25 most intriguing storylines to follow for the 2026 college football season

One of the most unlikely of things in sports history happened this January when the Indiana Hoosiers won the College Football Playoff national championship. A program that was considered one of the worst in the nation hired the right guy who built a culture, coached up his recruits, and reached the mountain top.

The question is now: Is this sustainable or just one of those one-hit wonders?

It seems sustainable. For now. With some high-profile jobs out there this winter, Curt Cignetti's name was tied to a couple before he signed a new deal to stay at Indiana. He has a fantastic recruiting class coming in and former TCU quarterback Josh Hoover to take over for the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, Fernando Mendoza. He knows what he's doing; he has set the culture in Bloomington, and now everyone knows how far it can take this once dull program.

Cignetti has a history of building up programs and then leaving for bigger jobs, so there will always be the fear that he could bolt after any season. But for now, he's a giant fish in a small pond and a savior to Hoosier fans everywhere. As long as he is at Indiana, they are in the mix. 

The Big Ten is certainly having a moment right now (and that's not even counting the league winning its first NCAA men's basketball tournament in over a quarter century this past April). The conference has won three straight College Football Playoff national championships by three different schools. Powers Michigan and Ohio State won the 2023 and 2024 national titles, respectively, with Indiana stunning everyone last year with a ring. Can any of them -- or a new school -- continue that streak?

As we've already covered, Indiana has a shot to defend its title. Ohio State is still one of the top teams in the nation. Michigan is going through some stuff, but Kyle Whittingham is too fine of a coach to see the Wolverines slip any longer. Oregon has been one of the top teams over the last few years and returns Dante Moore, a leader who could become the top pick in next year's NFL Draft. Dan Lanning will have to deal with losing both its coordinators, though. USC is in the weeds, waiting for Lincoln Riley to get them into their first College Football Playoff. Penn State begins the Matt Campbell era while Washington and Illinois are dark horses in the race.

The Big Ten is deep once again and possibly has two or three of the top five teams in the country. The league has planted its flag as the best in the nation and has a strong shot at keeping that title. 

The SEC dominated college football for much of the last two decades. From Nick Saban leading LSU and Alabama to national titles, Urban Meyer's Florida teams, Cam Newton's Auburn Tigers, Kirby Smart's Dawgs, and Ed O's ridiculous 2019 squad, no one challenged the strength of the SEC.

That has changed over the last three seasons. Not only has the Big Ten won the last three national championships (by three different schools), the SEC hasn't even reached the national championship game since 2022 when Georgia mauled TCU. That is the longest stretch the SEC has been shut out of the national championship game since 1999-2002.

That doesn't mean the SEC isn't great -- they are --, but the rest of the nation is catching up to their best teams. Nick Saban's retirement put a dent in Alabama's run, while Florida and Auburn have struggled to return to elite status. Georgia has consistently been among the best teams in the country annually, but they have been knocked off in the playoffs. Tennessee has been a playoff team, but not a serious title contender. Ole Miss, Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M have had great seasons of late but haven't been able to get far into the playoffs.

LSU is hoping that Lane Kiffin can reach the program's potential that Brian Kelly couldn't. Texas seems to be one of the top teams each year but suffers setbacks. Alabama has great wins and head-scratching losses. Oklahoma may be reaching its stride under Brent Venables. Georgia is still one of the best programs in the country. Pete Golding brought back Trinidad Chambliss to Ole Miss. Missouri and Vanderbilt are coming off great seasons. If LaNorris Sellers can turn it around, South Carolina could be dangerous again. Auburn, Kentucky and Arkansas have new head coaches. While we may not have a power program, the new playoff format has shown that you just need a team that's hot in January (see: Miami) that can make a run in the postseason. 

Well, it isn't all the way back, but at least the Pac-12 will look more like a normal conference rather than two schools stuck holding the flag for a league that imploded. After the league's breakup in 2024, Oregon State and Washington State have been holding the league together as they attempt to rebuild it. Those two schools played each other twice in football the last two seasons while making (and breaking) a deal with the Mountain West Conference to fill out their schedule.

The "breaking" part of that deal was due to the Pac-12 luring away some of the Mountain West's top programs and souring the relationship between the two conferences. Some felt that Oregon State, Washington State, and the Mountain West would pursue some sort of merger so that everyone would be happy and the Pac-12's unit shares and money would be available to them. Instead, the league added Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, Utah State, and San Diego State from the Mountain West, and Texas State from the Sun Belt.

