A first-year head coach making the College Football Playoff is still rare territory, but this offseason’s coaching chaos created a real opening for it to happen again. Penn State moved on from James Franklin six games into the season.
LSU fired Brian Kelly. Florida cut bait with Billy Napier.
Auburn finally let Hugh Freeze chase his golf life. And then Michigan joined the carousel too.
Curt Cignetti remains the only coach in the two-year 12-team era to take a new program into the CFP in Year 1. But with Florida, LSU, Michigan, and Penn State all carrying playoff ambitions, there’s at least a decent chance he won’t be alone for long.
The best shot belongs to Lane Kiffin at LSU. The schedule is a bear, especially that November run through Alabama, Texas, and Tennessee.
But the other ranked opponents - Ole Miss and Texas A&M, both preseason top-10 teams - look vulnerable after losing major pieces, including the very ones Kiffin brought with him to Baton Rouge. The roster is loaded, too.
Kiffin and defensive coordinator Blake Baker, who stayed on from Kelly’s staff, are leaning on young help up front, but everywhere else LSU paid for premium talent. By report, it’s the most expensive roster in the country.
And whatever drama follows Kiffin, nobody questions what he does on the headset.
Penn State checks in next with Matt Campbell, and the case there starts with the path. The Nittany Lions didn’t go all-in the way LSU did, instead bringing in much of Campbell’s Iowa State roster rather than spending $4 million on Jordan Seaton and $4.5 million on Sam Leavitt.
So this isn’t the most talent-rich move in the Power 4. But it may have the cleanest runway.
The nonconference slate is soft - Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo - and in Big Ten play Penn State avoids Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon. Ten wins won’t be enough on its own, but if Penn State handles the games it should and goes 2-1 against Michigan, USC, and Washington, it’ll be in the playoff mix.
Michigan comes in at No. 3 with Kyle Whittingham taking over in Ann Arbor. The Wolverines’ talent level is higher than Penn State’s, and the quarterback they pulled from LSU in the 2025 class, Bryce Underwood, is a real wild card.
Even so, the schedule is a monster. Oklahoma, Iowa, Penn State, Indiana, Oregon, and Ohio State all wait on the other side.
Michigan should be better than last year’s 9-3 team, which did that with an utterly dysfunctional coaching staff, but it could still finish worse. A 9-3 record would at least keep the Wolverines in the at-large conversation, though the quality of those wins and losses would matter a lot.
The question is whether Whittingham is really ready to jump up and beat one of the four teams that made last year’s playoff with that schedule staring back at him.
Jon Sumrall lands at No. 4 at Florida, and the résumé is hard to ignore. He’s been a head coach for four years and has won three conference titles, first at Troy and then at Tulane.
He just keeps collecting trophies. The SEC jump is real, but Florida isn’t starting from scratch.
Billy Napier recruited well; he just didn’t coach well, and Sumrall kept most of the important pieces in place. Ole Miss is a tricky early test, but if Florida gets through it, a 6-0 start is on the table.
Then the season really tightens up with three straight defining games: at Texas on October 17, Georgia at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on October 31, and Oklahoma at home on November 7. Florida could make a case at 9-3 and would be a lock at 10-2, though the projected 7.5-win total says there’s still plenty of skepticism around the Gators.
Collin Klein at Kansas State rounds out the top five, and this is the rare case where the schedule may be the biggest selling point. There’s a real argument that the Wildcats take a step forward on offense with Klein leaving Texas A&M, where he worked well with Marcel Reed, to coach Avery Johnson.
But the bigger CFP argument is what Kansas State avoids: Texas Tech and BYU are off the slate, and Houston comes to Manhattan. That opens the door to a 12-0 regular season, and if K-State got that far before running into Texas Tech in Dallas, the committee would have a hard time leaving the Wildcats out.
The catch is obvious: with such a soft schedule, anything short of 12-0 probably won’t be enough, and going unbeaten is never easy.
As for the honorable mention, Billy Napier and James Madison still get a nod in the broader CFP picture. The field no longer has the loophole that let two Group of Six teams in last year, and the ACC has apparently cleaned up its championship tiebreakers.
Still, someone has to fill the non-Power 4 slot as the 12 seed, and it will probably come from the rebuilt Pac-12. But JMU could make it interesting again.
In Other News...
Penn State Is Still Waiting On A Key Tight End Return
Penn State has spent the early stretch of 2026 waiting on one of its more important tight end pieces, with Gabe Burkle still working his way back from the ACL injury that limited him to nine games last season. The redshirt senior and Iowa State transfer was expected to be one of the Nittany Lions top options at the position when healthy, giving the offense a veteran presence and another reliable target once he is fully cleared.
Even while he continues rehabbing, Burkle has found a way to stay involved by helping younger tight ends get comfortable in the offense and sharpen their fundamentals. That has included guiding Peyton Falzone, a true freshman learning the position after moving over from quarterback, part of the broader process Penn State is navigating as it waits for Burkles return and tries to keep the room moving forward in the meantime. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Faces A Huge Recruiting Test With Elite 2028 Linebacker
Penn States 2028 recruiting work is still in its early stages, but the staff already has three commitments in the class and is pushing to build relationships across the board. One of the more important early targets is four-star linebacker Skylar Alston of Raleigh, North Carolina, a prospect whose list of suitors includes several programs and who has already started making his rounds with campus visits, including an unofficial stop in State College.
Alstons recruitment is the kind that can swing on feel as much as fit this far out, and Penn State knows it has a selling point at the position. The Nittany Lions have long leaned on their linebacker tradition, and the next step could be getting Alston back around for a fall game-day visit, where the atmosphere and the programs history at the spot can do some of the talking. [Read more 🡒]
Penn State Already Faces A Matt Campbell Debate In Year One
Penn States first AP Poll placement of 2026 at No. 18 gives the program a familiar kind of national respect, but the coaching conversation is already starting to move in a different direction. The Athletics preseason ranking of FBS head coaches put Matt Campbell in Tier 3, labeled Consistency with Upside, a slot that reflects both what he accomplished at Iowa State and the expectations now attached to his arrival in Happy Valley.
For Penn State, that kind of placement says as much about the standard as it does about the coach. Campbell enters year one with a rsum that suggests steadiness and room to grow, but the debate around him is going to be about more than simply being solid early on. At a place like Penn State, where the baseline for attention is already high, the question is how quickly that upside turns into the kind of results that quiet any lingering discussion. [Read more 🡒]