How chaos could reign over the 2021 college football season

Bill Connelly is a staff writer for ESPN.com.

Let’s face it: College football has a bit of a chaos problem at the moment. As in, a lack thereof.

The current ruling class is ruling a bit more than usual. Alabama has won six of the past 12 national titles and five of the past seven SEC titles and hasn’t finished outside of the top 10 since 2007. Clemson has six straight ACC titles and top-five finishes nationally. Oklahoma has won six straight Big 12s, and Ohio State has won four straight Big Tens with seven straight top-six finishes.

Those four teams have occupied 20 of 28 total College Football Playoff slots thus far, and oh, hey look, they occupy the top four spots in this year’s preseason AP poll.

This phenomenon is not particularly new, of course. College football has always been ruled by an oligarchy. USC enjoyed seven straight top-five finishes from 2002 through 2008; Florida State had 14 straight from 1987 through 2000; Miami had seven straight with three national titles from 1986 through 1992; and so on. And if you choose a top-10 poll from the 1970s at random, some combination of Alabama, USC, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Michigan, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Penn State and Texas are probably occupying at least seven of the spots.

There have always been blips to break up the monotony, however. In 1976, in the middle of the bluest of blue-blood decades, Pitt jumped from 8-4 to 12-0 and stomped Notre Dame and Penn State on the way to the national title. As the balance of power shifted during the early 1980s, BYU won the title in a particularly chaotic 1984. In 1990, smack in the middle of the Miami-FSU era, Georgia Tech and a Colorado team with multiple blemishes split the title.

And then, of course, there was 2007. Appalachian State beat Michigan; Stanford beat USC as a 41-point underdog; Illinois beat Ohio State; LSU lost twice in triple OT; seven No. 2 teams lost; the top two teams lost in the same weekend three times; and we headed into championship weekend looking at a possible Missouri-West Virginia national title game. (We got LSU-Ohio State instead, but still.)

Even in times of rigid oligarchy, we end up with great moments and outstanding games. But the blip seasons give us life. They remind every fan base to keep paying attention, just in case. And no matter how predictable this era of college football might feel, they will happen again.

Will we get 2007-level chaos in 2021? It’s hard to say yes, but then again we never see them coming in advance, do we? Let’s review the road map to chaos, just in case.

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