The 2018 college football season is underway, marking the fifth-year of the College Football Playoff Era. The road to the national championship game played in January in Santa Ana will run through the reigning champions, the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Alabama proved the majority of experts’ preseason projections right last season by winning the national championship, with a difficult path which included surviving a selection committee and turning to a true freshman quarterback in the national championship game. 

Under Nick Saban, arguably the best coach in college football history, the Crimson Tide would have won the last five out of nine championship games, and two in the playoff era. They should make a deep run around championship-game savior, Tua Tagovailoa if he starts the season, but can also go with Hurts returning as well. The Crimson Tide also have one of the easiest schedules, as they will not play a ranked team for their first eight games.

In addition to Alabama, Clemson, Georgia and Ohio State seem to be favorites to go to the playoff, with Penn State, Washington, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin in the conversation.

Clemson may very well be the best overall team in college football. Their defensive line will be the best unit in the country led by Christian Wilkins and Dexter Lawrence. Aside from their dominant defense, Clemson is going to get better quarterback play than last year because either Kelly Bryant will improve or freshman quarterback Trevor Lawrence will take over as the starter for the Tigers.

Georgia lost the national championship game last season to Alabama in a thrilling overtime game, 26-23. They’ve lost key players Nick Chubb, Sony Michel and Roquan Smith, but they will be led by a more experienced quarterback in Jake Fromm in his second season.

Ohio State may have slimmer chances of making the playoffs now that head coach Urban Meyer will be suspended for the first three games against Oregon State, Rutgers, and TCU. They’ll be led on offense by sophomore quarterback Dwyane Haskins who was an important recruit by Meyer and sophomore running back JK Dobbins. Nick Bosa will lead a strong Buckeyes defense with Jordan Fuller leading the secondary.

The Heisman race should be intriguing this year with many strong candidates. Seven of the last eight winners have been quarterbacks and that trend can certainly be followed with Tagovailoa, Will Grier (if he can stay healthy and win enough games this season with the Mountaineers) or  Trace Mcsorley of Penn State.

Stanford running back Bryce Love finished second in the voting last season to Baker Mayfield and will be returning for his senior year, looking to eclipse more rushing yards than last season (2,118) a season in which he posted the highest average yards-per-carry (8.1) of all running backs. Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor is another back in the conversation, nearly eclipsing 2,000 rushing yards last season with 13 touchdowns. Wisconsin was one possession away from beating Ohio State last season and landing in the college football playoff with an undefeated record.

There are many head coaches to keep an eye out on this season as well. Chip Kelly is returning to college football for the UCLA Bruins, and former NFL coach Herm Edwards returns to coaching for the Arizona State Wildcats. It will be interesting to see how Scott Frost and the Nebraska Cornhuskers do after his 13-0 season last year at Central Florida.

Gus Malzahn of Auburn, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh, second-year LSU coach Ed Orgeron, and Texas Tech’s Kliff Kingsbury are all coaches to keep an eye out on that may be on the hot seat if they don’t meet this season’s expectations.

Some games to look forward to this regular season include Ohio State and Penn State and Michigan and Michigan State out of the Big 10, Florida and Mississippi State, PAC-12 rivals UCLA and Oregon as well as a non-conference matchup between Auburn and Washington.