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After the first three weeks of the college football season, how many teams can still make the College Football Playoff?
ESPN analyst Greg McElroy broke that down this week on his Always College Football show, putting playoff contenders in six groups ranging from Group 1 (lock for the playoff) to Group 6 (one-loss teams, but do have the horses to run the table).
Right now, Georgia is the only team that McElroy has in Group 1.
Clemson (2-1, 0-1 ACC) landed in McElroy’s aforementioned Group 6 alongside Alabama, LSU and Texas A&M.
“Here are four teams right now that I think have one loss that still could make a legitimate run because they have good personnel,” McElroy said. “They have really good personnel, there’s still quality on these rosters, but they’ve got to figure it out and they’ve got to tweak some things and they’ve got to find themselves, and they better find themselves quickly because each of these four teams have some difficult games coming up in the weeks to come.”
McElroy believes LSU is the best of the bunch among those one-loss teams, while he said Clemson, Alabama and Texas A&M “are all kind of mixed together because all have had very disappointing performances.”
Of course, Clemson’s season got off to a disappointing start at Duke on Sept. 4, when the Blue Devils handed the Tigers a 28-7 upset loss.
Clemson has since bounced back with home wins vs. Charleston Southern and FAU over the last two weeks, and the Tigers are now set for a huge test against the fourth-ranked Florida State Seminoles (3-0, 1-0 ACC) on Saturday at Death Valley.
McElroy explained why he grouped Clemson among the one-loss teams that can still put it all together and be really dangerous for every team that’s left on their schedule.
“I know I watched the Duke game,” McElroy said. “Defensive front seven, I think that group’s still really good. Defensive back end, not bad, improving. Cade Klubnik, the last two weeks, improving. Receivers, still not totally sold on what they have from a depth standpoint, but I do think they have some top-line guys, and if they can figure out a way to be a little more consistent pushing the ball down the field, I think they can beat every single team on their schedule. I really believe that. Now, they’re going to have to play a whole heck of a lot better, but it can happen.”