4 most overrated college football teams entering 2026 season
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“OVER-RATED!” We’ve all heard the chant from the college football student sections as they look to heckle a visiting player or team. Sometimes, it’s simply inaccurate and only serves to motivate the party in question, but other times, it’s just correct.
Whether it be prior performance, name recognition, or splashy offseason “gets,” some teams end up with a much higher public perception than their actual ability level, and end up, dare we say, overrated.
Here are the top-4 overrated teams heading into the 2026 season. Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.
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Alabama
Under Nick Saban, the Crimson Tide were the most dominant program in college football. They got all the best recruits and won all of the big games. But Nick Saban isn’t walking through that door. This is the Kalen DeBoer Alabama, and I believe that their previous history under Saban is carrying a lot of water with the national perception of how good this team is. T
he defense, which was just okay last year, has been gutted. Quarterback Ty Simpson covered up a lot of offensive issues last season, namely the complete and utter lack of a run game. Simpson is now a Los Angeles Ram, and the starting quarterback for 2026 has not yet been named. I’m just not seeing it with this team this year. Kalen DeBoer’s seat is going to be getting awfully warm.
Oklahoma
The Sooners rank in the top-10 in the first AP Poll of the season. On paper, it makes sense – they return their dynamic starting QB John Mateer, Brent Venables retained much of his coaching staff, and much of the nasty defense returns. So then why do most sportsbooks have Oklahoma’s win total at 7.5? This tells us that Vegas thinks this is a 7-5 or 8-4 team, and top-10 teams don’t end with fewer than 10 wins.
I’m on the side with Vegas. While they return a lot from last year, that was a team that had a pitiful run game and relied on an elite defense and kicker to win low-scoring, one-possession games. They were 4-1 last season when the margin of victory was 8 or fewer points. I’m not a believer in a team that may have returned a lot, but did not attempt to fix its flaws.
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Miami
What would be the perception of the Hurricanes if Miami had lost to Texas A&M in the first round of the College Football Playoff? Or if the CFP Committee didn’t have Miami randomly leapfrog Notre Dame to get in the bracket? We would be looking at a team that has a history of losing games to inferior opponents thanks to baffling game-management decisions by Mario Cristobal, which they still did twice last season.
We would be looking at a team that has lost its cheat code – the elite pair of pass rushers, Rueben Bain and Akheem Mesidor, have gone to the NFL. You could argue that Darian Mensah is an improvement over Carson Beck at quarterback, but I think the run last season was a little fluky and I worry about how the loss of Bain and Mesidor will negatively impact the defense.
Penn State
Out goes James Franklin, and in comes Matt Campbell, and what feels like the entirety of his starting lineup from Iowa State last season. So why do we think that a team that went 8-4 in the Big 12 is going to all of a sudden be a top-15 team just because they wear a different jersey?
I’m not buying it. The counter-argument would be that Penn State drew a Charmin Extra-Soft Big 10 conference schedule that dodges Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana. They will likely be favored in 10 or 11 games this season, but that doesn’t mean that they are actually a quality football team.
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