How many teams can win the 2024 national title? Kirby Smart’s comments illustrate it’s a shorter list than you think

How many teams can win the 2024 national championship in college football?

It’s a simple question, yet one that invariably would return multiple answers depending on who you polled. 

FanDuel Sportsbook recently updated its title odd for next season, with 11 teams holding odds at +2800 or better. 

Georgia (+300)
Ohio State (+480)
Texas (+700)
Oregon (+850)
Alabama (+1300)
LSU (+1500)
Ole Miss (+1500)
Michigan (+1700)
Penn State (+2200)
Notre Dame (+2200)
Florida State (+2800)

But in an ode to Miracle Max in The Princess Bride, there’s a big difference between making the playoff and winning the playoff.

How many of those teams — or even others ranked right below them like Clemson, Tennessee, Missouri or USC — can win the 2024 national title?

It’s a shorter list than you probably think. 

College football’s newly expanded 12-team playoff will absolutely give more programs the potential idea of winning a championship. The Group of 5 won’t be ignored. The Big 12 will be represented. The ACC won’t get screwed. 

But dreams of your favorite school making a similarly fun, miracle run through the tournament like DJ Burns Jr. and NC State during this year’s March Madness would be just that. A dream. 

Hope in the form of representation. 

The fact is, in an expanded 12-team field, the group of teams that can win three or four games is even smaller than a contenders list in season’s past. 

And Georgia head coach Kirby Smart laid out exactly why in a wide-ranging Q&A with ESPN over the weekend. 

“It keeps your hopes alive with one loss, maybe two,” the two-time national champion head coach said when asked about his thoughts on the 12-team playoff in 2024.  

“A lot of coaches have complained that once they lost a game, their kids just said that they were done. There won’t be as much of that. Everybody’s fighting for the same thing, and that’s the beauty of making those last three or four weeks really, really eventful. I know some people say, ‘It devalues the late-season games because you’ll know you’re in.’ Well, there will be more people in the hunt now. So there will be a lot of meaningful games. That team with two losses late in the year that has played a tough schedule is going to be fighting and scratching to earn that 12th spot.”

The biggest benefactors of the expanded playoff aren’t the teams that suddenly get fair representation. It’s the who’s who that now get a mulligan — or more — only to find their footing come season’s end and roll through the playoffs. 

Like, say a 9-3 Alabama.

We’re about to enter a season where the national title winner will play a record 17 or 18 games. Only the elite rosters stacked with blue-chip talent will withstand that much pounding. The transfer portal has already sapped most schools’ depth, which only exacerbates the challenge for recent “title contenders” like TCU or Washington that don’t recruit at an elite level. 

Both schools played for a national championship in the last two seasons, but neither program was competitive in the final game. 

The Horned Frogs’ Cinderella run to the national championship in 2022 needed a pair of pick-sixes just to sneak past Michigan. The Huskies held on to beat Texas thanks to a majestic performance from quarterback Michael Penix Jr. 

Moving forward, they’d need to do that 3X — against better competition each week, mind you — just to make the title game in 2024. 

Historically, if you had a roster (recruit and transfers) with over 50% of your team made up of 4- and 5-star recruits, you had a chance to win the national title. Cam Newton dragged Auburn to a championship in 2010, but even SuperCam wouldn’t be able to pull that off in 2024.

We don’t know what the threshold will be moving forward for a 12 (or 14) team field, but I’d bet it’s going to be more than north of half. 

Could it take say 70%? Last season, that would’ve only included Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia and Clemson. 

The reigning national champs Michigan (at 55%) are obviously missing from that list, but the Wolverines were a historical outlier with as many developmental prospects who turned into NFL players (record 18 combine invites). 

Does an Ole Miss or Missouri — both of whom are gearing up for runs to the CFP this fall — have nearly that many NFL prospects on their rosters for 2024? Not even close. 

Rosters will continue to evolve following the spring transfer window in two weeks, but the pool of potential true title contenders is unlikely to change all that much. 

Clemson probably isn’t on the list anymore, but Texas and Oregon likely are. 

So we’re talking five teams? Maybe six or seven if you add a Clemson, LSU or Notre Dame. 

Very good teams will make the 12-team playoff. Only the great ones with the very best rosters will win it, though — especially, as Kirby Smart acknowledged, they can afford a loss or two along the way now as well.