A model and a human, half in agreement
Ten FBS conferences, two sets of predictions, five matches. Opta Analyst put its TRACR projection model up against writer Alex Kirshner ahead of the 2026 college football season, and the pair landed on the same champion in exactly half the leagues.
TRACR stands for Team Ranking Adjusted for Conference and Roster, and the number worth holding onto is where the disagreement sits. Every split comes in the Group of Six. In the Power Four, the model and the writer never diverge once, which says something about how much roster churn now separates the two tiers of the sport.
That churn is the whole story of the 2026 offseason. Miami of Ohio is reported to have spent between $8 million and $10 million assembling what would be the most expensive MAC roster ever built. James Madison lost its head coach and most of its squad, then Billy Napier signed 62 players, 41 of them transfers. Prediction models struggle to price that kind of turnover, and so do people.
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Where the two disagree
TRACR takes Western Kentucky in Conference USA; Kirshner takes Liberty, arguing a 4-8 season at a program with more resources than most of its peers creates urgency the model cannot measure. TRACR likes Western Michigan in the MAC, Kirshner the RedHawks and their portal machine.
The Mountain West split is the most interesting. TRACR picks North Dakota State, a program that has won 10 FCS national titles and is only now stepping up a tier. Kirshner goes with UNLV under Dan Mullen, projecting 10 wins and seven or eight all-conference selections.
In the Pac-12, the model backs San Diego State over Boise State, which Kirshner calls TRACR’s biggest stunner given how the reshaped conference resembles the old Mountain West that Boise dominated. The American splits them too, with TRACR on USF and its promised $20 million revenue-sharing pool, Kirshner on Army’s running game.
Where they line up
James Madison, Texas Tech, Miami of Florida, Georgia and Ohio State draw both votes. Texas Tech gets there on its lines, with Adam Trick arriving from Miami of Ohio and Trey White from San Diego State, at a moment when Utah is replacing all five starting offensive linemen and its head coach.
Ohio State remains the closest thing college football has to a guarantee, even after losing three of the top 11 picks in the NFL Draft and losing on the field to eventual champion Indiana. Julian Sayin throwing to Jeremiah Smith gives the Buckeyes a floor most programs cannot reach. Oregon, Indiana and a USC side under Lincoln Riley, who is 35-18 across four seasons in Los Angeles, are all close enough to make that pick less safe than it looks.
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