Top College Football Teams Who Could Pull off Undefeated Seasons
In each of the past two seasons, there were three undefeated teams in the College Football Playoff, producing back-to-back 15-0 national champions.
Will there be any teams that survive this most unusual 2020 season without suffering a loss?
If so, these are the strongest candidates to pull it off.
To be clear, we're talking about undefeated regular seasons here. Conference championships and bowl games aren't part of the equation, since we cannot know in advance who those games will be played against. That leaves the door open to include a few teams that do not rank among the favorites to win (or even reach) the College Football Playoff.
Schools are listed in alphabetical order.
Alabama Crimson Tide
1 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: vs. Texas A&M (Oct. 3), vs. Georgia (Oct. 17), at LSU (Nov. 14), vs. Auburn (Nov. 28)
In most years, Alabama is an obvious early choice in any conversation about teams that could go undefeated. That's primarily because the Crimson Tide consistently have the most talented rosters, but it's also partially because they make the SEC gauntlet as favorable as possible on their schedule—no daunting nonconference opponents, oftentimes a Group of Five opponent the week after the SEC opener, an FCS cream puff the weekend before the Iron Bowl and always the bye week right before facing LSU.
They still get that bye week before LSU, but zero nonconference games made it impossible to massage this schedule to Alabama's typical level of comfort.
Nick Saban's guys should still be favored in every game, but actually winning every game on this grind is fairly unlikely. They might pull it off, but odds are the Crimson Tide will have a loss before Halloween and a second one after it.
We've all been looking forward to the Georgia at Alabama game for a long time, but that's just one part of a big October for Alabama. Four straight against Texas A&M, (at) Ole Miss, Georgia and (at) Tennessee is brutal, and finishing off that stretch with a potentially tricky game against Mike Leach and Mississippi State is an added wrinkle.
And that's just what Alabama needs to slog through to get to the meat of its schedule: the road game against LSU followed immediately by home games against the staunch defenses of Kentucky and Auburn.
Again, Alabama has the talent to win any and all of those games. Getting Najee Harris, DeVonta Smith, Alex Leatherwood and Dylan Moses all back for one more year keeps the Crimson Tide among the favorites to win the national championship. But there's only about a 10 percent chance this team goes 10-0—better odds than the vast majority of teams this year, but worse odds than we would usually give Alabama.
Appalachian State Mountaineers
2 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: at Marshall (Sept. 19), at Georgia Southern (Oct. 14)
Whether Appalachian State belongs on a list of "top" teams is open to debate, because the Mountaineers won't sniff the College Football Playoff even if they run the table.
In terms of undefeated potential, though, they definitely belong here.
App State has won 24 of its last 26 games and has gone 7-1 in Sun Belt conference play in five consecutive seasons. This year's schedule is particularly favorable for the Mountaineers, as three of their four conference road games come against arguably the three worst teams in the league (Coastal Carolina, South Alabama and Texas State).
It's that other road game that could be a major problem.
Both of the Mountaineers losses during the most recent 26-game stretch were against Georgia Southern. The Eagles' triple-option offense has been App State's kryptonite, and the three primary rushing threats in that offense all return for Georgia Southern. It doesn't bode well that the Mountaineers lost all four of their leading tacklers from 2019 either.
App State also has to replace star running back Darrynton Evans (23 total touchdowns last year), but this offense should be in great shape with QB Zac Thomas back to lead a very experienced group. If standout wide receiver Corey Sutton has fully recovered from the torn ACL suffered in November, this is a team capable of hanging 50 points on anyone.
Clemson Tigers
3 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: at Notre Dame (Nov. 7), at Florida State (Nov. 21), at Virginia Tech (Dec. 5)
Clemson is going to enter November with a 7-0 record. Mathematically speaking from an ESPN FPI projections perspective, there's about a 12 percent chance the Tigers lose one of their first seven games—at Wake Forest, vs. The Citadel, vs. Virginia, vs. Miami, at Georgia Tech, vs. Syracuse, vs. Boston College—but it's beyond difficult to imagine any of those games resulting in an L.
But the four-game stretch at the end of the regular season could be a different story.
The road game against preseason AP No. 10 Notre Dame won't be easy, and it will likely determine who gets the No. 1 seed in the ACC championship. The Fighting Irish are replacing their top three receivers, their best running back and most of their secondary from last season, but they still have Ian Book at quarterback, a solid defensive front seven and the entire starting offensive line in tow. They have legitimate College Football Playoff potential, and it bears mentioning that Clemson hasn't traveled to South Bend since 1979.
