College football 2026: Preseason top 25 rankings, bowl projections, All-Americans and more
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College football 2026: Preseason top 25 rankings, bowl projections, All-Americans and more originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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College football continues to navigate extreme changes off the field.
The debate around the Protect College Sports Act of 2026 aims at the long-term health of the sport – including NIL, the transfer portal and eligibility concerns. While college football leaders continue to debate playoff expansion, changes to the sport continue to be a challenge.
What hasn't changed? The product on the field should be exciting in 2026. Indiana is the defending national champion – a nod to just how much that landscape has changed in the 12-team College Football Playoff era.
What's in store for 2026? A wide-open national championship race, for starters. Indiana, Ohio State and Oregon are among the national title contenders from the Big Ten. Georgia and Texas also will be in the mix along with Notre Dame. All of those schools have top-shelf quarterbacks, too.
The College Football Playoff begins on Dec. 18. The semifinals will be played at the Capital One Orange Bowl and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Jan. 14-15. The College Football Playoff championship game is on Jan. 25 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
We're here to get you prepared for all that and more. With that, Sporting News will have preseason top 25 rankings, bowl projections, All-Americans and more to get you ready for the start of the 2025 season:
SN Preview Magazine
The Sporting News College Football 2026 Preview magazine is available to order now. The preview magazine made its return this summer. It features more than 150 team previews from the FBS to the FCS, and it contains in-depth features on the top storylines heading into the 2026 college football season. Get your copy today!
College football rankings: SN's preseason top 25
Sporting News' post-spring Top 25 is out, and we have defending national champion Indiana at No. 1 heading into the 2026 college football season. Here is a sneak peek at our top 10:
- 1. Indiana
- 2. Ohio State
- 3. Georgia
- 4. Texas
- 5. Notre Dame
- 6. Oregon
- 7. Miami
- 8. Ole Miss
- 9. Oklahoma
- 10. USC
Is that too much hype for Texas and Notre Dame heading into 2026? Who made the rest of SN's preseason top 25? How will that compare with the AP Preseason Top 25 and Coaches Poll later this summer?
College Football Playoff expansion
The College Football Playoff made a few tweaks to the 12-team College Football Playoff heading into 2026-27. Here is how the CFP will work this season, in terms of seeding and automatic qualifiers. What's next? Will the College Football Playoff expand to 24 teams in the future? We have a strong opinion on that.
Ranking top college quarterbacks for 2025
Who is the best college football quarterback in 2026? It's a loaded class that features several potential first-round picks. Ohio State's Julian Sayin is a returning Heisman finalist. Ole Miss' Trinidad Chambliss and Oregon's Dante Moore led their teams to the CFP. Miami's Darian Mensah is the top transfer QB, and Notre Dame's CJ Carr and Texas' Arch Manning are early Heisman favorites. And there's also that Brendan Sorsby guy down at Texas Tech. Who is our top QB among that loaded field? Check out our top 25 QBs for 2026, and we also ranked the QB rooms for the ACC (and Notre Dame) , Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC.
College football coach rankings (1-138)
North Dakota State and Sacramento State join the FBS this season – meaning there are 138 FBS coaches to grade during the season. How do those coaches stack up in the rankings right now? We have a new No. 1 with Indiana coach Curt Cignetti. Is that the right call over Georgia's Kirby Smart or Ohio State's Ryan Day? Where does Lane Kiffin – who left Ole Miss for LSU – fit in our ranking? Sporting News 1-138 Coach Rankings for 2026 answers the question here. We broke out the top 25 coaches on a separate list here.
SEC, Big Ten schedule rankings
Florida had the toughest schedule in the SEC the last two seasons. Who has the toughest slate in the conference – which moved to a nine-game conference schedule this season? What about the Big Ten? We'll have full schedule rankings for the SEC and Big Ten ahead of the season.
2027 NFL Draft Big Board
Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith's draft value has been discussed since his freshman year. Will the Buckeyes' star receiver be the first pick in the 2027 NFL Draft? Or will Manning be first among a loaded QB class for 2027? A look at our 2027 NFL Draft Big Board – which will be updated throughout the season.
Playoff and bowl projections for 2026-27
There will be 41 bowl games involving FBS teams in the 2026-27 season – and that does not include the first-round, on-campus games for the College Football Playoff. Sporting News has complete bowl projections and 12-team College Football Playoff picks later this month.
SN Preseason All-American team
Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore returns from last year's SN 2025 All-America team, so it is not a surprise he is on our 2026 preseason edition. Remember, Sporting News is one of five outlets used to determine consensus All-American status at the end of the season.
SN 140
Sporting News celebrates its 140th anniversary this year – and our college football coverage is a huge part of our publication's history. Here is our All-Decade All-America teams, the greatest college football teams of all time determined by our blue-ribbon panel, and the top program of each decade, dating back to 1886!
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