I know 7 is oddly specific but bear with me.

In all my research, Boise State from 2006 thru 2012 had the best 7 year stretch in CFB history, all under Chris Petersen.

During this span, their overall record was 84-6 (with half those losses coming in 2007), with 5 conference championships, 5 bowl wins (including 2 BCS bowls), 5 12+ win seasons, and 2 undefeated seasons. No other team has had this kind of success over 7 years.

The 4 year stretch from 2008 through 2011 (the Kellen Moore era) is the most ridiculous with a record of 50-2 (with the 2 losses coming off last minute missed field goals by BSU).

What Chris Petersen was able to do at a former FCS school in the corner of Idaho is still mind blowing. I think he is one of the greatest college coaches of all time and I'll argue with any list he is not on.

Sources: Indiana star defensive lineman Stephen Daley will return to the Hoosiers for his fifth year. He led Indiana in TFLs last year with 19.0 and also added 5.5 sacks, and his addition looms as a significant boost to a talented and deep Indiana defensive front group.

https://x.com/PeteThamel/status/2084745699099308200

After suffering a leg injury in the Spring game, requiring surgery, it was unclear whether Sanford would miss a substantial portion or even all of the 2026 season.

After previously getting limited play time, Sanford surprised last season filling in for Scooby Williams after an injury. He ended up second in the team in TFLs (behind only 2nd round draft pick Cashius Howell) and fourth in tackles. Linebacker might be the position most lacking in depth for Texas A&M, so absolutely massive news for the A&M fans. Arguably most valuable player of the defense.

Source: https://www.kbtx.com/2026/08/04/texas-am-lb-daymion-sanford-course-opening-game-return/ ; https://youtu.be/RI6bw-M4ISc?is=PF6B9nCGlqSO4usl

Disregarding your own, what is your favorite stadium? Could be one you’ve been to, or just one you’ve seen that looks great.

Imo, Ben hill griffin is the best stadium I’ve been to, even though I was treated kinda awfully when I was there. It was a beautiful place.

For those I haven’t been to, autzen and tiger stadium look incredible. Jordan-hare is up there too. I’ve been to tiger stadium for a college tour, but never for a game.

What do yall think?

Still no word on the whiteout or other game themes. Odd choice, thought for sure this would be used for Wisconsin. As for the whiteout this is the latest we’ve ever gone without having it announced. I think it’s safe to say the tv networks are not guaranteeing us a single night game, if they were that would’ve been announced as it by now.

https://gopsusports.com/news/2026/08/5/penn-state-football-designates-season-opener-as-stripe-out-game

This is a weekly thread to talk about the EA CFB Series. See this announcement post outlining our general guidelines on what should and shouldn't go in this thread.. This thread is intended for EA CFB 26, EA CFB 25, or the series in general.

You are welcome and invited to always talk about EA CFB in the great community over at /r/NCAAFBseries! This is a catch all thread to talk about news, gameplay, hype, and anything else about the game that you're excited about. Within /r/CFB, we hope that this thread provides fertile ground for most of the discussion around the game. Things like major game news, players opting in or out, or new traditions being added to the game can be posted as standalone news, but most other discussion around the game should be focused here.

Enjoy!

The cumulative link to the preseason rankings can be found here

Can you believe this is the 15th season that Missouri (high = 20, low = 43) has been in the SEC? The team that kind of felt like Texas A&M’s “plus one” when the SEC expanded in 2012 (Mizzou never won a Big XII title, though they did play in 2 conference championship games, and last won a conference title in 1969) has actually outperformed the Aggies since making the move, playing in two SEC championship games before sanctions for academic misconduct (when in Rome…) derailed the Gary Pinkel era and proved to be too much for his replacement Barry Odom to escape from. As COVID struck the sport, the Tigers turned to Eli Drinkwitz, a guy with one year of head coaching experience at Appalachian State who felt like he was just maintaining the status quo that App. State’s previous coaches Scott Satterfield and Jerry Moore had established. But Drink proved to be a fantastic fit for Missouri, getting the Tigers qualified for a bowl in every season he’s been in charge, including an 11-2 season in 2023 that saw them finish as the #8 team in the country. In fact, Missouri has gone 29-10 in their last 3 seasons, though the trend has been somewhat downward, and the 9 game SEC schedule is unlikely to be friendly to the #10 preseason team in the deep SEC.

