How many FBS programs are capable of winning the College Football Playoff?

I would say about half of the p5 with the right coaching could make it. Hell just look in the last 20 years teams we dont normally think of as powerhouses that wouldve had a shot. Washington state and Purdue in the late 90s early 00s mizzou Kansas and texas teach in the mid to late 00s Kansas state around the turn of the century, Arkansas around 2010 2011. West Virginia when they had pat white. If teams like this could make it I believe eventually we will see some pretty odd teams make the playoffs. Of course most will end up like Michigan state when they made it and get drove by the powerhouses.

Geography hurts programs like Kansas and Mizzou, for example. Not enough blue-chip players available locally to build a championship roster.

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Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, USC, FSU, Stanford, Wisconsin, Washington, Miami, LSU & Auburn. I fully expect the champion most years to come from this group. Now you can occasionally have the flukey Penn State, Virginia Tech, UCF, TCU's of the world but they don't get enough of the top tier talent to tip the scales.

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Florida and the Texas schools?

I would surmise that about 50 or 55 of the P5 schools could actually make the playoff in the right year.

Actually winning the playoff is wholly different matter: probably only 12 - 15 programs have the resources to legitimately compete at that level and have proven that they can get there. It obviously depends on the coaching staff whether or not they can corral those resources, but in no particular order:

Alabama
Auburn
LSU
Florida
Tennessee
Georgia
FSU
Miami
Clemson
Penn State
Ohio State
Michigan
Notre Dame
Texas
Oklahoma
USC

Then you have programs that are either like Nebraska, Michigan State, and Washington (historically significant programs who have proven in the past that they can get it done but might be too limited at this point to reach the top of the mountain) or Virginia Tech, Oregon, Texas A&M, TCU, UCLA, and maybe a few others that seemingly don't have any real limitations to getting there but need to prove it first. That set of programs might have a chance as well depending on the year and their own situation.

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Its easy for a P-5 school

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be an undefeated conference champion and you're in the playoff.

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I guess it sounds easy but historically undefeated conference champions are few and far between and even that list is dominated by the blue bloods.

Auburn - who has played in 2 in the last decade.. more than 90% of your lost doesn’t make the cut? Silly

i listed schools that i think could legitimately turn into programs that could compete year in, year out. like what clemson and ohio state and alabama are doing right now

if i wanted to talk about programs that i think could regularly compete but not necessarily go year in, year out for an extended period of time, then i would put auburn on there. auburn, washington, michigan, michigan state, wisconsin, nebraska, oregon, these are all schools i can see in that tier.

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I came up with ~32

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I don't think it's anywhere close to this.

Btw are you talking looking each year individually (like in 2018 only) or just overall as a whole?

I think if talking about overall, there's maybe around 15 in contention each year, that being the top ~3 teams in each P5 conference. And honestly tha'ts probably being generous, considering only 10 different teams have won title title since the turn of the century.

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auburn, washington, michigan, michigan state, wisconsin, nebraska, oregon, these are all schools i can see in that tier.

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Auburn has accomplished more than all of those teams in that tier in the last 25 years plus your beloved Ags and Bruins.

Why look at theoreticals when results paint a clear enough picture?