A new king will be crowned tonight in the 2026 College Football Playoff National Championship with the No. 10 Miami Hurricanes and No. 1 Indiana Hoosiers facing off at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, FL. The Hurricanes are 60 minutes away from securing the program’s first national title in a nearly a quarter century while a Hoosier victory would solidify the most dramatic two-year turnaround in college football history.
As we wait for these two programs to clash in this heavyweight title fight, we’ll peak ahead to next season and look at a handful of teams who could be standing in this very spot one year from now. Several contenders from this year have already made moves to beef up their rosters through recruiting/the transfer portal and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see one of them hoisting the gold trophy in Las Vegas next January. These are in no particular order, so don’t yell at me. Let’s dive in.
What if we were just a year too early with the Texas hype? The Longhorns entered 2025 ranked as the preseason No. 1 team in the country and didn’t quite live up to expectations, posting a 10-3 record where they were left out of the 12-team playoff. Arch Manning experienced growing pains in his first season as a starter and while he didn’t light the world on fire as the preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, he improved as the season went on and put on a show in their 41-27 victory over Michigan in the Citrus Bowl.
Manning will return to Austin in 2026 with a full year of starting experience under his belt and not only will he have top receiver Ryan Wingo back in the saddle, he’ll have new transfer weapons in Auburn receiver Cam Coleman, Arizona State running back Raleek Brown, and NC State running back Hollywood Smothers. They’ll have a chance to get some payback against Ohio State when hosting the Buckeyes in September and a win there could really get them rolling on a path to Las Vegas.
Oregon’s 2025 season could be considered a success as it won 13 games and got to the doorstep of a title game appearance by reaching the CFP semifinal. Dante Moore was excellent in taking over for Dillon Gabriel at quarterback, Kenyon Sadiq solidified himself as the top tight end prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft, and their defensive front seven terrorized opposing QB’s all season long. Great. Cool. The only problem was them having no answers for Indiana, who beat them twice and embarrassed them by 34 points in that Peach Bowl semifinal.
The Ducks’ quest for their first national title once again fell short but you know what, they will be right back in the mix again next season. Moore passed up the opportunity to be the next victim of the Jets enter the NFL Draft and will return to Eugene next season as an experienced veteran. Dan Lanning will once again have one of the more talented rosters in entire country and Minnesota transfer safety Koi Perich could be a difference-maker in the defensive backfield. Oregon is bound to finally break through one of these years and 2026 could be that year.
Win or lose tonight, Indiana isn’t going away and Curt Cignetti has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to quickly assembling a roster that can dominate at the highest level of the sport. The likes of Fernando Mendoza, Roman Hemby, Elijah Sarratt, D’Angelo Ponds, and Louis Moore will all have to be replaced after playing vital roles in the Hoosiers bulldozing their way to the title game with a perfect 15-0 record. They should be alright.
TCU quarterback Josh Hoover will be the man operating the controls for IU next season and with back-to-back 3,000-yard seasons under his belt, he could pick up where Mendoza left off. He’s one of several veteran players headlining a loaded transfer portal class for the Hoosiers, one that includes Michigan State receiver Nick Marsh and Penn State cornerback A.J. Harris, and Kansas State edge rusher Tobi Osunsanmi. From what we saw from this year’s Indiana team, to would not be a shock to see this group of transfers lighting it up in the playoffs one year from now.
Ohio State has a top-five roster in the sport almost in perpetuity and even though it was unable to defend its title this season, it will be right back in the national title conversation next year. The Buckeyes carved right through the 2025 regular season with a perfect 12-0 record, only to stumble in December against the eventual title game participants in Indiana and Miami. First-year starting quarterback Julian Sayin had total command of the offense by season’s end and it obviously helps when you can just press the Jeremiah Smith button…and have a 1,000-yard freshman running back in Bo Jackson…and have the top-ranked defense in SP+ led by several future first-round picks.
The good news for the Buckeyes is that Sayin, Smith, and Jackson will be back for OSU and No. 1 wide receiver prospect Chris Henry Jr. projects to be the next pass-catching prodigy for the Scarlet and Gray. The bad news is that NFL-bound defenders like Arvell Reese and Caleb Downs will have to be replaced. But it’s Ohio State. New monsters will emerge and we’ll be talking about them next winter.
