Clay Travis' Starting 11: Notre Dame Makes A Statement, Clemson Is Toast And So Is Billy Napier

(Editor's Note: This column originally published Sunday morning, and was republished Tuesday with new Nos. 9-11 to account for the LSU-USC game Sunday night and the Florida State-Boston College game Monday night.)

Twenty years ago, in the fall of 2004, I sat down in front of a blank computer screen in the United States Virgin Islands and wrote my first ever article about college football.

I had an audience of zero readers, I was 25 years old, had been married for one month, had zero kids, had a negative net worth, and was waiting to find out whether or not I had passed the bar exam. Much has changed in my life since that day twenty years ago, but as I was watching college football yesterday, it occurred to me that this season probably represents the culmination of truly unbelievable generational change in college football.

In fact, there's a strong argument that the 2024 college football season represents the biggest change to college football in any of our lives. For the first time ever, we will have a 12 team playoff, the Pac 10/12 conference is no more, Texas and Oklahoma are in the SEC, UCLA, USC, Washington and Oregon are in the Big Ten and for the first time in the history of college football, we will crown a truly undisputed champion at the end of a true playoff.

AUSTIN, TEXAS - AUGUST 31: Texas Longhorns fans cheer in the fourth quarter against the Colorado State Rams at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on August 31, 2024 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images)

Back in 2004, we still had the BCS, we could still argue at the end of the year about which teams were better, and, as Auburn fans well know, we could even have a team finish a complete season undefeated and be left out of the title game. (Some Florida State fans would argue not much has changed at all).

Over twenty years later, most quarterbacks in the SEC are being paid more to play college football this season than San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy is to play in the NFL. Think about that for a moment.

Yet some things are never going to change, even if the way we crown a champion and compensate our players may.

Yesterday, twenty years after my first article on college football was published, my three sons were giddily arranging a bevy of laptops, iPads, and old fashioned TV screens to ensure we had the maximum number of games to see all at once from our place down in Florida. I could tell I was in Florida because when I went to place bets yesterday morning I had to log in to the Hard Rock betting app in this state -- Hard Rock has a gambling monopoly in Florida -- and the text message sent to my cell phone to verify my account reflected the last three times I've been in Florida during football season.

(Michael Laughlin/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Gotta always reload the account!

And by the time toe met leather at 11 am central down here, college football, despite all the changes wrought this season, felt, as it always does, timeless.

Because if you, like me, love college football more than any other sport, your life may change, but the sport itself, even as it faces tempest and turmoil the likes of which we truly have never seen, is indestructible and unvanquished. For those of us who were raised on the rhythm of fall Saturdays, the players may change, but all of us, at least on same level, remain the same age, eternally optimists, gazing out on the field convinced we may see something we've never seen before, always and at once, the kids who became adults, but never lost the gleeful feeling of a college football Saturday.

And with that, we're off with the 14th straight season of the Starting 11.

Thank you all for being here, especially some of you who have been reading what I write for twenty years now.

1. Notre Dame is probably going to make the playoff after their win over Texas A&M

I know, I know, it's week one.

And no one ever knows anything after week one in college football, but, seriously, Notre Dame is probably going to make the playoff.

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - AUGUST 31: Jeremiyah Love #4 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish rushes for a 21-yard touchdown against the Texas A&M Aggies in the fourth quarter at Kyle Field on August 31, 2024 in College Station, Texas. (Photo by Jack Gorman/Getty Images)

Look at this remaining schedule for the Fighting Irish: Northern Illinois, at Purdue, Miami of Ohio, Louisville, Stanford, at Georgia Tech, at Navy, Florida State, Virginia, Army, at USC.

It's probable that Notre Dame will be favored in all these games, save, maybe, USC on the road.

Is it possible Notre Dame could lose one of these games, sure. In fact, that may even be likely.

But is it very likely that Notre Dame is going to lose two or more games? I don't think so. And given we now have a 12 team playoff, an 11-1 Notre Dame is definitely in the playoff. And a 10-2 Notre Dame might well be in the playoff too.

