College football has changed by leaps and bounds in recent years, from NIL to the transfer portal to Kansas being kind of good. What once seemed a core tenet of the sport is now yesterday's news.
And yet, we remain tethered to an outdated metric when it comes to judging teams. We can put a speaker in a helmet, but we can't find a better system than a Top 25 list.
It's a ridiculous premise, as North Carolina coach Mack Brown astutely pointed out.
"I used to do the coaches' poll, but I quit doing that," Brown said, "because after about the first six or eight, they're all about alike. You can't tell who's next."
He's right. The margin between, say, the ninth- and 10th-best teams can be razor thin, while No. 11 feels light-years behind. And moreover, why 25? When the AP began ranking 25 teams in 1989, there were just 106 FBS teams (though we called it Division I-A back then). With Kennesaw State moving up this season, we now have 134 -- which, proportionally, should mean we rank a Top 32 if we wanted to be fair.
But all of that is beside the point. The bigger issue is rankings are an anachronism, and it's time for something better.
It's time for tiers.
We dug into a host of in-depth metrics -- from the old-fashioned Top 25s to the newfangled analytics such as SP+ and FPI -- and used that data to group similar teams together, then rank those groups.
It's not perfect, but it's a step in the right direction.
So with that, presenting your 2024 preseason tiers.
Jump to:
Top of the pack | Maybe playoff-bound
Good vibes and jangled nerves | Group of 5 potential
QB carousel | Trending up
Tier 1: The Fantastic Four (four teams)
Georgia
Ohio State
Oregon
Texas
It's almost strange to recall that Georgia did not, in fact, win the national championship last season. The Bulldogs didn't even make the College Football Playoff, a travesty for which SEC commissioner Greg Sankey refrained from complaint, choosing instead to passive-aggressively troll Florida State months later. This was, of course, the funniest way to handle the omission.
And yet, there's a case to be made that, had Georgia stars Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey not been shells of themselves in a 27-24 loss to Alabama in the SEC title game, we'd be talking about the Bulldogs as winners of three straight national championships right now.
Instead, the narrative entering 2024 is a bit more complicated. Georgia still appears to be the best team in college football, but the door is cracked open, particularly due to the Dawgs' inhospitable schedule that includes Clemson, Alabama, Texas, Ole Miss and Tennessee -- all ranked in the preseason AP top 15.
So who's next in the pecking order? Consult SP+, FPI, the AP poll or the coaches' poll and there's a unanimous refrain: Ohio State, Oregon and Texas.
Ohio State might be the most talented team -- on paper anyway -- in the country. The biggest question is whether quarterback Will Howard is up to the task of maximizing all the skill around him. It's akin to Ohio State spending the money to build a rocket ship, then hiring a pilot from a budget airline to fly it. It could work. He's certainly not without the basic knowledge it takes to do the job. It just feels like there's a real disparity in class.
Oregon is absolutely loaded, with Dillon Gabriel taking over at QB for an offense that averaged 44 points per game last season. If he lives up to expectations, he could etch his name into the record books. If Gabriel throws for 4,353 yards this season (Bo Nix threw for 4,508 at Oregon last season), he'd pass Case Keenum as the career leader in FBS history. The combination of the extra COVID year afforded players from 2020 and the advent of the transfer portal also opens the door for Gabriel to do something unique in college football history: He can throw for 3,000 yards for the fifth time in his career -- for three different schools.
After years of (admittedly hilarious) "Texas is back" jokes, Texas is finally back. The Longhorns made the playoff last season and return QB Quinn Ewers, along with Kelvin Banks, Trey Moore, Isaiah Bond and a host of other talent (along with the most famous backup QB since Steamin Willie Beamen).
Of course, Georgia is the immovable object all three challengers must get past -- and all have a fraught history with the Bulldogs.
Ohio State came as close as anyone other than Alabama has to knocking Georgia from the throne in the 2022-23 College Football Playoff, falling 42-41 in the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl.
