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Ohio State enters 2026 as the clear national title favorite, so who is actually built to knock the Buckeyes off? And does Notre Dame finally get the revenge it wants on the College Football Playoff committee? PFN’s College Football Playoff Meter puts Ryan Day’s team at a 15% chance of winning another national championship, the highest mark of any program in the country, and the case is not complicated. While most contenders are rebuilding an offensive line, Ohio State returns three starters who could have left for the NFL, and Jeremiah Smith is already 29 total touchdowns into a career with two seasons still on the clock. The defense lost pieces and reloaded again, the way it always does. That is the argument for the favorite. The argument against it lives at Oregon, where Dan Lanning has the best defensive front in the sport and a quarterback who turned down the NFL Draft to run the offense, and at Notre Dame, where Marcus Freeman has the best cornerback in college football and a November measuring stick that settles the schedule debate for good. Five teams have a real claim to the 2026 national championship. Only one of them gets the number one spot.
We cover all this, plus Oregon’s case as the most complete roster in the Big Ten and the rest of the five-deep national championship board, in a rapid-fire ranked rundown hosted by PFN’s Oliver Hodgkinson. Every team on this list is tied to a number from PFN’s College Football Playoff Meter, so each ranking comes with the title odds attached rather than a vibe.
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The Hottest Takes You’ll Hear
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*Ohio State opens 2026 at a 15% national title chance in PFN’s College Football Playoff Meter, the highest number of any program on the board
*Jeremiah Smith has already piled up 29 total touchdowns across his freshman and sophomore seasons and is the best player in college football
*Oregon is the only team in the country returning two pass rushers inside PFN’s top 20 edge players, and it sits at a 12.1% title chance
*Leonard Moore is the best defensive back in the country, and it is not close, backed by a 93.8 PFN college football cornerback impact score
*Notre Dame carries an 11.1% title chance into a November 7 matchup that decides how seriously its resume gets taken
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Watch Next
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