12-Team Playoff System to Debut in 2024, Will Finally Give Razorbacks Shot at Title

How would past years have played out if system had been around when Arkansas had strong football teams?

FAYETTEVILLE – Other than for a fleeting moment under the lights of Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1998, Arkansas has never felt like a legitimate threat for a shot at a national championship since the NCAA decided to start having teams play for a legitimate title in the '90s.

Yes, there was a good year under Petrino where there was technically a path, but everyone knew going in that at the end of that path was Nick Saban and Alabama, so it wasn't really something people truly believed. 

Even after a drubbing from the fighting Sabans, there was still supposed to be a way, but No. 1 LSU dropped the hammer, giving the Razorbacks a pair of blowout losses.

Arkansas was third in the SEC West behind national champion Alabama and SEC champion/national runner-up LSU, yet still good enough to easily bounce No. 8 Kansas St., but what was that worth in those days?

While there wasn't a way for Arkansas to make national championship noise in either of those years, beginning in 2024, it looks like that's going to change. 

The Grumpy Grandaddy of them all, the Rose Bowl, finally decided to stop telling schools not in the Pac 12 and Big Ten to get off its lawn, thus clearing the way for a 12-team college football playoff.

The inaugural first round will begin the weekend before Christmas in 2024 with teams seeded Nos. 5 through 12 playing the first weekend before the top four teams join them in Week 2. 

But what if the NCAA had gone with a 12-team playoff from the outset instead of beginning with the BCS title games that eventually evolved into the current four-team playoffs? How might that have shaken out for the Razorbacks?

2011

After losing to No. 1 LSU to close the regular season, Arkansas fell to No. 6 in the country once the championship games were all settled. This would have placed the Razorbacks against the No. 11 seed. 

Arkansas would have face an 11-2 Virginia Tech team that year. That would have meant a showdown with a Hokies team that was blown out twice by No. 21 Clemson before closing the year with a loss to No. 13 Michigan in the Sugar Bowl.

The games would have shaken out like this:

No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 12 Baylor [Winner faces No. 4 Stanford]

No. 6 Arkansas vs. No. 11 Virginia Tech [Winner faces No. 3 Oklahoma St.]

No. 7 Boise St. vs. No. 10 Wisconsin [Winner faces No. 2 Alabama]

No. 8 Kansas St. vs. No. 9 South Carolina [Winner vs. No. 1 LSU]

Had Arkansas won, the Hogs would have faced an Oklahoma St. team that was a double-overtime loss to Iowa St. from being undefeated. This included an eventual win over No. 4 Stanford in the Fiesta Bowl.

While that sounds daunting for one of the most talented Arkansas teams to ever take the field, it should be noted that the Cowboys struggled to take down Kansas St., 52-45; the same Wildcats team the Razorbacks easily dispatched in the Cotton Bowl back when bowl games still kinda mattered.

While it would have been a fun ride, things would have most likely ended where the SEC season began, with a loss to Alabama that would have propelled the Hogs to a national version of the SEC West standings with them at No. 3 behind LSU and Alabama once again.

1998

This particular year is one Arkansas fans will never forget. 

When the BCS rankings came out in Week 10, the first year college football set out on the grand experiment of having an actual national champion, an 8-0 Razorback team in its first year under Houston Nutt, had climbed to No. 7 heading into its showdown with No. 1 Tennessee. 

Things were rolling along swimmingly. All Arkansas had to do was run out the clock and take down Mississippi State the following week and the Hogs were going to be an undefeated SEC West champion bound for the SEC championship game.

That was when Brandon Burlsworth accidentally stepped on quarterback Clint Stoerner's foot on 2nd & 12 with 1:47 to play. 

Had Arkansas been fortunate enough for Stoerner to simply fall to the ground, the Razorbacks likely would have escaped. However, the typically reliable signal caller tried to keep his balance using the football and lost control, allowing Tennessee to recover at the Arkansas 44 with the Hogs clinging to a 24-22 lead.

Travis Henry then mercilessly pounded the Razorback defense with big run after big run before the Volunteers put it away with a touchdown. 

