Note: This post is rushed this year. Will be out of area for rest of month, but still wanted to post something before the season
This is the weekly post for people who love lists. In these posts, each week, I'll list the remaining undefeated teams and later the 1-loss and winless teams. I will also generally highlight the significance I see in upcoming games (time dependent on my part; likely some shorter weeks this year).
The winless list has always just been a fun one to watch to look for games where everyone can hopefully at least get their first win. The undefeated and 1-loss lists had more implications traditionally. In the BCS and 4 team CFP era, every team to make the championship/playoff was an undefeated or 1-loss team team from an AQ/Power 5 conference with the exception of a 2007 2-loss LSU (in what is still the craziest year of college football I have ever seen) and 2021 Cincinnati (outside a power conference at the time). Every single undefeated team from an AQ/Power 5 conference made the championship/CFP except for 2004 Auburn, 2009 Cincinnati, and 2023 Florida State. Meanwhile, all of our non-AQ/Group of 5 representatives in the major bowls were also on one of those lists except 2014 Boise State and 2022 Tulane (both 2 losses).
We have now had two chances to see how 12 teams work. So far, we have seen all teams with zero or 1 losses in the power 4 conferences in and I believe all have had byes. We saw one three loss at large make it with Alabama getting in last year, but two losses still did keep our a very good Notre Dame team so a 2nd loss can definitely knock out a team.
On the group of 5 (this year 6) level we did see a 2 loss American team ranked over a 1 loss Sun Belt team lat year (although both made it thanks to James Madison beating out the ACC champ).
My guess is that all teams with byes and most with 1st round home games will be on the undefeated or 1-loss list this year. While we will probably again have a 2-loss team or two hosting, if a schools wants to at least do that, they are in a much better position with no more than 1 loss. I also wouldn't guarantee the ACC or Big 12 Champs get a bye without being undefeated, but they will be in the running with a single loss.
For the Group of 6, there is a big change and now the team to get the auto spot does not have to be a conference champion.
Conference changes this year:
-The NCAA eliminated the two year transition period to FBS for at least bowl purposes so I am going to stop noting that.
We have major changes at the now Group of 6 level conferences. The PAC-12 reemerges as a full conference now (Oregon State and Washington State were technically still playing under banner last two years, but were defacto independents) with the additions of BoIse State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State from the Mountain West and Texas State from the Sun Belt. The Sun Belt responded by adding Louisiana Tech from Conference USA. The Mountain West actually managed to hold onto other members through good use of buy out money and is adding UTEP from Conference USA, Northern Illinois from the MAC, and North Dakota State from FCS. The MAC has added Sacramento State from FCS.
Maximum number of Undefeated Teams at the End of the Regular Season:
12*: If we assume that there are no more than 1 undefeated team per conference this is correct. There are many (fairly unlikely) scenarios where we could have three undefeated teams in a conference before conference championship games. For simplicity, I am going to ignore that possibility for at least the first few weeks and probably well longer.
Going with that assumption, we have the possibility of one undefeated in each of the 10 FBS conferences plus Notre Dame and UConn.
Week 0 and 1 Thoughts:
Skipping this year
Note on list below:
This list is in order from around the time I started making these posts for myself (just lists and nothing more back then). I keep it in that order as kind o f a nod to the past. I know I could update teams to current conferences, but I kind of like having to think as I move teams so leave it this way. The teams that have been added to FBS since that time (a lot) are on the bottom in order.
Remaining Undefeated Teams: ACC: 17, American: 14, Big 12: 16, Big Ten: 18, Conference USA: 10, MAC: 13, Mountain West: 10, PAC-12: 8, SEC: 16, Sun Belt: 14, independents: 2, total: 138
