Top247 LB Tylen Singleton locks in four official visits

Dec 21, 2023

Who can win a national championship in 2023? 247Sports’ Bud Elliott attempted to answer that question Tuesday morning with the release of his annual blue-chip ratio. That metric is an annual cutoff based on a roster's high school recruiting makeup that says if a team does or does not have the necessary talent to win a national title.

If your roster has over 50% blue chips? Great, you have legitimate championship hopes. If not? Then things are grim. Blue-chip ratio has been accurate every year since Elliott debuted it in 2013. But even he would tell you there have been some scares thinking back to Oregon in 2014 and Clemson in 2015.

"I’ve always thought somebody would bust this," Elliott said. "I think the profile is a team with a first-round type quarterback that has a roster somewhere in the 40s – 40% blue-chip – which suggests they still have plenty of NFL talent on the roster, and they stay really healthy, which means their depth doesn't matter as much as other contenders. Plus, they need to get the right schedule.

Looking toward the 2023 season, these are a few teams that have an outside chance of overcoming the math and breaking blue-chip ratio.

There isn't a more interesting litmus test for blue-chip ratio than Florida State. Not only do the Seminoles have the talent to win a national title, but it's largely been accrued through a non-traditional roster building means: The transfer portal. Florida State has taken double-digit transfers each recruiting cycle under Mike Norvell's watch, completely transforming the roster as a result. Norvell went 3-6 in his first campaign in Tallahassee. Now, Florida State is coming off a 10-3 season and returns more production than any team in the country.

FSU features an elite quarterback (Jordan Travis), high-end skill pieces (Keon Coleman, Johnny Wilson, Trey Benson), an experienced offensive line and plenty of early-round draft picks on defense (Jared Verse, Kalen DeLoach). The Seminoles have all the requisite pieces to make a national title run. Florida State will have to overcome a difficult schedule, which includes games with LSU, Clemson, Miami and Florida in the regular season. But given how open the ACC is annually and that there really isn't a hole on FSU's two deep, the Seminoles seem to be in excellent position to make a run.

Fresh off its best season in 20 years, the Vols are resurgent both on the field and the recruiting trail. Tennessee just landed its first top 10 recruiting class since 2015, bolstering a roster that already brought back more than half of its starters from the 2022 campaign. Will it be difficult to replace Hendon Hooker? Absolutely. But there's a ton of hype around Joe Milton and Josh Heupel's system has proven to successful no matter who's pulling the trigger under center.

Tennessee's 2023 hopes rest on Milton and a new crop of wide receivers maintaining the torrid production Hooker produced a year ago when the offense ranked second nationally in yards per play. Just as critically, the Vols’ defense must take a step forward. That's possible to envision with 70% of its production returning along with reinforcements from the portal and the 2023 class.

Even if the offense maintains its juggernaut status and the defense elevates to another tier, Tennessee's fate is tied to Georgia. The two-time defending champions travel to Knoxville on Nov. 18. That could be one of the biggest games of the season. If the Vols manage to clear that hurdle, their path to a national title is wide open.

There's nothing more important in modern college football than elite quarterback and wide receiver play. The Huskies have both. Michael Penix is among the top returning signal callers in the country, and Rome Odunze and Jalen McMillan are the nation's best wide receiver duo west of Ohio State. That trio returns to front a roster that brings back the 22nd-most production in the FBS.

The big question for Washington is its pass defense. The Huskies’ secondary was carved up last season (111th in opposing passer rating), and they’re hoping key transfer additions like four-star cornerback Jabbar Muhammad (Oklahoma State) can provide a boost.

But offensive firepower goes a long way, and that provides the Huskies a path. Just look at how they handled Texas last year in the Alamo Bowl. Washington will play Oregon, USC and Utah within a four-game stretch from mid-October to early-November. That's the run of the season that will determine just how far this team cam go in 2023.

Why North Carolina? Drake Maye, simple as that.

Maye is arguably the best player in college football. We saw what that meant last year when Maye dragged the Tar Heels to a 9-1 start before the wheels fell off with a four-game losing streak to end the season. With Maye choosing to return in 2023 — and he had some transfer options — North Carolina has to at least be mentioned in any CFB Playoff discussion.

Maye is great. But the Tar Heels’ hopes really rest on a defense that ranked 115th nationally in yards allowed per play a season ago. If that group, which returns eight starters and adds several transfer reinforcements, can be even average, it’d make UNC a legit threat to win the league. North Carolina's schedule is far more challenging in 2023. The Tar Heels draw South Carolina, App State and Minnesota in the non-conference before ending the season with back-to-back road games against Clemson and NC State.

There are a lot of factors that make UNC a bad bet for this list. But when the Tar Heels have a QB of Maye's caliber, they’re always at least going to be in the periphery of the conversation.

I mean … TCU could’ve broken blue-chip ratio this year, right?

The game against Georgia did not go well, but the Horned Frogs shattered a recruiting glass season last season to even play for a national title.

Whether or not TCU can make it back will largely come down to how the offense rebuilds after losing a skill trio (Max Duggan, Kendre Miller, Quentin Johnston) that was one of the nation's best a year ago. There is a ton of optimism in Fort Worth about quarterback Chandler Morris, who, if you forget, started over Duggan to begin the 2022 season before an injury ended Morris’ season prematurely. And TCU did go heavy in the portal at wide receiver and running back to help replace some of its losses.

More than anything, you must wonder if TCU's success in close games will hold. The Horned Frogs were 9-1 last season in games decided by 10 points or less. That's a difficult pace to maintain year over year given how much variance can occur in close matchups.

But given that the Big 12 feels wide open once again, especially with a new quartet of teams entering the league, TCU should at least remain in the national title conversation.

The Utes have won double-digit games three of the last four years – the only time it didn't the Pac-12 played an abbreviated schedule – and return the 16th-most returning production in the FBS, including star quarterback Cameron Rising. The Utes also loaded up in the transfer portal, adding a four-star transfer on every level of the defense, which should help a unit that quietly failed to live up to its usual standard (88th nationally in yards allowed per play) a season ago.

The Utes are also getting more talented. They landed a program-best 21st overall class in 2023 and have now stacked four straight top 35 classes atop each other. This is no longer one of the least talented teams in the Pac-12 outperforming expectations.

One thing is for sure: If Utah reaches the CFB Playoff, it will have earned it, because its schedule is torturous. The Utes play Florida, Baylor, UCLA and Oregon State in September while also drawing the trio of Oregon, Washington and USC later in the year. That schedule may end up being disqualifying for Utah's chances of pushing into the national title picture. But Kyle Whittingham has built a roster and a culture of winning where a CFB Playoff push would no longer feel like a surprise.