BATON ROUGE, La. — Kirk Herbstreit said Thursday that the 12-team College Football Playoff has broken the sport’s old order. He could not name a title favorite he would put money on.
Herbstreit spent part of the morning working at the original Raising Cane’s on Highland Road with owner and founder Todd Graves, then took questions. LSU opens the season against Clemson on Saturday.
Why Kirk Herbstreit Says The Field Has Flattened
Herbstreit said the 12-team field has opened the sport to everybody, and that money can no longer buy four deep at every position the way it did when Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Clemson took turns.
“I think since we’ve gone to 12 teams, it’s opened it up for everybody. In the past, if we sat here and did this five, six years ago, if you asked me that question, I’d be like, okay, Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, and Clemson. And then everybody else is trying to get into that picture,” Herbstreit said. “And now Vanderbilt, what they did, Indiana, and what they did, I think it’s proven to all of us that teams like Ohio State and LSU and Texas A&M, the teams that are able to spend a lot of money, they can no longer stack up two, three, four deep of five stars. Those backups in Georgia, they’re not playing at Vanderbilt. They’re going to other schools.”
“So I think because of that, it’s wide open. A lot of what’s going on around college football I’m not a fan of, but one thing I’ve really enjoyed is seeing more teams have a chance, and I think it’s wide open this year,” Herbstreit continued. “It really is. You can pick a team and say they’re going to win it, but truly do you think you’re going to bet the ranch on that team? I think it’s wide open. I think that’s what’s exciting.”
Kirk Herbstreit’s Group Of Six Watch List
Herbstreit said any top 12 has to start with a Group of Six team, and he named Memphis and Navy before working through the SEC and the Big Ten.
“You have to pick a group of six teams, right? And I felt Memphis the other night. Memphis looked really good in their opener. I think Navy could be a team this year that could be a team that could maybe make a run to get into the playoff,” Herbstreit explained. “Beyond that, you look at the SEC. Can LSU be that team? Think of the depth of this conference. Can Texas A&M, the obvious. Georgia seemed to have a chip on their shoulder. Texas, obviously, with Arch Manning, a lot of people have expectations for them. The Big Ten, Indiana, appears to be good again. Ohio State’s loaded. Oregon’s loaded. I think Penn State, if you look at Penn State’s schedule, they don’t play Ohio State, they don’t play Oregon, they don’t play Indiana. They’re going to win 10 games, I think, this year. I think Penn State could be a playoff team. USC is going to be. So the Big Ten and the SEC, as we all kind of predicted, have kind of gone to a different level as far as depth of the conferences.”
Memphis opened the season Aug. 29 with a 27-21 win at UNLV in Week 0. The teams had never played before. Marcus Stokes threw for 223 yards and 2 touchdowns, and the Memphis defense recorded 6 sacks in coach Charles Huff’s debut. Huff arrived from Southern Miss in December and added 81 newcomers, 61 of them transfers.
Navy visits Memphis on Nov. 21.
Where The SEC And Big Ten Stand
Ohio State opens the season ranked first and Oregon second. Texas is fifth, Ole Miss ninth, LSU 11th, and Penn State 18th. Alabama, which Herbstreit did not mention, opens 16th.
Vanderbilt and Indiana are the two programs he cited as evidence the field had changed. Indiana beat Oregon twice last season, once in the regular season and again in the Peach Bowl semifinal. The Hoosiers won the national championship in January. Fernando Mendoza quarterbacked that run. He was one of two quarterbacks taken in the first two rounds of the April draft.
Penn State avoids Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana entirely this season under first-year coach Matt Campbell. Georgia, Texas A&M, and USC round out the group Herbstreit named.
College GameDay’s first three shows all originate from top-15 campuses, the first time that has happened since 2002. The show was in Baton Rouge on Saturday for its 500th road episode and goes to Austin on Sept. 12 for Ohio State at Texas. It goes to Oxford on Sept. 19, when Lane Kiffin returns to Ole Miss with LSU.
LSU and Clemson kick off at 6:30 p.m. CT tonight on ABC.
