Familiar programs are going to be in very different places. The Big Ten, for example, is welcoming Washington, Oregon, USC and UCLA, ending the Pac-12 as we knew it; it’s one of several realignments taking place this season. In addition, the sport will have to continue evolving the way players are compensated. And perhaps the most significant new wrinkle of them all comes on the game’s highest-profile stage: The College Football Playoff expands its field from four to 12 teams this season, giving more schools a chance to win their way to the national title.
To help make sense of everything, ESPN is releasing our 2024 Football Power Index (FPI) ratings and projections, which include forecasts for every team’s record, its chances of winning a conference title, and of course, its probability to make the playoff and win the championship.
From the table below, many of the usual suspects are among the favorite programs to take home the national title, but there is also plenty of uncertainty:
Before we dive into more of the forecast, let’s briefly talk about how all of this works. First things first: The FPI is a power rating that tracks each team’s strength relative to an average FBS squad. Teams are rated on offense, defense and special teams, with the values representing points per game. (So that means Georgia is rated as nearly 27 points per game better than the average team, which is pretty good!)
Those numbers are then used to simulate the season schedule 20,000 times, including the conference championships and the CFP bracket, simulating the selection process using an algorithm that mimics the way the committee typically picks teams. Finally, once we have those results, we can say how often each team wins its conference, makes the playoff and achieves other milestones.
Sarkisian: Texas excited to restore rivalries with A&M, Arkansas in SEC
Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian talks about the Longhorns’ move to the SEC and renewing conference rivalries with Texas A&M and Arkansas.
Two-conference domination
Georgia leads ESPN’s initial playoff predictions, making the expanded field in nearly 80% of our simulations and winning the national title a little over 20% of the time. In addition, the SEC (with a 53% chance of producing the champion) and Big Ten (32%) dominate the national title probability rankings by conference.
Among teams with at least a coin-flip’s chance of making the playoff, the Bulldogs are joined by Oregon (76%), Texas (68%), Ohio State (67%), Notre Dame (60%), Penn State (59%) and Alabama (57%). After that group, there’s a sizable drop-off to the next tier, led by Missouri, Oklahoma and Tennessee at 37% apiece.
How has the expanded playoff changed the shape of these odds? Overall, 18 teams currently have at least a 20% shot at making the playoff in our preseason model, as opposed to just eight going into last season.
Closer look at the all-important bye
While making the playoff might be a certainty for more top programs this season, merely qualifying isn’t enough anymore. It remains significant to finish among the four highest-ranked conference champs on the committee’s list, and thus earn the all-important bye into the second round of the bracket. Those teams will still need to win three games to capture the title (rather than two under the previous CFP format), but it’s still better than having to win four.
Here are the teams with the best odds of securing that first-round bye:
Interestingly, Oregon ranks highest in the country here — ahead of Georgia. That’s a result of several factors: the Ducks’ comparatively high chance of going undefeated (16%) against their new Big Ten schedule, and the fact that they have the best odds of winning their conference among power-conference schools (37%). Both are good ingredients to end up in the top four.
On a related note: Sorry, Notre Dame, but your team is not allowed to get a bye; only conference champions are eligible. But with 60% odds, the Irish are far and away the most probable playoff team outside the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten and SEC. We will also get to see at least one non-power-conference team make the playoff this year, as a fifth conference champ is guaranteed a spot in the field.
Here are the odds for each Group of 5 conference to send at least one team to the playoff:
Florida and Washington moving in opposite directions?
Despite the importance of the new format, however, the 2024 season will still be determined by the elite players and programs. In terms of pure talent, Georgia is projected to easily rank No. 1 in the FPI — sitting roughly 2.3 points per game better than No. 2 Oregon — on the strength of the nation’s No. 2 projected offense and No. 3 defense. Five teams are projected to be at least three touchdowns better than the average FBS team: Georgia (plus-26.8), Oregon (24.5), Texas (22.9), Ohio State (22.2) and Alabama (21.9).
Some schools have risen up the ranks since the end of last season. Florida is up from 41st to 20th on the strength of 15 returning starters and a strong showing in the transfer portal. Auburn and Kansas have also leapt into the top 20 after finishing further down the list last season. Tennessee’s ranking more closely resembles that of its 2022 breakout campaign than 2023, when they came back to Earth, while Texas is projected for its highest FPI finish (No. 3) since it made the BCS championship game in 2009. Meanwhile, USC is projected to hold steady at 18th despite losing quarterback Caleb Williams, this year’s No. 1 overall draft pick by the Chicago Bears.
In addition, the FPI projections are down on both of 2023’s championship game contestants. Washington has slipped to 31st, and defending champ Michigan is down to 12th, after each school lost its head coach — Kalen DeBoer left for Alabama and Jim Harbaugh went to the Los Angeles Chargers, respectively — as well as its starting QB and most of its starters. How much both programs can reload will be a big storyline to watch this season. And one other notable dip belongs to Kansas State, which falls from 11th to 22nd.
Here’s this year’s projected FPI top 20:
Can’t forget about Deion’s Buffaloes
Where do Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes land in our ratings? They’re 36th, with a 16th-place ranking on offense with Shedeur Sanders returning at quarterback (along with a bunch of new transfers, as we’ve come to expect from this program).
Along with a season forecast of 6.3 wins, that might not be to Sanders’ liking — but by rising from 77th in the FPI in 2023, the Buffaloes are projected to be the second-most-improved team in the FBS, trailing only Stanford (who’s up from 106th to 59th).
Colorado should benefit from a slightly easier schedule in 2024 — the Buffaloes rank 45th in projected FPI schedule strength, versus 39th a year ago — and its scoring differential indicated a team slightly better than its record last season, both signs that point to continued improvement in Boulder.
But if the Buffaloes are going to really make the most of their potential, they’ll have to win on Sept. 28 at UCF, on Oct. 18 at Arizona and, most importantly, at Kansas on Nov. 23. According to the FPI, those are the three games that swing Colorado’s odds of making the playoff most. Lose any of them, and Colorado has very little chance to make the bracket as an at-large or (more likely) a conference winner out of the Big 12.
Mark ’em down: Biggest games of 2024
Along those same lines, let’s look at the best and most important games of the season, according to the FPI. There are a few ways to quantify this, starting with simply looking at the combined ratings of both schools in a particular contest. By that measure, these are the 20 biggest games on the 2024 schedule:
But there’s also another way of looking at the top games, based on how much they affect the postseason picture. Our simulations have a cool feature called “leverage,” which measures the average change in probability (whether that be national title odds, playoff odds, conference title odds, etc.) for both teams depending on whether they win or lose a given game.
Here are the 2024 games that have the highest leverage in terms of who makes the CFP:
Both rankings are mostly filled with games from the SEC and Big Ten, with a few Notre Dame games, some nonconference tilts and a Week 6 Clemson-FSU matchup in the ACC.
One consequence of the expanded bracket is that fewer games feature huge leverage ratings for both teams’ chances of making the playoff, since more of the top teams have better playoff odds than ever before. But at the same time, realignment has given fans more in-conference battles on these lists, which matter a great deal toward a team’s odds of winning the conference, and thereby potentially securing one of the top four seeds.
That means any fears that playoff expansion would dilute the importance of the regular season might be overblown. There is still plenty to play for across the country each week, and our FPI rankings and projections will help you stay on top of it all.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.
Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.
“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”
Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”
He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.
“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”
While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.
Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.
Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.
“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”
Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.
“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.
“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”
As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.
“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”
Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.
It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.
“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”
In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.
“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”
The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.
“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”
Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.
“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”
Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.
The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.
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.
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.