IMO, it's a silly cherry-picked stat for a couple reasons. First, they're using their rankings... not 247 composite... which don't use any sort of formula or concrete methodology. So if the metric is baseless, then you're talking correlation not causation. For example, until 2013/2014, the champion was always from the SEC... so they could've run a similar piece leading up to the 2013 season that read "the past seven champions have been from the SEC, so don't even bother watching other college football, and you winner will be (list all SEC teams)"... or "your winner will be from one of three states"... or even more absurdly, they could run a piece this year that says "every winner but Ohio State is from a state that touches the Gulf of Mexico, so if your state doesn't touch the Gulf of Mexico then your team sucks."
Second, the premise is flawed because considering the ranking of the class that are true freshmen obviously has less impact than who are your freaking seniors on the team... and the ranking of that class is completely left out! Why? Because cherry picking it the way they did allows them to write this piece. Consider that LSU and Auburn got little-to-no production from true freshmen in their only "top 6" classes in the years they won the title... though Auburn did get a lot out of Michael Dyer, I'm fairly certain they didn't include JUCO transfer Cam Newton in their recruiting ranking but some with Insider will have to verify that for me.
Is any of this a big deal? No. But it's just ESPN being dumb to drum up the importance of where they rank your class tomorrow, and if you finish below THIS SPOT you cannot win a championship.