | Ohio State (14-0) |
| 2003 | None | LSU (13-1) |
| 2004 | USC (13-0)*, Auburn (13-0) and Utah (12-0) | USC (13-0)* |
| 2005 | Texas (13-0) | Texas (13-0) |
| 2006 | Boise State (13-0) | Florida (13-1) |
| 2007 | None | LSU (12-2) |
| 2008 | Utah (13-0) | Florida (13-1) |
| 2009 | Alabama (14-0) | Alabama (14-0) |
| 2010 | Auburn (14-0) and TCU (13-0) | Auburn (14-0) |
| 2011 | None | Alabama (12-1) |
| 2012 | Ohio State (12-0)** | Alabama (13-1) |
| 2013 | Florida State (14-0) | Florida State (14-0) |
| 2014 | None | Ohio State (14-1) |
| 2015 | None | Alabama (14-1) |
With the playoff adding one more game for potential champions, it's even tougher to get through an entire season unscathed. But the quest for perfection will hang over plenty of contenders in 2016, especially after Clemson was a quarter away from becoming the first 15-0 team in college football history last year.
Will any team go undefeated this season? Don't bet on it.
Exactly one year ago, I wrote a column laying out the groups of teams that could go undefeated in 2015—a small pack of potential 15-0 teams led by unanimous No. 1 Ohio State, the winner of the Big 12 and a couple of Group of Five contenders.
A key criterion to any team striving for an undefeated season is a favorable schedule. None of the 2016 contenders have one.
Powerhouse teams have beefed up their strengths of schedule over the last few seasons. Thanks to mandates from their own conferences and desires to improve their playoff resumes in case of a loss, more and more big-name programs are squaring off in the regular season.
Going undefeated isn't the baseline anymore. Who a team beats carries more weight than just the sheer volume of wins, as College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock told Heather Dinich of ESPN.com last year:
"Clearly, teams that have faced tougher opposition are generally going to come out ahead. There's just no question that the committee compares those nonconference schedules. I know that the playoff will usher in a whole new era of scheduling and that teams who want to be in this playoff are going to have to prove themselves with their schedules.
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All that pressure is how college football gets the jam-packed Week 1 it will have in 2016. Four matchups—Oklahoma vs. Houston, Georgia vs. North Carolina, USC vs. Alabama and Ole Miss vs. Florida State—will include a pair of teams inside my Composite Preseason Top 25.
That means four ranked teams' undefeated dreams will be shattered before we even get to Week 2. Other projected Top 25 teams such as Clemson, LSU, Notre Dame and UCLA will face Power Five opponents away from home in Week 1.
Those early-season pitfalls roll into the rest of the nonconference ball and into the league slates. Unlike last year, no team expected to challenge for a major conference title this season has an overly favorable schedule.
There isn't a clear-cut favorite this season like Ohio State. Projected top-two teams Alabama and Clemson both face challenges away from home in Week 1. They also have to play their best conference opponents on the road.
The Crimson Tide haven't gone undefeated since 2009 but still have won three national titles since then. They'll face Ole Miss—a team that has beaten them each of the last two seasons—Tennessee and LSU outside of Tuscaloosa.
For the rest of the conference, keep in mind that the SEC has only had three undefeated teams since 2000. Navigating through that treacherous schedule without a loss looks less and less likely each year for contenders, such as LSU and Tennessee this year.
Clemson's 2016 opponents combined for a paltry 67-81 record last season, but it has to play fellow powerhouse Florida State in Tallahassee, where it has lost 11 of its last 12 meetings with the Seminoles. And, as the old saying goes in college football, it's so hard to go undefeated two years in a row.
FSU has a much tougher schedule standing in its way this fall. The Seminoles play both Ole Miss and Florida out of conference, as well as early road games against Louisville and Miami.
The Big Ten will have a three-way battle on its hands in the East again between Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State—and all three have big schedule challenges. Michigan has to face the other two and defending West champion Iowa on the road. Michigan State plays Notre Dame away from home. Ohio State plays at Oklahoma in Week 3.
The Pac-12 looks like another top-to-bottom slugfest. Stanford is the preseason favorite, but its schedule has road games against Washington, Notre Dame and Oregon. USC has arguably the toughest schedule in college football. UCLA has a tough stretch to start 2016.
The Big 12 has a built-in advantage without a conference title game, so a theoretical champion would only have to go 14-0 to have a perfect season.
But defending champ and favorite Oklahoma, which lost to a Texas team with a losing record last year, has to play previously mentioned Houston and Ohio State. Baylor, Oklahoma State and TCU all have their own question marks heading into the 2016 Big 12 race.
Notre Dame would only have to go 14-0 as well, but its 2016 schedule is treacherous. The Fighting Irish's opponents combined for 91 wins last season, and four of them are projected to start the season in the Top 25. Even though it's home- and neutral-friendly, the slate doesn't scream "undefeated record."
Even the Group of Five is in a tough spot this season for an undefeated team. In addition to Oklahoma, Houston also has to face Louisville on top of its AAC slate.
Boise State, always a good pick to make an unbeaten run, will have to wrestle the Mountain West Conference crown away from San Diego State—perhaps the team with the best chance at an undefeated season—after losing four games in 2015. Favorites in the MAC have to take on powerhouse opponents early.
With all these tough schedules and without favorites that are far better than the rest, it's hard to project a team even getting out of the regular season with an unbeaten record. And if a team like Iowa—who has the schedule to make a big run again—goes 12-0 out of nowhere, it will most likely have to face a tougher opponent in the conference title game before plunging into the postseason.
The playoff system has put a higher value on playing tougher competition than just getting through a schedule without a loss. Undefeated seasons will become rarer as nonconference scheduling continues to strengthen among contenders.
It's going to take a truly special team and a decent amount of good fortune to make an unbeaten run through the 2016 slate. Anything can happen in this unpredictable sport, but it's getting harder and harder to project perfection.
Look for chaos, not clean-cut scenarios, to create a champion this season.
Justin Ferguson is a National College Football Analyst at Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JFergusonBR.
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