I made my 2026 college football playoff bracket for this season and six of the twelve aren’t even my opinion. The format filled those in for me. One of them is the Notre Dame automatic playoff bid, a rule somebody wrote specifically so Notre Dame never has to feel left out again.
Four spots go to conference champions. One goes to the best Group of Six team. And one is Notre Dame’s.
The Notre Dame automatic playoff bid is a rule with one team’s name in it
Notre Dame finished 11th last year and missed the cut. This season there’s a rule that says if Notre Dame lands anywhere in the top 12, they’re in automatically. Those two things happened in that order.
Everybody else has to go win a trophy. Notre Dame has to finish twelfth.
And the reason they don’t have to win a conference is that they don’t have a conference, which was their idea. They spent a hundred years telling all of us that independence was the whole beautiful point, and then it cost them one December and somebody sat down and typed a paragraph about it.
I’ve got them at 4, so I’m not even using the thing. They’re going to be good, that was never the argument. It’s that there’s a sentence in the rulebook with their name in it.
And you want to know what set all this off? Duke won the ACC at 8-5 and STILL missed the playoff, because the committee didn’t rank them at all. An 8-5 team won a Power Four league and got told no thanks. That was the problem everybody agreed needed solving. The solution was Notre Dame.
Tulane is a box I filled in
Tulane’s my 12 and I’m not going to stand here and pretend. That spot goes to the highest ranked Group of Six team, it doesn’t even have to win a league anymore, so somebody’s getting it and Tulane’s the name I put in the box.
Yell at that one. It’s earned. Jon Sumrall left for Florida, Will Hall’s the new guy and he got fired in the middle of a season at Southern Miss two years ago, Power Four programs came through and took the roster apart, and College Football News has them going 8-4.
Boise State’s probably the real answer. I typed Tulane and I’m leaving it.
Miami’s number one and Miami plays nobody
Here’s my actual opinion. Miami’s the best team in the country. Mensah at quarterback, two 1,000 yard receivers, Fletcher running behind that line, six starters back on defense.
Then I looked up who they play and Phil Steele has their schedule 61st in the country. 61ST. My 1 seed has the 61st hardest schedule in America.
Ohio State’s my 2 and they go to Austin in Week 2, then Iowa, then Indiana, then USC, then home for Oregon and Michigan. Six ranked teams. So Ryan Day can win ten games against that and get seeded under a 12-0 Miami team that never left the neighborhood, and the reward for the easy fall is a week off in December.
I’m not even mad about it. I’m just telling you I noticed.
Penn State is in my playoff and Penn State isn’t on the roster
I root against Penn State every week of my life and it has never once cost me anything, so understand that when I tell you I’ve got them in at 10.
Matt Campbell took the job and then took Iowa State with him. 24 Cyclones moved to State College, somewhere between 11 and 13 of them starters. Rocco Becht is the quarterback of Penn State. Penn State returns five of its own guys. ESPN’s Big Ten preview flat out said this team is going to be more Iowa State than Penn State, and that is a real sentence somebody published about a program that just paid a coach to go away.
They waited all that time for a coaching search to end and what pulled up was Ames.
And they’re going to win ten games doing it, because they don’t play Indiana, they don’t play Ohio State, they don’t play Oregon, and they do play a Purdue team that went 2-10.
Then it got better. Seeds 5 through 12 play the first round, 7 hosts 10, and the winner of that goes to the 2 seed. So in my own bracket Penn State has to go win in Athens and then go play Ohio State. I built a thing where Penn State gets eliminated twice. I didn’t plan that. I’m not fixing it either.
Indiana at 8 is my L to take
I know. They went 16-0. I’m not going to sit here and act like I forgot.
Eight of them got drafted, a school record, Mendoza went first overall, and both receivers and both running backs and the tight end and a corner all left with him. Josh Hoover comes in from TCU with almost 10,000 career yards, which is a lot, and 24 interceptions in two seasons, which is also a lot.
The Sporting News has Indiana preseason number one. I’ve got them eighth. If Cignetti pulls a third straight quarterback out of the portal and it works again, that 8 is going to look stupid on me by Halloween and I’ll come on here and say it out loud.
So that’s my twelve. Six I’ll fight you over, five the format handed me, and Notre Dame.
And I still can’t get past that last one. An 8-5 team won a Power Four conference and couldn’t get into a 12 team playoff, and the rule we got out of it guarantees Notre Dame a spot for finishing twelfth. Somebody explain that one to me like I’m stupid.
Here’s my whole 2026 college football playoff bracket, paperwork marked
The four byes. 1 Miami, ACC champ. 2 Ohio State, Big Ten champ. 3 Texas, SEC champ. 4 Notre Dame, and you already know how Notre Dame got there.
The first round, higher seed hosts. 5 Oregon and 12 Tulane, who’s got the Group of Six spot. 6 LSU and 11 SMU. 7 Georgia and 10 Penn State. 8 Indiana and 9 Texas Tech, Big 12 champ.
Then the byes pick up whoever survives. Miami waits on the 8-9 winner, Ohio State on the 7-10 winner, Texas on the 6-11 winner, Notre Dame on the 5-12 winner. I’m not picking those games. This is the bracket, that’s the whole exercise.
Six of those twelve names got put there by the format. Miami, Ohio State, Texas and Texas Tech for winning leagues, Tulane for being the Group of Six box, and Notre Dame for existing. Oregon, LSU, Georgia, Indiana, Penn State and SMU are the ones I actually picked, and those are the six you can come argue with me about.