Two weeks after that, the Tigers have to play at Florida State, where they are just 3-11 over the past three decades. Granted, for most of that time, Florida State was the annual title contender and Clemson was the one barely qualifying for bowl games. Since they flipped roles, Clemson has won the past two games in Tallahassee.
And closing out the regular season at Virginia Tech should be a challenge, even with star cornerback Caleb Farley opting out. VT's offense was impressive last year once Hendon Hooker took over at quarterback, and Kansas transfer Khalil Herbert should be a nice boost in the backfield.
If anyone is running the table this fall, though, it's probably going to be Trevor Lawrence and Co. Alabama and Georgia might be slightly more talented from top to bottom, but the easier schedule in the ACC gives Clemson much better undefeated odds. Other teams could pull it off, but the Tigers have about a 50 percent chance of getting to the ACC championship without a loss.
Florida Gators or Georgia Bulldogs
4 of 8
Florida's Biggest Hurdles: at Texas A&M (Oct. 10), vs. LSU (Oct. 17), vs. Georgia (Nov. 7 in Jacksonville), at Tennessee (Dec. 5)
Georgia's Biggest Hurdles: vs. Auburn (Oct. 3), at Alabama (Oct. 17), vs. Florida (Nov. 7 in Jacksonville)
The odds of either SEC East co-favorite reaching the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party with an undefeated record aren't great. Based on ESPN's FPI projections, Florida has a 13.2 percent chance of starting out 5-0 while Georgia has a 12.5 percent chance of doing so. Roughly a 24 percent chance of one of those teams being undefeated.
That math does mean there's around a 1-in-60 chance of both teams carrying an undefeated record into this colossal showdown, though. And if that were to happen, there's a pretty good chance of the winner going 10-0, since neither side has a daunting final four games on its plate.
But with two games each against SEC West contenders within the first four weeks, that's highly unlikely.
Both the Gators and Bulldogs may be underdogs on October 17. Georgia certainly will be at Alabama, and I suppose Florida's line against LSU will hinge on how the Gators fare the previous weekend at Texas A&M. However, it seems like a reasonable assumption that the reigning national champion—who should be a comfortable 3-0 after opening the season vs. Mississippi State, at Vanderbilt and vs. Missouri—will be a slight favorite in Gainesville.
Regardless, both Florida and Georgia have the talent to beat anyone and just might win 10 consecutive SEC games. Defense is going to be the driving force of both national championship contenders, so the head-to-head battle in early November should be a low-scoring, instant classic.
LSU Tigers
5 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: at Florida (Oct. 17), at Auburn (Oct. 31), vs. Alabama (Nov. 14), at Texas A&M (Nov. 28)
In 2019, LSU won seven games against teams that were ranked in the AP Top 10 on the day the game was played.
Most of the starters from that team are now in the NFL, but who's to say the Tigers couldn't capture lightning in a bottle for a second consecutive year?
They do still have one of the most talented players in the nation in CB Derek Stingley Jr., and they've been stocking the shelves with highly touted recruits for so many consecutive years that there are potential breakout stars all over this roster.
Though the schedule is arduous, the good news is LSU doesn't have any insurmountable back-to-back weekends.
In the adjusted preseason AP Top 25 (no Big Ten and no Pac-12), Alabama is No. 2, Florida is No. 6, Auburn is No. 8 and Texas A&M is No. 9. At least they don't also have to deal with Georgia, but that's a tough four games. However, each of those gargantuan tests is both preceded and followed by either a bye week or a much less difficult opponent.
If the Tigers are able to win at Florida, at least they get a cool-down game at home against South Carolina before the next huge game at Auburn. After that game is the bye week in advance of Alabama. And the subsequent game against Arkansas doesn't pose much of a threat before the difficult trip to Texas A&M.
That said, needing to replace 18 key contributors will make this an uphill battle, to say the least.
North Carolina Tar Heels
6 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: vs. Virginia Tech (Oct. 10), at Florida State (Oct. 17), vs. Notre Dame (Nov. 27), at Miami (Dec. 5)
Mack Brown almost guided North Carolina to an undefeated season in 1997, ultimately finishing 11-1 with a November loss to Florida State. And it would be one heck of an intriguing story if he brought the Tar Heels back to the brink of perfection in 2020.