Oregon's past four losses -- three to Washington -- are by a combined 13 points. Its only other loss in the past two seasons was Dan Lanning's debut against Georgia, a 49-3 blowout.
And, of course, Bevo and Uga have beef from way back.
So, is it Georgia and everybody else or Georgia, a handful of top competitors and perhaps a few upsets along the way in this new 12-team playoff era? That might be the overarching question of the season.
Tier 1 fun fact: Georgia has not lost to a coach other than Nick Saban since Nov. 7, 2020. The Dawgs haven't lost to a current FBS head coach since Jan. 1, 2019. And they haven't lost an SEC game to an active head coach since Nov. 17, 2017.
Tier 2: Wait, what's Alabama doing here? (four teams)
Alabama
Notre Dame
Ole Miss
Penn State
*Boys II Men's "End of the Road" plays softly in the background*
Here we are, folks. Our first season without Nick Saban since 2006, a world in which the greatest coach to ever do the job is now working in TV. It's as if the sun has burned out but the planets keep spinning. What does the world look like without Saban?
There's a reasonable possibility that it looks the same, more or less. Georgia had already surpassed the Tide in most people's minds, and new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer has won a playoff game more recently than Saban.
On the other hand, there was a time -- back before the iPhone, Twitter or prized recruit Ryan Williams' birth -- when Alabama was downright bad. There was a four-year span in which the Tide had four head coaches -- one who was mired in controversy after it was revealed he'd had an affair with his secretary and the school paid $350,000 to settle charges of sexual harassment, one who voluntarily left for Texas A&M after just two years (and a 10-win season), one who got caught at a Pensacola strip club and was fired before ever coaching a game, and one who could be best described as "possibly the third-best coaching Shula."
It's unlikely we'll return to those dark days, but it's also fair to assume that Alabama won't move on from Saban without at least a few hiccups along the way.
And so here the Tide are, slumming with the likes of Lane Kiffin, an image almost too awful to ponder in Tuscaloosa.
How's that for rat poison?
Tier 2 fun fact: Of the 42 games Notre Dame, Ole Miss and Penn State have lost since 2020, 31 of them (74%) were against teams that finished the year in the AP Top 25 and 21 of them (50%) came against AP top-10 opponents. They're a combined 94-11 against unranked foes in that span.
Tier 3: Who needs a quarterback anyway? (four teams)
Clemson
Florida State
LSU
Michigan
Last season, Michigan won a national championship. Florida State had an undefeated regular season, LSU had the Heisman Trophy winner, and Dabo Swinney annihilated some poor sap who called into his radio show before reeling off five straight wins to end the year.
These are good programs with tremendous upside.
What they don't have is a QB1 with a clear-cut track record of elite play.
FSU turns to DJ Uiagalelei, who after two rocky seasons at Clemson had a solid, if unspectacular, year at Oregon State. He's a stark departure from Jordan Travis, and it's unclear how this new-look Seminoles offense will function without their former QB. Travis started 37 games for Florida State over the past four seasons, posting a 78.2 Total QBR and accounting for 89 touchdowns. The other eight QBs to start for FSU since 2015 have combined for a 44.5 Total QBR and 115 TDs in 75 starts.
J.J. McCarthy was a first-round selection in this year's NFL draft, but he wasn't exactly the key player in Michigan's title run. In the Wolverines' four defining wins of 2023 -- vs. Penn State, Ohio State, Alabama and Washington -- McCarthy accounted for just 50 completions and four touchdowns. But what he didn't do was make a big mistake that cost the Wolverines a game -- something that prior QB1s in Ann Arbor had a history of doing. The Shea Patterson era feels like a lifetime ago, but before McCarthy, he was the high-water mark for QB production in Michigan.
Jayden Daniels was an unstoppable deep-ball producer last season (except when he played Florida State's defense, which the committee casually forgot about by year's end). Garrett Nussmeier shouldn't be expected to approach Daniels' numbers, but his career stat line over three seasons -- 219 passes, 58.9% completions, 11 TDs and 7 interceptions -- won't be sufficient for a Bayou Bengals team with playoff hopes either.
