Evaluating the playoff contenders: 12-9

I'm running through my picks for the playoffs and evaluating them for tournament prospects.

Last week I put together a 12-team field for the 2024 season in college football, which I remarked all offseason was probably going to be fairly easy only to find it a bit of a challenge in the end.

Next I went over the qualities and features that should define championship teams. I didn’t mention having strategically flexible coaching staffs, which is undoubtedly going to matter and end up owning headlines. I basically assumed a level of confidence from everyone, that won’t actually be the case of course. Likely it’ll be system coaches who struggle the most adjusting to the playoffs. If you rely on a particular system, the playoffs will generally include teams that have the right matchups and tactics to monkey-wrench your process, then you’ll need to be flexible. There may also be issues for coaches who are accustomed to winning by just stacking talent and not with gameplans. I’m looking at you, Ryan Day, I haven’t forgotten your 44 stack defense against Alabama in 2020.

We’ll see what the playoffs hold for different coaches as things come. Today I want to start evaluating my proposed 12-team field based on the criteria I laid out:

Remember this is for differentiating playoff teams in a tournament. We’ll start at the bottom of the bracket and work our way up…