Learning from 2014, new criteria emerges to predict the 2015 New Year’s Six

ESPN ImagesIt’s never too early to start looking forward to New Year’s in the College Football Playoff era.

If you’d been asked at this time last year to predict the participants in the inaugural New Year’s Six bowl games, like me, you probably wouldn’t have included TCU, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State and Arizona (all unranked in the preseason). Having a Cinderella or two is common, but having four climb that high is unusual.

Another surprise was that the four playoff teams were all preseason front-runners. Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State were all picked to win their respective conferences, and all were ranked in the AP preseason top five. But as I wrote last August, the top four at the end of the regular season usually features a couple of risers from outside the preseason top 10. In other words, if you’re going to attempt to pick the next group of New Year’s Six teams — as I’m about to do here — using last season’s blueprint is probably not a good idea. Therefore, I’m utilizing four other reference points as predictors — quarterback play, recruiting, returning starters and schedule.

Quarterback play

It’s no secret that football — at all levels — has become more quarterback-driven in recent years. Look no further than the Heisman Trophy, which has been won by a quarterback 13 times in the past 15 seasons. Great quarterback play is almost a prerequisite for being a playoff contender. There are still instances in which a team can manage to be top-10 caliber with average efficiency and production from the QB, but those have become outliers in today’s game.

“Defense wins championships” is a saying that has been true for most of the sport’s history, but we seem to have reached a point where even the best defenses can’t stop a good offense; they can only hope to slow it down.

Because 12 teams will reach the New Year’s Six bowls, and 10 or 11 of them figure to come from the selection committee’s final top 12, to the right is a look back at the committee’s dandy dozen at the end of the regular season and how those teams stacked up statistically in two key areas: Total QBR and opponents’ Total QBR.

What this shows is that high-level QB play correlated much more with being a New Year’s Six team than did the ability to defend the other team’s quarterback well. Nine of those 12 teams were in the nation’s top 20 for Total QBR at the end of the regular season, but only four of them ranked in the top 20 for QBR defense (also known as opponents’ Total QBR).

This is also true for Boise State, which won the Fiesta Bowl and was the only New Year’s Six team not on this list. The Broncos entered the bowl season ranked 18th in Total QBR and 37th in opponents’ Total QBR.

So I have my eye on teams that should produce quality quarterback play in 2015. But that’s not the only predictor of success.

Recruiting

Oregon is the poster child for why recruiting rankings don’t mean everything. Despite not having a signing class ranked any higher than 14th from 2007 to 2014, according to ESPN RecruitingNation, the Ducks have reached the national championship game twice with players from those classes.

But for every Oregon, I can give you three teams like Alabama, Florida State and Ohio State that have had great success on the recruiting trail and seen it translate to on-field results. Having great talent doesn’t guarantee championships, but it sure makes them more attainable.

From 2011 to 2014, the best average recruiting class rankings in the nation belonged to the Crimson Tide, Seminoles and Buckeyes. It’s no coincidence that they were all part of the inaugural College Football Playoff.

Composite recruiting rankings from 2012 to 2015 therefore will be another big part of my analysis. But as important as talent may be, having experienced talent is an even bigger deal.

Returning starters

(Returning starter numbers come from Phil Steele)

I’ve already mentioned the importance of quarterback play, but having solid players around the quarterback is also worth a lot in college football. Exhibit A: Eight of the past 12 teams to reach the national championship game had a first-year starter at QB, and five of those teams won the title.

In other words, a team doesn’t need experience at quarterback to get quality production from that position. Having him surrounded by talented players who know what they’re doing can help a new QB through some growing pains.

And while having a lot of starters back on either side of the ball is certainly an asset, I place the most importance on the number that return in the trenches, especially on the offensive line.

Schedule

We often overreact to perception of a schedule prior to a season, because the truth is that some teams on that schedule won’t be as good as we thought, and others will be better. Much also depends on when and where you play teams. We think we know a lot, but we don’t know nearly as much about the difficulty of a schedule now as we will by mid-October.

That said, having too many games against good teams (or at least teams we expect to be good) is a major hurdle for potential contenders, especially when most of those are on the road, as we saw with Auburn and Kansas State last season.

I’m more likely to downgrade teams with schedules that seem too difficult than I am to elevate teams with schedules that look easy. As I’ve heard ESPN “College GameDay” host Rece Davis say for about 15 years: “If you’re not good enough, a loss will find you.” Not to mention, the selection committee’s job is to identify the best teams, and that’s not necessarily the ones with the fewest losses.

So after much deliberation — way more than I should’ve given to a prediction this far ahead of the season — here’s how I combined the four factors, with a little intuition.