So let's not underrate what the Fighting Irish did last night in College Station. With a fourth quarter game tied at 13, in a sweltering, stifling, Aggieland going crazy environment, Notre Dame took complete control of the game and dominated a really talented Aggie defensive line.

Yes, Riley Leonard made some plays with his legs and had a timely third down conversion early in the final Irish drive, but really this was about raw physicality, Notre Dame was the physically and mentally tougher team.

And as a result, you have to make Notre Dame a substantial favorite to make the first 12 team playoff.  

Congrats to Fighting Irish fans.

2. Texas A&M is the most cursed big fan base in college sports

Year after year Aggie fans show up in gargantuan droves and year after year they lose.

I've come to know the Aggie fan base quite well since they've entered the SEC, I love them, they really are a fantastic bunch.

Last night my wife and all three kids were watching and rooting for the Aggies because their fans are so great.

COLLEGE STATION, TEXAS - AUGUST 31: Head coach Marcus Freeman of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and head coach Mike Elko of the Texas A&M Aggies embrace after the game at Kyle Field on August 31, 2024 in College Station, Texas. (Photo by Jack Gorman/Getty Images)

We hung out with them most recently in Omaha, at the College World Series.  

But I'll be damned if what happened in the College World Series isn't a perfect distillation of Aggie fan life. A&M wins game one of the CWS and then leads game two for much of the contest, a national title was achingly close. Then Tennessee pulls away late to win game two, goes on to win a hardfought game three and then TEXAS A&M'S BASEBALL COACH LEAVES FOR TEXAS.

This is like your wife leaving you for your estranged, evil twin brother that you hate.

Aggie fans are the perpetual Charlie Brown of college athletics, just lining up to go kick the football with a big smile on their faces, convincing themselves that Lucy won't yank away the football and then, of course, she does.

Every single time.

Yet they still keep coming, with undiminished enthusiasm, year after year.

A&M's stadium may be the best in college football. Certainly the suites are the best places to watch football anywhere in college sports. The fans don't just show up for the game, tens of thousands of them show up the night before the game to practice cheering for the games.

At midnight.

Even when the game kicks off a few hours later.

I don't know when it's going to happen, but this fan base deserves to win a championship.

Because they really are the most devoted fan base in college sports that never wins anything.

Final salt in the wounds, in addition to not winning championships, the Aggies are now 1-10 all time when College Gameday comes to College Station.

Holy hell, that's almost impossible to believe given the Kyle Field advantage.

3. Georgia is still elite, but Clemson isn't a top 25 program any more

If you wanted to do a business class study on college football because you are a business student who is looking to write about college football instead of some other boring business analysis, Dabo Swinney's decisions since the NIL era began would be a fascinating business study.

Dabo has simply refused to adjust his coaching style even as the business environment around him has completely changed.

ATLANTA, GA - AUGUST 31: A dejected Clemson Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney looks on after the AFLAC Kickoff Game between the Clemson Tigers and the Georgia Bulldogs on August 31, 2024, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. (Photo by Jeffrey Vest/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Dabo is like a silent film star who thinks talking movies are a fad and refuses to adjust his film making style.

I just don't get it.

But the result is pretty clear, Clemson is no longer a top 25 football program. That may sound harsh, but what evidence over the past three seasons, as college football has changed seismically beneath our feet, is there that Dabo's program still matters on  a national level?

Yes, the Tigers still have talent, but even that feels fleeting.

A refusal to compete in the transfer portal and an NIL fund that, to be fair, isn't anywhere near what the top SEC and BIg Ten programs are putting in play, has left Clemson outside the top 25 programs in college football.

Yes, I know, Dabo got incredibly elite quarterbacks back to back in Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence, but even as good as those quarterbacks were there was oodles of talent around them as well.

I get that Dabo wants to do things his way, but the college football paradigm has changed.

And he hasn't evolved.

The genius of Nick Saban's dynasty at Alabama was Saban's willingness to evolve with the game itself. Go back and watch the way Saban won his first title in 2009 and compare it with his final teams. Saban was an old school defensive coach who embraced offensive schemes that, frankly, he probably hated. Because he knew that was how the game was evolving.  

