ESPN ranks the No. 1 college football team of the Playoff era
By Jacob Moss
Published:
The 2026 College Football Playoff is set to kick off this weekend, and the expanded field of contenders will feature several programs that are making their debut in the vaunted tournament alongside some very familiar faces.
With this year’s participants included, 64 different squads have now found their way into the CFP since its inception back in 2015, and ESPN analyst Bill Connelly recently sat down and ranked them all from worst to best.
The top of Connelly’s list was, unsurprisingly, littered with some of the most dominant SEC sides to grace the gridiron over the past 10 years, but the team he has ranked No. 1 may come as a bit of a surprise to most.
Connelly has the Mac Jones-led 2020 Alabama Crimson Tide slotted in as his best team of the Playoff era, with the Joe Burrow-led 2019 LSU Tigers right behind them in the No. 2 spot, a squad that he believes is the best Nick Saban ever fielded at Alabama.
“The Crimson Tide had the Nos. 1, 3, and 5 finishers in the Heisman voting,” Connelly wrote. “They played one game decided by fewer than 14 points. They bested an SEC-only schedule by an average of 30.2 points per game. Their defense struggled early but allowed only 15 points per game after mid-October. This was the best Nick Saban team ever and quite possibly the best of the 21st century.”
Right behind the 2020 Tide and the 2019 Bayou Bengals, Connelly has the undefeated 2022 Georgia Bulldogs ranked as the third-best team of the CFP era, with 2023 Michigan at No. 4 and 2018 Clemson rounding out the top-5.