They only went 7-6 last year, but that young team was right there in every game. All six losses were by seven points or fewer, including that huge 21-20 game against No. 1 Clemson.
From that team, they bring back basically the entire offense. Sam Howell threw for 3,641 yards and 38 touchdowns as a true freshman, and he might be even better this year. At his disposal are not one, not two, not three, but four players who gained at least 1,000 yards from scrimmage in 2019. That's the RB tandem of Michael Carter and Javonte Williams and the dynamic WR duo of Dyami Brown and Dazz Newsome.
The defense did suffer a few personnel losses, but the linebacking corps of Chazz Surratt, Jeremiah Gemmel and Tomon Fox might be the best in the nation.
Here's the kicker: No games against Clemson or Louisville; home games against Notre Dame and Virginia Tech. For what is a borderline top-10 team (after removing Big Ten and Pac-12 teams from the preseason rankings), this a schedule that screams "11-0 potential." If Texas A&M had this schedule, we'd all be penciling the Aggies in for the College Football Playoff. North Carolina should be getting similar recognition.
Oklahoma Sooners
7 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: at Iowa State (Oct. 3), vs. Texas (Oct. 10 in Dallas), vs. Oklahoma State (Nov. 21)
It's rather unlikely that any Big 12 team will run the table, but Oklahoma stands the best chance of pulling it off—both because of its recent history and because of its schedule.
The Sooners have gone 8-1 or better in Big 12 play in each of the past five seasons, plowing through the league with a nearly unstoppable offense. They changed head coaches (from Bob Stoops to Lincoln Riley), they had several quarterback changes (Baker Mayfield to Kyler Murray to Jalen Hurts) and they seem to have a new star receiver every year (Sterling Shepard, Dede Westbrook, Marquise Brown and CeeDee Lamb), but none of it could slow this freight train down.
Most programs would struggle to replace their three most productive players in a single offseason, but Oklahoma has both the track record and the talent to get along just fine without Hurts, Lamb and Kennedy Brooks.
The only question is whether the new stars of the offense will be able to thrive right away.
Guys like QB Spencer Rattler, RB T.J. Pledger and WRs Theo Wease and Trejan Bridges came to Norman with all sorts of recruiting stars, but they've each only had a handful of game reps. Facing Iowa State and Texas—each of which has a veteran quarterback and a good-looking defense—on back-to-back Saturdays within the first four games of the season is going to be a major challenge for these inexperienced Sooners.
If they can get to 4-0, though, there's a pretty good chance they'll enter the Big 12 championship with an unblemished record.
UCF Knights
8 of 8
Biggest Hurdles: at Georgia Tech (Sept. 19), at Memphis (Oct. 17), at Houston (Oct. 31), vs. Cincinnati (Nov. 21)
Including bowl games and conference championship games, UCF has a 35-4 record since the beginning of 2017, and each of those four losses was by a one-possession margin.
The Knights may never get the chance to partake in the College Football Playoff, but they are clearly one of the biggest threats to go undefeated.
Opening the regular season on the road against a Power Five opponent could immediately ruin that plan, though. Expectations for Georgia Tech aren't particularly high in the aftermath of a dreadful 3-9 record in 2019, but it's still a road game against a program that consistently finishes ahead of UCF in the recruiting rankings. Definitely can't take that game for granted, even though UCF's high-octane offense should have its way with GT's subpar defense.
That Dillon Gabriel-led offense is also why you have to like UCF's chances of taking care of business in the AAC. The Knights put up at least 31 points in each game last season, save for one four-turnover mess at Cincinnati—in which they still scored 24.
They lost Adrian Killins and Gabriel Davis, but this is still an uncommonly experienced offense. Senior running backs Otis Anderson and Greg McCrae have each racked up more than 2,000 career yards from scrimmage, and now-junior running back Bentavious Thompson has averaged 6.5 yards per carry in his college career. And in the receiving game, the Knights figure to be led by senior Marlon Williams, redshirt senior Jacob Harris, redshirt senior Tre Nixon and redshirt senior tight end Jake Hescock. (Imagine if all those guys come back next year, too, with this season not counting against the eligibility clock.)
Both Memphis and Cincinnati will be major challenges, as it is looking like a three-horse race for the two spots in the AAC championship. But of that trio, UCF is the one most likely to win every game.