ATLANTA, GEORGIA - DECEMBER 02: Head coach Nick Saban of the Alabama Crimson Tide looks on prior to the SEC Championship game against the Georgia Bulldogs at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 02, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)

And do you think NIck Saban liked wooing 16 and 17 year old kids all the time?

Of course not. But he knew that stocking recruiting talent was his opportunity to build a dynasty, so he recruited like a mad man.

Put simply, Saban did what it took to win, he was willing to change his gameplan when the game evolved.

And, to be fair, when NIL took over, I think Saban saw that his system of getting the best recruits and selling them on the rewards he could provide them at the next level if they bought into his process, was over.

If he'd been 62 instead of 72 I think Saban would have built the best NIL program in the country.

But he just didn't feel like he had the energy.

Even in the end Saban knew himself and the game better than anyone.

He realized what winning was going to take, saw that he didn't have the juice to do that, and left.

Does Dabo have the same ability to evolve? It doesn't appear so.  

Meanwhile, Georgia is still really good.

And Kirby Smart is still rolling.

4. Billy Napier is done at Florida

We'll talk about how good Miami looked in a minute, but I actually think the bigger story to come out of Gainesville was how bad Florida looked.

It's one thing to lose a tough, hard fought game against a team that's better than you at home in week one, it happens. (That's what happened to A&M).

But for Florida to start off year three with Billy Napier and just get its ass kicked in front of a raucous home crowd that wanted to believe the last two years were an aberration, it's just unacceptable.

GAINESVILLE, FL - AUGUST 31:Florida Gators head coach Billy Napier celebrates during a college football game between the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida Gators on August 17, 2024 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL. (Photo by Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

I know it's week one, but Florida isn't going to make a bowl game. The Gators didn't just lose by 24 points at home, they got outgained 529 yards to 261 yards! They lost by 24 and, if anything, the score was still closer than the game.

Honestly, it's just a question of when Napier gets fired at this point. My best guess is after the Kentucky game. Yes, this means I'm predicting Kentucky will beat Florida. There's a bye week then that would allow an interim coach to be appointed.

If not then, let's say the Gators manage to win that Kentucky game at home, I think it happens after the Georgia game.

The only problem is, who wants to step in as the interim with this closing schedule of games: Georgia, at Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, and at Florida State?

Yikes.

Napier is presently 11-15 at Florida, 6-10 in the SEC. He's had back to back losing seasons and a third losing season in a row is almost a certainty now. He's a dead coach walking.

5. Miami looks like the clear class of the ACC

On the first drive of the game, transfer quarterback Cam Ward scrambled for big gains and then slowed down as he jogged out of bounds.

It was a small thing, but I turned to my 13 year old son and said, "He's playing at a different speed than everyone else on Florida's defense and you can already see it."

It was an early preview of a dominant performance, one that given the early season struggles of ACC contenders Florida State, Clemson and Virginia Tech, among others, has elevated the Hurricanes to a substantial favorite to win the ACC and advance to college football's final eight teams. (The conference title bye puts you in the final eight.)

GAINESVILLE, FL - AUGUST 31: Miami Hurricanes running back Mark Fletcher Jr. (4) follows a block for a touchdown during a college football game between the Miami Hurricanes and the Florida Gators on August 17, 2024 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, FL. (Photo by Chris Leduc/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Again, I know, I know, it's early, but one of the lessons of the college football playoff, newly expanded to 12, is it's going to take an elite level quarterback to win titles now.

You will now have to win either three or four playoff games to win a title, the era of a game manager title winning quarterback is over.

I don't believe you'll be able to hide your quarterback, you're going to need an elite quarterback to win those games, just like, to a large extent, what happens in the NFL.  

Just like in the NFL, there will be teams that make the playoffs, but have no real chance to win titles there. Those teams will have decent college quarterbacks. To win titles going forward, I think you're going to need truly elite quarterback play.

Miami appears to have it.

I'm not sure anyone else at the top of the ACC does.

As a result the Canes appear to be the only ACC team capable of not just making the playoff, but winning a game or more when they get there.

6. Alabama is still really good

Yes, Nick Saban is gone as coach, but he didn't leave the cupboard bare.

