We’re now less than 100 days from the start of the 2024 college football season. Excitingly, this season marks the beginning of a new era for the sport, which has seen more changes in recent years than in decades. Notably, this year will feature the launch of a new 12-team College Football Playoff to determine the national champion.
Never before will there be so many schools given the opportunity to determine the best team in college football. No longer will undefeated seasons or one-loss teams be the only ones to have the chance to challenge for the sport’s greatest prize. Now there’s a chance we could see teams with as many as three losses as part of the 12-team field.
While this has created mixed reviews, it does have to excite a lot of universities whose teams have always felt like they were on the outside looking in. And now, especially with the way rosters can be flipped upside down due to the transfer portal, the opportunity for a dark horse team to go in and make some noise is a real possibility.
Two teams that should be dark horse candidates are the Tennessee Volunteers and Miami Hurricanes.
Since Josh Heupel arrived in Knoxville back in 2021, he’s made the Vols a real threat in the SEC again. The 2022 Tennessee football team surprised everyone when, at one point, they were ranked as the top team in the country. They eventually finished 11-2 with an Orange Bowl win.
