Joel Klatt reveals which three non-playoff teams could have won a national title in CFP era

After a decade of the four-team field with 10 championship teams, college football will now move to the 12-team format next fall. Still, before the sport fully goes in that direction, it’s just as fascinating to look and assess which programs may have missed out on a title-winning opportunity with only four teams allowed to compete in the previous model.

In his show on Monday, Joel Klatt answered a mailbag question regarding teams that could’ve or would’ve won it all had they made the field. He ended up selecting three that he believed, had they been in, had as good a chance, if not a better one, as any of the other three contenders to win the playoff.

To start, Klatt looked at the playoff’s first field with TCU back in 2014. With a 12-1 record, the Horned Frogs had the nation’s No. 2 offense, led by QB Trevone Boykin, that averaged 46.5 points. It also had a Top-10 defense on the opposite side. However, after a loss in a Top-10 matchup at Baylor in the fifth week of the season, they couldn’t recover, even with a seven-game win streak to end the year before they extended that eight with a victory in the Peach Bowl.

“2014 TCU with Trevone Boykin. That team was incredible. No. 2 scoring team in the country. Only loss was by three to Baylor on the road in Waco,” said Klatt. “There was no Big 12 Championship, if you remember. The Big 12 was trying to game this out and basically say co-champions so they could try to get Baylor, who lost to West Virginia on the road, in and TCU. The playoff was like ‘You know what? Bam! You’re gone’. We’re going to take Ohio State with Cardale Jones who just smoked Wisconsin.”

“A No. 4 seed was Ohio State. They won the whole thing – beat Alabama and then beat Oregon. That TCU team went to the Peach Bowl, I believe, and just thumped an Ole Miss team,” Klatt continued. “That team could have won the national championship. That team was really, really good.”

A year later, the second playoff also included one of Klatt’s answers in the form of Ohio State. At 12-1 as well, the Buckeyes had the country’s No. 2 defense which allowed just 15.1 points per game. They also had an offense that returned several contributors from their title-winning roster the season prior. Still, with a Top-10 loss in Columbus late in the year, Klatt says the Buckeyes missed a chance to go repeat because of a coaching call against the Spartans.

“The very next year? The defending national champions – the 2015 Ohio State Buckeyes. They only lost one game and I believe it was due to poor coaching. I’ve said this – don’t worry. Everyone is like don’t tweet Coach Meyer but I’ve said it right to his face. If Ezekiel Elliott gets the ball more against Michigan State? They win that game,” Klatt stated. “They lost at home to Connor Cook’s Michigan State team. Didn’t even go to the Big Ten Championship, missed out on the playoff.”

“I think the 2015 Ohio State team? That’s a team that definitely could’ve won the national championship. Lost to Michigan State by three, largely because they tried to run the ball way too much with J.T. Barrett and not with Ezekiel Elliott,” recalled Klatt. “They should have given the ball to Elliott. Give it to him 20 times? They win that game maybe by one, maybe by seven. Then they’re in the playoff and maybe win the national championship.”

Finally, Klatt’s last choice didn’t come as too much of a surprise and he didn’t have to go too far back in the past to find it. He decided on this past year’s team at Georgia that certainly had a case to be in, even after a loss in Atlanta to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship. Since they did lose it, though, the Bulldogs missed their opportunity to three-peat even though, in the opinion of many, they would’ve had a great chance to do so had they been in after continuing their recent domination of the sport.

“The last one? This one is obvious. I know everyone’s going to be like, ‘Well, duh?’ – last year’s Georgia team in 2023,” said Klatt. “Back-to-back defending national champions, 29-game win streak. Lose a game to Alabama in the SEC Championship, get left out of the playoff”

“That’s a team that absolutely could have won the national championship. In fact, they would have been Michigan’s most difficult matchup in the country. But they didn’t go and Michigan won the national championship,” Klatt said. “They were No. 1 all season, 29 straight wins. That’s an easy one.”

With several contenders and just four spots, it’s always interesting to ask ‘What if?’ in regards to who was in and who was out of the four-team playoff. With that said, it’s not a question that we’ll get to ask for much longer or with the same curiosity with a dozen teams now set to make the field moving forward.