Week 7 of the 2026 season is in the books — and what a week it was.
Numerous top 10 teams went down and national title contenders like Georgia, Indiana and Notre Dame all suffered their first losses of the season. Miami came close, but snuck past rival Florida State.
This is the kind of week that will set the stage for the remainder of the season. It will no doubt have College Football Playoff implications — both for seeding and qualification — in 6 weeks’ time.
With so much to digest, let’s dive into 5 things I’m buying or selling this week:
Buying: Upsets are back
After a slow start to the 2026 regular season (fueled primarily by G6 teams being mis-priced, which I outlined here) the underdog appears to be back.
For the second straight week, underdogs have won outright in more than 30% of games. Here’s the week-by-week breakdown:
Week 1: 13.7% Week 2: 20.4% Week 3: 14% Week 4: 17.2% Week 5: 26.8% Week 6: 32.8% Week 7: 32.2%There’s one specific flavor of underdog that’s carrying most of the weight here. Dogs that are priced between +200 and +400 (P4 games only) are winning at a 40% clip. Their implied win rate based on money line prices comes out to just 26%.
This is a relatively new phenomenon — or perhaps it’s just small sample size theatre. In 2025, that subset of underdogs won about 6% less often than their implied money line prices would suggest.
A few examples of underdogs in this range this week — Auburn vs. LSU, Houston vs. Utah and Michigan vs. Indiana, among others.
Buying: Tennessee is a good bet to make the CFP
I’ve seen what I needed to see from the Vols. They completely dominated Alabama this week — I’d argue the final score actually undersells what Tennessee accomplished against the Crimson Tide in Week 7.
Tennessee’s biggest problem for the first month of the season was Faizon Brandon. George MacIntyre hasn’t exactly been good through his first 2 starts, but he’s not a disaster either. If you include the Auburn game, MacIntrye is averaging 7.6 yards per attempt. That’s solidly mediocre — more than Kenny Minchey and LaNorris Sellers over the full season, for example.
The rest of the profile is excellent. Tennessee’s defense is 15th nationally in opponent-adjusted EPA-per-play allowed, according to Game on Paper. Offensively, Tennessee is in the 96th percentile in EPA-per-rush. All Josh Heupel needs is for MacIntyre to be a game manager — this defense and running game will take care of the rest.
Tennessee’s schedule also isn’t particularly daunting. The Vols will be double-digit favorites over Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Assuming they take care of business in those games, they will just need to win 2 of 3 against South Carolina, Texas A&M and LSU. I think that’s more than doable.
Pick: Tennessee to make the CFP (49% on Kalshi)
Prediction Markets College Football Playoff Qualifiers 2026 Learn more about Prediction Markets Kalshi Notre Dame 80% Indiana 80% BYU 66% UCLA 54% Alabama 52% Ole Miss 52% Tennessee 47% LSU 36% Texas 35% Iowa 26% PredictSelling: Notre Dame’s loss to BYU was a fluke
Hand up, I couldn’t have been more wrong about the Notre Dame-BYU game. I thought the Fighting Irish would dominate. Instead, BYU played a very even game on a down-to-down basis and was much better at executing in key moments.
According to Game on Paper’s EPA-per-play metric, both Notre Dame and BYU were in the 57th percentile in EPA-per-play on offense. The Cougars had a slightly higher success rate and were better on the ground while ND was more efficient on dropbacks.
The big differentiator was on third down. BYU converted on 67% while Notre Dame settled for 42%. The Irish somewhat made up for that by going 4-for-4 on 4th down, but it wasn’t enough.
This is a result that could have significant College Football Playoff implications for both BYU and the Big 12. The Cougars now have to be considered likely to reach the CFP even if their berth comes via an at-large spot. A win over Notre Dame, so long as it goes 10-2 or 11-1, will be one of the very best victories the committee evaluates on selection day.
Buying: Ohio State could be in trouble without Julian Sayin
Ohio State’s win over Indiana on Saturday could end up saving its season. The Buckeyes have already suffered 1 loss this season and could have more coming if quarterback Julian Sayin is out for a number of weeks.
Sayin has struggled a bit vs. elite defenses in his career, but he has been absolutely automatic against the vast majority of opponents. So far this season, he has a completion percentage over expected (CPOE) of 10.5%. That’s third nationally among P4 quarterbacks with at least 100 pass attempts.
When Sayin went out against the Hoosiers with an upper body injury, Ohio State turned to freshman Luke Fahey. The Buckeyes were in clock-burning mode, so they only attempted 2 passes — both short passes on third-and-long — but neither was completed.
Fahey had 11 career pass attempts prior to Saturday and 2 of them were picked off. Other than the Indiana game, Fahey has only registered pass attempts against Ball State and Kent State.
It will be a different world for Fahey against USC in Week 9. A 3-star prospect in the class of 2026, Fahey could also have to play against Oregon, Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan depending on when Sayin is able to return.
It’s true that Fahey has the best receiver in the country in Jeremiah Smith on his side as well as an excellent offensive line. Still, replacing Sayin with a true freshman could lead to some unexpected results for the Buckeyes.
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Buying: Georgia is still a top-tier title contender
I’m not scared off by Georgia’s stunning loss to Auburn. The Bulldogs, in my view, were exceptionally unlucky to lose to Auburn on Saturday. Georgia significantly out-played Auburn when looking at predictive metrics like success rate. The Bulldogs out-gained the Tigers by nearly 2 yards per play despite the loss.
Auburn won almost entirely because of turnover luck. The Tigers recovered 2 of the game’s 3 fumbles and picked off Gunner Stockton twice. According to Game on Paper, Auburn’s +3 turnover margin generated 10.3 points of value for the Tigers in a game that they won by 3.
ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s postgame win expectancy metric was even more clear — Auburn had roughly a 3% chance to win based on the box score stats. That makes this one of the most unlikely results of the entire 2026 college football season.
Regardless of the outcome of one game, Georgia’s statistical profile is still elite. UGA is 9th nationally in opponent-adjusted EPA-per-play on offense and has a defense that’s excelled in most areas (explosive pass play rate notwithstanding).
Georgia may drop another game but I suspect the Bulldogs will finish 11-1 or 10-2 and cruise into the College Football Playoff for the third consecutive year. I also think UGA is more live as a true title contender this year than it has been in either of its past 2 appearances due to its explosive offense.
Prediction Markets College Football Playoff champion? Learn more about Prediction Markets Kalshi Georgia 17% Miami (FL) 15% Ohio St. 14% Notre Dame 12% Indiana 8% Alabama 5% Predict5 college football ideas I’m buying or selling after Week 7 Saturday Down South.
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