College Football Playoff Predictions
Playoff probabilities for the college football season, generated from my own forecasting models and updated weekly during the season. Probabilities come from simulating the remainder of the season 10,000 times with a Bayesian state-space model of team strength (weekly posterior updates), with ML and hybrid variants joining as the season runs.
2026 Preseason
Updated August 8, 2026. Model: Kalman.
| Team | Conference | P(playoff) Kalman |
|---|---|---|
| Notre Dame | Independent | 67.6% |
| Ohio State | Big Ten | 63.1% |
| Oregon | Big Ten | 61.3% |
| Texas Tech | Big 12 | 54.9% |
| Miami | ACC | 53.7% |
| Indiana | Big Ten | 51.1% |
| Georgia | SEC | 48.1% |
| Texas A&M | SEC | 43.7% |
| Utah | Big 12 | 42.9% |
| Alabama | SEC | 35.4% |
| BYU | Big 12 | 34.9% |
| Ole Miss | SEC | 33.5% |
| USC | Big Ten | 33.3% |
| Texas | SEC | 32.5% |
| Washington | Big Ten | 23.4% |
| Michigan | Big Ten | 23.2% |
| Oklahoma | SEC | 21.2% |
| Tennessee | SEC | 20.5% |
| Iowa | Big Ten | 19.7% |
| Arizona | Big 12 | 15.7% |