20 for 2020 College Football Topics, No. 20: The five winningest programs who haven’t made the College Football Playoff.
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Check LSU off the box – and in a big way.
It’s really, really hard to get into the College Football Playoff, much less do anything in the mini-tournament. Only 11 teams have been able to get there in six seasons, and only four schools – LSU, Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State – have been able to win it.
Florida State, Georgia, LSU, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Oregon, Washington are the one-timers along with the regulars – Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio State – and that’s part of the problem.
In six years, only 8% of the teams playing college football have been able to play for the national championship. That’s no fun.
It’s time for more teams to get into this thing – expansion is overdue – and it’s time for some new blood to crank up the energy that LSU brought last season.
Which five programs have done the most over the last six years without getting in? Which programs have won the most games and had the most success in the College Football Playoff era without getting in?
Let’s begin with a glaringly painful reality …
NEXT: The Group of Five superstars
5. The Group of Five superstars
This is why the College Football Playoff has to expend.
No, it’s not fair for a team to play a relatively light schedule compared to the Power Five powerhouses and get into the CFP, but it’s also not fair for a team with an FCS designation to win and win and win and win without having a realistic chance of getting into the fun.
What would it take for a Group of Five program – teams from the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, and Sun Belt – to finally get into the top four?
It would 1) have to go unbeaten with 2) at least two strong wins over brand-name Power Five programs and 3) the rest of the college football world would have to implode.
These Group of Five programs have been terrific over the last six seasons.
Cincinnati (46 wins) – Luke Fickell has cranked things up with 22 wins in the last two seasons, but he had to build the program back up.
Arkansas State (47 wins) – Slow and steady is good for being consistently interesting, but it doesn’t do anything for the CFP race. ASU hasn’t won more than nine games in the CFP era.
Ohio (47 wins) – Speaking of decent consistency, Frank Solich has created a very good thing in Athens, but getting past the nine-win mark has been tough.
Houston (49 wins) – There’s a reason why so many people think this going be the program that could get it done – Tom Herman almost pulled it off in 2015 with his 13-1 team. It’s been a rough run lately, though, with Dana Holgorsen going 4-8 last season.
Navy (50 wins) – The job that Ken Niumatalolo has done continues to be underappreciated. With two 11-win seasons and 50 wins over the last six seasons, he has created something special.
UCF (50 wins) – Rememberer, UCF went 0-12 in 2015. It wasn’t as close to getting into the CFP in 2017 and 2018 as some wanted to believe, but it built up the street cred to at least have a case to make going forward.
Marshall (51 wins) – 23 of those wins came in 2014 and 2015, with a 13-1 run in ’14 the big run. However, MU didn’t beat anyone worthy of being in the CFP race.
Toledo (52 wins) – The program has been disappointing over the last two seasons – winning 13 games – but it’s been enough of a MAC powerhouse to amass a great victory total over the last six seasons.
San Diego State (56 wins) – Rocky Long was incredible for the Aztecs. The formula worked four double-digit win campaigns in the CFP era with two Mountain West titles, but the program was never close to the playoff.
Memphis (57 wins) – It hasn’t received the national love that UCF has enjoyed, but it’s been better overall in the CFP era, making the first appearance in the New Year’s Six last season.
Appalachian State (61 wins) – The move up to the FCS has worked out just fine. ASU made the jump the same season the CFP kicked off, and it’s second among all the Group of Five programs in wins over that time. Has ASU beaten Georgia Southern last year and gone 13-0 before the bowl, with wins over North Carolina and South Carolina, it would’ve at least gone to the Cotton Bowl, and it would’ve made a little noise in the playoff chase.
But the program of all Group of Five programs that finally deserves a shot is …
Boise State (64 wins) – And it’s not just the last six seasons. Since 1999, Boise State has won ten games or more 17 times in the 21 years. It was sort of hosed back in the BCS era, and at some point it’s going to go unbeaten and the history and respect will be there for the College Football Playoff.
NEXT: Being very good has been fine, but …
4. Iowa Hawkeyes (54 wins)
No one thinks about Iowa as a superpower, but under Kirk Ferentz it’s been firmly fixed in the land of the very, very good.
It’s harder than you think to come up with 54 wins over six seasons – averaging nine wins per campaign.
