Judging College Football Playoff contenders: The pretenders

On3 imageby:Ian Boyd08/17/21

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You cannot win a National Championship in the current College Football Playoff era without an elite space force, it’s next to impossible. 

Once you reach the playoffs you will face teams with NFL-caliber players and athletes at all the space force positions (left tackle, edge, cornerback, deep threat receiver) and if you are outclassed at all of those positions you will either lose big on key plays or have to overcompensate and get rolled up somewhere else. People get caught up in the quarterbacks, but the play of your quarterback is generally a reflection of having a certain baseline of ability, knowing how to execute the offense, and then having elite space force athletes around him to maximize his distribution.

Last year’s Alabama squad had DeVonta Smith and Patrick Surtain on either perimeter along with a second rounder at left tackle and several quality edge rushers. The 2019 LSU Tigers had an overwhelming wide receiver corps, NFL cornerbacks, K’Lavon Chaisson, etc. The 2018 Clemson Tigers did it with a veteran left tackle, Justyn Ross and Tee Higgins at receiver, and an all-NFL defensive line. The 2017 Alabama Tide had Calvin Ridley and young versions of the receivers who are now household names, on defense they were locking teams down with Levi Wallace, Anthony Averett, and then Minkah Fitzpatrick manning up inside receivers in nickel and dime sets. They hit the edges with Rashaan Evans and Raekwon Davis. The 2016 Clemson Tigers had Mike Williams, Jadar Johnson, Carlos Watkins, Clelin Ferrell etc.

Keep going back in time and you’ll see the same story written.

So which of our College Football Playoff title contenders in 2021 appear to have elite space force units who can carry them to the playoffs and through those big time battles? I decided to try and summarize the state of affairs here for the main teams deemed to be potential playoff participants. Today we’ll hit the first tier, the pretenders.

The Cincinnati Bearcats

There was a key moment in the 2021 Sugar Bowl it was important to take in if you wanted to project Cincinnati’s potential for this upcoming season. It took place just before the half on a Bearcat touchdown drive. Starting left tackle Hudson was ejected from the game for unnecessary roughness.

Hudson had been a 4-star from Toledo the Michigan Wolverines converted from D-line to left tackle only for him to transfer just when he was next in line to play for Jim Harbaugh. Classic Jim Harbaugh-era incident for the Wolverines, who can never field a great left tackle without something going catastrophically wrong.

Anyways, Hudson played for the Bearcats and helped anchor their unit. In the second half of the Sugar Bowl after he was ejected against the Bulldogs, Cincy quarterback Desmond Ridder was sacked six times. One was a fumble recovered by Georgia and another was recovered by Ridder for a safety to conclude the game in a 24-21 win for the Bulldogs. Hudson went in the fourth round of the draft, so he won’t be there for Cincinnati in 2021. Obviously I think this is highly relevant.

Luke Fickell has Cincinnati in the top 10 to begin the season (Photo by Alex Menendez/Getty Images)

Barring the emergence of a young star, the Bearcats don’t have a dominant downfield receiver. Their best work was done running inside zone and throwing to tight end Josh Whyle. On defense, they do return defensive end Myjai Sanders and cornerbacks Ahmad Gardner and Coby Bryant, who were fantastic last season. They lost defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman to Notre Dame.

I fully expect this team to roll through the AAC again on the strength of their run game, Desmond Ridder’s exceptional athleticism, and their still terrifying defense. But winning in the College Football Playoff? I don’t think they can handle a playoff-caliber defensive front.

The Iowa State Cyclones

We’ve talked about the Cyclones a lot here. Their whole approach is designed to mitigate the lack of space force “guardians” on the roster by allowing them to outnumber you in space and force you to beat them elsewhere. They’ll protect their tackles with tight ends, play two-deep zone coverages to help the cornerbacks, run and throw the football to inside receivers, then they do have one terrific edge rusher in Will McDonald.

