Joel Klatt 10 games that will define the 2026 season (Texas has 3)

[Gerry Hamilton]

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/college-football/ten-games-will-define-2026-college-football-season

[Texas fan in Georgia]

I’d swap 1&2. 

[LonghornFan4Ever]

Just beat Ohio State.  The outcome of that game sets the tone for how good or bad the season will go imo

[hookem1014]

12 minutes ago, LonghornFan4Ever said:

Just beat Ohio State.  The outcome of that game sets the tone for how good or bad the season will go imo

It will say a lot about Sark as well. He needs to get over that hump against some of the top coaches in CFB. 0-7 currently vs Day, Kirby, Deboer

[Glass Joe]

I’m not a Klatt fan any longer, so I’ll offer some criticism of the list.

USC vs Penn State??  A battle of 4-loss teams featuring Iowa State’s roster and Lincoln Riley awaiting an NFL OC offer!  Wow!

I’d argue the Houston vs Tech game has far broader Playoff implications than USC vs. Penn State.

And where is the Oregon vs Ohio State game?! One of those two teams is winning the Big Ten and getting a top 4 playoff seed.

Clemson vs LSU is a playoff elimination game (for the loser) in week #1.

Michigan has no chance of making the playoffs but has two games on this top 10 list?

[Jerky]

I said it last year and I will say it this year, I don't believe Texas makes the CFP if we lose to OH St.

The CFP Committee does not rank teams analytically and perspicaciously. Each committee member has a past along with some tie to a school/conference as such each has favorites, dislikes, competitors, rivals and possibly enemies. A CFP committee majority is systematically and institutionalized to be factional, potentially vs an SEC team under the right circumstances. Some CFP committee members are outright biased against Texas.

Winning teams but less talented than elites are often given a generous ranking due to avoiding losses by way of a manageable schedule.

Talented teams with many future NFL players often do not get the respect they deserve if they have 1 too many losses vs a tough and talented schedule.

The CFP Committee is often framing arguments around mistake prone polls to reverse engineer their preferred CFP rankings.

All 9-3 SEC teams are vulnerable to being left out of the 12 team CFP.

[GQ03]

18 hours ago, Glass Joe said:

I’m not a Klatt fan any longer, so I’ll offer some criticism of the list.

USC vs Penn State??  A battle of 4-loss teams featuring Iowa State’s roster and Lincoln Riley awaiting an NFL OC offer!  Wow!

I’d argue the Houston vs Tech game has far broader Playoff implications than USC vs. Penn State.

And where is the Oregon vs Ohio State game?! One of those two teams is winning the Big Ten and getting a top 4 playoff seed.

Clemson vs LSU is a playoff elimination game (for the loser) in week #1.

Michigan has no chance of making the playoffs but has two games on this top 10 list?

Even though Penn St is Iowa St in Nittany Lion pajamas, they're schedule is so easy that they'll probably get to 10 wins rather easily. 

 

Clemson is not making the cfp and is not winning that game. 

 

To me there is a clear top 7 teams made up of Texas, Georgia, Ohio St, Oregon, Indiana, Miami and Notre Dame. There are only 5 regular season games where two of those teams face each other and all 5 of the following should be on any list about the top 10 games:

1. Ohio St at Texas

2. Oregon at Indiana 

3. Ohio St at Indiana 

4. Oregon at Ohio St 

5. Miami at Notre Dame

 

[AusMOJO]

i agree with you guys about Oregon. They're loaded this year. Two big time Edge's, a top tier QB, a great RB, loaded WR room and they made some other great grabs in the portal to buff up the D, etc. It'll be a 3 way race for the Big 10 title, Indiana, Ohio State and Oregon. 

[AusMOJO]

Hell Miami should run through the ACC with ease. They're just so much more talented than the rest in that conference it's insane. Especially with addition of Mensah at QB. SMU seems like they'll make some noise, outside of that, what else does the ACC have? Clemson seems like it's a downward trend but what do I know? 2025 was really disappointing for them, they returned a lot and kind of just fell off. 

[Okcool]

21 hours ago, LonghornFan4Ever said:

Just beat Ohio State.  The outcome of that game sets the tone for how good or bad the season will go imo

It did last year. I’m far from a fair weather fan, but I traveled to that game, Florida and Georgia. Season ticket holder almost 30 years and didn’t make a home game. After the 2024 season, going to the SEC championship and CFP playoff games ya sorta knew it was over in Gainsville. Traveled to Athens to check off the list but the game felt an awful lot like OSU asd Florida. Struggling uphill all game long. Confident we re-write the script 2nd week this year at home. 🤘🏼

[Burnt Orange Horn]

1 hour ago, GQ03 said:

Even though Penn St is Iowa St in Nittany Lion pajamas, they're schedule is so easy that they'll probably get to 10 wins rather easily. 

 

Clemson is not making the cfp and is not winning that game. 

 

To me there is a clear top 7 teams made up of Texas, Georgia, Ohio St, Oregon, Indiana, Miami and Notre Dame. There are only 5 regular season games where two of those teams face each other and all 5 of the following should be on any list about the top 10 games:

1. Ohio St at Texas

2. Oregon at Indiana 

3. Ohio St at Indiana 

4. Oregon at Ohio St 

5. Miami at Notre Dame

 

Notre Divas is a fraudulent team.

[Glass Joe]

2 hours ago, GQ03 said:

Even though Penn St is Iowa St in Nittany Lion pajamas, they're schedule is so easy that they'll probably get to 10 wins rather easily. 

 

Clemson is not making the cfp and is not winning that game. 

 

To me there is a clear top 7 teams made up of Texas, Georgia, Ohio St, Oregon, Indiana, Miami and Notre Dame. There are only 5 regular season games where two of those teams face each other and all 5 of the following should be on any list about the top 10 games:

1. Ohio St at Texas

2. Oregon at Indiana 

3. Ohio St at Indiana 

4. Oregon at Ohio St 

5. Miami at Notre Dame

 

Oregon and Indiana do not play each other this year.  Scratch #2 off your list.

Miami will not be a top 7 team in 2026, but they will be in the Playoffs by default (ACC champs after all).  

The loser of the Ohio St - Texas game will still make the CFB Playoffs even with 3 losses on their record.  In fact, there’s a great chance this season that TWO teams with 3 losses will make the Playoffs.

The Big 12 has a really good chance of getting two teams into the Playoffs this season (due to such a putrid bottom half of their league).  Watch BYU here.

People are assuming way too much about 3-loss teams not making the playoffs based on a sample size 2 previous years.  That assumption won’t hold in 2026.  At least one Big Ten team will make the Playoffs this season with 3 losses (just look at the schedules), and there’s a really good chance an SEC team with 3 losses will as well (the SEC moving to a 9-game schedule has a huge impact here).

2026 Playoffs breakdown:

Big Ten - 4 teams

SEC - 3 teams

ACC - 1 team

Big 12 - 2 teams

G5 - 1 team

Notre Dame