While this version of the Pac-12 is much smaller than the one that included USC, Oregon, UCLA, the two Arizona schools, Cal, Stanford, Colorado, Utah, and Washington, it could be one of the better Group of 6 leagues. Boise State has been one of the top non-power programs over the last two decades, while San Diego State and Fresno State have had their moments in the sun. Boise State left the Mountain West after winning three straight conference championships and brought back starting QB Maddux Madsen to win their new league. 

Arch Manning came into his college career with wild expectations that, frankly, have not been met. After sitting behind Quinn Ewers for two seasons at Texas, the pre-season hype for the next Manning star was out of control last year. "He is the No. 1 pick in the draft."  " He is the Heisman favorite." An ugly Week 1 showing against Texas washed much of that away, and while he put up some nice numbers (3,163 yds, 26 TDs passing; 399 yards, 10 TDs rushing), it just wasn't the prodigy numbers we were expecting. That, plus Texas missing the playoffs, has some of us feeling that this may be as good as it gets.

Texas is loaded once again, and Manning has some dynamite weapons on the outside to have the kind of season we've been waiting for. Honestly, Manning looked like he was hitting his stride as the season went along, and we can now safely say that the Ohio State defense he struggled against in Week 1 was ridiculously talented. Still, this is a generational talent with the last name Manning, in his fourth season and surrounded by arguably the most talented team in the nation. And, once again, he is a Heisman favorite. If it doesn't happen now, when will it? 

We won't have to wait long before we see Lane Kiffin make his return to Oxford, Mississippi, to face the Ole Miss Rebels. September 19th will be the game most college football fans will have circled on their calendar to see Kiffin take LSU into Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and hear the wrath from 64,000 fans.

Kiffin, if you somehow forgot, left Ole Miss after the regular season to take the head coaching job at LSU ... all while Ole Miss was preparing to play in the College Football Playoff. Kiffin tried to continue coaching the Rebels as he set up shop in Baton Rouge, but the school was against it. Then there was a spat over which assistants were allowed to continue coaching at Ole Miss before they were supposed to leave for Kiffin's staff with the Tigers. All coming on the heels of one of the best seasons in program history and after an ESPN documentary showed a much more humble Kiffin who felt content at Ole Miss.

The SEC is filled with great rivalries, but this one feels so much different because it is about one man in particular. That night in Mississippi will be one of the most raucous scenes all season. 

Michigan has had a tough time with coaches ending their tenure with their football program of late. While Jim Harbaugh did walk away after winning a national championship, the last couple of years were marred by scandals and suspensions. Sherrone Moore was part of those scandals and suspensions and was hired to replace Harbaugh, only to get caught up in an investigation into an improper relationship with a staffer, which led to a troubling series of events that culminated in his eventual arrest.

Enter Kyle Whittingham to take over the program. Whittingham ended a 22-year head-coaching career at Utah to take over in Ann Arbor, finishing with a 177-88 record with the Utes. He won a Mountain West title and two Pac-12 titles in Utah and is coming off a 10-2 record in his second year in the Big 12. He is used to being a calming influence amid so many distractions, so the Wolverines getting this hire later in the coaching cycle was a big grand slam.

There will be an adjustment, as Whittingham played at BYU and spent all 41 years of his coaching career in Utah or Idaho (including the last 32 with the Utes). Heading to one of the bluest of bloods in college football that has just watched two conference rivals win national titles is a bit of a pressure cooker. He should be up to the task on the field, and he won't embarrass the program off the field. 

Lane Kiffin and Kyle Whittingham aren't the only coaches who left for a new gig. Matt Campbell ... who has been one of the more sought-after coaches for the last decade ... finally left Iowa State for Penn State. James Franklin, who was fired by Penn State, is now at Virginia Tech. Alex Golesh takes over Auburn after spending the last couple of years at South Florida.

Jon Sumrall takes over Florida after taking Tulane to the College Football Playoff. Bob Chesney leaves Playoff participant James Madison for UCLA ... while Billy Napier takes the JMU job after being fired by Florida.

Eric Morris leaves North Texas for Oklahoma State. Jim Mora, Jr. leaves UConn for Colorado State. Ryan Silverfield leaves Memphis to move across the river to Arkansas. Jimmy Rogers leaves Washington State for Campbell's old job at Iowa State. We also welcome back Pat Fitzgerald, the Northwestern legend who now takes over at Michigan State. 