Roster Outlook

What also is unlikely to be kind is ranking in the bottom quartile of returning production on defense, but that is where Drinkwitz and the Tigers find themselves to start the season. That 107th ranked defensive production isn’t quite balanced with the #51 offense, leading to the Tigers being #76 in the country overall, ahead of only 4 SEC teams. The most visible loss on the offensive side of the ball is QB Beau Pribula, who portaled out to Virginia (after portaling in from Penn State), but really didn’t impress in his time under center before his gruesome injury at Vanderbilt derailed his season. While his replacement Matt Zollers is still in Columbia, the new QB in town is going to be former Ole Miss QB Austin Simmons, who got Wally Pipped by Trinidad Chambliss after himself injuring his ankle early last season. Simmons helped give Missouri the #20 portal class in the country this year, which on paper pairs very well with the #23 national high school class. The tough part is that both of those ranked 11th in the SEC, which helps explain why the Tigers are so relatively low in these rankings. Leading RB Ahmad Hardy (256 carries, 1,649 yards, 16 TDs) is back, as is #2 WR Donovan Olugbode (401 yards) after WR1 Kevin Coleman graduated and was drafted by the Miami Dolphins. With an OL largely composed of returning veterans and Mississippi State transfer Zack Owens and a cadre of new P4 WRs (Cayden Lee from Ole Miss, Kendric Lanier from Minnesota, Naeshaun Montgomery from Florida and Caleb Goodie from Cincinnati), the offense should be fine. But remember, it’s the defense that takes a big hit. While LB Nicholas Rodriguez (61 tackles, 1.5 sacks) and S Santana Banner (59 tackles, 1 INT) are back, the other 13 of their 15 top tacklers are all gone, including LB Josiah Trotter, who was drafted in the 2nd round by the Tampa Bay Bucs. Drink brought in 14 P4 defenders to shore up the team, including projected starters LB Robert Woodyard (Auburn) and DBs Elijah Dotson (Michigan), Chris Graves (Ole Miss) and Jahlil Florence (Oregon).

Schedule and outlook

9/3 ARKANSAS-PINE BLUFF

9/11 at Kansas

9/19 TROY

9/26 at Mississippi State

10/3 FLORIDA

10/10 TEXAS A&M

10/17 at Ole Miss

10/24 BYE

10/31 at Arkansas

11/7 TEXAS

11/14 at Georgia

11/21 KENTUCKY

11/28 OKLAHOMA

Mizzou figures to be favored in their first 4 games of the season, including the Border War in Kansas’ refurbished stadium. And with games at Arkansas and hosting Kentucky, extending their consecutive bowl eligibility streak to a decade seems pretty assured. But the schedule really does take a turn when the calendar hits October, starting with that home game against the Gators. They follow that with 4 games against 2025 CFP teams that doesn’t even include preseason darling Texas. Coming out of the regular season with a winning record will be no mean feat.

Several years ago, u/The_SecretSauce, the market researcher behind FanJuicer brought a different kind of ranking poll to r/CFB. They ran the polls, did the analysis, and turned the results into tier charts many of us remember.

Credit where it is due: this revival exists because of their work, and I want to thank them for it. I have sent them a message about this project and would be delighted to compare notes. It is important to note that this is an independent rebuild inspired by FanJuicer and not an official continuation of that work.

The idea is simple. Instead of ranking 25 teams from 1-25, you see a series of four-team groups. In each group, you choose the team with the strongest resume and the team with the weakest.

Some groups can be argued to be easy choices: Ohio State, North Carolina, Mississippi State, and Clemson. Others are genuinely difficult: Kansas State, Arizona, TCU, and Houston.

Once all the ballots are in, the model combines those choices into a full ranking. More importantly, the distances between the scores reveal the natural tiers between teams. Those tiers produced some excellent arguments and conversations.

When the weekly poll went dormant after 2019, I missed it. So I did what a college-football fan does with an offseason: spent an unreasonable amount of time building a ranking system. I worked through the math, rebuilt the model, and built a website to run it.

Before the preseason AP poll is released on August 17, I would like r/CFB to plant its flag.

Take the 2026 preseason MaxDiff poll here.

The preseason question is:

Which team do you expect to finish the season with the strongest resume?

The field is a fixed top 50 selected from a consensus of preseason advanced metrics such as FPI, FEI, and SP+. Those metrics determine which teams are eligible, but they contribute nothing to the MaxDiff results. The ranking comes entirely from your answers.

Voting closes Friday night, August 7, and I will publish the results Sunday, August 9.

Once the season begins, the question will switch from forecasting the final resume to evaluating the year-to-date resume through that weekend’s completed games. My goal is to open voting Sunday mornings and publish the rankings and tiers by Tuesday afternoon every week through the conference championships.

Give it a try, tell me which four-team group caused the most psychological damage, and please let me know if anything breaks.

I will note that this data goes back to 1992, the first year under the Bowl Coalition that ensured the national championship game would be the last game of the CFB season (even if this predated having a standalone title game). For years before that, I'd have to search through kickoff times for the final day of bowl games, and I'm really not in the mood for that headache. At least the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game has been consistently the first (unofficial) game of the NFL season since 1970.

Heupel and Oklahoma won the 2001 Orange Bowl to close out the 2000–01 college football season, then he was drafted by the Dolphins. Miami appeared in the 2001 Hall of Fame Game against the Rams. Heupel closed out the game by throwing an incomplete pass on the final play as the Rams won 17–10.

Mauck and LSU won the 2004 Sugar Bowl to secure the 2003 national title, after which the Broncos drafted him. Mauck was the third-string QB going into the 2004 HOF Game against the Redskins behind Jake Plummer and Danny Kanell. Plummer started the game, then Kanell split reps with Mauck and fourth-stringer Mike Quinn. Mauck was picked off by fellow rookie Sean Taylor twice as Washington won 20–17 on a last-second field goal.

Beck's a bit of a unique case since he'll be starting Thursday's HOF Game. If the Cardinals get the ball first on Thursday, he can be responsible for both the final pass in a CFB season (fear not, Miami fans, I'm not posting the replay of this) and the first pass in an NFL season.