Two truths and a lie: 2024 college football edition

As the college football season bears down upon us, I keep looking for ways to break myself out of nine months of assumptions.

History tells us that a lot of the ideas we’ve formulated since January will be proven wrong when teams actually take the field. This season in particular should be even more chaotic because so much is changing at once. So I’m trying to challenge the narratives that my colleagues and I have cooked this offseason to open my mind to the array of possibilities that will begin presenting themselves when teams start playing for real on Saturday(!).

Today’s exercise is cribbed from a party game often used as an icebreaker. In fact, my son had to play this game with his classmates on his first day of high school last week. It’s called Two Truths and a Lie. Two statements are true, one is fabricated, and the audience has to decide which is which.

In our case, we don’t yet know which statements are true because no one has played a game yet. But the mere act of trying to decide which statement is untrue will force us to consider possibilities that may not have previously crossed our minds.

I played this game with Dan Rubenstein and Ty Hildenbrant of The Solid Verbal podcast on Tuesday’s edition of Andy Staples On3. Now, it’s your turn to decide which statement in each set of three is the lie. 

The Big Ten

• Oregon and Ohio State will play at least twice this season
• Nebraska at Iowa will have College Football Playoff implications
• USC will finish above .500 in Big Ten play

This one is tricky. Oregon and Ohio State are scheduled to play Oct. 12. They could meet again in the Big Ten title game. They also could meet again in the College Football Playoff whether or not they play again in Indianapolis in December.

But if the second statement is true, then there’s a possibility that the Ohio State-Oregon Big Ten title rematch is avoided. Not all Big Ten schedules are created equal, and Iowa’s looks much easier than everyone else’s besides Rutgers. Perhaps Iowa is hosting Nebraska with a chance to clinch a spot in the Big Ten title game (which likely means at least an at-large berth in the first 12-team CFP). 

Or maybe Nebraska — after not making a bowl game since 2016 — is trying to reach double-digit wins. Then we’d really be through the looking glass.

I realize a lot of you are out on USC this year, and Trojans coach Lincoln Riley certainly has tried to drop enough hints at Big Ten media days that he hasn’t exactly built a national title contender. But be careful choosing that third statement as the lie. You’d better be certain the Trojans will struggle. Because there is a highly plausible scenario in which USC loses to LSU and Notre Dame, goes 5-4 in Big Ten play and finishes 6-6. (Or 6-3 in Big Ten play and finishes 7-5.) Neither would make USC fans happy, but either makes that statement true.

The ACC 

• Florida State will win the ACC again
• Clemson will not make the ACC title game
• Miami will make the ACC title game

It’s easy to avoid mental gymnastics here if you simply think Florida State won’t repeat as the ACC champ. Maybe you believe DJ Uiagalelei won’t be able to fill the cleats of Jordan Travis and a drop-off in QB play keeps the Seminoles from winning the league again. I’ve picked Florida State to win the league, so I can’t choose this one.

This one also is easy if you believe Clemson coach Dabo Swinney late last season when he urged everyone to buy stock in the Tigers. He’s convinced last year’s four-loss campaign was the anomaly and Clemson will get back to contending for ACC and national titles. That, of course, requires a person to believe that a team can win a power conference in 2024 without using the transfer portal. Because Clemson was the only non-service academy in the FBS to not take in a single transfer.

The third statement is much trickier to pick as the lie. Miami clearly upgraded its roster in the transfer portal. The Hurricanes got a relatively easy ACC schedule draw (compared to, say, Georgia Tech). So how would Miami and Clemson miss the ACC title game (since Clemson also would have to miss it to make this the lie). That likely will depend on Florida State, N.C. State, Louisville and Virginia Tech. The Seminoles obviously are the favorite to win the league, but the Wolfpack, Cardinals or Hokies would be the most likely to box out Clemson and Miami from the title game.

The SEC

• Either Texas or Oklahoma will make the SEC title game
• Either Texas or Oklahoma will finish .500 or worse in league play
• Georgia will lose two road games

This throws some red meat at Texas and Oklahoma fans who believe their teams will come roaring into the SEC.

It also throws red meat at the fans of other SEC schools who are convinced the newcomers will be ground down by the week-to-week stress of the SEC’s schedule.

But as we discussed in the Big Ten section, pretty much everyone gets a different experience with their conference schedules. On paper, the Texas SEC slate is easier than the Oklahoma SEC slate.

And Georgia — the preseason No. 1 in the coaches’ and Associated Press polls — must play at Alabama, at Texas and at Ole Miss. (Also at Kentucky, but everyone seems far less worried about that one.) Does any team in America have a more difficult road schedule than the Bulldogs?

The Big 12

• Colorado will make a bowl game
• At least one of the following teams will make the Big 12 title game: Kansas State, Utah, Oklahoma State
• At least one of the following teams will make the Big 12 title game: UCF, TCU, West Virginia

Of course we’re going to let the Coach Prime lovers and the Coach Prime haters make their choice.

But for those who do think Colorado will make at least an incremental improvement and earn a bowl berth, the next two statements provide a greater challenge. The Big 12 is going to be the most evenly matched conference in the country. Kansas State, Utah and Oklahoma State are the preseason favorites, but nothing feels guaranteed. 

The Big 12 feels like the most likely league where both teams that play in the title game would seem to be surprising choices now.

The Heisman Trophy

• The Heisman winner will be a transfer QB
• A true freshman will be a Heisman finalist
• The Heisman winner will play in the Big Ten or SEC

A transfer QB has won the Heisman Trophy five times in the past seven seasons (Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray, Joe Burrow, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels). Last year, the three top vote-getters were transfer QBs. This year, Dillon Gabriel is moving from a good offense at Oklahoma to a potentially great one at Oregon. QB Jaxson Dart is in year three at Ole Miss, but he started his career at USC.

But perhaps a homegrown QB like Georgia’s Carson Beck or LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier can buck the trend.

The second one is most likely to be a lie because it hasn’t happened yet, but the game has changed to the point where a true freshman will eventually contend for the Heisman. Maybe that’s Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith or Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola. Or maybe it’s no one this year and some member of the class of 2025 becomes the first.

The third statement seems the most obvious. It’s only been two years since a non-SEC, non-Big Ten player won the Heisman, but that was USC’s Williams. USC is now in the Big Ten. Mayfield and Murray won the award while playing in the Big 12, but Oklahoma is now in the SEC. The last player to win while playing for a school that isn’t currently in one of those leagues was Louisville QB Lamar Jackson in 2016.

The conferences

• A team will win a conference title in its first year in its new league
• The national champion will not play in a conference title game
• At least two power conference title games will be rematches of regular-season games

Just let your imaginations run wild here. That’s the beauty of this season. There is so much new that we’re bound to get surprised.

The College Football Playoff

• Five SEC teams will make the Playoff
• Four Big Ten teams will make the Playoff
• Two ACC teams will make the Playoff

How you answer this probably depends on whether you think CFP selection committee members are keeping a running tally in their heads of which conferences have how many teams in the tournament while they’re voting on the final ranking.

I don’t think they’ll consider conference affiliation at all, which is why I think five SEC teams is a real possibility. My question is whether the Big Ten or ACC are top-heavy enough to make either of the other two statements true.