And Clemson used to cycle in superstar QBs year after year, but Swinney hit a wall after Trevor Lawrence departed. First Uiagalelei struggled in 2021 and 2022, eventually ceding the job to Cade Klubnik, who posted a 55.8 Total QBR (seventh lowest among Power 5 QBs with 10 starts) and just 15 touchdown passes against FBS competition. From 2015 through 2020, when the Tigers made the playoff each year, they had the ACC's best Total QBR (82.4) against FBS foes. In the three years since, Clemson has a Total QBR of 54.8, the lowest mark in the ACC.
Tier 3 fun fact: Clemson QBs threw deep (beyond 20 air yards) on just 7.8% of pass attempts last season. No team in the country had a lower rate.
Tier 4: A playoff berth or 7-5 is equally possible (six teams)
Arizona
Kansas State
Missouri
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Utah
Consider Oklahoma's 2023 season: A 10-win campaign. A win over a playoff team. One loss came on a touchdown with less than a minute to play. The other, by three, when the offense was stuffed on a fourth-down try at midfield. The Sooners were ranked ninth in the final FPI and were top 10 in offensive and defensive efficiency. Now consider that Oklahoma returns 86% of its defensive snaps from last season and will feature a former five-star recruit at QB.
Why is it, exactly, that so many folks seem to think Oklahoma is in for a tough transition to the SEC?
But this does lead to a larger issue that probably hasn't been talked about enough. There are no fewer than nine teams with genuine playoff hopes in the SEC. Nine, in fact, are currently ranked among the top 16 teams in the country by SP+. One of those teams will have to finish ninth (or worse!) in its own league. And that's not even considering Auburn or Florida, teams with annual aspirations of greatness but, based on recent history, a bit more pessimistic a fan base than usual.
This is a point that's often ignored in the endless debate about super-leagues or Florida State and Clemson's quest to exit the ACC. Realignment now means that fans of SEC teams who open the season with playoff hopes will instead be lucky to get a bowl trip -- and that won't even mean their team wasn't good!
The bottom line is some SEC fan bases that have long viewed eight wins as a failure might now be living in a world where it's a best-case scenario.
Of course, if we're discussing SEC schedules, it's also worth noting that Missouri, the preseason No. 11 team in the country and a team that won the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic last season, will play on the road at UMass in Week 7.
Tier 4 fun fact: Since the start of 2021, Utah's offense has averaged 25% more yards per play with Cam Rising on the field than with anyone else at QB. Rising's Total QBR in that span is 82.7. The five other QBs to start for the Utes have a combined Total QBR of 55.5.
Tier 5: No, seriously, this is our year (five teams)
Miami
NC State
Nebraska
Texas A&M
USC
You know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me every offseason for the past 20 years, and it's probably just easier to donate your life savings to Miami's collective.
And yet, here we are again.
Miami had arguably the best offseason of any program in the country, adding Cam Ward, Damien Martinez, Tyler Baron and a host of other established stars via the portal. Miami is back, baby! (Note: Texas might still own the copyright on this phrasing. We'll have to check with our legal team.)
NC State also raided the portal to add Grayson McCall (and his mullet), Jordan Waters, Noah Rogers and more. Sure, the program has just one 10-win season in its history, but the Pack are going to the playoff this year!
Texas A&M couldn't get it done with Jimbo Fisher, but all it took was a mere $75 million to make him go away, a brief flirtation with Mark Stoops and then a brilliant pivot to hiring the guy who used to be Fisher's defensive coordinator. The Aggies are going to own the SEC now!
And sure, USC's defensive scheme the past two years has mostly involved asking opposing players nicely if they'd take a knee, but darn it, we're convinced Lincoln Riley has fixed the problem (or at least the Big Ten has so few good offenses that it won't matter)!
And Nebraska is ... well, look, volleyball season has already started, so there's always that.