Michigan and Texas weren’t able to do it. Auburn wasn’t able to get there, and Florida and USC couldn’t do it, either. But again, you’re not thinking about Iowa as anything truly special.
And that’s fair. When you haven’t won a New Year’s Six game since 2009, and you haven’t finished in the top 25 in both of the polls in 11 of the last 15 seasons, it’s hard to make a convincing argument that you belong in the College Football Playoff anytime soon.
But Iowa came a stop away from doing it.
The 2015 team took advantage of a favorable schedule to go 12-0, it battled Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship, and it came this close in a 16-13 loss. Sure, it would’ve been annihilated by Alabama in the CFP, but it was close to getting there.
NEXT: The nouveau riche of Power Five programs …
3. Utah Utes (55 wins)
Yeah, it really is possible to go from being a great Group of Five program to a top-shelf Power Fiver.
TCU was on this list last year – and came within a questionable ruling and decision of getting into the 2014 College Football Playoff – and Utah has been able to rise up from the pack to be the winningest Pac-12 South program over the last six seasons.
USC might be splashier, but it has 51 wins over the last six seasons to Utah’s 55.
The Utes have won nine games or more in five of the last six years, and it came within a Pac-12 Championship win last season of probably getting the No. 4 seed and the right to deal with LSU. And to think, this whole step up in weight class didn’t appear to be going so well.
A Mountain West superstar, Utah left for the Pac-10 and joined Colorado to make it the Pac-12 in 2011. Three years later, there was concerns about whether or not the program could hack it, going 18-19 before breaking out in 2014.
The Pac-12 is still very, very gettable. The South still stinks, so if Utah can make it three runs in a row to the championship, get there at 11-1, and win it this time around, it might finally get over the hump and be one of the strongest stories of the CFP era.
NEXT: It’s biggest crime? It’s not Ohio State …
2. Penn State Nittany Lions (56 wins)
James Franklin has been amazing.
Of course there’s a segment of the Penn State that always wants more, but it has to keep being said over and over again. This was a program that could’ve and probable should’ve been bulldozed over after one of the nastiest scandals in the history of American sports, and Franklin took it over when it was still dealing with a bowl ban and other NCAA sanctions.
With three 11-win seasons in the last four years and three New Year’s Six appearances, Penn State has been right on the doorstep of doing something truly fabulous.
It had a reasonable College Football Playoff case in 2016 when it went 11-2 with a Big Ten Championship, and it came a late drive away from having a shot last season. Had it been able to score late against Minnesota, and had it finished 11-1 with only a hard-fought loss at Ohio State – it might have earned the fourth spot.
How good has Penn State been? It has lost 17 games over the last five years. Only one – a 21-17 loss to Michigan State in 2018 – didn’t come against a team that finished with at least ten wins.
There’s still a loaded Ohio State program to deal with, along with Michigan and Michigan State from the Big Ten East, but there’s no scoffing at consistent 11-win campaigns.
NEXT: Ask Michigan what this is like …
1. Wisconsin Badgers (63 wins)
The program keeps pushing that rock up the mountain only to have Ohio State continually crush its hopes of making it to the top.
Wisconsin has the formula. Great defense, amazing running game, efficient passing, no panic coaching, recruit-to-a-type talent, and just enough good wins to be the best Power Five program in college football over the last six years – by far – to not make it to the College Football Playoff.
0-5 against Ohio State since 2014, and 0-for-4 in the Big Ten Championship in the College Football Playoff era – there’s a loss to Penn State in there in 2016 to go along with losses to the Buckeyes – Bucky just can’t get find its way in.
It would’ve been a lock in 2017 had it been able to close out a final drive against the Buckeyes to go 12-0.
It would’ve had an interesting argument last year had it pushed past a juggernaut OSU team – after blowing out Minnesota the week before – to be in over Oklahoma – and it’s been able to prove time and again that it belongs up there with everyone outside of the elite of the elite in terms or production and respect.
But as the man said, coffee is for closers.
It won five straight bowl games – including and Orange and a Cotton – before gagging away the Rose Bowl to Oregon, but don’t use what happened in Pasadena as a guideline.
With the bruising style, the toughness on the lines, and the overall way this program plays for 60 minutes, it might have the right formula to actually do some damage against the teams loaded with Johnny Five-Stars if it can finally get into this whole playoff thing.
And if it can get by Ohio State.
