What does the way-too-early CFB Playoff picture look like for the 2020 season? Here’s a look at who could join Clemson football at the top.
The 2020 Clemson football team is considered one of the odds favorites to win the National Championship, and for good reason.
The Tigers return a plethora of talent across the field, still have Dabo Swinney and Brent Venables as coaches, and will be favored by double-digits in every single game this season.
Though spring practice hasn’t even started yet, we’re going to take a way-too-early look at programs who could join Clemson football as contenders for the CFB Playoff (by conference).
- ACC: Clemson
- Big Ten: Ohio State
- Big 12: Oklahoma, Texas
- Pac-12: Oregon
- SEC: Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Florida
- Other: Notre Dame
Look, unless a program comes out of nowhere, this is going to be the field of potential teams for the 2020 season.
You may could make a case for a program like Michigan or USC to take a huge step, but it would be exactly that: A huge step and that seems extremely unrealistic at this point.
If we’re talking about pure favorites, there’s a clear divide.
Clemson, Ohio State and the SEC Champion. After that, it’s a toss-up. Is Texas really going to compete? Probably not. Can Notre Dame really get back there? Unlikely. Will the CFB Playoff put Oklahoma back in the field after the program’s last few performances? It’s certainly a question worth asking.
The truth of the matter is that there’s not a fourth team who is on the same level right now. Perhaps the SEC gets a second team, but let’s also not pretend that the conference is the juggernaut fans like to make it out to be.
The way-too-early field-of-four right now may not be clear, but it’s not hard to pick out who the contenders are because it’s only a select few who even have a chance.