26 Bold College Football Predictions That Just Might Be Right

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ohio State is good, the SEC has lots of great teams, blah, blah, blah … enough of the boring, predictable college football analysis stuff. What if I told you last year at this time that preseason top-four Penn State and Clemson teams would barely be bowl eligible, that Fernando Mendoza would win the Heisman, or that Florida State would rock Alabama, start 3-0, and finish with a losing season? Continuing with our 26 for 2026 series, here are 26 giant calls for the upcoming college football season. You get to the Hall of Fame batting .300, and that’s the goal here. Some of this will be right, some will come close, and most will be embarrassingly wrong. After a miserably dumb offseason, let’s have some fun. 26 for ’26, No. 12: Crazy College Football Predictions for 2026 26: Winningest Programs Yet To Make the CFP 25: ACC Key Questions 24: Big 12 Key Questions 23: Big Ten Key Questions 22: Top 2027 NFL Draft Prospects 21: SEC Key Questions 20: What’s Next in Realignment? 19. Ranking all 30 New Head Coaches 18. Who Has the Easiest Schedules? 17. Who Has the Hardest Schedules? 16. Who Might Be the Next Indiana? 15. Group of Six Teams with Best CFP Shot 14. 5 Teams Due For a Letdown 13. 5 Programs Under the Most Pressure 26. The Big 12 will be the most interesting conference Every single team has a story. Last year’s bad teams – Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma State – are more interesting than your conference’s bad teams. The midsection is better, and there will be a whale of a fight up top for a league that fights to get noticed by the College Football Playoff committee. 25. Jason Eck and Sean Lewis will be the next hot head coaches, but … Not at Wisconsin, after Luke Fickell does just enough to stick around. San Diego State’s Sean Lewis (an ex-Badger) and New Mexico’s Jason Eck (also an ex-Badger) will have big seasons in very different ways as they become the big prospects on the coaching carousel. – New Mexico 2026 Team Preview – San Diego State 2026 Team Preview 24. All 16 SEC head coaches will still be there in 2027 
The one possible exception is Jeff Lebby at Mississippi State, but with Kalen DeBoer’s huge buyout, and six new guys taking over, the SEC’s coaching situation will stand pat. 23. You’ve never heard of the Big Ten’s best NFL quarterback prospect Oregon’s Dante Moore should be a New York Jet right now, and Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, Ohio State’s Julian Sayin, USC’s Jayden Maiava, and Washington’s Demond Williams are all terrific, too. Minnesota’s 6-5, 230-pound Drake Lindsey is about to become this year’s Quarterback You Need To Know. – Minnesota 2026 Team Preview 22. Michigan will beat Indiana The image of a postgame interview with Kyle Whittingham, after a stalled deep Indiana drive in the final moments leads to on-field chaos, has been stuck in my brain since the moment he was hired. (For what it’s worth, I just mistakenly typed fired.) – Indiana 2026 Team Preview – Michigan 2026 Team Preview 21. Absoluely no one will know exactly who’s in the Pac-12 Announcers and commentators will fumble over the new Pac-12. It’ll be a blast, though, especially when UNLV has to go to Hawaii early on, and North Dakota State makes its conference debut at Air Force.

 (That was a trick – all those teams are still in the Mountain West.) 20. UMass will win more games than Colorado Fortunately, if Coach Prime has his way, the media will be barred from reporting on it. This pains me as a Deion Sanders fan, but his Buffaloes will beat Weber State and should beat UCF – getting the team from Orlando in Boulder on November 28th. They’ll be the underdog against everyone else. UMass will beat Sacred Heart and Stonehill, and they’ll slip one past the goalie for a third win. – Colorado 2026 Team Preview – UMass 2026 Team Preview 19. Alabama will be fine … Sort of. The Tide will start 5-0, and everyone will do the Bama is Back thing, and then Georgia will happen, and so will Texas A&M, and so will at Tennessee and at LSU. That’s when everyone will do the Kalen DeBoer Buyout thing. – Alabama 2026 Team Preview 18. Florida State won’t be fine … Sort of. It’ll go bowling, and there will be moments overall, but there will be a problem early on with SMU and at Alabama coming up in September, and road games at Louisville and Miami in October, and then a visit from Clemson on Halloween, and then road trips to Boston College and Pitt, and then NC State and Florida … Okay, no. Florida State won’t be fine. – Florida State 2026 Team Preview 17. Kansas State will be really good right away Because America just doesn’t pay attention to the Big 12, it gets lost that Kansas State won nine games or more three seasons in a row before last year. This needed a tweak, not an overhaul, and that’s exactly what new head coach Collin Klein brings. There will be mistakes – Klein is just getting going – but Kansas State will make it four seasons with nine or more wins in the last five. – Kansas State 2026 Team Preview 16. Billy Napier will keep James Madison going Things obviously didn’t go right for Napier at Florida, but for the most part, his Gators lost to really, really good teams. It’s Florida, and it’s supposed to beat the really, really good teams, but … James Madison doesn’t play any really, really good teams this season. – James Madison 2026 Team Preview 15. Will Stein will be right The record won’t reflect it right away – the schedule is too brutal – but Kentucky really will be better, and it’ll be because of the new head coach. No, Stein won’t make UK the new Indiana, but it’ll be a far tougher out this season week after week – he was one of the SEC’s better coaching hires. – Kentucky 2026 Team Preview 14. Iowa at Washington will be for a College Football Playoff spot 
