Looking at the final pre-bowl AP Poll, here are the teams and who they lost to:
- 13-0 Michigan
- 13-0 Washington
- 12-1 Texas, #12 Oklahoma
- 13-0 FSU
- 12-1 Bama, #3 Texas
- 12-1 UGA, #5 Bama
- 11-1 tOSU, #1 M
- 11-2 Oregon, #2 UW twice
- 10-2 Mizzou, #6 UGA, #13 LSU
- 10-2 PSU, #1 M, #7 tOSU
- 10-2 Ole Miss, #5 Bama, #6 UGA
- 10-2 Oklahoma, #22 OkSU, ORV Kansas
- 9-3 LSU, #4 FSU, #5 Bama, #11 Ole Miss
- 9-3 Zona, #2 UW, NR MsSt, NR USC
- 9-3 Notre Dame, #7 tOSU, #16 L'Ville, ORV Clemson
- 10-3 L'Ville, #4 FSU, NR Pitt, NR UK
- 11-2 SMU, #12 OU, NR TCU
- 13-0 Liberty
- 9-3 NCST, #15 ND, #16 L'Ville, NR Dook
- 10-3 Iowa, #1 M, #10 PSU, NR Minny
- 8-4 OrSU, #2 UW, #8 Ore, #14 Zona, NR WSU
- 9-4 OkSU, #3 TX, NR USA, NR ISU, NR UCF
- 11-2 Tulane, #11 Ole Miss, #17 SMU
- 11-1 JMU, NR ApSt
- 8-4 Tennessee, #5 Bama, #6 UGA, #9 Mizzou, NR UF
I didn't go back to compare to prior years but this seems like an unusually small number of just "WTF" losses. The highest ranked team to lose to an unranked team is Oklahoma but that was to a Kansas team that was ranked at the time and still has votes. It isn't a "good" loss, but it wasn't terrible. Nobody in the top 11 had a loss to a team that finished unranked and nobody in the top 13 had a loss to a team that finished without votes. That seems odd to me.
I need to find the post, but there was a CFB account that pointed out that the top seemed "open" this year, but it was only because there were no big upsets. So all of the good teams were still undefeated, or had just 1 good loss, through the year. As I've said, college football has always had a massive talent gap between the elite and the rest. But when only 2 got in, you could get got on a random Saturday in West Lafayette, or Corvallis, or Charlottesville, and that was the equalizer. Once we added in conference title games, and room for a loss, we devalued those random losses. Now, with the transfer portal, those teams who always had the best rosters, but might have one major deficiency, can fill it.
The Athletic podcast calls them "Dome Games". Neutral site, major games. The better team almost never loses those. TCU over Michigan last year is the only WTF moment of the full decade of CFP games. College football kind of worked, if you cared about the national title, because you had to figure out a way to get up 10, 11, or 12 times. The CCGs and CFP eliminated that, and the transfer portal has eliminated any helmet team ever having any flaws.