The Crimson Tide outgained Western Kentucky 600 yards to 145 yards and held the Hilltoppers to 42 yards on 27 rushing attempts.

Jalen Milroe, while still inaccurate downfield passing, looks even faster when he takes off -- witness the rocket flash sprint to the right corner for a touchdown -- he looked like a missile.

TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA - AUGUST 31: Jalen Milroe #4 of the Alabama Crimson Tide drops back to pass during the first half against the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers at Bryant-Denny Stadium on August 31, 2024 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. (Photo by Brandon Sumrall/Getty Images)

While it's hard to judge anyone accurately in week one, the Tide season will come down to these four games: Georgia, at Tennessee, at LSU, and at Oklahoma. (Missouri and Auburn are both tough games too, but I don't think the Tide will lose to either of those teams at home.)

I think Alabama will lose at least two of those four games.

Alabama fans will lose their minds over a two loss regular season, but 10-2 in the SEC should get any SEC team in the playoff.

So if I were a rational Bama fan -- to the extent these exist -- that's what I'd be shooting for in the regular season.

And I also think college football fans in general need to adopt something rare, a willingness to understand that a mult-loss season can still be a title winning one. Because I think that will become common too.  

7. The SEC is stacked with elite offenses, maybe the best collection of elite offenses the league has ever seen

I know many of the SEC schools opened with cupcakes, but some of these offensive performances were pretty incredible, likely leading to the most points scored in a week in league history.

Consider this: Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi State, Alabama, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas and Auburn all scored 50 or more points in week one.

Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Auburn each scored 70 or more and Alabama and Tennessee each scored over 60.

I know the opponents weren't elite, but I suspect these point totals, particularly for Texas, Tennessee, Alabama and Ole Miss are going to continue to rack up huge numbers because all four of these schools have elite college quarterbacks.

We'll see how LSU looks tonight, but if I had to rank the top teams in the SEC, I'd put all four of these teams in my SEC top five -- Georgia is the other one -- based on their week one performances at the most important position in sports.  

8. Nico Iamaleava is the best freshman quarterback for Tennessee since Peyton Manning

It's been thirty years since Peyton Manning made his debut in Knoxville.

Way back in 1994, true freshman Peyton Manning ran on to the Rose Bowl field after starting quarterback Jerry Colquitt tore his ACL on the opening series for Tennessee against UCLA. Colquitt was Heath Shuler's replacement and Manning was supposed to watch from the bench that season.

KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE - AUGUST 31: Nico Iamaleava #8 of the Tennessee Volunteers drops back to pass the ball in the second quarter during their game against the Chattanooga Mocs at Neyland Stadium on August 31, 2024 in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)

But by late September Manning had replaced Todd Helton, yes, that Todd Helton, and would lead Tennessee to a 39-6 four year run. The year after Manning left Tennessee went 13-0, winning a national title and crowning a dominant 52-6 five year era for the Vols.

Peyton's a legend now, but thirty years ago he was just a big, skinny highly touted freshman in Tennessee orange.

Now Nico is the best freshman -- okay, redshirt freshman -- quarterback Tennessee has had since Peyton Manning.

Now, to be fair, no one knows what kind of work ethic Nico will show, we don't know if he can stay healthy, we don't know how much better he can get, all of those things remain uncertain. But I've watched every Tennessee football game since 1985: Nico is the best Vol freshman quarterback since Peyton thirty years ago.

If you doubt me, go back and watch the throws he made yesterday, the ball just zips off his arm, he sees the field incredibly well, he's mobile, he's big, he needs to get much stronger, but if I had to make an analogy, Nico reminds me a great deal of Justin Herbert, except Nico looks like Herbert at the end of his college career instead of at the beginning.

His ceiling is truly incredible.    

So I'm going to do my best to just sit back and enjoy him for the next two years. (I think that's all Tennessee will get from him before he goes pro.)

By the way, if you want to expand your college football business study and give a counter example of a school that has embraced the dynamic change of the NIL era, the anti-Clemson, business study?

There's a strong argument that it's Tennessee.