If they can simply win the Big 12 Championship that would be a massive achievement wildly out of proportion to what has been deemed possible for a program at this level with this kind of recruiting. If they make the playoffs it’ll be tough to do more than that.

The North Carolina Tar Heels

Sam Howell is getting a lot of hype for the draft due to his efficient management of Phil Longo’s RPO spread offense. The Tar Heels were actually a few inches away from landing some big, second half deep shots which would have undone the Aggies in the most recent Orange Bowl, but they couldn’t land them and lost. Meanwhile, they had some protection issues and now have to start over at wide receiver.

Cornerback hasn’t been anything special for them as of yet, their ability to bring pressure with the Fox brothers (Tomon and Tomari) is pretty well established. The Tar Heel offensive line has some promising athletes who all return from a year ago.

This program is on the rise, they’re clearly a good team who will cause problems for opponents, but their tests against College Football Playoff-caliber rosters didn’t go great last year and I’m not convinced they make a leap forward given the loss of their two deep threat receivers.

The Oregon Ducks

Oregon has an A&M-type program running under Mario Cristobal with an emphasis on being the physical, smashmouth team in the Pac-12 who can whip people in the trenches on either side of the ball. It’s really interesting to observe because this is not at all how the Ducks made their name as a program in the past. Chip Kelly had Oregon and northern Californian kids executing outside zone from spread alignments with all kinds of option schemes sprinkled in from dual-threat quarterbacks.

Cristobal and Joe Moorhead have them lining up to run power down people’s throats with the dual-threat quarterbacks and option elements still an accompanying dimension. Can you still win a National Championship that way? I dunno… probably not. Presumably Anthony Brown will run the show and they’ll go as far as defense and run game can take them.

Kayvon Thibodeaux leads the Ducks’ defense this season (Alika Jenner/Getty Images)

There are dangerous receivers around on the roster and their offensive tackle tandem got their feet wet last season without Penei Sewell when he opted out. Defensively Kayvon Thibodeaux is only now a sophomore and playing opposite fellow blue chip edge defender Mase Funa. They played a lot of man coverage last year at cornerback and return Mykael Wright. It’s an interesting team with a lot of good athletes, I don’t foresee them making the difference in space though. They also have to navigate the loss of Andy Avalos (now head coach at Boise State) and see if Tim Deyruter can match his knack for generating pressure up front.

Like the Bearcats or Cyclones, I think Oregon will have a good team but I don’t foresee them holding up in the College Football Playoff when matchups in space are unavoidably important.

The Washington Huskies

The Huskies are a very interesting team in 2021. They played pretty good football last year and conceded their spot in the Pac-12 Championship Game to Oregon because of COVID issues. The entire offensive line returns, including left tackle Jaxon Kirkland who’s a 6-foot-7 veteran and All-Pac 12 member in 2021. Kirkland played guard for two seasons before moving out to left tackle last season where he was strong, but I don’t know if he’s a top blindside protector.

The Huskies would give him chip help from tight ends and running backs last year and did a lot with play-action off the very serious run threat from their massive and very effective guards Ulumoo Ale (6-foot-6, 355 pounds) and Henry Bainivalu (6-foot-6, 330 pounds).

Wide receiver was lead by tight end Cade Otton last season but they did add track star Giles Jackson from Michigan via the transfer portal to potentially add some big play potential to the offense. Even still, Jackson wasn’t a deep threat for the Wolverines last year and would need to develop some skills to offer as much.

Defensively the space force prognosis is better. Zion Tupuola-Fetui was a revelation at outside linebacker last season with seven sacks in just three games, Ryan Bowman returns opposite him at strong outside linebacker. Both cornerbacks Kyler Gordon and Trent McDuffie return and head coach Jimmy Lake generally knows his business at defensive back. I foresee this team playing for a Pac-12 Championship and potentially sneaking into the College Football Playoff, but lacking the athleticism on offense to separate at those higher levels.

Next we’ll get into teams close to Washington who may have the pieces to field elite athletes in the space force but are still long shots to put it all together to win the College Football Playoff.

Cover photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images

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