Auerbach and Perry preview the 2026 season with Heisman and College Football Playoff predictions built around volatility

Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry’s 2026 preseason outlook is rooted in the idea that college football has changed, and that predicting the outcome is closer to forecasting a weather pattern than drafting a single storyline. With the College Football Playoff now expanded to 12 teams and entering its third season, the sport has settled into a rhythm where the “expected” contender can be replaced quickly by a team that clicks at the right time. In their view, that is precisely why preseason predictions still matter, even when they do not end up looking correct in the rearview mirror.

A major anchor for their argument is Indiana’s turnaround from the 2025 season into championship form. Their preview frames the Hoosiers as an example of how quickly narratives can reverse in the expanded playoff era, pointing to Indiana’s dramatic historical slide in the recent past and then their leap to being the reigning national champions as the best evidence that the sport is willing to move on from long-term labels. In other words, the title picture in 2026 cannot be built only on reputation, because the current system is designed to reward timing, momentum, and the ability to win a short series of high-leverage games.

From there, Auerbach and Perry set up an ongoing league-level debate: whether the Big Ten can keep asserting itself as the class of the sport, or whether the SEC will reclaim supremacy after a stretch without a title game appearance. Their framing is less about resolving a decade-old argument and more about testing it in the format the sport currently plays under, where more teams qualify and more paths to a deep run exist. The question for 2026, as they present it, is how consistently the conference’s top teams can translate regular-season performance into playoff results.

They also broaden the lens beyond the conference names to include how specific programs learn from their first big moments. Texas Tech is highlighted in their preview as a case study, tied to the program’s first Big 12 title and College Football Playoff appearance. The premise is that entering the championship conversation can change everything about preparation, expectations, and how the roster is built afterward, even if the results do not arrive immediately. For 2026, their interest is whether that “first appearance” experience becomes a platform for sustained relevance or stays a one-off peak.

Auerbach and Perry then shift to the regional title races and program identity. Miami is presented as a team that has not yet converted into the kind of conference supremacy its talent and ambition suggest it should, with the ACC title picture serving as a central question for 2026. Meanwhile, they also discuss the shifting look of the Pac-12 on the field, emphasizing that the new conference identity will not be defined only by branding, but by how teams perform against each other once the schedule begins to settle into its new shape.

Finally, the preseason storyline expands into individual awards, with their Heisman picks as the personal counterpart to their playoff forecasts. In the expanded playoff landscape, those selections often reflect team trajectory, because voters can reward players from contenders who stay alive deeper into the postseason. Their preview underscores that the Heisman conversation, like the playoff conversation, is influenced by the same uncertainty that makes 2026 difficult to predict.

What to watch next is how these high-level themes play out as the season develops. The core test for the Big Ten, the SEC, and the playoff bracket is whether teams can carry their regular-season profile into the pressure of elimination games. For programs like Indiana and Texas Tech, the test is whether early success becomes durability rather than a brief peak. For Miami and the conference title picture, the key is whether the 2026 season supplies the missing breakthrough. And for the Heisman race, the throughline is simple: who benefits when the playoff volatility creates more late-season opportunities to stand out.

The context matters because preseason projections in the 12-team era can quickly become either validated or overturned by teams that enter the bracket late and then win the games that matter most. Auerbach and Perry’s central message is not that there will be one clear winner, but that college football has become harder to script, and 2026 will reward readiness over certainty.