Even elite FBS college football programs have questions to answer each season. We’re diving into some the biggest that will impact the 2026 College Football Playoff race.
Don’t look now. Or do look! Whatever you do is fine. But the college football offseason is halfway done, with only four months remaining until toe meets leather for the start of the 2026 season.
The end of spring practices give coaches and players the closest thing anyone in college football ever gets to a “vacation,” but anticipation and offseason talk never rest.
With FBS 2026 inching closer, a handful of questions are on my mind. The answers will go a long way toward determining what the College Football Playoff race looks like later this year and, perhaps, how the coaching carousel shapes up.
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3 months ago Alex Kirshner1. Did Texas Fix the Offensive Line?
Texas quarterback Arch Manning didn’t live up to his billing last year. His footwork was sometimes jumpy, his accuracy was often lacking, and he looked like something less than one of the best-prepared five-star QBs to ever take over a starting job. His 73.7% well-thrown rate ranked 12th out of 15 SEC QBs with at least 250 attempts.
But very few serious people in college football (or the NFL, which surely will make him the No. 1 overall pick a year from now) doubt there’s brilliance in Manning, even after a mediocre 2025 season. A poor offensive line played an unquestioned role in his shortcomings last year: Just two SEC teams (South Carolina and Vanderbilt) yielded a higher pressure rate than Texas’ 39.7%.
On paper, the situation hasn’t gotten much better. The Longhorns lost two starters up front and didn’t exactly put together an OL haul in the transfer portal. (To be fair, it costs money to bring in proven stars at other positions, like the Longhorns did with Auburn wide receiver Cam Coleman, NC State running back Hollywood Smothers and Pitt linebacker Rasheem Biles.)
Texas will need offensive coordinator and line coach Kyle Flood to produce a couple developmental success stories with returning players. That went poorly last year: For one example, true freshman guard Nick Brooks took over 215 snaps and surrendered an absurd 23.1% pressure rate against the pass rush before transferring to Alabama.
Flood needs to do a better job with his 2026 group. Continued growth from center Connor Robertson is a critical starting point.
2. How Much of a Trench Advantage Will Miami Retain?
Miami (FL) had three strengths on its way to the national championship game, where they fell to Indiana 27-21. One of them was really small and two of them were really big.
First, the offense had true freshman wide receiver Malachi Toney, a 5-foot-10 stick of dynamite who defenses never figured out. Even more importantly, Miami had the best pass-rushing tandem in the country in 2026 NFL Draft first-round picks Rueben Bain Jr. and Akheem Mesidor anchoring the front on one side of the ball. On the other side, the ‘Canes had a nasty offensive line, led by Bain and Mesidor’s fellow All-American, left tackle Francis Mauigoa. Toney is still here, but all of those bigger teammates have moved on to the NFL.
The pass rushing situation should still be pretty good. The falloff from Bain and Mesidor’s combined 128 pressures off the edge is unavoidable, but coach Mario Cristobal added a big-boy portal class that features Missouri edge Damon Wilson, a pressure machine who had nine sacks last year. Miami also returns pass rusher Marquise Lightfoot, who rang up a 19.5% pressure rate as a rotation piece last year.
The offensive line feels more questionable, if only because so much is up in the air whenever one is replacing four starters. Cristobal’s O-line coach Alex Mirabal said a few years ago he would cut off his arms and legs before the position became known as a weakness in Coral Gables. We’ll have to see how this heavily portaled group comes together in fall camp and the early season.
3. Will Marcel Reed Develop as a Downfield Passer? Will Bryce Underwood?
When Texas A&M faced those Miami pass rushers in the CFP first round, Marcel Reed got eaten alive on passing downs and threw a game-ending interception in the Hurricanes’ end zone. Coach Mike Elko has recruited so well that there are no real questions about whether A&M can field a playoff-caliber defense or running game in most seasons.
But just like every other team that recruits in the Aggies’ weight class, the potential differentiator is at quarterback: Can that player elevate the offense by completing aggressive downfield throws? To date, the answer for Reed has been “not really.” On dropbacks of third or fourth down and 5+ yards, the Aggies had a 24.1% success rate that was second-to-last in the SEC last year.