North Dakota State has been an FCS powerhouse. The Bison have won 10 of the last 15 FCS national championships while winning 186 of their 207 games over that span. They won five Division II national championships from 1983 to 1990 and three small college national championships before that. Carson Wentz, Trey Lance, Christian Watson and Grey Zabel have carried on the Bison legacy into the NFL.

NDSU will now take their talents to the FBS, joining recent FCS powerhouses James Madison and Appalachian State in making that jump. The Bison will be joining the Mountain West Conference as a football-only program at first, but they could be a tempting prospect for the new-look Pac-12 or even the Big 12 in the future.

North Dakota State isn't the only FCS school making the jump. Sacramento State will be a football-only member of the MAC, a conference that will be losing Northern Illinois to the Mountain West.

Conference USA will lose two schools this season -- UTEP leaves for the Mountain West, and Louisiana Tech heads to the Sun Belt. 

The first year of the Bill Belichick era in Chapel Hill did not go according to plan. After an off-season filled with buzz and questions about his personal life, Belichick's Tar Heels looked nonathletic, unprepared, and overwhelmed most of the 2025 season. It was so bad that there were rumors that he could be fired during the season.

They didn't, and while they played a little better in the second half of the season, a 4-8 record isn't exactly what the university thought it was paying for. This off-season has gone much more smoothly -- fewer interviews, less noise, and a full recruiting cycle in which Belichick and his staff leaned more into developing high school prospects than into transfers. He also hired Bobby Petrino to run the offense, which was woefully stagnant all last year.

The talent is improved, and the focus is on football, but this has the feel of a "show-me" season of sorts for Belichick. A 4-8 record isn't cutting it again, and another bad season could lead the school to either fire him or accept his retirement. A good season would do wonders for both the program and Belichick's college career.

Speaking of Bill Belichick, he is seated on a bit of a hot seat right now, but not among the hottest.

Down the road in the ACC, Florida State's Mike Norvell must turn the Seminoles around after two disastrous seasons. Luke Fickell needs to get Wisconsin in the right direction, or else he may be done in Madison. Shane Beamer is up against it in South Carolina, while Maryland's Mike Locksley needs to turn around the crash at the end of last season if he wants to survive this year. Dave Aranda will need to wow his new athletic director at Baylor, and Lance Leipold is beginning to run out of time in Kansas.

While I don't think he would be fired, Deion Sanders has a lot on his plate as he tries to regroup after an ugly 2025 season. 

Miami's saga last year was one of the great dramas we've seen in college football in quite some time. There was much discussion about their worthiness for a College Football Playoff berth, and they jumped Notre Dame (who they beat) in the final poll to earn one of those coveted 12 spots. Then the Hurricanes went on a run that led them to the national championship game in their home stadium. While they ultimately lost to Indiana, they played the Hoosiers tough and were in the game until the very end. The sight of Miami alums at the games (especially Michael Irvin) was a reminder of how elite this program once was and how beloved it still is. Mario Cristobal was hired away from Oregon for exactly this.

So does this mean the U is back? Possibly. For the third straight season, the Canes went big game hunting for their quarterback and netted former Duke star Darian Mensah as the heir apparent to Cam Ward and Carson Beck. In the best of times, the Canes sent guys to the NFL and reloaded with new talent -- and the same applies this year. They are the best team in the ACC, though SMU, Clemson, Louisville and Virginia Tech will like a word about that. Miami has a very favorable schedule, but showdowns against Clemson and Notre Dame will both be on the road. Remember, though, that Miami has still never won an ACC title. 

Deion Sanders was an injection of fun and controversy into college football -- especially at a place like Colorado. His first two years in Boulder gave the Buffs the most eyes they've had on them since Kordell Stewart was slinging passes to Michael Westbrook. Sanders seems to love the freedom Colorado gives him, and he has made his mark on college football. He got to coach his sons, Shadeur and Shilo, and saw Travis Hunter win a Heisman.

But last year wasn't fun. His sons and Hunter all went on to play in the NFL and had difficult seasons. So did Deion, as he watched the Buffaloes crater to a 3-9 season behind some awful quarterback play. Was Sanders' success more about Shadeur and Hunter, or can his style work building a program? Some feel this could be another down year and Sanders hangs up his cowboy hat and moves on to something else ... maybe outside of coaching. Others think he could hang on and possibly take the Florida State job if it opens up this fall. Maybe the NFL comes calling again?

