2024 college football rankings: RJ Young responds to ‘Ultimate 134’ replies

When I released my “Ultimate 134 CFB Rankings” back on Aug. 11, I wrote the following graph before getting to my list:

Have an issue with my rankings? Think your alma mater is too low, or your school’s rival is too high? Get at me on Twitter, @RJ_Young, and I’ll select my favorite tweets and respond to them in a future article.

I asked … and you delivered. We got a lot of responses surrounding my rankings, and now it’s my turn to respond and tell you, the readers, why I’m right and you’re wrong.

Look, as I said when I wrote this piece, these rankings are fluid. This was an exhaustive exercise that required plenty of excessive reading and studying of rosters, but in the end, it all came down to this: I wrote about who I think is good and why I think they’re good. 

Not everyone was going to agree with my rankings and my explanation, but that’s what makes a piece like this so enjoyable to write. So, with that, here are my responses to some of your replies surrounding my rankings:

[Related: 2024 college football rankings: RJ Young’s Ultimate 134]

RJ’s take: This ranking is about who has the best chance to win the national title, and I don’t see Washington getting back to the playoff without 10 wins and four ranked ones. Washington’s schedule features five preseason top 25 opponents in Jedd Fisch’s first year with the program. The O/U on win total for the Huskies is set at 7.5. I’ll take the under. 

I’ve got teams like No. 37 Memphis, No. 49 Texas-San Antonio and No. 67 Jacksonville State ranked ahead of Washington. This is because those teams have a better chance to reach their respective conference championship games than UW does. With that, those teams have a better chance to win an automatic qualifying bid for the College Football Playoff by being the highest ranked Group of 5 champion in the field and, with that, a better chance to win the national title.

RJ’s take: Alabama is the fifth-best team in the SEC, and also the ninth-best team in the country. The question to ask is: Can Bama make the CFP as the fifth-best team in the country? Perhaps. However, a loss to Wisconsin makes that difficult. A loss to two SEC teams makes that difficult, too. 

Alabama has games at Tennessee, at LSU, at Oklahoma, against Mizzou and against Georgia. Kalen DeBoer’s team is also facing a South Florida team and an Auburn team that scared them to death with Nick Saban as coach. And he ain’t coaching Bama anymore. Given the roster and coaching staff turnover and the talent deficit Alabama experienced due in a large part to the timing of Saban’s retirement, it’s acceptable to wonder how a coach in his first year at Alabama and his first year coaching in the SEC, with just one household name on the roster, begins the season. 

Ranking Alabama at No. 9 means there is room to move up. Ranking Alabama at No. 5 means there’s just further to fall. A 10-win Alabama program might get into the CFP, but that’s only if those losses come against top-five programs. Those are some reasons I disagree with the AP here — a whole four spots.

RJ’s take: While the road to the CFP is easier than it’s ever been for the Nittany Lions, the margin for error is considerably smaller. This is because Penn State won’t play Ohio State and Michigan in the same season for the first time since 2012. And this is the year you’d want to play Michigan and avoid Ohio State. The Nittany Lions don’t have that luxury. 

In addition to Penn State’s Nov. 2 showdown with the Buckeyes, they’ll also play a West Virginia team in Week 1 that could give them fits. With only one ranked opponent left in USC, a loss to anyone other than Ohio State would be met with a sigh. 

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him at @RJ_Young and subscribe to “The RJ Young Show” on YouTube.

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