Ohio State‘s 2022 ended in dramatic heartbreak in the College Football Playoff, but immediate redemption could be on the horizon. The Buckeyes are the best team in the nation and the favorites to win the national championship, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index and the Allstate Playoff Predictor.
The Buckeyes have a 37% chance to win the title — well ahead of Alabama at 20% and defending champion Georgia at 19% — according to the models.
Before we dive too far into the Buckeyes, other title contenders and the rest of the forecasted college football landscape, a quick refresher: What is FPI, and how do we project the season and College Football Playoff race?
FPI is our season-long ratings and projections system. In the preseason it relies on past performance on offense and defense, returning and transfer production and past recruiting data for players on the roster to form a rating. We then use those ratings to simulate the season 20,000 times, resulting in our projections.
In addition, the Allstate Playoff Predictor uses those simulations to forecast the playoff committee’s selection process, based on the committee’s past behavior. All of which combined allows us to forecast a team’s projected win total, chance to win its conference, reach the CFP and win the national championship.
Let’s break down some of the top storylines emerging out of FPI’s numbers ahead of the 2023 season.
A three-team top tier
So what makes the Buckeyes so dangerous in 2023, even relative to SEC powerhouses Alabama and Georgia? For starters, the best non-QB offensive returning production in the nation. That’s most notable in the receiving game, where the Buckeyes return Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka — who recorded 1,263 and 1,151 receiving yards in 2022, respectively — along with tight end Cade Stover.
The model ranks Ohio State No. 1 in offensive performance in recent seasons (it ranked No. 1 in offensive efficiency in 2022) and second in offensive talent (based on cumulative recruiting ranks on that side of the ball). Quarterback aside (we’ll get to that), we can see why FPI makes the Buckeyes the best offense in the nation by a decent margin. Defensively, the Buckeyes rank third — they don’t quite boast the talent levels that FPI sees in Georgia or Alabama — but the margin is smaller and thus the Buckeyes are the best team overall. Georgia’s defense ranks No. 1 in FPI rating, driven more by the historical performance of the unit than anything else.
What’s also interesting here is just how far behind everyone else is from the top three. More than five points per game separates Georgia (No. 3) from LSU (No. 4) in FPI’s ratings. Each of the top three teams has at least a 19% chance to win the national championship, while no other team is over 6%. And there is a cumulative 76% chance — in April! — that one of the three wins the national title.
In addition, there is a 26% chance that all three of the Buckeyes, Crimson Tide and Bulldogs make the playoff, and the top six most likely combinations feature all three of those teams.
In other words: It’s a crystal-clear top tier. And what’s somewhat amazing is this is happening in a year when none of the three are returning their starting quarterbacks. C.J. Stroud, Bryce Young and Stetson Bennett are all NFL-bound, and yet the model still has confidence in these squads.
It means that the model has less confidence in each of their QBs than it does for, say, USC with Caleb Williams. Though in the case of Ohio State, for example, the fact that Kyle McCord (the most likely starter, in the model’s mind) had an 87 grade as a recruit gives the model some confidence in him despite the lack of track record.
A QB with a track record of success is ideal, but as evidenced by FPI’s ratings for Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia, it’s not a prerequisite.
Our annual ‘Texas is back (or is it?)’ conversation
Sitting at No. 5 in FPI’s rankings and No. 4 in terms of chance to win the national championship: Texas. It’s a somewhat familiar place for the model, though. FPI was bullish on the Longhorns starting last year (rank: No. 7) and it finished bullish on them, too (rank: No. 7).
But now it’s really in on them, with a 34% chance to reach the playoff and its first top-5 preseason FPI rank since 2012. They’ve got strong talent, based on recruiting grades, on both sides of the ball (fourth on offense, sixth on defense). And, despite losing running back Bijan Robinson to the NFL, the Longhorns return quite a bit of production on offense, led by wide receiver Xavier Worthy.
Quinn Ewers, the incumbent at quarterback facing competition from Arch Manning and Maalik Murphy, didn’t have a great season last year (65.6 QBR, which ranked 50th) but does have a year of experience. And, as we saw with the teams at the top, a good situation around a quarterback can yield a high FPI rating.
The Longhorns also benefit from their conference: There are fewer tough foes and no divisions in the Big 12, and that leads to a more straightforward path to a conference title than they will have in the SEC next season (Texas’ 54% chance to win the Big 12 is higher than Georgia’s 49% or Alabama’s 41% chance to win the SEC). That doesn’t mean Texas has an easy schedule, though. With a road game at Alabama on Texas’ slate, the Longhorns have the toughest schedule of any of the FPI’s top 10 teams.
