Perhaps not a surprise to most people, I have the Clemson Tigers at No.1. The Tigers are coming off a shellacking in the National Title game at the hands of another set of Tigers. The question will be, are these Tigers still hungry? I think that Dabo Swinney will have his players motivated and on a warpath in 2020.
Trevor Lawrence needs to show scouts that he is the unquestioned best QB in the 2021 class. Especially now that Fields is right on his tail since Lawrence regressed some in 2019. Clemson returns most of their impact players on offense. Aside from Lawrence, the most notable return is Travis Etienne. Who, somewhat surprisingly, decided not to enter the NFL Draft and return for his senior season.
Like Ohio State, they will lose the most talent in the defensive backfield. The defense will likely take a step back after two seasons of dominance, but that doesn’t mean they won’t still have an elite defensive unit. The offense is strong enough to help out the defense as well.
Clemson has been elite on the recruiting trail for the past several years and much of their recruiting success has been on defense. Clemson will still be a top 10 offensive and defensive unit in 2020.
Clemson will again benefit from a weak schedule in 2020. The non-conference opponents are Akron, The Citadel, and South Carolina. They also get Notre Dame in their weird five-team ACC rotation that they play.
In conference play, the schedule doesn’t get any tougher. The ACC has been weak for five-plus years now and it doesn’t look like it will improve much in 2020. Clemson’s toughest regular-season conference matchup is hard to pinpoint. It could be Syracuse or Boston College, but in all likelihood, it will probably be Louisville, Virginia, or Wake Forest.
Only one of those five teams is even being seriously considered for the Top 25 in the national arena. That’s Louisville and they are usually showing up between 20 and 25. In other words, Clemson could play their regular season and only face one or two ranked teams.
It looks like Clemson will have smooth sailing through the regular season into the ACC Championship game where I believe they will face North Carolina. North Carolina will be a good test but Clemson still handles them and ends up undefeated and back in the playoff.
So, there you have it. My statistical deep-dive analysis of Alabama football and all of next year’s top college football teams. My goal was to find the teams that pundits were overlooking and I think I accomplished that. Did I get it right? Did I miss your dark-horse team? Let me know what you think down in the comments, or send me a message on Twitter or Facebook (links up top).