Tier 5 fun fact: Since 2018, Nebraska is 8-30 in games decided by a touchdown or less -- eight more such losses than any other FBS team in that span -- and 3-13 in games decided by a field goal or less. The only logical explanations for this involve either Memorial Stadium being built on an ancient civilization's sacred burial ground or Bo Pelini getting the program tied up with some sort of monkey's paw curse.
Tier 6: Age before beauty (five teams)
Iowa State
Oklahoma State
Virginia Tech
SMU
Rutgers
Iowa State returns more production from 2023 than any other team in the country, according to ESPN's Bill Connelly.
Oklahoma State is third, Virginia Tech fourth, SMU is 11th and Rutgers is 13th.
All five of these teams went bowling last season, and they were a combined 25-12 over the second half of the season. There was genuine energy surrounding these teams when last season ended, and now the vast majority of talent from those rosters returns for 2024.
Sure, in any other era, Rutgers returning 72% of its snaps from the previous year would be a recipe for disaster, but prepare for the sun to turn black and the stars to fall from the sky because Rutgers might be pretty good and the apocalypse is upon us.
Tier 6 fun fact: Oklahoma State has had more 10-win seasons since 2010 (eight) than Nebraska, Texas, Texas A&M, Miami and Tennessee combined (seven).
Tier 7: Upgraded from stable to frisky (six teams)
Louisville
Kansas
Syracuse
Texas Tech
West Virginia
UCF
There's a fun mix of good vibes and jangled nerves around these teams.
Louisville made it to the ACC championship game in Jeff Brohm's first season, but the Cards are also relying on a QB1 who has started at least four games in four seasons but has never started more than seven in any given year. (Louisville also arranged its spring practice schedule so Tyler Shough could get married in March. Someone needs to do a deep dive on how college QBs play after tying the knot.)
UCF actually has added some fun options this offseason, including former Arkansas QB KJ Jefferson, who will be a test case on whether playing in a Dan Enos offense is a terminal diagnosis or more akin to getting mono -- something that wrecks a year of your life but then you get back to normal.
Syracuse brought in Kyle McCord, Fadil Diggs and a host of other big names from the portal after Fran Brown arrived as head coach, but Brown has also never so much as called plays in a college game before.
Texas Tech, Kansas and West Virginia are all in the mix in a chaotic Big 12, but all come with their share of questions, too.
Someone from this group is about to take a big step forward, and perhaps capture a playoff bid -- it's just hard to pinpoint exactly which team it'll be. But that's the fun of August. Hope is endless. (And it's the hope that kills you.)
Tier 7 fun fact: Only two QBs last year posted a stat line that included 15 passing TDs, 10 rushing TDs, 2,000 passing yards, 700 rushing yards and no more than 5 turnovers. One was Heisman winner Jayden Daniels. The other was West Virginia's Garrett Greene.
Tier 8: In need of a vibe shift (eight teams)
Auburn
Florida
Kentucky
Iowa
Maryland
North Carolina
TCU
Wisconsin
The teams in this tier are like recent Marvel movies. Sure, we went to see it, and it wasn't bad, but it's just hard to keep getting excited for something we know will ultimately disappoint.
Auburn could make a big leap in Hugh Freeze's second year, but the Tigers haven't won more than six games since before anyone knew what COVID was.
North Carolina has an accommodating schedule -- one in which FPI has the Heels as a favorite in every game but two. But how can we forget the fact that UNC has 12 losses as a top-25 team since 2020.
Wisconsin wants to evolve into an Air Raid offense, which is a little like Miller High Life evolving into Dom Perignon. They're technically both champagne, but it seems like a big shift.
Iowa hired a new offensive coordinator, who introduced the forward pass in a revelation akin to the ending of "The Village," when the cloistered youths realize they've been surrounded by the modern world the whole time.
Florida returns a bunch of good players, but its schedule is so arduous, the Gators could take a big leap forward and still miss a bowl -- potentially leaving Billy Napier as the first Florida head coach to depart Gainesville without a 10-win season since Ron Zook. It's never good when Florida fans are forced to remember the Zook era.