At any rate, this just feels like an important season for Deion and his future at Colorado. 

One of the biggest drawbacks of this era of college football we're in is the death of some rivalries. We've seen it everywhere.

Bedlam ended when Oklahoma jumped from the Big 12 to the SEC, leaving Oklahoma State behind. Texas-Texas A&M just rekindled their rivalry now that they are in the same conference once again. These overinflated conferences now see longtime league rivals miss out on playing each other annually. And we are seeing one of the most important national rivalries die this year -- USC vs Notre Dame.

With USC now in the Big Ten, the rivalry has hit the skids for at least the next few seasons. USC wants to change when the game is played (it's typically played mid-season when they meet in South Bend and as the finale in Los Angeles) because the Trojans don't want this game in the middle of their conference season. Notre Dame likes things the way they are, especially as they struggle to schedule teams in October and November due to their conference schedules. So they reached an impasse, and no agreement was made for now. Both hope they can work this out, but we may not see these two play again until 2030 at the earliest.

Notre Dame has a huge chip on its shoulder after they felt they were unfairly snubbed in the playoff rankings. While they have to replace one of the top backfields in the nation, they return CJ Carr at quarterback and should be one of the better defensive teams in the country. USC also returns their starter, Jayden Maiava, who led the Big Ten in passing last year. The Trojans feel they were one bad game from being a playoff team, too, and the expectation is that Lincoln Riley's offense will really hit its stride in 2026.

This will be just the second time since World War II that these two haven't played (the other time was the 2020 pandemic season). With both teams harboring high hopes for the season, it is an absolute shame. 

Dabo Swinney had Clemson going toe-to-toe with Nick Saban's Alabama teams for a nice run a decade ago. Swinney's Tigers were dominating the ACC and filling their roster with NFL talent and elite quarterback play. That hasn't been the case the last couple of seasons as Clemson has been slow to embrace the current state of college sports. While the Tigers did make the expanded playoff in 2024, last year's shocking 7-6 season (the program's worst since 2010) has put the program on high alert.

The schedule is a bit daunting. Clemson opens the season at LSU in Lane Kiffin's first game for the Bayou Bengals. After some very winnable games, the Tigers host Miami in a massive conference game. The back half of the season is tough, with games at home versus a rebuilt Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and their rivalry game against South Carolina. They will also go on the road to face Florida State, Syracuse and defending ACC champion Duke. They could win 10 or 11 games and earn an at-large bid, but they could also falter to 8 or 9 wins and miss out again.

Dabo will be breaking in a new quarterback after Cade Klubnik went on to the NFL. The leader in the clubhouse is redshirt junior Christopher Vizzina. He's backed up Klubnik for three seasons and is the seasoned veteran that Swinney tends to lean on. But look out for freshman Tait Reynolds, who has wowed coaches during the spring. 

In today's playoff era, conference games are so important. But as we saw last season with Miami's win over Notre Dame, non-conference games can determine if you are playing in a championship game or sulking on the outside looking in. There are plenty of great non-conference games this year, even as the ACC and SEC are going into the 9-game conference slate.

Clemson at LSU. Tigers vs Tigers. Death Valley vs Death Valley. Two programs that underperformed last season need this opener to kick off a much-needed rebound season. Clemson is breaking in a new QB while LSU is breaking in new head coach Lane Kiffin. The atmosphere should be raucous.

Boise State at Oregon. The Broncos are newly in the Pac-12 and facing off against a program that once roamed the top of the standings of the Pac-12. The Ducks fancy themselves as a national championship contender, while Boise State thinks it is the best Group of 6 school.

Baylor vs Auburn. Dave Aranda needs big wins this season as his seat is as hot as it comes in football. Auburn won this matchup last year, but Hugh Freeze would eventually lose his job.

Louisville vs Ole Miss. Ole Miss begins its post-Kiffin era to see if the Rebels will continue to be okay under Pete Golding. Louisville is a darkhorse team nationally and could challenge Miami in the ACC. Should be a great atmosphere in Nashville.

Ohio State at Texas. Last year's game was extremely hyped up and it turned into a slow slugfest. The Longhorns' loss dampered their title hopes and dimmed Arch Manning's Heisman campaign. This year they meet in Austin with both QBs much more experienced.