The Spyre Group, Tennessee's NIL collective, identified Nico as the best quarterback in the country, realized that top quarterbacks can flip a school faster than anything, and did whatever it took to get Nico to Knoxville. Did they have to overpay to get Nico? Probably. But the Vols are 21-6 in their past 27 games under Josh Heupel (11-2, 9-4, 1-0) and if Nico stays healthy the next two years look fantastic for the Vols. What comes after that? Tennessee has the top quarterback in college football committed for 2026 and a five star quarterback committed in the 2025 class too.

The Vols are back among college football's top programs and Clemson has fallen out of it.

Why?

One program embraced NIL and the transfer portal as a gamechanging opportunity and the other program rejected it.

There you go, a fun college assignment for you guys to work through.  

9. UPDATE: Florida State gets trounced on Monday Night by Boston College and USC outlasts a wobbly LSU. 

For a fifth straight season -- and third in a row under Brian Kelly -- LSU lost the opening game of its season. 

And I feel like the most frustrating part to Tiger fans is they let USC off the hook. 

Mid-way through the fourth quarter LSU had just gotten a stop on defense and took possession. (An indefensible unsportsmanlike penalty -- one of several for LSU in the game -- moved the Tigers back to the 21 from the 36 and LSU had the ball here with a 17-13 lead and 8:38 left. 

The game was there for the taking. 

And LSU just choked. 

With 7:42 remaining in the game, LSU had a third and one. The Tigers lined up in the shotgun. (I HATE third and fourth down and short and the shotgun formation, ABSOLUTELY DESPISE IT!) USC stuffed the run attempt and from that point forward the Trojans, for the most part, took over. 

Let's not underrate this, it was huge for Lincoln Riley, especially with the physical manner in which USC won. And it was brutal for Brian Kelly because it echoed the primary criticism of Kelly in his coaching career -- that in big games his teams, all too frequently, just don't play at their highest level. 

The positive for LSU is it's still so early in the year that the Tigers can recover. 

But now it probably takes 7-1 in the SEC to make the playoff. 

Do we feel like LSU will be consistent enough to get there? Especially with Ole Miss, at Texas A&M, Alabama and Oklahoma still on the schedule? (Granted most of LSU's tough games are in Baton Rouge, but still, I feel like two losses loom.) 

As for Florida State, congrats to Boston College, but yikes. 

RELATED: Florida State Had College Football Playoff Hopes Just A Month Ago, Now They’re Just Looking To Win A Game

FSU has become the first top ten team to officially remove itself from playoff contention and Mike Norvell now faces the potential indignity of losing to his former team, Memphis, to fall to 0-3 on September 14th. 

And, I'll be honest, right now Memphis might deserve to be favored in this game. 

10. My Outkick National Top 10 -- with every game played in week one

Reminder, I've been doing this for over a decade, but people still don't understand how it works.

I ONLY RANK TEAMS BASED ON THE WINS ON THE FIELD, NOT BASED ON WHAT I EXPECT TO SEE, BUT WHAT WE ACTUALLY SEE ON THE FIELD.

And I do this by giving the most praise to teams that win against other power conference teams, especially if those wins happen on the road or on neutral sites. And if there aren't many power conference wins to reward, I'll at least reward the teams that dominated FBS teams, given that in week one we saw so many FCS beatdowns as well.

This means my rankings, especially in September, will swing wildly.

With that in mind, here's the first Outkick Top 10.

1. Georgia
2. Miami
3. Notre Dame
4. USC
5. Boston College
6. Georgia Tech
7. Penn State
8. Vanderbilt
9. Alabama
10. Texas

11. SEC power rankings, 1-16

I rank SEC teams in the same way I do my Outkick Top 10, based on the actual on field results.

Do I think Vanderbilt is the second-best team in the SEC? Nope. But did Vanderbilt have the second best win in the SEC on week one so far? Yep.

But, admittedly, given the talent differential in so many of these games, it's almost impossible to rank teams this early.

1. Georgia
2. Vanderbilt
3. Alabama
4. Texas
5. Ole Miss
6. Tennessee
7. Oklahoma
8. Arkansas
9. Missouri
10. Auburn
11. Texas A&M
12. LSU
13. Kentucky
14. Mississippi State
15. South Carolina
16. Florida