TCU made it to the national championship game just 19 months ago. Then the Horned Frogs got waxed by Georgia, turned Deion Sanders into a cult hero for a full month and missed out on a bowl.
And Kentucky -- well, the least the Wildcats can do is play well enough into October to help fans forget that Mark Pope is coaching the basketball team now.
Tier 8 fun fact: Wisconsin was 90-38 over the past decade, the best record by any program that didn't make the College Football Playoff during the four-team era.
Tier 9: Someone outside the Power 4 has to make the playoff (six teams)
App State
Boise State
Liberty
Memphis
Miami (Ohio)
USF
The good news for the Group of 5 is, in the new expanded playoff, at least one bid is guaranteed to go to one of its conference champs.
The bad news is a cadre of malevolent commissioners are already meeting in their secret underground lair (likely under an island shaped like a skull and located just a short jet ski ride from The Flora-Bama) and plotting to eliminate that oversight when the next playoff format takes effect in 2026.
In the meantime, however, the teams in Tier 8 have the best odds at gaining playoff entry and the right to be a 12-seed who gets smoked by Alabama at Bryant Denny in the opening round.
Tier 9 fun fact: Miami (Ohio) was eight points away from being 13-1 last season, with its only loss coming against ... that other Miami.
Tier 10: Taylor Swift could write a song about this (six teams)
Duke
South Alabama
Troy
Tulane
UCLA
Washington
In the past two years, each of these teams has enjoyed a season of nine wins or more. The group is a combined 122-40 in that span. And all of them had coaches who opted to leave after last year.
In the case of South Alabama's Kane Wommack and UCLA's Chip Kelly, they opted to take an assistant job just to escape their old haunts.
Mike Elko left Duke for A&M and left a number of his players despondent. DeBoer took Washington to a national championship game then took his talents to Tuscaloosa. Willie Fritz was inching toward the exit for years at Tulane, but finally landed the head job at Houston. Jon Sumrall ditched Troy to replace Fritz in New Orleans. And now all six programs are sifting through the wreckage of portal departures and staff overhauls in hopes of regaining their footing under a new regime.
But such is the world of college football coaching hires. It's gonna be forever, or it's gonna go down in flames. And fans can tell us when it's over whether the high was worth the pain.
Tier 10 fun fact: Fritz's Tulane teams finished .500 or better in five of the past six years. The Green Wave had just five .500 seasons in the previous 30 years.
Tier 11a: Where's the defense? (four teams)
Boston College
Cal
Colorado
Georgia Tech
Against Washington, Oregon, Oregon State and USC last season, Cal went 0-4 and allowed 224 points.
Georgia Tech allowed 78 runs of 10 yards or more last season. Only four teams allowed more.
BC finished 130th in sacks (13) and 120th in yards-per-carry allowed before contact (2.56).
Colorado's defense allowed 1.47 points per drive last season, 58th among Power 5 teams and a number so bad Coach Prime stopped taking questions at news conferences.
Tier 11b: Where's the offense? (five teams)
Illinois
Minnesota
Northwestern
Pittsburgh
South Carolina
The only Power 5 teams to score fewer points per drive against FBS competition than Pitt (1.29) last season were Vandy and Michigan State. You read that correctly. Iowa scored more points per drive than Pitt.
South Carolina averaged 3.41 yards per designed run last season -- 133rd nationally and the worst by an SEC team since 2011 Tennessee. The good news is presumed 2024 QB LaNorris Sellers is 6-3 and pushing 250 pounds, so he has the ability to run over defenders like a giant inflatable Buc-ee's beaver.
In 2019, Minnesota QB Tanner Morgan threw 30 touchdowns. In the four years since, Minnesota QBs have just 47. Six of them came in a two-week span last season against Illinois and Purdue. On the plus side, how many other Big Ten schools have a coach now running for vice president?
Northwestern has used nine different starting QBs in the past five seasons. No QB has started more than six consecutive games since the end of the 2020 season.