Iowa State at Iowa . The Cy-Hawk Trophy game is one of the best in-state rivalries in the country. Matt Campbell is now gone to Penn State, so Jimmy Rogers gets his first shot at this battle. Meanwhile, Kirk Ferentz is back for yet another go-around.

Oklahoma at Michigan. The Sooners got a huge win over the Wolverines in last year's showdown, but the game moves to Ann Arbor this year.

Michigan State at Notre Dame. First meeting between these two in nearly a decade. The Spartans resurrect Pat Fitzgerald's coaching career, while the Irish try to bury their pedestrian September record.

Florida State at Alabama. Remember last year, we saw the Seminoles topple Bama, and we all thought FSU's awful 2024 was behind them? Well, after a nice start to the season, the Noles took a nosedive. Meanwhile, Alabama regrouped and found themselves back in the College Football Playoff.

Notre Dame at BYU. Two powerful programs in their own right and two who feel they should be in the playoff this year. Notre Dame saw what happens if you lose games like this.

Miami at Notre Dame. Don't you think the Irish have this circled on their calendar? 

The Big 12 will continue to be the wild child of the power conferences. While the ACC, SEC and Big Ten have clear favorites (or groups of favorites), the Big 12 is wide open.

BYU could be the team to beat to start the season. The Cougars have a great defense that can slow down some of the league's best offenses. So does Utah, who will be transitioning to a new head coach (former assistant Morgan Scalley), but not much will change. The Utes will still be stout defensively and one of the most physical teams in the league.

Texas Tech has put a ton of money into their program, which paid off with a CFP berth last season. But the Sorsby saga leaves them without the top-tier quarterback they planned to have and with a lot of hard feelings between the university and the rest of the Big 12. They will certainly have a chip on their shoulder this season, but they will need to rely on their skilled backfield more this season.

While those three may be the favorites, schools like Houston, Kansas State, Arizona, Arizona State, and TCU are lurking to make that next step. But the Big 12 routinely sees teams no one saw coming surprise everyone and contend for the conference crown. So don't count out someone like, say, Oklahoma State, which is building from the studs with new head coach Eric Morris. 

Last year was an outstanding season for the Group of 6 conferences. They managed to get two teams into the College Football Playoff (Tulane and James Madison) and watched as a former G6 coach took his players with him to his new job and won a national championship.

This offseason was also good for the G6 -- North Dakota State and Sacramento State are moving up from the FCS, and the Pac-12 is now whole again. While the power conference plugged up the loophole that allowed two non-power schools to sneak into the playoff, the excitement of chasing down one of the precious spots will give us another fun race to December. So who could be this year's party crasher?

Boise State is the preseason favorite to not only win the rebuilt Pac-12 but also be the best team among the G6. They bring back QB Maddux Madsen to a team that now sits in a better conference, all while getting a shot against Oregon to start off the season. They could get a push from fellow Pac-12 newcomer San Diego State, who brings back one of the best defenses in the nation along with a tough stable of running backs.

Over in the Sun Belt, James Madison could repeat as champs despite a lot of changes from last year's CFP squad. Billy Napier takes over after a tough showing at Florida. Tulane may have trouble repeating as American Conference champs due to their mass overhaul. That opens the door for Navy, which would be fitting during America's 250th birthday celebration. Head coach Brian Newberry is building Navy back into an academy power and has a very favorable conference schedule. Memphis will challenge them, with new head coach Charlie Huff, who has a track record of quickly turning around programs. This time, he's taking over a Tigers team that finished 8-5 last season and has Boise State, UNLV, Tulane and Navy on its schedule.

Speaking of UNLV, they may now be the class of the retooled Mountain West conference. With Boise State out of the way, the Rebels may finally be able to break through and win the MW after losing the last three conference championship games. They will be challenged by New Mexico and Hawaii ... with new member North Dakota State as a dark horse.

Miami-OH and Western Michigan could break out in the MAC. The Redhawks have been dominant in league play of late, and the Broncos bring back a ton of starters.

While Brendan Sorsby won't play a snap for Texas Tech this season, the fallout from his attempt to play for the Red Raiders this season will continue.

From the way Sorsby was able to find a judge willing to put an injunction on his ineligibility so he could play this season, to Texas Tech's defiance of playing him, to the reaction of the college football world to how all of this went down, it's not going away just because he's going to spend this season away from school and preparing for the 2027 draft. There were a lot of heated conversations, and a lot of venom was spewed to make a lasting impression on Tech, the Big 12, and college sports.

