College football has seen its last undefeated national champion, Texas coach warns

College football last crowned an undefeated national champion two years ago, when Michigan went a perfect 15-0, but that could be the last time we see a team run the table all the way through the playoff.

That’s the opinion of Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian, who believes the major changes the sport is undergoing could make it a logistical impossibility for a team to go wire to wire without a loss.

“The idea I think we’ve all gotta wrap our brain around, I don’t know if we’ll ever see an undefeated national champion again,” Sarkisian said at the SEC spring meetings.

“If we do, that’s a really good team. Because it’s just so difficult. It’s difficult, yes, because of the quality of opponents you play. But it’s so difficult to stay healthy that long.”

The expanded College Football Playoff ensures that the best teams will play longer seasons than most programs have ever played in a given year.

With that extra exposure to opponents, teams will see more injuries late in the season.

“I mean, you’re going to have teams in years like we had last year, where you lose your starting quarterback,” Sarkisian said.

“How do you respond to your quarterback being down? Or you lose both your left tackles. That happened to us last year.”

Ohio State was the first two-loss team to win the national title since LSU in 2007.

“I think you’re going to see teams more and more now with two losses, three losses, maybe even four losses that get in,” Sarkisian said.

By expanding the College Football Playoff, every season’s national champion will have to play at least three quality opponents very late in the year.

And that’s after going through the regular season. And likely the conference championship game.

Now, with credible talk around the playoff expanding to 14 or 16 teams, college football’s postseason is poised to get even longer.

“The idea that somebody’s going to go 16-0 in college football, man, put a statue up somewhere of that team,” Sarkisian said.

“Because I just don’t know if that’s going to happen again.”

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