Illinois had just two games last season in which it topped 30 points: 48 vs. Indiana and 43 vs. Northwestern. In truly demoralizing fashion, the Illini also allowed 90 points total in those two games.
Tier 11b fun fact: In the playoff era, Northwestern has won 27 games when scoring 24 points or fewer. Only Iowa has won more.
Tier 12a: We just fired our coach (four teams)
Houston
Indiana
Michigan State
Mississippi State
These four teams went 7-31 against Power 5 opposition last season, but that's old news. Each has a new coach, a new vision and new excitement for 2024.
Houston decided to pay Dana Holgorsen an "impossible" buyout and turn instead to Willie Fritz.
Michigan State is currently embroiled in a lawsuit to avoid the even more impossible buyout Mel Tucker thinks he's owed, but its attention is on new coach Jonathan Smith.
Indiana said goodbye to Tom Allen, who got the Hoosiers into the AP top 25 in three straight seasons after a 24-year drought. But, alas, three straight losing campaigns was too much, and Curt Cignetti takes over in 2024.
And Mississippi State made it less than a full season without an offensive guru at the helm before deciding to part ways with Zach Arnett in favor of Jeff Lebby. Personally, we would have preferred keeping interim coach Greg Knox, who could ride out onto the field on a different vehicle each week. Who wouldn't want to see him juggling on a unicycle before losing to LSU by 30?
Tier 12b: We're not going to fire our coach (four teams)
BYU
Cincinnati
Virginia
Wake Forest
Kalani Sitake, Dave Clawson, Scott Satterfield and Tony Elliott are all safe in their jobs, but after rough 2023 campaigns, they'd all be wise to get things turned back in the right direction to avoid any future hot-seat talk.
It's entirely reasonable that each could have a nice turnaround in 2024 though.
Wake Forest had gone to a bowl seven straight years before the wheels came off in a 4-8 campaign last year, but simply putting a functioning passer at QB this year ought to get the Deacons back on track.
Virginia's been a slow rebuild for Elliott, but he has some fun players this year, including Notre Dame transfer Chris Tyree and a brash young QB in Anthony Colandrea. The Hoos just need a pass rush that offers more fight than a light breeze, and a bowl is within reach.
And BYU was just a mess offensively last season and lost five straight to finish out the year, but Sitake's only other sub-.500 season was immediately followed by a 7-6 campaign and, two years later, an 11-1 season. He's been here before.
This will be Satterfield's second year at Cincinnati -- and the school's second in the Big 12. An adjustment period was expected, and his runway is long enough that it would take an outright implosion to make a change soon. But fans still remember Desmond Ridder and Sauce Gardner, and going 3-9 at Cincinnati is eventually a surefire ticket to either a pink slip or a seat in the Senate.
Tier 12c: Realtors are dropping business cards off at the football facility (two teams)
There used to be a joke in TV circles about actor Ted McGinley that, when he joined the cast of a show, the show was about to be canceled. This was true of "Happy Days" and "The Love Boat," but he actually has had a long career as an actor and was a much-loved member of the cast of "Married with Children" for years.
We mention this, however, to posit an alternative theory: What if Bobby Petrino is the new Ted McGinley? He just goes from OC job to OC job where the head coach is about to get his pink slip, always hoping that eventually, some AD will hand him the keys to the big office instead.
And honestly, if he ends up as the head coach at Arkansas again and doesn't wear a neck brace to the announcement, he's simply not a fraction as funny as Ted McGinley.
Tier 12 fun fact: Since 2000, Baylor has six seasons with 10 wins or more. And nine seasons with three wins or fewer.
Tier 13: The QB carousel (six teams)
Coastal Carolina
James Madison
Ohio
Texas State
Toledo
UNLV
There are 21 returning quarterbacks who played for Group of 5 schools last season and finished with a Total QBR of 50 or better. Eleven of them hit the portal after last season, including the incumbents at each of the teams in this tier.
