We’re just over a week away from the start of the 2026 college football season, making it a perfect time for some self-reflection. It’s no secret that my predictions for college football are, at best, inconsistent, so let’s go back and see just how bad it really got. For the record, I don’t think anyone aside from Curt Cignetti thought that Indiana would be undefeated national champions at this time last year.
2025 Predictions vs Actual
Power 4 Conference Championships
ACC
- Prediction: Clemson over Miami
- Actual: Duke over Virginia
Big Ten
- Prediction: Ohio State over Penn State
- Actual: Indiana over Ohio State
Big 12
- Prediction: Kansas State over Iowa State
- Actual: Texas Tech over BYU
SEC
- Prediction: Georgia over Texas
- Actual: Georgia over Alabama
Participants: 2/8 Champions: 1/4 – 25% for both! Yikes.
The Clemson vs Penn State Pinstripe Bowl may as well have been named the “Misplaced Preseason Expectations” Bowl – and I fell for the hype as well. I also blame the ACC for having some truly baffling conference championship tiebreakers.
College Football Playoff:
Prediction:
- Texas
- Ohio State
- Clemson
- Penn State
- Georgia
- Notre Dame
- Alabama
- Kansas State
- Oregon
- Illinois
- South Carolina
- Tulane
Actual:
- Indiana
- Ohio State
- Georgia
- Texas Tech
- Oregon
- Ole Miss
- Texas A&M
- Oklahoma
- Alabama
- Miami (FL)
- Tulane
- James Madison
Prediction Accuracy: 5/12 – I will take credit for predicting Tulane.
Heisman Top 5:
Prediction:
- Cade Klubnik (QB, Clemson)
- Garrett Nussmeier (QB, LSU)
- Arch Manning (QB, Texas)
- Jeremiah Smith (WR, Ohio St.)
- LaNorris Sellers (QB, South Carolina)
Actual:
- Fernando Mendoza (QB, Indiana)
- Diego Pavia (QB, Vanderbilt)
- Jeremiyah Love (RB, Notre Dame)
- Julian Sayin (QB, Ohio State)
- Jacob Rodriguez (LB, Texas Tech)
Prediction Accuracy: 0/5 – Once again, I dare you to find someone who had quarterbacks from Indiana and Vanderbilt as the top two in Heisman voting at this time last year (with a linebacker in the Top 5 to boot!). I did have Love as an honorable mention and Sayin stole Smith’s votes, so this could have been a lot worse.
See you all in a few weeks for another round of prediction roulette, I mean the 2026 season preview. Here’s hoping a new season also makes me a better prognosticator.
Lobos Power Hour 