Ugly said:
The updated NIL/transfer portal "rules" have been in place for 4-5 years now. With the exception of a Georgia team that continued on to win it for a second year in a row (and possibly including them), are the winning trends starting to emerge? Here is what is looks like you need to win the Natty based on recent history:Anything else?
- A weak OOC schedule. No national championship winner has played a P4 team out of conference since 2022 Georgia. This let's your team get settled in and builds confidence without risking significant injury.
- A regular season with a few real challenges surrounded by gimme games. The last three champions have played three teams ranked at the end of the season apiece (most of those top 10 teams), and then mostly feasted on teams they drastically outmatch otherwise. This allows you to give your complete (i.e. multi-week) focus to these big games, and gives you experience with top-level teams without beating yourself to a bloody pulp by the end of the season. Long runs of wins against easier opponents also help build confidence (see Texas A&M during the middle of this year for more examples of this).
- A team full of super-seniors, sprinkled with some key transfer portal additions. In this age of NIL portal, having a 22-23 year old that has been in your system for the whole time just putting their head down and grinding it out seems to be winning over a highly ranked player jumping around to a different team each year and then jetting for the NFL after year three. Obviously this is not true for every example, but the trends seem to suggest that experience is starting to beat star rankings, at least slightly.
- This should be obvious, but injury luck at key positions is massive (which is why the first two bullets are evn more important). The last championship team to start more than one QB throughout the season was 2021 Georgia, and that was really more of a case of letting you QB competition drag into the first few weeks of the season.
- Other important items aren't as obvious or haven't changed much, like coaching staffs that are great at developing players, recruiting teams that excel at talent evaluation, and organizations good at building a solid culture that is resistant to high player turnover year-to-year.
- Star-rankings are not un-important, as teams with high talent ratings still tend to do better overall than teams that do not by a significant amount. However, the ultimate champion has not been well-predicted by star rankings the past few years. According to 247's composite team talent rating, the last three national champions were #72, #3, and #14. With the exception of Indiana this year, each needed to have a highly rated team, but it is not a given that a top 5 talent team will play another top 5 talent team to win it all, like it was for much of the 10's.
This is solid! Just a few thoughts to add-1) a catching staff with elite talent evaluation skill. 2) a coaching staff that demonstrated an ability to develop guys to get them to the NFL
So in reality, the more things change the more they stay the same. Rosters have always been paid. Coaching and excepting has always been what sets teams apart over meaningful periods of time(ie the difference between winning one national championship versus having a program that wins and competes year after year)
