College Football Playoff crashers: Florida, Boise State among unranked teams that could fight for CFP berth
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- Florida under new coach Jon Sumrall enters with an unsettled quarterback battle between Georgia Tech transfer Aaron Philo and Tramell Jones, but returns a deep receiving corps and a roster Sumrall has supplemented through the transfer portal; the Gators face Georgia, Texas, Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Missouri in hostile road environments.
- Boise State returns quarterback Maddux Madsen plus running backs Dylan Riley and Sire Gaines as the Broncos move into the rebuilt Pac-12, positioning them as the Group of Six's top CFP contender after a manageable early-season slate.
- Oklahoma State essentially rebuilt its roster under first-year coach Eric Morris, welcoming 75 new players and adding North Texas transfer Drew Mestemaker, who led the FBS with 4,379 passing yards last season.
- TCU coach Sonny Dykes — who took the Horned Frogs from unranked to the 2022 national championship game — brings Harvard transfer Jaden Craig (2,869 yards, 25 touchdowns) at quarterback with new coordinator Gordon Sammis, formerly of UConn.
- South Carolina hired Kendal Briles as offensive coordinator to fix an attack that surrendered 42 sacks last season, adding eight veteran offensive linemen to protect quarterback LaNorris Sellers as sixth-year coach Shane Beamer faces pressure after a 4-8 collapse.
- Virginia under Tony Elliott follows last season's 11-win breakthrough, 7-1 ACC finish and ACC Championship Game appearance with Penn State transfer Beau Pribula at quarterback, entering 2025 expecting to contend rather than hoping to surprise.
- The source notes that across the last 32 years of the AP poll, at least one team that started a season unranked finished inside the top 10 at year's end — evidence that the opportunity for these six programs is real.
Why it matters: In the expanded 12-team CFP era, the source argues "one hot month can change everything," and the six crashers profiled face very different paths to December. Florida and Oklahoma State play the toughest schedules (five ranked SEC road games for the Gators alone), while Boise State and Virginia control their own Group of Six and ACC destinies respectively. The selection committee has more at-large berths to fill, which materially raises the ceiling for any program that gets hot — even one starting outside the AP Top 25.
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