I vote in a weekly top 12 FBS teams for the Solid Verbal Podcast.

They allow sharing of ballots. You can find mine here:

1. Oregon Ducks
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
3. Ohio State Buckeyes
4. Texas Longhorns
5. Indiana Hoosiers
6. Miami Hurricanes
7. Georgia Bulldogs
8. Texas Tech Red Raiders
9. LSU Tigers
10. BYU Cougars
11. USC Trojans
12. SMU Mustangs

Observant readers will notice my top 12 is lighter on SEC teams than most. I am throwing darts after my top 7. And I don't really like my 10-12. I have several SEC teams right around 13 and could have easily made the list.

Locked In: None.

Almost Certainly In: Indiana Hoosiers

Likely In: Ohio State Buckeyes

Precariously In: Georgia Bulldogs, Miami Hurricanes, Notre Dame Fighting Irish, Oregon Ducks

Work To Do: Ole Miss Rebels, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Utah Utes

Need Some Luck: Alabama Crimson Tide, BYU Cougars, Iowa Hawkeyes, James Madison Dukes, North Dakota State Bison, Oklahoma Sooners, Penn State Nittany Lions, South Florida Bulls, Texas A&M Aggies, Texas Longhorns, USC Trojans, Vanderbilt Commodores, Washington Huskies

Likely Out: Arizona Wildcats, East Carolina Pirates, Florida State Seminoles, Illinois Fighting Illini, Louisville Cardinals, LSU Tigers, Michigan Wolverines, Missouri Tigers, North Texas Mean Green, Old Dominion Monarchs, Pittsburgh Panthers, SMU Mustangs, TCU Horned Frogs, Tennessee Volunteers, Toledo Rockets, Tulane Green Wave, Virginia Cavaliers

Almost Certainly Out: Everyone else

Locked Out: None (well, perhaps the 18 I listed in the previous post)

I will update this list weekly once the season starts.

UPDATE: There was an earlier version of this post that ranked the teams slightly differently.

There are 138 teams in the FBS. Theoretically, they all have a shot at the title.

That's theory.

After 50,000 simulation runs on the computer, 18 teams did not make the playoff even once.

They are as follows:

# 188 Ball State Cardinals (MAC), # 208 Charlotte 49ers (American), # 189 Colorado State Rams (Pac-12), # 161 Eastern Michigan Eagles (MAC), # 220 Georgia State Panthers (SBC), # 174 Kent State Golden Flashes (MAC), # 257 Massachusetts Minutemen (MAC), # 196 Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders (C-USA), # 197 New Mexico State Aggies (C-USA), # 200 Northern Illinois Huskies (MW), # 198 Oklahoma State Cowboys (Big 12), # 175 Oregon State Beavers (Pac-12), # 151 Rice Owls (American), # 225 Sam Houston State Bearkats (C-USA), # 147 Syracuse Orange (ACC), # 153 Tulsa Golden Hurricane (American), # 209 UL Monroe Warhawks (SBC), and # 219 UTEP Miners (MW).

I suppose that's another theory.

Unlike the computer, I am not willing to cross any teams off the list before a single game has been played, but I will definitely add these teams to my "watch list".

UPDATE: An earlier version of this post listed only 17 teams.

Postseason UI Updates

I have completed the UI updates for the postseason tournaments, You should be able to see projections for the NFL Playoffs CFP Playoffs and the FCS Playoffs. In addition, since I have to determine conference/division winners to do the seeding projections for these tournaments, you'll also see each team's chance to win their division or conference on their team page.

HFA/HCA (Home Field/Court Advantage)

I also have finally made a change in how I calculate HFA. I have never been happy with how that works. I think it's a bit better now. Each team has it's own HFA, which you can see on their team page, as well as on a new HFA page.

Taking a Break

These are the last significant updates I plan on making for a while. I may tweak a few things here and there, and I will obviously correct any bugs that are found.

But I am going to take a break for a bit and relax. Sometime soon I have to implement 30+ Conference Tournaments for MCBB as well as 30+ seeding rules. Fortunately, my new Tournament engine and Seeding engine makes that relatively easy. Still, it will take me at least a week or two of nightly efforts to get that in place. I probably won't start until I have most of the next season's schedules in place, as it will be much easier to test then.

The computer likes the following teams to win it all:

• NFL - Seattle Seahawks
• FBS - Indiana Hoosiers
• FCS - Montana State Bobcats

Observant readers will notice that these are the exact three teams that won it all last year.

The computer does many things well. One of the things it does not do well currently, is evaluating returning production for preseason projections. There is an awful lot of preseason bias based upon how teams finished the last season. This is something I will work to correct, but it's most likely a next year thing. So, for this year, take the preseason projections with some skepticism. It will take a few weeks for them to stabilize and for the preseason bias to be minimized.

You can now see postseason projections for both the NFL and College Football (including CFP and FCS playoffs).

CFP

FCS Playoffs

NFL

There is still a little more I want to do. As part of the postseason projections, I also project Conference Championships. I would like to display those on the Team pages and the Conference pages. I need to do a little work to handle all the cases. I could do it right now for all the College Football conferences that have Conference Championship Games, but that excludes most of the FCS. I do determine the FCS conference champions as part of my projections, I just don't currently store that data if there is no CCG. So, a little more work to do there.

More on what the computer thinks in a forthcoming post.

There's really not much to look forward to the first week. Yes the computer says that North Texas @ Indiana is interesting, and it would have been--last year. But North Texas has been decimated and will likely plummet from that preseason #20 spot.

Schedules for the 2026-2027 season for the NFL have been loaded along with preseason projections for every game.

Good luck to all of your teams.

As I have said before, I am including FCS football in my rankings for 2026. This has nearly doubled the number of teams from 136 to 266. But there are other noteworthy changes which will affect the rankings. This is another big year for conference realignment.

FCS teams have been added to NCAA Football, effective with the 2025 season. 2026 schedules are still being updated, and there is something squirrelly with the 2025 Sanders ratings page. I'll work on getting both of these things updated.

The various ratings pages have been updated to show whether the teams are in the FBS or FCS and you can filter out either subdivision should you wish it.

The preseason schedules and projections for the 2026 season of NCAA FBS football are now available. I am still working on adding FCS teams to the mix. That will happen over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, you can find the 2026 schedule here.

Enjoy the season and good luck to your teams!

CJB Ratings, AKA Sports Ratings III, is a data-driven analytics platform designed to evaluate teams, project future performance, and provide transparent, reproducible rating systems across multiple sports. We currently do three sports:

• NCAA FBS College Football
• NCAA Division I Men's College Basketball
• NFL football

Watch this space for more information about what's available and what's coming!