USC leads a Pac-12 with a chance
A year ago at this time, FPI gave the Pac-12 a mere 8% chance to put a team into the playoff. We were artificially low on USC — the Lincoln Riley effect wasn’t fully accounted for — but the point remained: The Pac-12 was a long shot. That ended up panning out, as the conference did not put a team in the playoff.
But the conference boasts the seventh-best team in the nation in USC, according to FPI. The Trojans alone have a 25% shot at the playoff, and the conference has a 34% chance overall at putting at least one team in the playoff thanks mostly to Oregon (5%) and Utah (4%). (This might be bittersweet for the conference, knowing it will soon lose USC to the Big Ten, but that’s a next-year problem for the Pac-12).
With Williams — who finished fifth in QBR last season and is a potential No. 1 overall pick in 2024 — leading the way, USC enters the season with clearly the best quarterback room in the nation, according to FPI. That they have Williams back after he led the Trojans to a No. 3 rank in offensive efficiency only bolsters the model’s confidence, and is part of why it considers USC to be the second-best offense entering the year only behind Ohio State.
The difference between USC and the top contenders mentioned earlier: The Trojans are elite only on one side of the ball. FPI sees them as the 36th-best defense, which is actually a huge forecasted improvement. The defensive unit ranked 82nd in defensive efficiency last season.
All of this gives USC a strong chance — 50%, a true coin flip — to win the Pac-12. And with an easier but not too easy schedule, a 1-in-4 shot at the playoff.
After finishing 10-3 with strong quarterback play from Jordan Travis (QBR: 85.3, which ranked seventh), the Seminoles are getting some heavy buzz. FPI likes Florida State … but maybe not as much as everyone else. The Seminoles rank 14th in FPI, though they are just two-tenths of a point away from 12th.
The model is mostly buying the offense (rank: No. 10) but is less confident in the defense, which it ranks 26th. In general, Florida State has lower talent rankings (based on the recruiting ranks of players on the roster) than the teams above it in FPI. The Seminoles rank 17th in offensive talent and 24th in defensive talent. There’s a lot to like here — just not quite as a top-10 team yet.
It’s in part due to the talent gap that FPI still likes Clemson (FPI rank: eighth) more in the ACC. The Tigers, who have higher talent ratings on both sides of the ball, have a 45% chance to win the ACC, while the model gives Florida State just a 17% chance.
Considering the hype around Colorado with Deion Sanders now the Buffaloes’ head coach, as well as a slew of transfers in to play for him, it’s a bit of a shock to see Colorado all the way down at … 95th in FPI’s rankings — the lowest-ranked Power 5 team.
The model has somewhat of a handle on the transfers. They’re recognized in Colorado’s “talent” and returning production portions of the calculation, and the Buffaloes do have higher talent scores on both offense and defense than virtually all of the teams around them in the overall rankings. From the model’s perspective, though, that isn’t enough to overcome the recent poor play. The Buffaloes ranked fourth worst and 11th worst in offensive and defensive efficiency last season. So FPI actually is predicting a decent step up this year.
That being said, 95th is still rough. It’s probably reasonable to think this is an unusual circumstance of roster turnover — one-win teams don’t usually transfer in high-end players — that FPI might not be able to perfectly capture.
Conference playoff race
The SEC and Big Ten are each extremely likely (97% and 94%, respectively) to put a team in the playoff. But what about two teams, like the Big Ten had last year?
The SEC is the favorite to pull off that maneuver in 2023 with a 51% chance to put multiple teams in the playoff, while the Big Ten is at 25% (every other conference is under 1%).
The SEC has two major things going for it:
• While Ohio State is the best team in the nation, FPI believes the SEC boasts teams Nos. 2, 3 and 4 in Alabama, Georgia and LSU. By contrast, Michigan and Penn State — the Big Ten’s next-best teams — come in at No. 6 and No. 10.
• The conference’s top two teams are in separate divisions and aren’t scheduled to play each other. That means Alabama and Georgia won’t beat up on each other until the conference championship game at the latest, while only one of Ohio State, Michigan or Penn State can reach the Big Ten championship game.
Lauren Poe and Mitchell Wesson contributed to this article.
College football reporter; joined ESPN in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University.
Wisconsin fired offensive coordinator Phil Longo on Sunday, a day after the Badgers’ 16-13 home loss to No. 1 Oregon.
In a statement, Badgers coach Luke Fickell thanked Longo for his two seasons with the program, while adding, “We are not where we need to be and believe this decision is in the best interest of the team.”
Wisconsin ranks 97th nationally in scoring and 102nd in passing while operating an Air Raid-style offense that Longo brought with him from North Carolina and other stops.