Perhaps no team enjoyed the merry-go-round more than Texas State, which waved goodbye to TJ Finley after a stellar 2023 season, only to land JMU's Jordan McCloud, who finished last season with 3,657 yards and 35 touchdowns. So the Bobcats might've actually upgraded.
Here's a fun idea to boost interest in the Group of 5: Every offseason, every QB becomes a free agent and they randomly draw names out of a hat to find out which other Group of 5 team they'll play for next season.
Tier 13 fun fact: Coastal Carolina has won eight games in four straight seasons. The only schools with active streaks longer are Liberty (five straight), Notre Dame (seven), Georgia (13), Clemson (13) and Alabama (16).
Tier 14: The makings of an all-new Pac-12 (eight teams)
Air Force
Fresno State
Oregon State
San Diego State
UTSA
Washington State
Western Kentucky
Wyoming
Washington State and Oregon State are hard at work trying to preserve power conference prestige by any means necessary, but thus far all it has amounted to is a new commissioner, a ton of players leaving via the portal, and taking over Larry Scott's lease on a 2014 Buick Regal.
Still, there's a version of musical chairs that could ultimately work out to be a fun league -- albeit one without the prestige of the old Pac-12 but with some new blood, new ideas and a lightly used 2014 Buick Regal.
Technically Western Kentucky is located to the east of the Mississippi River, and thus its inclusion in a future Pac-12 rebuild seems unlikely, but it does have "Western" in its name, so anything's possible.
Tier 14 fun fact: San Diego State went 4-8 last season but still had four more wins than any other school in California during the four-team playoff era.
Tier 15a: So hot right now (five teams)
Army
Bowling Green
Northern Illinois
Sam Houston State
San José State
You might not have noticed, but Bowling Green is a decent program these days. The Falcons have finished with a winning record in the MAC both years, have presided over the rebirth of Detroit in back-to-back Quick Lane Bowls, and were just seven points away from finishing last season on a seven-game winning streak.
Add Bowling Green to a group of teams from this tier looking to ride some late-season juju into 2024. The Falcons -- along with Sam Houston State, Army, San Jose State and Northern Illinois were a combined 4-22 against FBS competition through their first six games of the year. They went 21-10 as a group after that.
Tier 15b: We coulda been a contender (six teams)
Florida Atlantic
Georgia Southern
Georgia State
Jacksonville State
Marshall
North Texas
If you're following trend lines, the one for these teams looks something like a black diamond trail outside a chalet in the Alps.
Through their first six games, the five teams in Tier 15b were a combined 28-14. From Game 7 on, they were 15-32.
Tier 15 fun fact: In 2022 and 2023, Georgia Southern QBs combined to throw 1,189 passes -- most in FBS. From 2015 through 2021, Georgia Southern threw just 1,319 passes, the fewest in FBS by a non-service academy.
Tier 16: The kids table of the Power 4 (four teams)
Arizona State
Purdue
Stanford
Vanderbilt
These four teams were, almost unanimously, picked to finish last in their respective Power 4 leagues. It's not all bad though. Several of these schools are also receiving TV revenue from their conference anyway. Not you, Stanford.
Purdue DB Dillon Thieneman certainly deserves his flowers. He has a strong case as the most feared defensive back in the country. He had 419 snaps in coverage in 2023 and yet he was targeted just 11 times -- the lowest rate of any FBS DB -- and still racked up six interceptions. That's efficiency.
How bad were Stanford's running backs last year? 64% of its non-sack rush yards came from QBs and receivers. The good news: The whole RB room has turned over.
Arizona State set an NCAA record by using 26 different starting QBs last season. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration but things were bad. Now, the Sun Devils turn to yet another new starter -- Michigan State transfer Sam Leavitt. We can be assured he's good though because he beat out Jeff Sims for the job. (Oh, sorry, we're now being told that only proves he's not three toddlers in an oversized Arizona State jersey attempting to play quarterback.)
