Our projection model and Las Vegas agree about the 2024 college football season.
Mostly, anyway.
The gap between FBS teams’ predicted win total in betting markets and our TRACR projection system is an average of 0.15 wins. But TRACR projects 17 teams to be at least 1.5 wins worse than their Vegas (via FanDuel) preseason total and projects another 11 to be at least 1.5 wins better.
TRACR combines play data from the prior season with adjustments for recruiting class rankings, transfer portal additions, and other offseason roster turnover. It also accounts for each team’s strength of schedule (both last year and this year) and then reaches a wins projection for 2024.
No computer knows everything about the season’s twists and turns to come. But let’s dig into some cases in which TRACR expects FBS teams to vastly outperform what betting markets think of them.
In the run-up to kickoff, we’ll look at teams the model sees underperforming. We’ll also get into the new College Football Playoff projections and see what TRACR tells us about the nation’s conference championship races.
First, though: Where does TRACR see overachievers?
Let’s pick out a handful of the most interesting cases on this list.
Notable Overachievers
Colorado: 4.5 wins (Vegas) vs. 7.3 wins (TRACR)
Deion Sanders’ first year was exciting until it wasn’t. A 3-0 start gave way to a 4-8 total record, and then Sanders executed his second transfer portal makeover of the program in as many offseasons.
The Buffaloes will still have lots of hype around them, because hype follows their coach wherever he goes. But the TRACR model feels pretty good about Prime’s program, seeing an 85.7% chance of bowl eligibility. Colorado hasn’t played in a bowl since the 2020 COVID season and hasn’t won one, incredibly enough, since the 2004 Houston Bowl. A return to the postseason would be a nice start.
Is it possible that fatigue with Sanders has caused bettors to boomerang all the way around, from overrating the Buffs in 2023 to sleeping on them a bit in 2024? It’s worth at least considering.
Shedeur Sanders is one of the best returning quarterbacks in the country, and Travis Hunter is both one of the best cornerbacks and better wideouts. TRACR projects CU to have the 41st-best offense and 35th-best defense. Those aren’t sparkling numbers but would be indicative of a solid all-around team.
Florida: 4.5 wins (Vegas) vs. 6.1 wins (TRACR)
If betting markets are right and the Gators are a four- or five-win team, then coach Billy Napier is almost certainly in his last year in Gainesville. If the Gators overachieve and make a bowl game, then Napier’s future might still be unsettled, but at least he’ll have given himself a fighting chance to stick around.
TRACR gives the Gators a 65.3% chance of reaching the six-win threshold, and even a 16.0% chance of qualifying for the 12-team CFP in its first year. Or, of course, things could go badly.
Bettors might just be bearish on Napier – and understandably so, after a couple of underwhelming seasons to start his tenure. But TRACR projects the Gators to have the seventh-best defense in the country, and that could make for a decent team if Florida’s offense (42nd) plays to projections.
Super senior quarterback Graham Mertz is probably a known quantity, but he quietly improved last season and might have a bit more to offer Napier and company if they turn him loose downfield more often.
Oregon State: 7.5 wins (Vegas) vs. 9.4 wins (TRACR)
The Beavers are a difficult projection case for humans this year, because they’re effectively playing in a new league. The Pac-12 is just a carcass containing OSU and rival Washington State, and both of those teams will play a Mountain West schedule after losing most of their star players to transfer or the NFL.
Betting markets think those departures will hurt the program more than our model does.
TRACR is more optimistic than bettors that new coach Trent Bray can string together a strong season. Bowl eligibility shouldn’t be in doubt (a 99.7% chance), but Oregon State would be an interesting CFP case if it could somehow run the gauntlet against a pseudo-conference schedule.
TRACR gives the Beavs a 2.5% chance of going undefeated, and that would create the year’s weirdest bit of playoff tension: The Pac-12 won’t have a championship game, so an unbeaten Oregon State wouldn’t qualify for the non-power conferences’ automatic bid.
The selection committee would not take an unbeaten, at-large Oregon State, but it would be fun to watch the committee squirm a bit.
Georgia State: 4.5 wins (Vegas) vs. 7.3 wins (TRACR)
Georgia State’s 2.8-win delta between markets and our projections is the widest of any team. Maybe unsurprisingly, the Panthers have a new head coach (longtime Georgia assistant Dell McGee), and the public expectation is that they’re embarking on a rebuild after Shawn Elliott could never exceed mediocrity in an ascendant Sun Belt.
TRACR thinks there’s an 87.0% chance that the Panthers make a bowl in McGee’s first year. Elliott won six regular season games last year, and TRACR sees an improvement.
Maybe that’s reasonable. The Panthers lost their two best skill position weapons to transfer (running back Marcus Carroll to Missouri and receiver Robert Lewis to Auburn), but McGee has talented depth at linebacker and defensive back.
State’s nonconference schedule features two Power Four games, but neither opponent (cross-town foe Georgia Tech, or Vanderbilt) is unbeatable.
Utah State: 5.5 wins (Vegas) vs. 7.5 wins (TRACR)
This might be the TRACR projection that warrants the most skepticism. The model is very wise, but it doesn’t know everything, and one of its blind spots is a coaching change right before the season.
USU fired coach Blake Anderson in July after a Title IX investigation, leaving the program in the hands of an interim coach (defensive coordinator Nate Dreiling) and Anderson’s former players with a mountain of disruption ahead of the season. The Aggies won six regular season games a year ago and were active in the portal, but they have not had the preseason of a team that’s likely to overachieve.
Then again: Northwestern fired Pat Fitzgerald around the same time last year, then turned in one of the most shockingly impressive seasons in recent memory under interim coach David Braun. Utah State’s goal in 2024 should be to emulate Northwestern.
It’s not often said in football, but it’s true.
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