What We Learned: Four Trends from the 2019 College Football Season

Every college football season gives us a tremendous amount of information. Between the raw statistics, the game results and the ever-so-important eye test of how the players look, there is a lot to learn from any individual year. Once the season is over, though, a lot of that information becomes obsolete, if not completely useless, except for historical reference. For example, there’s no way LSU’s offense will look the same next year after Joe Brady, Joe Burrow and a multitude of supporting cast players all leave the program. But even though much of the data from a season is useless for predicting the future, certain trends can definitely be found and watched as the postseason breaks into the offseason, which will eventually melt into the next regular season. Here are four of those trends:

The CFB Upper Class has grown

Before this past year, either Clemson or Alabama had won the last five national championships. Georgia had gotten close, sure, and Ohio State won it all in 2014. But it has been a long time since there were so many great teams at the end of the season: LSU, Clemson and Ohio State all had undefeated records going into the playoff, and all three had the talent and coaching that would have made a championship possible. Add in Alabama and Georgia as legitimate contenders next year, and there are at least five teams with legitimate hopes to win a title next year. But these teams don’t just dominate on the field: they also make up the top-5 on 247sports’ recruiting rankings. They’re on top, and don’t plan on leaving.

Ohio State won’t miss Urban Meyer

Are the fans grateful for what Meyer contributed to making the program it is? Absolutely. But after a year, successor Ryan Day has looked to be Meyer’s equal in coaching and recruiting, and even to be improving upon the system that Meyer put in place. Many analysts wondered aloud whether the Buckeyes were going to fall out of the top spot in even their own conference for at least a year while Day adjusted to life as a head coach. Instead, quarterback transfer Justin Fields led them as one of the two best teams in the country, and only a series of penalties and an unfortunate targeting stopped them from reaching the national championship to test themselves against Heisman winner Joe Burrow and the top-ranked LSU Tigers. Ohio State has been one of the four or five best programs in the country for a decade, and it isn’t going anywhere with Day at the helm.

The Big 12 and Pac 12 are in serious trouble

Both of the “12” conferences are lacking a team in the top tier, and all attempts to crack it have been unsuccessful. Though the pride of the Big 12, Oklahoma, is a playoff mainstay and has had a Heisman finalist at quarterback for the past three years, the Sooners have made going to the playoff and getting outclassed a New Year’s tradition: they have lost by an average of 18 points in their past four playoff games. Meanwhile, the Pac 12’s last national championship appearance was Oregon in 2014, and their last playoff appearance was all the way back in 2016. The recruitment rankings paint a similarly concerning picture, as the top 8 is without a team from either conference. That there are good coaching minds in both conferences isn’t disputed, but the sport seems to be leaving them behind as the top five teams continually reload. Can things turn around? Of course. The nature of college football means that every team has a completely new roster every four or five years, and a lot can happen in that time. But something big will have to happen to get an Oklahoma or Oregon in the championship.

The SEC and the Big 10 are the two top conferences, and it isn’t particularly close

As Stewart Mandel pointed out in his mailbag article, the SEC might have just accomplished the greatest bowl season in modern college football history, including a national championship and six wins over ranked teams. They had five teams in the final AP Top-25 poll and the final CFP poll, and went 8-2 overall with LSU’s two wins. Meanwhile, the Big 10 had five teams in the CFP final rankings and six in the final AP poll, though their bowl results were less impressive. The two conferences filled out 11 of the top 25 spots in the final AP Poll, while no other conference had more than three representatives. The SEC should be particularly feared, with a stunning three teams in the top tier that I mentioned above. But the SEC is also dominant in recruiting, with six of the top eight teams in the current recruiting rankings. While Clemson on its own is one of the gold-standard programs in the nation, Oklahoma is consistently a top-5 team, and the Pac-12 suffers from a lot of inner-conference upsets, the SEC and the Big 10 are the two best conferences in the game, and there’s some ground to be made up by the other three Power 5 conferences.

All statistics from sports-reference.com unless otherwise noted.

-By: Alex Spieldenner