Jon Wilner
The spring headlines across college football have been jammed with off-field issues. Playoff expansion, federal legislation, NIL confusion, breakaway threats, eligibility rulings — it’s enough to make fans long for endless replay reviews and controversial targeting calls.
Fortunately, the regular season is slowly becoming visible on the horizon. There are 100 days until Sept. 5, the first full Saturday — 100 days until Week 1.
Forgive the Hotline for shifting our focus away from the momentous boardroom agendas and casting an eye to the top storylines awaiting the start of competition.
Here are 10.
1. The Big Ten goes for four. The king of the sport takes aim at its fourth consecutive national championship following wins by Michigan, Ohio State and Indiana. Even more impressive would be a fourth different champion emerging from the bicoastal conference. Yes, we’re looking at you, Oregon. Coach Dan Lanning and Co. have all the ingredients needed to break through after two stellar regular seasons ended with CFP face plants.
2. New kids in town. A handful of coaching changes set the stage for first-class intrigue across the FBS. Granted, Lane Kiffin’s move from Mississippi to LSU will swallow most of the spotlight — especially when the Tigers visit the team he abandoned (Week 3) — but our focus is on two first-year experiments in other regions: Kyle Whittingham’s debut at Michigan, and Morgan Scalley’s ascent to the Utah throne. Expectations for both are high, and you can be sure folks in Salt Lake City will be paying close attention to the happenings in Ann Arbor.
3. West Coast angst. Will Year 3 bring success for five former Pac-12 schools that have stumbled through two forgettable seasons in their new homes? We’re referring, of course, to Cal and Stanford in the ACC and UCLA, USC and Washington in the Big Ten. The travel hasn’t been easy, but the issues for each cut deeper than time zones crossed and air miles logged. Unlike that team in Eugene, their rosters simply were not ready to compete for championships. We aren’t convinced that dynamic will change in 2026.
4. The SEC’s challenge. Two things, equally true: The SEC is the deepest conference in the country with more meat, and less fat, than the Big Ten; the top of the SEC has ceded supremacy to the Big Ten. In fact, the SEC hasn’t placed a team in the national championship game since the 2022 season — an astounding turn of events given its 15-year run of dominance. We foresee the drought ending next winter. Texas, Georgia and LSU have first-class rosters, while Alabama, Oklahoma and Mississippi are close enough to be considered contenders.
5. Will Fernando 2.0 please step forward. This time last year, expectations were low for Cal transfer Fernando Mendoza as he took charge of the Indiana offense — certainly, he was not considered a Heisman Trophy contender. Which low-profile quarterback will emerge as a dominant player in 2026? We see four with the potential to produce a transformative season: Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker (from North Texas), Kentucky’s Kenny Minchey (Notre Dame), Auburn’s Byrum Brown (South Florida) and Arizona State’s Cutter Boley (Kentucky).
6. The Indiana steamroller. The amazing Hoosiers enter the season with a 16-game winning streak following their undefeated run. With another soft non-conference schedule (North Texas, Howard and Western Kentucky) and a modest initial lineup of conference opponents, the streak should reach 22 games before the Hoosiers host Ohio State on Oct. 17. And if they survive the Buckeyes, another test awaits the following week: at Michigan.
7. The return of the Pac-12. After imploding in the summer of 2023 and the subsequent reformation in the fall of 2024, the eight-team conference makes its competitive debut Sept. 4, when Fresno State visits USC in a Friday night affair. The new Pac-12 has a flex schedule, three first-year coaches and the same goal as the previous iteration: to place a team in the College Football Playoff. Boise State, which opens the season at Oregon, looks like the best bet to make a serious run at the automatic bid reserved for the top team in the Group of Six.
8. The Big 12 needs a win. The only power conference that hasn’t sent an at-large team to the CFP is also the only power conference that hasn’t won a playoff game in the 12-team era. The 2024 Big 12 champion, Arizona State, lost a thriller to Texas, and the 2025 winner, Texas Tech, was run off the field by Oregon. The conference race looks wide open given TTU quarterback Brendan Sorsby’s eligibility issues (related to his gambling addiction). But the Big 12 needs more than an ultra-competitive conference race. It needs a victory on the sport’s biggest stage. The team most likely to deliver resides in Provo.
9. The Heisman Trophy race. The top six betting favorites are quarterbacks, with Notre Dame’s CJ Carr (7.5-to-1) as the narrow frontrunner over Texas’ Arch Manning. Of the non-quarterbacks, Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith has, by far, the shortest odds (13-to-1). If forced to bet a nickel — your nickel, not ours — the Hotline would follow the money. Carr is a major talent on a contending team with a massive media platform.
10. Who breaks through? The 12-team playoff has featured surprise participants in each of its two editions. The list of likely first-time participants in 2026 starts with BYU, which narrowly missed last season, and USC, which faced a defining season for coach Lincoln Riley. Keep an eye on Louisville and Iowa, as well. But the team most likely to emerge is one of 20 or 30 teams that nobody is talking about.
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