The Badgers, who lost starting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to a season-ending injury Sept. 14, had only three points and 88 yards in the second half against Oregon, which rallied from a 13-6 deficit entering the fourth quarter.
Wisconsin ranked 101st nationally in scoring in Longo’s 23 games as coordinator and failed to eclipse 13 points on its current three-game losing streak. Quarterback Braedyn Locke had only 96 passing yards against the Ducks.
Fickell did not immediately announce an interim coordinator for Wisconsin’s final regular-season games against Nebraska and Minnesota.
Fickell had long targeted Longo for a coordinator role, going back to his time as Cincinnati’s coach. Longo, 56, oversaw productive offenses at Ole Miss, North Carolina, Sam Houston State and other spots but never consistently got traction at a Wisconsin program that had operated dramatically differently on offense before his arrival.
“This team still has a lot in front of us and I am committed to doing everything we can to close out this season with success,” Fickell said in his statement.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Four-star quarterback Tramell Jones Jr. has committed to Florida, he told ESPN on Sunday, joining the Gators’ 2025 class four days after pulling his pledge from Florida State.
Jones, a four-year starter at Florida’s Mandarin High School, is ESPN’s No. 9 dual-threat passer in the Class of 2025. After multiple trips to Florida throughout his recruitment, Jones returned to campus Saturday, taking an official visit with the Gators during the program’s 27-16 win over LSU. A day later, Jones stands as the lone quarterback pledge in a 2025 Florida class that includes five pledges from the ESPN 300.
“I pretty much saw everything I needed to see when I visited last spring — I just love everything around the campus,” Jones told ESPN. “And then hanging out with the guys yesterday, seeing the camaraderie with each other, that really just sealed it for me.”
Jones was the longest-tenured member of Mike Norvell’s 2025 class at Florida State before his decommitment from the Seminoles on Thursday morning.
Jones’ exit came days after Norvell announced the firings of three assistant coaches on Nov. 10, including offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Alex Atkins. Jones was the first Florida State commit to pull his pledge in the wake of the staff shakeup but marked the Seminoles sixth decommitment since the start of the regular season, joining five ESPN 300 recruits who have left Norvell’s recruiting class across the program’s 1-9 start.
Jones’ commitment follows a key late-season victory for Billy Napier on Saturday and marks the Gators’ first recruiting win since athletic director Scott Strickland announced on Nov. 7 that Florida would stick with the third-year coach beyond the 2024 season.
Uncertainty over Napier’s future had weighed down Florida’s recruiting efforts in the 2025 class as the Gators began November with the No. 39 class in ESPN’s latest team rankings for the cycle. But Jones’ pledge comes as a boost for Florida one day after the Gators hosted a handful of high-profile flip targets, including five-star offensive tackle Solomon Thomas (Florida State pledge) and four-star wide receiver Jaime Ffrench (Texas pledge).
When Jones signs with Florida, he’ll arrive on campus flanked by fellow in-state offensive talents in four-star wide receivers Vernell Brown III (No. 44 in the ESPN 300) and Naeshaun Montgomery (No. 115), as well as four-star running back Waltez Clark (No. 223). Florida is also set to sign a pair of in-state defenders from the 2025 ESPN 300 between four-star defensive end Jalen Wiggins (No. 68) and four-star cornerback Ben Hanks Jr. (No. 121).
With Jones’ commitment, Florida has another jolt to its momentum on the recruiting trail as the Gators seek to chart a strong finish in the 2025 cycle next month. More imminently, Florida will host No. 11 Ole Miss on Saturday.
A rare souvenir postcard picturing Hank Aaron as a rookie with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro Leagues sold for nearly $200,000 at a baseball memorabilia auction that also included Ted Williams’ 1946 AL MVP award, which went for $528,750.
The Aaron postcard from the scrapbook of scout Ed Scott, who discovered Aaron, went for $199,750 following a bidding war that soared past the pre-sale estimate of $5,000-$10,000, Hunt Auctions said.
The auction included 280 items from Williams’ personal collection that had been held by his daughter, Claudia, who died last year. Among the other items were a silver bat awarded for his 1958 batting title, which sold for more than $270,000, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented to him by fellow naval aviator George H.W. Bush, which went for $141,000.
The sale also included items from the collection of Rutherford Hayes Jones, the business manager of the Washington Giants, one of the earliest Black baseball teams. The trove was discovered in 2001 in a suitcase, where it had been unseen for 40 years.
A first batch of items from Claudia Williams’ collection went up for auction in 2012 at Fenway Park and garnered more than $5 million.
