With the College Football Playoff expanding from four to 12 teams this year, ESPN decided to rank the 52 teams who have made the College Football Playoff as we get into Year 11 of the Playoff.
And the Worldwide Leader put the 2024 Arizona State Sun Devils as the 52nd (of 52) teams to have made the College Football Playoff.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly writes, “As late as Week 12, Arizona State’s playoff odds were 2.9%, according to the Allstate Playoff Predictor. But Kenny Dillingham’s Sun Devils beat three of the Big 12’s four best teams as part of a six-game winning streak, charging into and capturing the Big 12 championship game. With running back Cam Skattebo leading the way, the Sun Devils are physical and confident, but they will be underdogs from here.”
Boise State’s 2024 team was ranked No. 51 on the list and then it was the 2024 Clemson team. All three of these teams who made the playoff this year would not have made it in the four-team format.
The first team listed that was part of the prior four-team format is the 2015 Michigan State squad at No. 49. Connelly writes, “Mark Dantonio’s 2015 Spartans are proof that no matter what the committee said, it was picking the four “most deserving” teams rather than the four “best” — MSU was definitively the former and in no way the latter. And that’s fine! The Spartans finished 18th in FPI and 15th in SP+ but beat a dynamite Ohio State team and outlasted unbeaten Iowa to win the Big Ten. Then they did exactly what was expected of them against Alabama in the Cotton Bowl: They lost big.”
Arizona State Prepares for the Playoff
The College Football Playoff committee set its 12-Team Playoff on Sunday and from the Big 12 Conference, the Arizona State Sun Devils were rewarded with the No. 4 seed.
The Sun Devils crushed Iowa State in the Big 12 Championship 45-19 on Saturday in Arlington, Texas, in their first season in the Big 12. In the preseason, the Sun Devils were picked to finish last in the conference, but led by star running back Cam Skattebo, Arizona State shocked all of college football this season.
The Big 12 Conference only got one team into the College Football Playoff due to the parity across the league that saw four teams finish 7-2 in a tie for first place in the conference. Arizona State and Iowa State reached the Big 12 Championship Game thanks to tiebreakers.
The No. 1 seed is Oregon, the No. 2 seed is Georgia and the No. 3 seed is Boise State.
Arizona State will play the winner of No. 5 Texas and No. 12 Clemson in the quarterfinals in the Peach Bowl.