Gambling is one of the trickiest problems in sports today, one that even the NFL didn't want to deal with in this instance. The Big 12's response to ostracizing one of its member schools must have some hard feelings lingering for the near future. Schools like Georgia and Nebraska planned to boycott playing Texas Tech in any sport, while other schools were set to do the same thing. Eventually, Texas Tech and Sorsby pulled their lawsuits and ended the fight, but the damage is done.

For a while, Texas Tech was dug in to play him ... and the rest of the Big 12 wanted nothing to do with it. That's one of the biggest battles we've seen between a conference and one of its members. Maybe everyone came to their senses, and there will be a better understanding of expectations moving forward. Maybe the distrust remains for a while. One thing we do know is that it was clearly a major issue for college sports that is not and will not be limited to this and does not go away with Sorsby leaving for the NFL. 

Rewind back one year, and all the buzz was about how loaded the quarterback class was set to be, and that the 2026 NFL Draft was going to be one of the best QB classes in quite some time. But it never led up to the hype.

So heading into this year, everyone hopes that those guys who stayed in school will show their potential. We've already discussed Arch Manning, but he's not the only one NFL teams have their eye on. Oregon's Dante Moore toyed with coming out for the draft this spring to be a first-round pick but elected to come back to the Ducks. Oregon is primed for another big season, but they continue to have really poor playoff showings that are sticking to Moore.

Elsewhere in the Big Ten is Julian Sayin, who will get the opportunity to throw passes to Jeremiah Smith for another season. Sayin's accuracy is among the best in the nation, but it may be because he tends not to take too many risks with the ball. His platform in Columbus will put a lot of eyes on him.

There are other names who got a lot of buzz that need rebound seasons if they are going to recapture that juice. South Carolina's LaNorris Sellers had an uneven year in 2025, making some great plays and some real head-scratchers. He needs to refine his habits if the Gamecocks want to have a break-out year. Nico Iamaleava  had many setbacks in his first year at UCLA, which some fans reveled in. DJ Lagway is hoping to reach his potential at Baylor after being inconsistent at Florida. Sam Leavitt was a player on the rise after a huge 2024 but injuries caused him to struggle last year at Arizona State. He moves on to LSU to be the face of Lane Kiffin's first team with the Tigers. 

No name was hotter than Oklahoma's John Mateer  over the first month of the season. But a hand injury brought him back down to earth. Hopefully he's healthy enough to put the Sooners back into the playoff. Trinidad Chambliss had his breakout last season for Ole Miss, leading the Rebels to the CFP semifinals. He fought the NCAA to get another year of eligibility, so look for him to make the most of it. Josh Hoover hopes some of that Hoosier magic from Fernando Mendoza rubs off on him as he transfers to Indiana from TCU. Marcel Reed (Texas A&M), CJ Carr (Notre Dame), Darian Mensah (Miami) and Jayden Maiava  (USC) are also looking to have big seasons. 

Some newcomers, so to speak, to watch are Oklahoma State's Drew Mestemaker. Mestemaker led one of the nation's top offenses at North Texas last season and transferred to Oklahoma State to stay with head coach Eric Morris. If he can have a big season in Stillwater, then look for him to drive up draft boards. Austin Mack gets his shot at Alabama while Rocco Becht takes over for Drew Allar at Penn State, following new head coach Matt Campbell from Iowa State. And an intriguing one to me is Jaden Craig, who heads to TCU after a huge year at Harvard. If he can replicate what he did with the Crimson with the Horned Frogs, he could be a huge sleeper this season. 

There was quite a bit of noise coming from the college football world after the College Football Playoff bracket was released last December. There was quite a bit of confusion after watching Group of 5 schools James Madison and Tulane get invites while ACC champion Duke was left out. We also saw Notre Dame be extremely vocal about being jumped by Miami (who did not win the ACC title) in the final rankings and not earning a berth.

Some of that has been addressed for this season.

The first change is a key one: each of the four power conference champions earns a berth to the College Football Playoff, with a fifth spot guaranteed to the highest-ranked Group of 6 team. That would mean that Duke would have made it last year since they were the ACC champion, and James Madison would have been left out (Tulane was the highest-ranked G6 champ).

