Pundits and prognosticators hold an interesting place in our society, especially in sports.
When a team is picked to lose a game, you'll never hear the coach who lost said game get on the podium and say, "Congrats to the media, you guys nailed this one." Likewise, it's not news when a team picked to finish 10th, finishes in 10th place.
But when The Media gets one wrong, they never hear the end of it. How many championships seasons have been fueled by a desire to prove "the haters" wrong? How could The Media not see that team coming?? They score more points than the opponent almost every time. It's so easy! (Of note: I've noticed this same line of thought does not apply to Vegas. When a game with a 3.5-point spread ends with a 3-point margin, Vegas knows everything. When a 7-point favorite loses by 20... well, it's sports.)
However, as annoying as they may be, we need our talking heads. By predicting the unpredictable, we have context for when the unforeseen happens. And after all, to prove the doubters wrong, one must first have doubters.
For the 2026 college football season, the pundit class has anointed a clear group of championship favorites. Among the nine post-spring Top 25s reviewed by FootballScoop, the same seven teams occupied the top seven spots all nine times: Miami, Indiana, Georgia, Notre Dame, Texas, Oregon and Ohio State, in some order. Not one other team got a vote higher than 8th. If someone other than those seven wins the national championship, we've got ourselves a story.
All that said, here's how The Experts see the field heading into the summer
24(t). Tennessee (Highest: 16 | Lowest: NR)
Last year's 8-5 season was as close to a mulligan an SEC coach will ever get, given the Nico Iamaleava shenanigans. Vol fans hope a return to form is more like the two AP top-10 finishes in the three seasons prior to 2025, not a fringe top-25 season.
24(t.) Louisville (Highest: 19 | Lowest: NR)
Jeff Brohm has had metronomic consistency his first three years at his alma mater: 10-4, 9-4 and 9-4. Brohm has personally won between eight and 10 games in five straight seasons, dating back to Purdue.
23. Missouri (Highest: 16 | Lowest: NR)
Drink has won 29 games over the last three seasons, but the 2026 SEC schedule includes five of the top 11 teams in the country, at least that's the thinking right now.
22. Iowa (Highest: 19 | Lowest: NR)
Iowa's four losses a year ago came by 15 points total, and two of them were to the eventual champion and a national semifinalist. Neither Indiana nor Oregon are on the schedule this fall, and Ohio State comes to Kinnick for the first time since 2017.
21. Utah (Highest: 18 | Lowest: NR)
Morgan Scalley has waited, oh, 25 years to be the Utah head coach, and now it's his. Last year's team went 11-2, losing the two games they really needed to win -- Texas Tech and BYU -- and beating everyone else. Tech rotates off the schedule this year, and BYU comes to Rice-Eccles. After winning all nine Holy Wars in the 2020s, BYU is 3-0 in that game since the pandemic.
20. Houston (Highest: 18 | Lowest: NR)
Professional Ball Coach Willie Fritz jumped the Cougars from four wins to 10 in Year 2, and both coordinators return after successful debuts. The Friday night September game at Texas Tech looms as the program's biggest game in a decade.
19. SMU (Highest: 17 | Lowest: 25)
Our first seven teams listed here have a whole lot in common. Rhett Lashlee's Mustangs have 31 wins over the last three seasons, tied for the 10th most in college football and the most in the ACC (SMU was in the American in 2023), but no one in the group has seriously challenged for the national title at any point in the past few seasons. And by "seriously challenged," I mean come within 20 points of winning a CFP first round game.
18. Penn State (Highest: 15 | Lowest: NR)
We in the media failed miserably last season to choose "this season's Indiana." We chose Illinois (preseason No. 10, postseason unranked.) Turns out, it was Indiana again (preseason No. 22, postseason No. 1). The Hoosiers aren't sneaking up on anyone this fall, so the 2026 "this year's Indiana" candidates are Matt Campbell's Nittany Lions, who brought a whopping 24 players over from Iowa State. Can a team that went 8-4 in the Big 12 combine with a 7-6 Big Ten team to make a CFP run? We'll find out.
17. Washington (Highest: 15 | Lowest: 24)
Jedd Fisch fended off LSU's tampering attempt with Demond Williams. That's good, because the Huskies have perhaps the toughest league schedule in the entire Big Ten. Of the seven other ranked B1G teams, the Huskies play five, including a closing kick home against Indiana and at Oregon.
16. Michigan (Highest: 12 | Lowest: 17)
Michigan did not beat a team with a winning record last season, but retaining Bryce Underwood while upgrading at head coach makes last season feel like a distant memory. The Wolverines get four Playoff teams from a year ago -- Oklahoma, Indiana, at Oregon, plus That Team Down South -- plus Iowa and Penn State at home.
14t. BYU (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 17)
The biggest transfer portal win any team in college football had wasn't Brendan Sorsby to Texas Tech, Sam Leavitt to LSU or Cam Coleman to Texas. It was keeping Kalani Sitake away from Penn State. BYU has won double digit games in four of the last six seasons. The Cougars lost only to Texas Tech last season, but lost those games 63-14. The Red Raiders are not on this year's schedule, but Notre Dame is: the Fighting Irish come to Provo on Oct. 17. The Cougars can win the Big 12 if Bear Bachmeier throws for more than 15 touchdowns this fall.
14t. Alabama (Highest: 11 | Lowest: 19)
The litmus test for last season was to see if Alabama would remain a Main Character in college football for the 18th straight season or become just another program. Judging by the fact that not a single selector placed the Tide in the top 10, we have our answer. And why would they? The last we saw this team, they were getting pushed up and down the field by another team in crimson. Last year's No. 8 preseason ranking was the lowest since 2008, and this year's will be, too.