Arkansas fell to No. 9 and would have been in position to make the theoretical playoff had Nutt not decided to put his kicker in mothballs for a week, leading to a 22-21 upset at the hands of Mississippi St. 

The loss not only cost the Razorbacks a rematch with Tennessee in the SEC championship game, it dropped them to No. 13 in the final BCS rankings, which means there's no need to look for Arkansas in the 1998 brackets below as the Hogs would be first team out.

The games would have shaken out like this:

No. 5 UCLA vs. No. 12 Virginia [Winner faces No. 4 Ohio St.]

No. 6 Texas A&M vs. No. 11 Nebraska [Winner faces No. 3 Kansas St.]

No. 7 Arizona vs. No. 10 Tulane [Winner faces No. 2 Florida St.]

No. 8 Florida vs. No. 9 Wisconsin [Winner vs. No. 1 Tennessee]

2006

While 1998 might be a surprise to Arkansas fans as far as the Razorbacks missing a 12-team playoff, the 2006 season might be a surprise in the other direction as the Hogs squeeze in this theoretical rewriting of history.

This was the year where the Houston Nutt, Gus Malzahn, Springdale Five drama overshadowed everything in a season that began with USC hanging half a hundred on Arkansas before a 3-game losing streak to Top 10 teams that included an upset loss to No. 9 LSU, a defeat in the SEC championship game against Tim Tebow and future national champion Florida, and a disappointing 17-14 loss to Bret Bielema's Wisconsin team in the Capital One Bowl back when Big Ten teams couldn't buy a win against SEC schools.

Because of how negatively that season is viewed, it probably wasn't top of mind when fans think about what years may have been a playoff possibility. Despite tumbling from the No. 5 spot in the final week of the regular season, Arkansas finished No. 12 in the final BCS standings used to determine bowl assignments back then. 

This means Arkansas gets in. However, the fates were kind by not allowing a playoff system to be in place at the time as Nutt would have led his dysfunctional locker room against No. 5 USC for the second time that year, this time at USC.

The games would have shaken out like this:

No. 5 USC vs. No. 12 Arkansas [Winner faces No. 4 LSU]

No. 6 Louisville vs. No. 11 Notre Dame [Winner faces No. 3 Michigan]

No. 7 Wisconsin vs. No. 10 Oklahoma [Winner faces No. 2 Florida]

No. 8 Boise St. vs. No. 9 Auburn [Winner vs. No. 1 Ohio St.]

Of course, it should be noted that one of the most iconic moments in college football history, the Boise St. Fiesta Bowl upset of Oklahoma followed by a marriage proposal by a player on the field, would not have happened.

2010

While most fans remember the 2011 season because of the Top 5 finish, it's often forgotten that Arkansas managed two Top 10 finishes in back-to-back seasons. 

In 2010, the mighty Petrinos rounded out the season at No. 8 in what would have been their greatest opportunity to win a national championship of the modern era.

The Hogs took down Georgia between the hedges, had No. 1 Alabama on the ropes in a close loss and led eventual national champion Auburn 43-37 in the fourth quarter on the road with back-up quarterback Tyler Wilson in for Ryan Mallett, who was injured in the first half. Unfortunately for the Razorbacks, Cam Newton decided to make sure everyone know he would like to be a Heisman candidate with 28 unanswered points in what was left of the fourth quarter.

That being said, there was no team in America that Arkansas couldn't beat that year on the right day in the right environment. The Razorbacks would have opened as the No. 9 seed against a Michigan State team that went on to lose to Alabama 49-7. 

That would have set up a rematch with Auburn with Mallet fully healthy.

 The games would have shaken out like this:

No. 5 Wisconsin vs. No. 12 Missouri [Winner faces No. 4 Stanford]

No. 6 Ohio St. vs. No. 11 LSU [Winner faces No. 3 TCU]

No. 7 Oklahoma vs. No. 10 Boise St. [Winner faces No. 2 Oregon]

No. 8 Arkansas vs. No. 9 Michigan St. [Winner vs. No. 1 Auburn]

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