2023 College Football Playoff predictions, championship picks, conference champions

Winning the national title is about following the recipe Big Mama kept on your icebox. She said you can prepare it in all manner of ways, and you've added a flourish since she passed. 

From January to August, for decades, we've been cookin' in the kitchen, taking this ingredient list for [your team] and creating a dish that we'd swear is good enough to serve at any Michelin Star restaurant on this planet. We are sure we created a National Title Dish if only [your team's head coach] will just follow the recipe.

After all, he might coach the team, but we live it. It is our birthright. We who attended school there have quite literally paid for the privilege — putting money in the bag long before I made it a segment on the "The Number One College Football Show."

And as ingenious as we are as culinary college football artists, we mostly follow the same program: We add up wins on the schedule. We toss in a heavy dollop of strength of schedule. We layer disrespect on thickly. We sprinkle in some blue-blood bias, stir toward irrationality, and season this gumbo to taste.

Coaches ain't chefs so much as they are throwing chicken breasts into boiling water, rushing the pink out of the center, and dropping it on a paper plate. They call it "Go 1-0" cause that's what it boils down to for them.

That's the dish we all savor most — winning. Ink's No Issue if you win in the end. 

Glory be, the funk's on me, let's go play ball.

Here are my picks for who will win each Power 5 conference, who will reach the CFP, and who will win it all.

CONFERENCE CHAMPION PREDICTIONS

Big Ten: Michigan (No. 2 in RJ's Preseason Top 25)

This is Michigan's best team since, well, last year. In 1997, Michigan went 12-0 and finished with a national title. In 2022, Michigan entered the Fiesta Bowl 13-0 and finished No. 3 in the country. The Wolverines have the best team they've fielded in 26 years. 

J.J. McCarthy is good enough to end up being a Heisman finalist. Blake Corum stays levitating. Jim Nagy told me he believes there are seven NFL offensive linemen in the ‘24 class in Ann Arbor right now.

The Wolverines are the two-time defending Big Ten champs and have put boot to Buckeye behind twice in two years. This could be the first instance that Michigan beats Ohio State three times in a row since 1995-1997.  

Now the Wolverines have to finish.

Pressure is a privilege. Cook in it or it will cook you.

SEC: Georgia (RJ's No. 1)

Everyone in Athens is sure about Carson Beck. They're sure about a guy who spent the last two years learning from an offensive coordinator who isn't there anymore and attempted just 35 passes last season. But he's got dudes on that offense, none more important than Brock Bowers.

Say all the nice things you want about the offense, but the show has always been that pack of junkyard dogs on defense. That defense has more game than Activision.

Big 12: Texas (RJ's No. 12)

The Longhorns are back, and they get a chance to show it on Sept. 9 at Bryant-Denny against Nick Saban's Crimson Tide. 

That win would go a long way toward a 10-win season for the first time since 2018 and perhaps the Longhorns' first Big 12 title since 2009. 

The pieces are there: Quinn Ewers, Xavier Worthy, Jaylan Ford, Jalen Catalon, a head coach who knows how to coach a team to a title.

Pac-12: USC (RJ's No. 4)

Caleb Williams is back there on his Steamin' Willie Beamen … on his "You Can Hate Me Now" … four-letter word on his fingernails lip-syncing to Ice Cube's "No Vaseline" … repping for the University of South Central.

Coming straight out of Compton like NWA. For the sake of this piece, NWA stands for … Nine Wins Assumed.

It's about getting past Notre Dame on Oct. 14 and Washington on Nov. 4. 

But it's not about Williams on his 100 Miles and Runnin'. It's about the Grinch.  

I need to see some Hooville hate coming out of the 213. Emptying pockets like your rapper name is U Owe Me. I need to see that the defense is money.

ACC: Clemson (RJ's No. 8)

This means the Tigers beat Florida State twice — first at Death Valley on Sept. 23 and then in the ACC title game — behind the arm of Cade Klubnik, the play-calling of Garrett Riley and the sheer will of Dabo Swinney and lil ol' Clemson. Defensive coordinator Wes Goodwin has two preseason AP All-Americans at the position he coaches personally in Barrett Carter and Jeremiah Trotter, Jr.

Clemson is gonna be the best team in the ACC and still not get an invite to the SEC — this year.

My College Football Playoff picks:

• Georgia
• Michigan
• USC
• Alabama (RJ's No. 6)

Of these three, Alabama is the only team I didn't pick to win its conference title. But inherently this also means I expect the Crimson Tide to roll into the SEC title game undefeated. If it does, it's not hard to see how the CFP selection committee would put Alabama into the CFP.

The likelihood of two Big Ten teams getting in again is not high, especially since they would mean there isn't a second SEC team as good as the second-best B1G team — which is what occurred in 2022.

My national champion pick: Georgia

There are four Preseason AP All-American First Teamers on that roster: Malaki Starks, Javon Bullard, Sedrick Van Pran and Brock Bowers.

The schedule breaks for them, too. There's no Alabama or LSU on their regular season slate. Their toughest opponents are Kentucky and Ole Miss at home and Tennessee on the road.

The Bulldogs could become the first program to win three straight national titles since Minnesota managed that feat in 1934, 1935 and 1936. But the U.S. Women's National Team was expected to be the first team to three-peat at the World Cup and got bounced by a country famous for ABBA — A.K.A Sweden. What I'm saying is the Dawgs better take care of its business or they can get embarrassed, too.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast "The Number One College Football Show." Follow him on Twitter at @RJ_Young and subscribe to "The RJ Young Show" on YouTube.