With an expanded playoff comes expanded opportunity. The 2024 college football season will be one to remember as the playoff triples in size. While this does not give more opportunity for teams to win a national title, it allows more teams to compete on college football’s biggest stage.

With conference expansion across the Power 4, a lot of schedules are harder than ever before (Florida), but some teams have the good fortune of dodging their conference’s best teams. Let’s talk about five teams that don’t necessarily need to make the playoff, but definitely need to have a good season with the draw they received.

Missouri
It’s only fitting to start with the squad that this station covers. The Missouri Tigers have sky-high expectations here on campus and in Columbia coming off an 11-win season capped by a Cotton Bowl victory. The Tigers return a ton on offense (16th in returning production via Bill Connelly), and while they’re replacing some key players on defense, the schedule is one of the easiest SEC schedules possible.

KFord projects the Tigers to have the 32nd hardest schedule in the country which is the easiest in the SEC. Tennessee is the only other SEC team outside of his Top 20.

Eli Drinkwitz’s team should coast through the first four weeks as they won’t leave Columbia until early October when they go to visit Texas A&M in College Station. In the SP+ rankings, there are five SEC teams ranked above Missouri and the only one the Tigers have to play is Alabama. Additionally, SP+ projects the bottom four teams in the SEC to be Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Mississippi State and Arkansas. Missouri gets to play all four of them.

Even if the Tigers lose at Texas A&M and Alabama, if they can beat the teams they’re projected favorites against, a playoff berth is very likely.

SMU
I’ve been back and forth a lot this summer on what to make of this SMU team moving up from the American to the ACC. However, no matter what you think of their roster and how it will transition, the ACC threw them a bone here.

I believe the floor with this SMU team is very high because of the schedule. While they get two Power 4 teams out of conference in BYU and TCU, the new playoff format allows for a non-conference slip-up to not ruin your season. SMU in conference will draw a home game against Florida State and a road test at Louisville, but after that trip to play the Cardinals on October 5th, they could be coasting.

Similar to Missouri in the SEC, the Mustangs play a lot of teams that are at the bottom of the ACC. While the questions about them moving up conferences are fair, their depth is solid for an ACC team. The other factor that we shouldn’t forget is that Preston Stone could be the best quarterback in every game that SMU plays this year. If Stone can win that FSU or Louisville game for them, we could see SMU playing for an ACC title in their first year in the conference.

Virginia Tech

I couldn’t leave out the team that is my personal pick to win the ACC. Virginia Tech started year 2 under Brent Pry in a horrible way. The Hokies were just 1-3 with a loss to Marshall before turning to Kyron Drones to right the ship. While they still got blasted by Florida State and Louisville, this is the most experienced team in the country heading into the season. Drones will be throwing to one of the most underrated receiver groups in the nation and will be backed up by a defense that is destined to improve.

While this article is about the schedules, it’s also about the teams paired with the schedules. Virginia Tech gets an old roster and plays arguably the worst four teams in the league in Stanford, Duke, Virginia and Boston College.

Out of conference, I don’t expect them to have too much of a problem against a Vanderbilt team working in a transfer at quarterback, as well as a Rutgers team that lost its best defensive player for the year to injury.

The games that could determine Virginia Tech’s season are Sep. 27 at Miami and Nov. 9 vs Clemson. If the Hokies can upset one of those teams, they’ll have a real shot at the ACC title game.

Iowa

Finally, we are without divisions in the Big Ten. No more blowouts in Indianapolis and no more Iowa not being able to score in the title game, right? Right? The Hawkeyes are coming off another successful 10-win season despite having the worst offense in the entire country. After bringing in Tim Lester as the offensive coordinator and getting Cade McNamara back at quarterback (and a viable backup in Brendan Sullivan), Iowa should be much improved on that side of the ball.

While you would think a better offense might balance out with no longer playing a Big Ten West schedule, Iowa might as well have been given a Big Ten West schedule. Outside of the trip to Columbus to play Ohio State on the first Saturday of October, there is a chance that Iowa could be favored in 11 games.

Kirk Ferentz will serve a one-game suspension when Iowa opens the season with Illinois State, but he’ll be on the sidelines when the Hawkeyes host the CyHawk game, go to Minnesota and host Washington, Wisconsin and Nebraska. In year one with no divisions, Iowa avoids Michigan, Penn State, Oregon and USC. It’s also great for them that the only real Big Ten contender that they play (Ohio State) is a road game because Iowa would lose that game no matter the location.

We know the defense will be great again, but if Iowa’s offense is simply below average, the Hawkeyes could be 11-1 and end up in Indy for a third time in four seasons.

Ole Miss
This last spot was really tough. I didn’t want to go with a Big 12 team in a conference that will be super high variance, nor did I want to go with a team that will have implied odds of >50% in most seasons to make the College Football Playoff (Penn State). Instead, I went with a team that doesn’t have an easy schedule nationally, but for their conference they do.

Ole Miss spent a ton of money in the portal this offseason to bring in big-time players on defense, and more specifically, on the defensive line. It’s very apparent that Lane Kiffin is trying to get his team physically ready to compete with the big boys in the trenches by bringing in Walter Nolen from Texas A&M and Princely Umanmielen from Florida. It also just so happens that the year that Ole Miss is going all in, they get a relatively easy conference slate.

The Rebels have to play Georgia at home, but avoid Alabama, Texas, Tennessee and Missouri. The road trips in conference for the most part are also manageable. Going to LSU for your 7th game in seven weeks is easily your second hardest game, but Ole Miss also gets Florida at the end of the year off a bye when the Gators’ depth will be depleted. Oklahoma at home is also off a bye for the Rebels, and other than those four games, Lane Kiffin’s squad should be favored pretty heavily in the rest, including a light non-conference slate.

With Jaxson Dart back, a talented receiving group and some major investments in the trenches, don’t be surprised if Ole Miss is playing for an SEC title and making a run in the College Football Playoff.