Note that I didn't say that the Group of 6 representative had to be a champion. That's another change in the selection guidelines. The highest-ranked Group of 6 team will get the bid even if they aren't a league champion.

The ACC has also decided to change its own tiebreaker procedures for determining who plays in its conference championship game. Due to complicated procedures last year, Virginia and Duke were picked to play in the ACC championship game in Charlotte and not Miami, the highest-ranked conference team. The league now wants to incorporate the CFP rankings into the tiebreakers so that the better teams play.

Another change is a tad more controversial. Notre Dame is guaranteed a berth if they finish in the top 12 of the final CFP rankings. So if they finished 12th in those rankings, they could jump ahead of teams ranked above them and knock them out of a berth. 

While not an on-field issue, the ongoing discussions about expanding the College Football Playoff will grow much louder as we get late in the season. With some deadlines approaching late in the fall, talks of a 16- or 24-team tournament will get much louder. Right now, the Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC are all for expansion while the SEC is taking a more cautious approach to these talks.

Of course, each of those four power conferences -- plus Notre Dame and each of the Group of 6 leagues -- has its own goals and interests in these discussions, so this should drag on all season. With some new rules at Notre Dame and tiebreakers across conferences, we will need to see how all that plays out before committing to anything new.

December is the deadline to get something new in place for the 2027 season, so look for around Thanksgiving for talks to heat up.

Every year brings some changes to the rules or the logistics of the game. Here are a few notable ones:

*The one that may be noticed the most is a trial rule regarding targeting. In the past, if a player was disqualified for targeting in the second half of a game, they were made to sit the first half of their following game. This year, there will be no carryover for a player's first targeting offense of the season. On their second offense, the carryover rule applies. On the third offense, the player will be suspended for the entire following game.

*Teams will have two replay challenges, with a third challenge rewarded if one of those two is successful.

*Officials will make a point of emphasis on taunting.

*An off-the-field change may have ramifications on the field. The NCAA has adopted a rule allowing players a five-year window of eligibility, effectively ending redshirting. This could affect what happens on the field, as players won't have to sit after four games to maintain a season of eligibility as we've seen in the past.

*The former Motor City Bowl, LA Bowl and Bahamas Bowl will no longer be played. The Puerto Rico Bowl and Poinsettia Bowl will join the bowl season. 

Let me be clear: Kirk Ferentz isn't falling off. The Hawkeyes finished 9-4 last year, won the ReliaQuest Bowl over Vanderbilt, and gave Indiana a scare with a 20-15 loss last September. He also became the Big Ten's all-time winningest head coach. Despite the changes in college football, he still employs a brutal defense and keeps putting guys in the NFL. Why would he retire?

He turns 71 in August, and I'm sure the thought of retirement has crossed his mind over the last couple of years. He's the longest-tenured coach in FBS and, aside from reaching the College Football Playoff, he's done everything at Iowa short of winning a national championship. He is a legend in Iowa City, and he will go out on his own terms. Maybe it is this year. Maybe not.  

Indiana was never looked at as a school that could dominate a season, go 16-0, and win a national championship. But they did.  Who out there could emulate that?

I'm looking for those power schools that have been doormats for a long, long, long time and haven't seriously looked like national title contenders. Is there one waiting in the weeds?

Kentucky . It isn't happening this year because of that brutal schedule, but the hiring of Will Stein has already been a boost to recruiting. The Wildcats have shown they can have some really good seasons, but they are looking to Stein to take them to the next level.

Texas Tech. Put aside the Sorsby saga for a moment -- this school is thinking big about their football program. They are dumping a lot of money into talent (the entire reason Sorsby was there to begin with), and it paid off with a CFP berth last year. Friends around the program want the Red Raiders to be a top program right now.

Vanderbilt. Vandy is one of the toughest jobs in the country. You are a private university with elite admissions standards trying to hang in the SEC. The Commodores were so close to getting a playoff berth last year. If they are able to keep things on this trend with Chris Lea then they could finally reach that goal.

SMU. The Pony Express was the rise and death of this program in the 1980s and it has taken nearly 40 years to get back to national relevance. Getting into the ACC gives them a platform as a power program and their dedication to the football program has instantly paid off. The Mustangs were a playoff team in 2024 and were a bad finale loss to Cal away for playing for an ACC title for the second time in as many years.

North Carolina. Just imagine for a moment that Bill Belichick can pull this off.