19 for ’19 Offseason Topics, No. 19: The five winningest programs who haven’t made the College Football Playoff.
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We’re five years into the whole College Football Playoff experience, and so far it’s been a blast – even if it has been a bit heavy on Alabama and Clemson.
Just ten teams have made it to the show so far – Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Washington, Michigan State, Georgia and Notre Dame – and a whole lot more have come achingly close.
Which programs have won the most games and had the most success in the College Football Playoff era without getting in?
LSU just misses out on this list with 44 wins over the last five seasons.
Auburn came an SEC Championship win away from going in the 2017 season, but it has 41 wins over the span, and a four-win 2017 season killed Florida’s chances to get on this list with 40 wins overall.
Oklahoma State was surprisingly close with 44 victories, and USC would’ve been a lock, but the clunker of a five-win 2018 ended the five-year run with 43 wins.
Michigan? 43 wins.
As a warning, there’s a bit of a left turn being taken here when it comes to the top winningest programs over the last five years to not get into the CFP.
You’ll see when you get there. First, the top bridesmaid programs are …
5. Penn State Nittany Lions
James Franklin is doing a better job than you think he is.
Penn State was still trying to get out from under the all-timer of a scandal when he took over, and his team wasn’t even permitted to go bowling early on in his tenure thanks to the NCAA sanctions.
Now he has won 31 games over the last three seasons, won a Big Ten title, got to a Rose Bowl and a Fiesta Bowl, and probably should’ve been in the College Football Playoff after the 2017 season. Had that team not lost to Pitt early on in a wild 42-39 shootout loss, as things turned out, it would’ve been in.
The Nittany Lions, though, won just seven games in both 2014 and 2015, setting the winning count for the program over the last five seasons at 44.
How good has Penn State been? Over the last four years, it has lost 15 games. Last year’s 21-17 loss to Michigan State was the only one that didn’t come against a team that finished with ten wins.
NEXT: But they were so, SO close in 2014
4. TCU Horned Frogs
It continues to be among college football’s most underappreciated programs.
The 2014 Horned Frogs caught an all-timer of a bad break as they set the early tone for the the College Football Playoff era.
In the first year of the CFP, TCU ripped through everything in its path, except for what turned out to be an 11-2 Baylor team in a wild 61-58 shootout loss.
Even so, Gary Patterson’s team was No. 3 in the next-to-last CFP rankings, destroyed Iowa State 55-3, and …
It was ranked sixth in the final edition of the rankings.
Ohio State was red hot, and there was some butt-covering done with Baylor being called the “one true champion” of the Big 12, but TCU got hosed, and it played that way with a 43-3 blasting of Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl.
Over the last five seasons, the Horned Frogs have managed two 11-win seasons, that 12-win run in 2014, a trip to the 2017 Big 12 Championship, and have gone 4-1 in bowl games – if you want to count last season’s Cheez-It Bowl, which set the bar for how bad a post-season game could be
Even so, with 47 wins in the College Football Playoff era, TCU has managed to be the Big 12’s second-best program behind Oklahoma.
NEXT: Consistency isn’t enough, but …
3. Stanford Cardinal
Nah, it’s not like Stanford has been all that close to getting into the College Football Playoff, but over the last five seasons the program has won 48, four bowl games, a Pac-12 Championship, a Rose Bowl, and was in another conference title game.
The 2015 team made it interesting. Christian McCaffrey and the bunch lost to a solid Northwestern team 16-6 to open up the season, dropped a 38-36 fight with Oregon, and that was it.
When it was all done, the 12-2 Cardinal ripped through USC for the Pac-12 title, went to the Rose Bowl and erased an Iowa team that came within a defensive stop of going to the CFP, and most likely kept Notre Dame out of the final four with a bomb of a field goal for a 38-36 win.
Other than that one big season, David Shaw’s teams have been effectively eliminated from the College Football Playoff discussion by early October, but the consistent excellence continues.
At some point, can the Cardinal finally have that one big year when everything breaks right? They’re due, but the Pac-12 is getting stronger.
NEXT: At some point, everyone needs to get a shot …
2. Boise State Broncos, Houston Cougars, Memphis Tigers, San Diego State Aztecs, UCF Knights
Forgive the lumping of several programs, but they’re all in the same fight.
At some point, some Group of Five team will break through the glass ceiling and represent all the supposed little guys.
Only, Boise State, Houston, Memphis, San Diego State and UCF have been hardly inferior to the Power Fivers when it comes to win totals.
UCF went 13-1 the year before the CFP kicked in, and even with an 0-12 2015 season as part of this, the program has won 40 games over the last five years. But it hasn’t been quite as close to the College Football Playoff as it might have seemed – the resumés just haven’t been there.
Boise State has won 52 games over the last five years, and it came up with the first New Year’s Six win by a Group of Five program – beating Arizona in the 2014 Fiesta – but it has never been in the CFP discussion.
The same goes for Memphis (45 wins) and San Diego State (46), even with all of the success, all of the conference championship appearances, and all of the impressive seasons.
No, the one Group of Five team over the last five years that could’ve and would’ve had the best shot of getting into the CFP was 2016 Houston – at least, it would’ve if it didn’t lose three regular season games.
The 2015 team under Tom Herman went 13-1, but even if it didn’t gack away a loss to UConn, it didn’t have a shot because it didn’t have any win that mattered until taking down Florida State in the Peach Bowl as the Group of Five’s New Year’s Six representative.
The 2016 team started out the beat by rolling past Baker Mayfield and an Oklahoma team that went on to go 11-2 and win the Big 12 title. The Cougars also destroyed eventual Heisman-winner Lamar Jackson and Louisville, but again, they lost three games before dropping the Las Vegas Bowl to SDSU.
And that’s what it’s going to take. A Group of Five program will have to 1) go unbeaten, 2) do it impressively, and 3) have at least two massive performances against Power Five-championship-caliber teams.
NEXT: First, winning the conference title again would be nice …
1. Wisconsin Badgers
The 2018 Badger team should’ve been better. All the pieces were in place to finally break back through and win a Big Ten championship for the first time since 2012, but Wisconsin just didn’t have that extra juice of the previous squad.
The 2017 Badgers had the ball late with a chance to beat Ohio State for the Big Ten title and an unbeaten run, but they lost 27-21, missed out on the CFP, and went on to roll Miami in the Orange Bowl.
The 2016 team started out the season with a win over Leonard Fournette and LSU, but Michigan and Ohio State got in the way before a Big Ten Championship loss to Penn State. Even so, a win over the Nittany Lions would’ve given Bucky a theoretical argument to be in, but it wouldn’t have happened.
In all, Wisconsin has won 53 games over the last five seasons with five straight bowl victories, three Big Ten title appearances, and …
No College Football Playoff opportunities.
