Potential end of Pac-12 increases JMU’s playoff odds
At the beginning of the day on Aug. 4, the Pac-12 expected to have nine members in 2024. By the end of the day, the conference had four.
The conference, which has existed in some form since 1915, might not survive past next season in its current state. One less Power 5 conference existing wouldn’t have been as significant when JMU officially joined the Sun Belt last summer. But it is once you consider that 2024 will also mark the first year of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff.
Under the new format, the top six conference champions will make the cut, alongside six at-large teams. The new system guarantees at least one program from a non-autonomous conference would make the playoffs, but without the Pac-12, that number bumps up to two.
While there is some optimism about a Pac-12 rebound — namely, by merging with the Mountain West or poaching from American Athletic Conference (AAC) or Sun Belt programs — the four remaining Pac-12 schools, Stanford, California, Oregon State and Washington State, have been exploring exit options. Stanford and Cal have been linked to the ACC, though that move has hit “significant roadblocks,” ESPN reported Aug. 9.
At Sun Belt Media Days on July 26, just over a week before the Pac-12’s demise seemed imminent, Commissioner Keith Gill pointed out how the expanded playoff could allow for multiple teams from non-autonomous conferences to qualify.
Going into the week after conference championships in 2020, No. 6 Cincinatti, the AAC champs, and No. 9 Coastal Carolina, the Sun Belt champs, would’ve made the playoffs over Mountain West winner and No. 19 San Jose State — ironically another non-autonomous conference champ — if that year followed the new format. The lowest-ranked Power 5 champion in 2020 was Oregon at No. 25.
“There’s an opportunity that rather than being pigeon-holed into one spot we’re all competing for, if we have great years, we might be able to bump the ACC or someone else,” Gill said to The Breeze at media days. “I think it makes it more open and better from a competitive standpoint.”
Enter JMU.
In just its first year in the Sun Belt, the Dukes established themselves as a future conference contender, finishing first in the East Division at 8-3 (6-2 Sun Belt) and cracking the AP Top 25 after their 5-0 start. This season, Sun Belt coaches pegged JMU to repeat as East Division champions.
It’s very plausible that JMU will be in contention for the conference championship once they become eligible in 2024, when a title could put them right in the College Football Playoff. Now, the hard part is finishing the year as one of the top two non-autonomous champions.
The Sun Belt is not a cakewalk by any means — in the aforementioned preseason poll, the top four teams in the east — JMU (78), App State (75), Coastal Carolina (71) and Marshall (68) — finished within 10 voting points of each other, and the first-place Dukes were still 14 points behind 2022 Sun Belt champion Troy, which is projected to finish first in the west.
The Dukes not only have to win the competitive Sun Belt to make the playoffs, but they also have to finish as either the first- or second highest-ranked non-autonomous conference champion. And history, believe it or not, is on JMU’s side. Since 2019, the Sun Belt winner has finished as the second highest-ranked non-autonomous champion for four straight years.
However difficult, this playoff scenario is much more realistic for JMU than what it is in the four-team format. The only team from a non-autonomous conference to ever make the College Football Playoff was Cincinnati in 2021, and it required going undefeated in the regular season and beating both Indiana and then-No. 9 Notre Dame on the road.
“The thing that’s hard is that the year that Cincinnati had, they had to be perfect,” Gill said. “So, it really does make it, I don’t want to say impossible because they did it, but UCF [of the AAC] went undefeated several times [2017 and 2018] too and didn’t get in, and so it just shows you how hard it is.”
Ultimately, JMU’s path to the College Football Playoff is still difficult, as it is for every team in the FBS. However, the expanded playoff format has made a potential run possible, and the possible end of the Pac-12 will only improve JMU’s chances. Whether or not the Dukes can capitalize in 2024 and beyond? Only time will tell.