Michigan’s 27.8% success rate on those plays wasn’t much better, and it placed the Wolverines 14th in the Big Ten. Bryce Underwood was a much-more highly touted recruit than Reed, and it’ll be fascinating to see what he does as a true sophomore with an entirely new coaching staff (after Sherrone Moore was fired and Kyle Whittingham took over as coach) and, ideally, a more competent wideout group. The two key breakout candidates for Michigan are receivers Andrew Marsh (really good as a true freshman last year) and four-star freshman Salesi Moa, who followed Whittingham from Utah.
Texas A&M and Michigan could be title contenders, but only if their QB play improves significantly.
4. Does It Matter Who Coaches James Madison?
You could be forgiven for thinking it doesn’t matter at all. After having one of the richest athletic departments in the FCS, the Dukes – entering their fifth FBS season – have the richest athletic department in the Sun Belt.
New coach Billy Napier is taking over what appears to be the easiest job in the world. Here is what every James Madison head coach of the 21st century has done with it:
Bob Chesney: 21-6 over two seasons, featuring a CFP berth Curt Cignetti: 52-9 over five seasons, including the Dukes’ transition to the FBS Mike Houston: 37-6 over three seasons, including the 2016 FCS championship that interrupted North Dakota State’s reign atop that level Everett Withers: 18-7 over two seasons Mickey Matthews: 109-71 over 15 seasons, including the 2004 FCS championshipWhile every JMU coach this century – at either Division I level – has won regularly, Napier was an uninspired hire, a washout at Florida (22-23 record) whose best resume point is that he won in the Sun Belt while guiding Louisiana from 2018-21. But it’s very possible the Dukes are so well-funded and in such a geographically friendly spot for a Group of 6 program that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge.
We’ll get a better sense of that this fall.
5. What Was the True Meaning of Alabama’s Quiet Portal Season?
After a 38-3 loss to eventual national champion Indiana at the Rose Bowl, what did you think Alabama would do?
I had visions of grandeur. I thought that such a comprehensive humbling, at the hands of a basketball school that had decided to take football seriously two years earlier, would inspire a vast fundraising surge for the Crimson Tide. The school’s donor class would have looked at the disaster in Pasadena and finally kicked into gear, I figured, tired of three years of national media calling Alabama poor and claiming the school would never compete in a post-Nick Saban world.
It doesn’t appear that happened, whether because the money wasn’t there or Alabama’s athletic department didn’t get it into the right hands. The Tide were active in the transfer portal, but not that active.
Kalen DeBoer and Co. didn’t go shopping for a quarterback after Ty Simpson declared for the NFL Draft. (Granted, ’Bama has declined to join the portal QB movement for several years now.) Their portal class ranked 16th nationally, according to 247Sports.
They clearly spent a ton of their budget on high school players, signing up the No. 3 prep class. They also retained former five-star wideout Ryan Williams, a stud as a true freshman but a major disappointment last year. The single best acquisition ‘Bama could make this season would be to swap out the 2025 version of Williams and get the 2024 guy back instead.
What would you make of all of this? The fairly quiet portal season could be proof the Tide don’t have enough money when compared to other elite programs. Alternatively, it could be an expression of confidence that their player development foundation is strong and they didn’t feel a need to overpay for quasi-proven transfer talent, instead spending more wisely on high schoolers who will stick around for longer.
6. Will Ohio State Catch Indiana in the FBS 2026 Season?
The two best teams in the Big Ten (and arguably the country) each lost a big pile of talent. Starting with Indiana’s Heisman Trophy Award-winning quarterback Fernando Mendoza going No. 1 overall, the Hoosiers (16-0 last season) and Buckeyes (12-2) combined on six first-round and 19 overall picks in the NFL Draft.
The two powers are taking different approaches. Indiana went back to the portal well that served it so well in coach Curt Cignetti’s first two years. The most important addition was TCU QB Josh Hoover, who had a solid 79.2% well-thrown rate last year but marred his season with a 4.71% pickable pass rate, more than a point above the Big 12 average.
Ohio State, the 2024 national champion, will run it back with Julian Sayin, whose 85.6% well-thrown rate is second among returning Power-4 conference quarterbacks (or even first, depending on how you count Iowa State QB Jaylen Raynor, a transfer from the Sun Belt’s Arkansas State).
Rate calculated after removing attempts that were intentional throwaways or clock spikes.We know for sure that Ohio State will have an elite QB. Whether Indiana does as well will depend on the Hoosiers’ player development remaining the class of college football.
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