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 high light the significance I see in upcoming games (time dependent).
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, 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).
This year, I suspect the Group of 5 auto playoff spot will be from that list again, but the rest of the field will almost certainly include several 2-loss and likely 3-loss teams. That will change how we watch the landscape this year, but there will still be value in being on top as the 4 highest champions will automatically be in the quarterfinal bowls and I suspect most those teams will be on these lists.
Conference changes this year:
-Obviously this is a huge change of a year as we very clearly now have super conferences and heavier concentrations of powers in addition to a large playoff. Texas and Oklahoma are in the SEC. USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Washington are in the Big Ten. The Big 12 may have lost its biggest brands, but it added Arizona, Arizona State, Utah, and Colorado. The ACC added Stanford, Cal, and SMU. The American replaced SMU with Army giving them two of the service academies. James Madison, Jacksonville State, and Sam Houston all completed their two year transition to FBS while Kennesaw State is going through theirs now (add a number to Conference USA this year). Next year we will have UMass join the MAC and Delaware and Missouri State move into Conference USA as they go into their final year of FBS transition.
Maximum number of Undefeated Teams at the End of the Regular Season:
12*: It's actually higher than this, but I am assuming no more than one undefeated team per conference until we get further in. Theoretically, you can get more based on weird records (3 undefeated teams in a conference) or post season suspension, but I am not figuring out all that at this point. For now though, 12 means the possibility one of each from the 9 competing conferences plus Notre Dame and one each of Washington State/Oregon State and UMass/UConn.
Notes on list below:
1. I debated how to list Oregon State and Washington State. I planned on putting them as independents as that is how they are effectively functioning this year, but ended up leaving them on the PAC-12 list. Technically they are competing under that label still, so decided to leave it.
2. This list is in order from around the time I started making these posts to 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 then are on the bottom in order.
Remaining Undefeated Teams: ACC: 17, American: 14, Big 12: 16, Big Ten: 18, Conference USA: 10, MAC: 12, Mountain West: 12, PAC-12: 2, SEC: 16, Sun Belt: 14, independents: 3, total: 134
Boston College
Clemson
Florida State
Maryland
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
Duke
Georgia Tech
Miami (FL)
North Carolina
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Colorado
Iowa State
Kansas
Kansas State
Missouri
Nebraska
Baylor
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Cincinnati
Connecticut
Louisville
Pittsburgh
Rutgers
South Florida
Syracuse
West Virginia
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Michigan
Michigan State
Minnesota
Northwestern
Ohio State
Penn State
Purdue
Wisconsin
UAB
East Carolina
Marshall
Memphis
Southern Mississippi
Central Florida
Houston
Rice
Southern Methodist
Tulane
Tulsa
UTEP
Akron
Bowling Green
Buffalo
Kent State
Miami (OH)
Ohio U.
Ball State
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Northern Illinois
Toledo
Western Michigan
Air Force
Brigham Young
Colorado State
New Mexico
San Diego State
Texas Christian
UNLV
Utah
Wyoming
Arizona
Arizona State
California
Oregon
Oregon State
Southern California
Stanford
UCLA
Washington
Washington State
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
South Carolina
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Alabama
Arkansas
Auburn
Louisiana State
Mississippi State
Mississippi
Arkansas State
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
Middle Tennessee
North Texas
Troy
Boise State
Fresno State
Hawaii
Louisiana Tech
Nevada
New Mexico State
San Jose State
Utah State
Army
Navy
Notre Dame
Temple
Western Kentucky
Massachusetts
South Alabama
Texas State
UTSA
Georgia State
Appalachian State
Georgia Southern
Old Dominion
Charlotte
Coastal Carolina
Liberty
James Madison
Jacksonville State
Sam Houston
(Kennesaw State)
Final note: I will probably be devoting less time to this this year, but will still try to get lists out. I will miss after week 2 entirely though as will be out of town.