13. USC (Highest: 10 | Lowest: 20)
Curt Cignetti won a national championship in Year 2, but Lincoln Riley says his window is opening now, in Year 5. Okay then. The Trojans stopped a slide of 11 wins in Year 1, to nine, and then to seven by going 9-4 last fall. Gary Patterson figures to get the most out of the defense, and Oregon, Washington and Ohio State all come to the Coliseum.
12. Texas Tech (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 16)
Obviously, Brendan Sorsby's status will swing the Red Raiders up or down from this spot. If Sorsby plays, Tech plans on competing for the national title, even after losing the No. 2 pick in the draft and more from the defensive line. If not, well, keeping Will Hammond healthy will determine the ceiling.
11. Oklahoma (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 16)
A Playoff appearance checked the box Brent Venables needed to check, and the offense should be improved with upgrades at receiver, tight end, and running back (and, presumably, John Mateer not throwing with a surgically-repaired thumb for half the season.) The Sooners can't finish 113th in the nation in rushing offense again. Also, another loss in Dallas will put Brent Venables in the same place he and Bob Stoops put Mack Brown two decades ago.
10. Ole Miss (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 14)
Feels low for a semifinalist who returns its starting quarterback? Feels high for a team with a first-time head coach who lost a bulk of its roster to a conference rival? Probably just right then. The focus externally will be on the LSU game on Sept. 19 -- indeed, the furnace will be turned up to about 500 degrees on both sidelines for that one -- but the opener on Labor Day Sunday against Louisville will be huge as well, and Pete Golding's team gets Texas, Georgia and Oklahoma in a 4-week stretch in October and November.
9. Texas A&M (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 13)
An 11-0 start devolved into an 11-2 finish in which the Aggies scored 20 combined points, and now Holmon Wiggins steps in to run the offense for new K-State head coach Collin Klein. Promoting co-coordinator Wiggins to his first coordinator role is the biggest decision yet of Mike Elko's tenure.
8. LSU (Highest: 8 | Lowest: 12)
Lane Kiffin's call for patience is utterly hilarious, especially considering the Tigers are set to start above four of the SEC's five Playoff teams from a year ago. A $13 million salary to coach a $40 million roster can buy a lot of things, but patience isn't among them. Blake Baker's defense may need to carry the load early for an offense of entirely new parts, especially considering the Tigers get Clemson, Ole Miss and Texas A&M in September. October is as easy as it gets in the SEC -- McNeese, at Kentucky, Mississippi State, at Auburn -- before LSU gets Alabama, Texas and Tennessee in succession in November. The goal here will be to be this year's Miami.
7. Miami (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 7)
Speaking of Miami, Mario Cristobal's team would not like to be this year's Miami, in that sweating out Selection Sunday would be a failure for the clear ACC preseason favorite. The Hurricanes should be solid-to-heavy favorites in every game until their Nov. 7 primetime visit to South Bend, and even a loss there wouldn't hurt their chances at the conference title. In case it isn't already clear enough, if I'm Cristobal I'm making it clear to my team that the only goal we're concerned with until Dec. 5 is winning the program's first conference championship since 2003.
6. Indiana (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 7)
I wrote about the Indiana Conundrum a month ago. Shoutout to The Athletic's Stewart Mandel, the only pollster gutsy enough to rank the defending national champions as his preseason No. 1.
5. Georgia (Highest: 2 | Lowest: 7)
On the one hand, you're the first program other than Alabama to win back-to-back SEC titles since Tennessee did it back in 1997-98. On the other, your season has ended in a Sugar Bowl quarterfinal both times, to teams coming off a shorter layoff than yours. Some would argue the Dawgs have lost a step after going just 23-5 over the past two seasons, but I say Kirby Smart just needs to keep taking shots at the net and eventually another will get through.
4. Notre Dame (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 5)
For my money, the Irish should be the preseason No. 1 team. Last year's team easily could've gone on a run to the title game, and this year's returns more production than anyone in college football. The schedule -- with only three preseason Top 25 foes, all of them in the second half of the year -- is a double-edged sword. Marcus Freeman's team has the best shot at 12-0 as anyone in the country, and Miami and BYU could easily win the ACC and Big 12, respectively. However, depending on how it happens and what happens elsewhere, this team could deservedly miss at 10-2 once again.
3. Texas (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 7)
Speaking of schedules, the Longhorns play seven of the preseason top 25 and, more acutely, five of the top 11. No matter, Steve Sarkisian still has more pressure on him than any coach in the country. Other than linebacker and safety, this team should be be better across the board -- substantially, in some spots -- but has very little chance to start as the preseason No. 1 again.
2. Oregon (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 6)
From the outside, it feels as if Dan Lanning has been on a 4-year honeymoon. And why shouldn't he? He's 48-8, won the Big Ten in his first year in the league, and the last time he lost to a team that did not play for the national title was Nov. 26, 2022. In fact, four of his eight losses have come to the eventual national champion, and another two to the runner-up. However, if Lanning can't get over the hump with this roster, folks will begin to wonder -- fair or not -- if it will ever happen for him.
1. Ohio State (Highest: 1 | Lowest: 4)
No other program could lose 25 draft picks in two years and start off at No. 1. Matt Patricia's defense is expected to reload after losing three of the top five defensive players in college football, and the offense still boasts the most loaded wideout group in the game even after losing the first player taken at the position in the draft. However, if the Buckeyes are to remain in this spot, they'll have to earn it. The schedule is the most difficult in program history: at No. 3 Texas, at No. 6 Indiana, at No. 13 USC, plus home games against No. 2 Oregon and No. 16 Michigan.
Also receiving votes: Arizona, Boise State, Clemson, Florida, South Carolina, TCU, UNLV, Virginia Tech