Which comes next? A new first-time Super Bowl winner or a new first-time college football national champion

The final football game of any 2024 football season is Sunday, and as we stare into the chasm of despair that is the offseason, you have questions…

From Justin: 
Which will come first,  a first-time Super Bowl winner or a first-time college football champion?

There won’t be a new Super Bowl winner this year because the Eagles have one title (2017) and the Chiefs already have three (2019, 2022, 2023). But I’d still bet on a new Super Bowl winner before a first-time national champ in college football.

The last program to break into the national title winners club was Florida in 1996. Virginia Tech (1999) and Oregon (2010) have played for titles that would have put them in the club, but they lost to Florida State and Auburn, respectively. West Virginia likely would have played Ohio State for the 2007 national title had it not lost to Pittsburgh in its regular-season finale, but we’ll always be left to wonder what might have happened had Pat White had 10 healthy fingers.

The Ducks, who were the No. 1 seed in this season’s College Football Playoff, would be the odds-on favorite to become the next first-time national champ. And Dan Lanning’s team looks reloaded for another playoff appearance in 2025. But once the Ducks get to the CFP, they’ll likely be surrounded by fairly recent winners with similarly loaded rosters.

Meanwhile, 12 of the 32 NFL teams (Bengals, Bills, Browns, Cardinals, Chargers, Falcons, Jaguars, Lions, Panthers, Texans, Titans, Vikings)  haven’t won a Super Bowl. That league’s collective bargaining agreement, salary cap and draft ensure more parity than college football. So unless a team just has a terrible owner, it probably has a chance as long as it has a quarterback. And several of the never-winners have excellent quarterbacks.

The Bills have Josh Allen. The Bengals have Joe Burrow. The Texans have C.J. Stroud. The Chargers have Justin Herbert. Burrow already made one Super Bowl, but all three look capable of leading a team to a title if the roster around them clicks and they can get past Patrick Mahomes and/or Lamar Jackson when it counts.

As for the other potential contenders in college, Wisconsin probably has the resources to build a team capable of making a run, but so far Luke Fickell hasn’t been able to upgrade the roster in any meaningful way. Virginia Tech doesn’t look close. Neither does West Virginia. 

Right now, it basically feels like a race between Oregon, the Bills and the Bengals to see who can reach that first title. I think it’ll be easier for the NFL teams, but if you think Mahomes in the AFC title game is a bigger impediment than Ohio State/Notre Dame/Penn State/Georgia/Texas in the CFP, then you may disagree.

From Dominick: 
I know a few years ago Brian Hartline was made co-offensive coordinator for Ohio State.  The reason they did this is because they wanted to give him more money, but they could not justify it when he was a wide receivers coach. So they added the title so they could raise your salary. There is obviously no cap on what you can pay an offensive or defensive coordinator. But is there a cap on what you can pay position coaches? Or did they just not want to start a trend where position coaches were getting obscene amounts of money?

There is no rule against how much a school can pay an assistant coach. Making such a rule would violate federal antitrust law, and the NCAA already lost a case in the late 1990s when schools tried to use an NCAA rule to limit the salaries of certain assistants in certain sports. There will be no such rule in the future, because the schools are tired of losing antitrust cases. 

The trend of giving assistant coaches obscene amounts of money started years ago, and it’s not stopping. Last year, there were five defensive line coaches — not coordinators who coach d-line; just d-line coaches — who made at least $1 million a year. Another six made between $650,000 and $1 million. 

As for the titles, some schools want to see an assistant’s title get churched up before approving a raise. Our message board at Gators Online has argued quite a bit about titles recently because Florida has some of the more ridiculous assistant coach titles in the game.

Recently hired inside linebackers coach Robert Bala is the co-defensive coordinator. Recently hired safeties coach Vinnie Sunseri is the co-defensive coordinator. Practically speaking, neither is a defensive coordinator in any way, shape or form. The person who calls plays on defense is Ron Roberts, whose title of executive head coach sounds more impressive than the title of actual head coach Billy Napier.

Meanwhile, Russ Callaway is expected to receive the offensive coordinator title that was formerly held by Rob Sale, who — like Callaway — isn’t the actual offensive coordinator. The person who coordinates Florida’s offense (i.e. calls plays) is Napier, who probably should change his own title to His Most Honored Grand Imperial Head Coach Eminence lest his job sound less important than the job of the person who calls the defensive plays.

From David:
I’ve noticed lately in the list shows for teams and players, yours and others, that Georgia and its roster seem to have zero respect anymore. Why do y’all think that is?

Ari Wasserman and I both projected Georgia to make the CFP in 2025, and my projection suggests the Bulldogs will make the SEC title game, so I’m not sure how that equals zero respect. We also both had Kirby Smart No. 1 in our coach rankings, which seems fairly respectful.

Do the Bulldogs have an absolute no-brainer best-player-in-the-country-at-his-position player like they did (at multiple spots) when they won national titles in 2021 and 2022? There is no Jalen Carter or Brock Bowers at the moment. But the Bulldogs still have elite talent all over the field.

Safety K.J. Bolden will be a sophomore in 2025. He’ll probably have NFL scouts very excited when he’s a junior. Linebackers C.J. Allen and Raylen Wilson are juniors, and they should be excellent next season. It will be interesting to see how the Bulldogs use Texas A&M receiver transfer Noah Thomas.

So I wouldn’t consider the discourse regarding Georgia indicates a result of a lack of respect. I’d say it has more to do with a lack of household names.

A Random Ranking

Justin wants me to rank unintentional villains from TV and movies. These are characters who weren’t intended (by the writers) to do awful things to a protagonist but ended up doing them anyway. These are not characters who made a scripted heel turn (think Michael in The Good Place or Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones) but who just turned out to be generally awful despite being presented as decent.

1. Jenny, Forrest Gump
2. Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
3. Daniel Hillard/Euphegenia Doubtfire, Mrs. Doubtfire
4. Worm, Rounders
5. Jim Halpert, The Office
6. Grandpa Joe, Charlie and The Chocolate Factory
7. Ross Gellar, Friends
8. Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and the City
9. Glinda, The Wizard of Oz (her villainy is more overt in Wicked)
10. Elsa, Frozen