Tier 16 fun fact: Vanderbilt has won just three SEC games since 2019, and one of them was against Billy Napier. It has just one road conference win in that span, and Texas A&M tried to hire the losing coach in that game.
Tier 17: Knocking on the door of respectability (five teams)
Arkansas State
Colorado State
East Carolina
Old Dominion
Louisiana
Mark it: ECU takes a big step in 2024. The Pirates went through a transition year in 2023 after losing a ton of veteran talent, but five of their conference losses came by 10 points or less, they don't have a Power 5 school on the schedule this year (they opened with Michigan last year), and nine of their 12 games this season come against teams ranked 95th or worse in Connelly's preseason SP+.
Colorado State was up 28-17 in the fourth quarter against Colorado in Week 3 last year before ultimately losing in double overtime. And as a result, we were able to get Dan Lanning's epic "not playing for clicks" quote a week later. We'll never be able to properly thank Jay Norvell for that.
If for no other reason, it's worth tuning in to Old Dominion games this year just to watch linebacker Jason Henderson. He finished last season with 170 tackles (including 19.5 for a loss) despite missing the bulk of the final two games of the year. He had double-digit tackles in each of the first 11 games of the season.
Tier 17 fun fact: Arkansas State has been coached by five different coaches who've also been a head coach in the SEC. Four of them were fired by SEC teams. The other is Ray Perkins.
Tier 18: Somewhere between mediocre and meh (nine teams)
Central Michigan
Hawai'i
Navy
New Mexico State
Rice
Tulsa
UAB
Utah State
Western Michigan
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is doomed for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down as it nears the top. Last season, New Mexico State won 10 games and finished with a winning record in consecutive years for the first time since 1966 and 1967. Then Jerry Kill retired and more than 30 players transferred out, including three different quarterbacks. The point here is that even the Greeks couldn't have imagined the pain of being a New Mexico State fan.
Former Hawai'i coach Todd Graham reportedly disliked working for the Rainbow Warriors because he couldn't find a steady supply of Dr Pepper. Now he's an analyst at TCU, where it's entirely possible he has Dr Pepper on tap in his office. The lesson is to always keep the main thing the main thing, and eventually, it all works out.
Through one season as FBS head coaches, Trent Dilfer and Deion Sanders have the same record.
Central Michigan and Western Michigan face off on Nov. 19 to determine who'll be the third-worst team in Michigan.
Tier 18 fun fact: There are six active head coaches who've beaten Georgia since 2016. One-third of them are in this tier. (Derek Mason at MTSU and Jim McElwain at Central Michigan)
Tier 19: You can't spell "Conference USA" without "U no fun" (nine teams)
Ball State
Eastern Michigan
Florida International
Louisiana Tech
Middle Tennessee
Southern Miss
Temple
UConn
UTEP
The nine teams in this tier were a combined 33-76 last season, which is already pretty bad.
But 23 of those 33 wins came against teams in Tier 19 or 20 or an FCS opponent.
Against everyone else, this group was 10-69. That's very bad.
But, you know what they say about running from a bear? You don't need to be faster than him, just faster than one other guy you're with. In this case, the other guys are in Tier 20.
Tier 19 fun fact: Pitbull purchased the naming rights to FIU's stadium, thus setting the market for celebrity stadium naming rights options. To buy naming rights for a team in Tier 18, a celebrity must be more famous than Pitbull (say, Justin Timberlake). You can buy naming rights for a team in Tier 20 if your cousin was an unpaid extra in "Fast 5."
Tier 20: In worse shape than Biff Poggi's sleeves (nine teams)
Akron
Buffalo
Charlotte
Kennesaw State
Kent State
UL Monroe
Nevada
New Mexico
UMass
Last year, we listed New Mexico State in Tier 20. Last year, New Mexico State won 10 games, including an unremitting whooping of Auburn at Jordan Hare. This should offer some hope to all who've been banished to the lowest tier this season. Anything is possible.
No, seriously, even for you, UMass.
Tier 20 fun fact: "Kennesaw" has two Ns and one S. Eventually, we'll remember that.