NCAA Football: South Carolina at Florida
USATSI

Every season, it feels as though it becomes a little easier to predict the teams that will reach the College Football Playoff. Look at Georgia and its 2023 schedule, for example. How many meteors would have to hit Athens, Georgia, before you felt confident saying the Bulldogs won't reach the CFP this season?

Then there are the usual suspects like Alabama, Clemson, Michigan and Ohio State. You can safely assume that in most seasons at least two or three of those teams will make it. However, this is still college football, and even with the predictability of the national title picture, a little chaos must fall into every season.

There are always moments that disrupt the bigger picture, but what teams will do so? To figure it out, I went through the schedules of the 20 schools with the best title odds for the 2023 season to find the opponents that appeared the most often. I then chose the five "Chaos Agents" among them.

The rules were simple: I couldn't pick any of the 20 "favorites," but I had to pick teams that actually had a chance to win one of their games against the big dogs. In the end, these five schools aren't likely to reach the CFP but have the best chance of playing an outsized role in determining who does.

Auburn

Auburn is a chaos team in perpetuity for both on- and off-field reasons. My expectation for the Tigers in 2023 is that things will be smoother on the field. Hugh Freeze is in charge now instead of Bryan Harsin, so the likelihood of a coup attempt decreases to 20%, which is very low on The Plains. It'll drop even lower if the Tigers can pull off one or two of the upsets presented to them this season.

Auburn is in the position of having annual rivalry games against Alabama and Georgia, which means it always has a shot to destroy somebody's season these days. However, this year the Tigers have games against Texas A&M and LSU. Both will be on the road, while Georgia and Alabama are at home. What truly stands out about Auburn's schedule is how relentless it is. While the Iron Bowl finishes the regular season, the Tigers will play at Texas A&M, at home against Georgia and at LSU in consecutive games (with a bye between Georgia and LSU). It's hard to imagine anybody having a tougher three-game stretch than that.

Baylor

The Bears don't have a schedule that's as top-heavy as Auburn's, but it's a slate with ample opportunity to destroy a season. The Bears get future Big 12 conference mate Utah at home in the second week of the season, and the Utes have won the Pac-12 (RIP) in each of the last two seasons. While they're yet to crack through to reach the playoff, the hope of doing so remains and a loss to Baylor would likely crush it.

Then there are conference games against Texas, Kansas State and TCU, the latter two of which are on the road. And before you tell me that Kansas State can't reach the CFP, remember that you'd have said the same thing about TCU last season, and the Frogs reached the national title game without winning the Big 12. Kansas State did.

Colorado

Speaking of TCU, we now turn our attention to the Horned Frogs' Week 1 opponent. Have you heard any buzz about Colorado during the offseason? Yeah, I know I said that to be included on this list, you need to be a team capable of winning some of these big games, and I know I'm stretching the definition a bit with the Buffs. Yes, Deion Sanders has brought a lot of talent to Boulder, but the depth of this roster may not be enough in the long run.

It could be enough for one day, though, and Colorado will get plenty of shots. I mentioned the opener against TCU, but Colorado also faces Oregon, USC and Utah. Deion Sanders didn't earn the nickname "Prime Time" because he likes to shy away from the spotlight, and there's nothing he'd love more than to wreck somebody's season.

Florida

Billy Napier's first season at Florida did not go as well as hoped, and to be blunt, I don't know that 2023 will be much better from a win-loss standpoint. However, while the Gators might have a long, arduous journey ahead to catch Georgia in the SEC East (as well as newly-ascendant Tennessee), they'll get plenty of bites at the upset apple.

Of the 20 teams with the best odds of winning a title, Florida appears on the schedule of five. That's a quarter of them, and it's the most of any team in the country. The Gators open the year with Utah (everybody is playing Utah this year, apparently) and get Tennessee at home in Week 3. They're then in Jacksonville after a bye in late October to face Georgia before hitting the road to throw down with LSU two weeks later. They'll finish the regular season back in Gainesville against Florida State. So, as you can see, there are plenty of reasons to think Florida's record won't improve much this season that have nothing to do with the roster. It's the schedule. It's mean.

Michigan State

Michigan State has been pretty chaotic over the last few years. The Spartans exceeded everybody's expectations in 2021 by going 11-2 and winning the Peach Bowl. With expectations raised last year, they crashed and burned with a 5-7 record and no bowl appearance. In my estimation, the real Michigan State falls somewhere between those records, and I believe it'll surpass expectations again this year.

And it could do so by pulling off an upset. As a member of the soon-to-be-extinct Big Ten East, the Spartans will play Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State. However, they also have a nonconference game against a Washington team that should contend for a Pac-12 title and possibly its second appearance in the College Football Playoff. The Huskies beat the Spartans 39-28 last season, but the game was played in Seattle. This year, it's the Huskies flying across the country (better get used to that) to play in East Lansing.