I’ve taken too long in this piece before getting to the true nuttiness. Here we go. Iowa will lose at Michigan and at home to Ohio State. It goes to Washington right after hosting the Buckeyes, and it’ll run the table from there on. Washington will win two of the four killer games – at Oregon, Indiana, Penn State, at USC – take out everyone else, and host Iowa right after the trip to face the Trojans. The Hawkeye-Husky winner will end up 10-2. – Iowa 2026 Team Preview – Washington 2026 Team Preview 13. UCLA won’t be the new Indiana, but … There will be tinges. As we now know, Indiana was a powder keg waiting to blow, and it took an all-timer of a coach in Curt Cignetti to make it explode. That’s impossible to replicate at the same level, but new head man Bob Chesney is following the same playbook. At Cal, San Diego State, Purdue, at Maryland, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Nevada, at Minnesota, Illinois – there are more than enough winnable games to do something funky. – UCLA 2026 Team Preview 12. James Franklin will win more big games this year than Matt Campbell 
But that’s partly because Penn State doesn’t play the Big Ten monsters. It has nothing in non-conference play, and there’s no Indiana, Ohio State, or Oregon on the slate. Campbell will at least split against USC and Michigan, but Franklin will at least split against Miami and Clemson as he makes Virginia Tech good in a hurry. – Penn State 2026 Team Preview – Virginia Tech 2026 Team Preview 11. Miami won’t play in the ACC Championship (again) And here’s the even wackier idea – the Hurricanes might need to beat Notre Dame to get into the College Football Playoff. This year’s team is fantastic, but it’s not as experienced as last year’s version. It could stub its toe at Clemson, or – don’t laugh, this team is for real – at Wake Forest, and/or at home against Florida State, Pitt, Duke, or Virginia Tech. – Miami 2026 Team Preview 10. Houston will be the “no one is talking about” team The only thing keeping Houston from being this year’s Texas Tech is a light and breezy schedule – including the Big 12 opener at Texas Tech. The Cougars get almost everyone back, crushed the transfer portal, miss a slew of key Big 12 teams – Arizona, ASU, BYU, TCU – and should be 10-2 if they can win one of the three brutal road dates at Texas Tech, Utah, and Kansas State. – Houston 2026 Team Preview 9. Army-Navy will totally screw things up You can’t make a thing a THING, but I’ll throw it out there in the hopes that Army vs Navy will mess up the College Football Playoff. Army or Navy plays in the American Conference Championship, wins it, and is in the mix for the top-ranked Group of Six team to make the CFP. The committee does its final ranking, puts the American champion highest among the Group of Six champs – but it’s close – and then AAC-champ Army or Navy loses to the other a week after the CFP Playoff bracket is released, raising holy heckfire from the conference with the second-highest-ranked Group of Six champ. – Army 2026 Team Preview – Navy 2026 Team Preview 8. John Mateer and Oklahoma will roar The Sooner offense was doing just fine last season, Mateer hurt his wrist, and he and the attack were never quite the same the rest of the way. OU still made the College Football Playoff and came within a wet-the-bed meltdown loss against Alabama of getting to the quarterfinals. The defense is still good, the offense will be better, and as long as 10 is healthy, look out. – Oklahoma 2026 Team Preview 7. BYU vs Notre Dame will make Miami vs Notre Dame even bigger The college football world has the excitement dial set to November 7th when Miami comes to South Bend for a whopper of a showdown. Catholics vs Canes will become an existential moment for both teams after the Irish lose in Provo to BYU on October 17th, because … – BYU 2026 Team Preview – Notre Dame 2026 Team Preview 6. Wisconsin will stun Notre Dame With all the hype, and all the excitement, and all the expectations surrounding Notre Dame as it’s about to embark on Revenge Tour 2026 – thanks to the snubbing from the College Football Playoff last season – the opener in Green Bay against a jacked-up Badger team with a great defense SCREAMS sad trombone. Think 2016, at Lambeau, Wisconsin 16, LSU 14. – Wisconsin 2026 Team Preview 5. North Dakota State won’t skip a beat At Air Force on September 12th. At UNLV on October 10th. At New Mexico on October 24th. If the Bison win two of those three games, the winner of the November 14th date at Hawaii will be in the driver’s seat for the Group of Six College Football Playoff spot. – North Dakota State 2026 Team Preview 4. It’ll be the hip thing to say Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele is the best quarterback in college football That is, if you can actually say his name (kay-AH-vey song-oo-polu-TEL-uh – and no, I can’t do it yet). JKS will be the No. 1 pick in the 2028 NFL Draft, and he’s about to make late-night Cal Bears football – the UCLA and Clemson games will each kick off at 10:30 pm ET – a thing. – Cal 2026 Team Preview 3. No SEC team will make the College Football Playoff Semifinals At least, no SEC team will beat an ACC, Big Ten, or Big 12 program to get there. In the two years of the 12-team playoff, Texas is the SEC’s only team to win a playoff game over a non-SEC power conference team. 2. Two Big Ten teams will play for the national title Oregon, Indiana, Ohio State, USC, and yeah, I’ll throw in Michigan if things break right, and maybe even a Penn State and/or Washington if we’re feeling punchy. Pick two, book tickets to Vegas, and let’s go. If you think the Big Ten is feeling it now, this is about to get even worse. However … 1. Lane Kiffin’s LSU will be a dominant force, and no one is prepared for it As impossible as this might seem after all the hullabaloo – including the Jayden Daniels whining about the number five adding to the dumbest offseason ever – not enough has been made about just how amazing a hire this really was for LSU. Kiffin won’t take the Tigers to a national title this year, but he’ll get them to the College Football Playoff, and he’ll be the bright shining hope for an SEC that’s desperately looking for an emotional support program to cling to. – LSU 2026 Team Preview