A team can’t improve over the course of a season and then win a college football national championship. That isn’t exactly true. The best teams always shapeshift a bit and come together over the course of the year. But there is some truth to the point. The margin for error, if your grail is a national title, has historically been between zero and one loss, with just sporadic exceptions. Lose a game in September? You might be out right then, depending on who you are and what happens around you as the season progresses. Lose twice by mid-October? You can still carry on and have a fun season, but you will not be playing for the biggest prize. This limitation is a feature of the sport.
— Read on slate.com/culture/2022/11/lsu-alabama-2022-brian-kelly.html