Ahead of the kickoff of the 2026 college football season, Sports Illustrated’s college football writers made their picks for everything from Power 4 conference champions to which contender will flop to the Heisman Trophy winner to the coach whose seat is the hottest. We also projected what the College Football Playoff field will look like. Notre Dame gets our consensus nod over Oregon, but the writers also got to choose their title game matchups—with tremendous variation. Here are all of our predictions:
