Nothing to lose? Fans of Playoff contenders need to keep this in mind for Week 1
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I don’t want to flush 8 months of hope down the toilet with 1 stat. At a time when hope is at peak levels just a few short days away from Week 1, that feels far too negative. Nobody wants a “Debbie Downer” in the room right now, so I won’t blame you, the reader of this column, if you want to ignore this 1 stat and go back to planning your Playoff party.
But yes, the 1 stat needs to be said.
In the Playoff era, 2024 Clemson was the lone team to make the field after suffering a Week 1 loss. As in, the team that suffered 3 regular-season losses and only made it because it won the ACC, AKA the conference that has yet to win a single New Year’s 6 Bowl/Playoff game in the 2020s. Clemson wouldn’t have sniffed the field if not for that key stipulation. Among Week 1 losers in the Playoff era, that’s it.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking. Connor, the 12-team Playoff era just started. The previous 10 years of the sport were essentially double-elimination regular seasons. Teams who lost in Week 1 weren’t going to rattle off 12-consecutive wins en route to the Playoff (that includes winning a conference title for the non-Notre Dame teams). Teams who lose in Week 1 in the 12-team Playoff era will surely have much more grace as 2-loss teams. Don’t tell that to 10-2 BYU or 10-2 Miami (FL), neither of whom lost in Week 1, but both were essentially given “double elimination” treatment by the selection committee.
Speaking of Miami, the Canes will be the closing act of a loaded Week 1 slate (unless you count Bill Belichick’s UNC debut on Monday night as the true closing act). Their matchup on Sunday night against Notre Dame will be 1 of 3 matchups with preseason Associated Press top-10 teams (odds via BetMGM):
- No. 1 Texas vs. No. 3 Ohio State (-1.5)
- No. 9 LSU vs. No. 4 Clemson (-4)
- No. 6 Notre Dame (-2.5) vs. No. 10 Miami
Losing that game will have more grace than say, 2007 Appalachian State going into the Big House and stunning preseason No. 5 Michigan, who flushed its BCS National Championship dreams down the toilet on Sept. 1. This is a new era, and after the selection committee announced it’ll add the “record strength” metric to its criteria, perhaps it’s even a different era than 2024.
New era or not, let’s not dismiss how difficult it is to reach 10 wins when you start 0-1. Until further notice, that’s the standard for making the Playoff. If you don’t think that’s the case, remind me how often we heard about 9-3 teams complaining the last 8 months.
The truth behind plenty of Week 1 losses is that often, they’re a sign of things to come and not a complete outlier. Last year in Week 1, Clemson hung on early against Georgia in Atlanta, but run-game issues surfaced in the second half, and the Dawgs sprinted to a blowout victory. The Tigers finished No. 86 in FBS against the run, which was capped by a 4-game stretch in which they allowed 250 rushing yards/game … including 288 rushing yards to The Citadel.
Clemson still made the Playoff because it played in the ACC, and not in the SEC, who went 3-0 with an average of 243 rushing yards against Dabo Swinney‘s squad.
But I digress.
A contender who comes up just short in a top-10 matchup in Week 1 is hardly staring at a lost season. At least not yet. That won’t be a fair takeaway for the losing team, who could hold onto top-10 status depending on the context of the Week 1 loss.
Where it gets a bit trickier is for teams like Alabama, South Carolina and Tennessee
All 3 of those SEC squads are Playoff-hopeful teams who’ll be favored in Power Conference matchups vs. unranked teams away from home in Week 1.
(Sorry, that was a mouthful of a sentence. The similarities just kept on going.)
Lose one of those games as a 1-2 touchdown favorite and suddenly, 8 months of those fans yelling at anyone who excludes their team from a Playoff prediction bracket becomes an afterthought.
None of those SEC coaches would treat a Week 1 loss as back-breaker for the 12-team Playoff before the calendar hits September, but there’s something else to keep in mind. Coaches like Steve Sarkisian have already spoken about how unlikely it is that we’ll see a team go unbeaten with the amount of games in the expanded Playoff. That’s also because depth is being challenged in ways that we’ve never seen, both with the expanded Playoff and how hard it is for contenders to keep second-teamers from transferring. Go ask Georgia’s 2024 offensive line about that.
We’re coming off a year in which the SEC didn’t have a single team reach the postseason with 0-1 losses, and in 2025, nobody in the SEC has a double-digit over/under win total. That’s not random. Contenders will lose games. Losing in Week 1 still creates a steep climb that’ll be too much for the vast majority of teams to overcome.
Clemson overcame it, only because Miami suffered an inexplicable loss to Syracuse in the regular-season finale. If it had won that Week 1 game vs. Georgia, it would’ve been sitting pretty as a 10-2 team who could’ve likely been in the field as an at-large team instead of needing the Canes to puke on their shoes while attempting to play defense.
It’s possible that we’ll see more teams back their way into the Playoff, and it’s certainly possible that this year’s slate of Week 1 headliners spits out a loser who gets into the 12-team field. In fact, I’d bet on that happening. But will a Week 1 loser still have a significantly tougher path to get there? You bet.
Don’t let the college football purists fool you. A lot is on the line to kick off 2025.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
