Whoever said that May is the worst month of the college football calendar has never predicted the 12-team Playoff at an appropriate time. An appropriate time to lay out the 12-team field is indeed May. After all, the transfer portal window closed and for the most part, rosters are locked in for fall.
That’s why May is when we predict the Playoff.
A few things are worth noting before we break down individual Playoff paths. One is that while we’re still in the 12-team era, I’m anticipating a change in 2025. I believe that we’ll get rid of the stipulation that the 4 byes/top-4 seeds will go to the 4 highest-ranked conference champs. One year in, I predict that all parties will get on board with changing that. These rankings, which I’ll roll out over the next 2 weeks, will reflect that anticipated change.
In other words, I won’t try to confuse you with seeding. This will just be based on where they’ll show up in the final Playoff poll. Just in case you forgot what Playoff field entails, here’s a refresher:
5 highest-ranked conference champs 7 at-large teams Seeds 1-4 get a first-round bye Seeds 5-8 get a home Playoff game in the first round Seeds 9-12 get a road Playoff game in the first roundDoes that all sound good? Good.
Let’s start with the 12-seed … Boise State:
Why the Playoff path exists
Wait a minute. Does a Boise State Playoff path still exist in a post-Ashton Jeanty world?
Yes.
How?
Boise State is 9th in FBS in Bill Connelly’s percentage of returning production because it returns a ton of defensive production, along with 4 starters on the offensive line and Maddux Madsen back at quarterback.
Last year’s quarterfinal participant might not have a 1-for-1 Jeanty replacement — that’d be an absurd thing to project after he rewrote the record books — but Sire Gaines is next up. The college football world will realize that when he goes off in the season opener at USF on that Thursday night. He suffered a season-ending injury in September of his true freshman season, but there’s a belief that he’s got the potential to be a 1,400-yard back in Dirk Koetter’s offense. If that happens, Boise State won’t suddenly have to become an offense that needs Madsen to throw for 300 yards per game.
True freshman Sire Gaines is a NFL guy too pic.twitter.com/TBqR7OkVFq
— Liam Blutman (@Blutman27) August 31, 2024Let’s also remember that Boise State has 11 consecutive wins vs. Mountain West competition, and the only team in the conference that won more than 8 games last year was UNLV, who watched Barry Odom leave for Purdue and left Dan Mullen with a roster that has massive turnover. The headliner matchup won’t be in the Mountain West.
It’ll be on Oct. 4, when Boise State will travel to face the defending runner-up, Notre Dame. That upset win in South Bend will open the Playoff path and give the Broncos a far superior victory to any on a Group of 5 résumé. That even allows Boise State to overcome a random regular-season loss because at 12-1, it still has the ultimate trump card with the Notre Dame win.
Similar to when Cincinnati bested Notre Dame in South Bend en route to paving the way for the first Group of 5 team to make the 4-team Playoff, Boise State’s monumental victory against the Irish will pave the way for the first Group of 5 team to earn its second Playoff bid.
The potential roadblock
I’m not necessarily sold on Boise State having a world-beater defense with Erik Chinander. He led 8 FBS defenses and 3 different schools, and last year was his best scoring unit at 22.6 points/game allowed (T-No. 37 in FBS). Mind you, it didn’t rank in the top half of FBS in yards/play allowed, and it wasn’t a top-90 unit against the pass either in yards/game allowed or quarterback rating allowed.
There’s a ton of production back in the secondary, but I wonder if a couple of those respected offensive-minded coaches can take advantage of that, and if Boise State can’t keep answering late without a cheat code like Jeanty. Look at some of the offensive minds that are on the schedule:
Alex Golesh, USF Dowell Loggains, Appalachian State Dan Mullen, UNLV Mike Denbrock, Notre Dame Sean Lewis, San Diego StateAll of those coaches are capable of drawing up the right offensive game plan and pulling off an upset. Will Boise State play with fire a bit too much defensively and lose a game or 2 that it isn’t supposed to? It’s possible. The margin for error will be slim, and while Boise State could follow the 2024 script by playing competitively in that headliner game like it did last year at Oregon and winning out, it can’t have an obvious Achilles’ heel against that schedule.
Odds that they win a Playoff game
My win probability is at 14.2%.
That might seem low, but unlike last year, this projection would mean that Boise State wouldn’t have the benefit of a first-round bye and a neutral-site quarterfinal matchup. A 12-seed would mean traveling for a road game vs. the 5-seed. After how lopsided those matchups felt, it’s hard to sit here and project that a Group of 5 team will flip that script. Spencer Danielson is a phenomenal coach who should be a household name in the sport, but pulling off an upset of that magnitude would be a step above what those 3 Fiesta Bowl victories were.
Since Boise State became an FBS program in 1996, here’s every instance of Boise State facing a top-5 team in a true road game:
1996: L, 56-7 at No. 5 Arizona StateYes, the only instance of Boise State playing a top-5 team in a true road game was in its first year as an FBS program (then Division I-A). If we want to extend that to true road games vs. AP Top-10 teams, here’s what that track record looks like:
1996: L, 56-7 at No. 5 Arizona State 2001: W, 35-30 at No. 8 Fresno State 2021: W, 26-17 at No. 10 BYU 2023: L, 56-19 at No. 10 Washington 2024: L, 37-34 at No. 7 OregonThat’s an extremely small sample size, though the only reason that I set the win probability at 14.2% and not 4.2% is because we’ve at least seen 3 such matchups for Boise State in the 2020s, 2 of which were solid showings. Plus, this is Boise State. No Group of 5 team has embodied that “giant killer” moniker quite like the Broncos in the 21st century.
If seeding is indeed changed to do away with the highest-ranked conference champs getting the 4 byes as I predicted, it could benefit a 12-seed like Boise State. Why? Instead of traveling to face the toughest at-large team in the field, who could be better than what that No. 5 ranking suggests, it could get the true No. 5 team. That still might not be enough to pull off an upset of that magnitude, but it’s worth keeping in mind.
Either way, getting to the Playoff after losing an all-time great would be quite the feather in Boise State’s ever-growing cap.
Predicting the Playoff will continue on Monday with the No. 11 seed … an ACC squad. Stay tuned.
Predicting the 2025 Playoff: No. 12 Boise State Saturday Down South.
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