The 2026 season will be Year 5 of the Lincoln Riley era in Los Angeles and by all accounts, it’s a do-or-die, all-in season for his tenure. USC had a respectable nine-win campaign this season and was actually hanging onto the periphery of the playoff picture in late November before a 42-27 loss to Oregon ended those dreams. Jayden Maiava had a productive season at quarterback and helps when you have a cheat code in Biletnikoff Award winner Makai Lemon to throw to.
USC will be running it back with most of its key players except the NFL-bound Lemon, although NC State transfer wideout Terrell Anderson could be a nice substitute. The Trojans have supplemented their roster with the No. 1 recruiting class in the country and top-ranked tackle Keenyi Pepe could be a Day 1 starter as a true freshman. Notre Dame is controversially off the schedule, but they’ll still have a tough Big Ten slate with the likes of Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon on the docket. If they can reach 10 wins with a victory in at least one of those games, then they should be comfortably in the playoff field. If not, well, we could be talking about a new USC head coach for 2027.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame got left out of the playoff field for Alabama this season and spent an entire week crashing out, going so far as declining to participate in a bowl game. They spent most of the season dropping the hammer on their opponents left and right, but it wasn’t enough to overcome their one-score losses to Miami and Texas A&M in the eyes of the CFP committee. It’s actually a bit of a shame that we didn’t get to see Heisman Trophy finalist Jeremiyah Love tote the rock in the playoffs again before declaring for the 2026 NFL Draft.
The good news for the Irish is that they are basically guaranteed a playoff spot if they are ranked in the top 12 at the end of the season and one will assume that Marcus Freeman will have the team ready to prove themselves after the playoff snub (assuming that he doesn’t take an NFL job at the last minute). C.J. Carr will be back at quarterback and he’ll have plenty of talent helping him out with Notre Dame pulling in top classes from both high school and the transfer portal. The Fighting Irish aren’t going away and with a manageable schedule next season, they should be in the thick of the playoff hunt.
You know what, I could’ve done this with Ohio State earlier, but I don’t have to say much here. It’s Georgia. There’s talent everywhere. They’re most likely going to play Texas in the SEC Championship Game and be off to the playoffs from there. You’ve seen this movie before, you know the deal. Next…
The final weeks of the regular season was consumed by Lane Kiffin abandoning a playoff semifinal-bound Ole Miss for LSU and there will be an intense microscope over his first season in Baton Rouge next year. LSU armed him with a war chest of $25-30 million in NIL funds and he’s made good use of it with the No. 1 transfer portal class in the entire country. The Tigers were able to beat out several suitors for top transfer portal quarterback Sam Leavitt and fellow transfers like Tennessee edge rusher Jordan Ross and Old Dominion wideout Tre’ Brown III should make an immediate impact.
Kiffin has a mandate to win and win quickly in Baton Rouge and the expectation will be to at least have them in the playoff mix by the time they visit Arkansas to close the regular season. If Leavitt immediately hits like fellow Arizona State transfer QB Jayden Daniels did a few years ago, then things can turn around for LSU almost immediately.
A 12-team playoff bracket opens the door for at least one under-the-radar team to insert itself into the national title conversation and I’ll go bold and predict Houston being that team for 2026. If you didn’t notice, the Cougars quietly took a huge step forward in Willie Fritz’s second season, winning 10 games and knocking off LSU in the Texas Bowl to end the campaign. Everyone is searching for the next Curt Cignetti right now and to borrow a catchphrase of his, go Google the amount of winning that he’s done at programs like Sam Houston, Georgia Southern, and Tulane.
Texas A&M transfer quarterback Connor Weigman had a strong season for the Cougars in 2025 and he’ll be back next season alongside leading receiver Amare Thomas. One of the more impactful moves of the transfer portal cycle could end up being former Tulane running back Makhi Hughes deciding to re-unite with Fritz after a disappointing year at Oregon. And while next year’s Cougar offense could be dangerous, the signing of No. 1 prep QB Keisean Henderson could set the program up for even greater success in the future. Buy your Houston stock now, because you could be seeing this program rubbing elbows with the sport’s best real soon.
