Season outlook · 2026

Who holds the belt when the season ends?

Every program’s chance of owning the belt once the 2026 games run out, simulated from the remaining schedule as of 2026-09-16. Your team’s actual path is here.

53%Notre Dame still holding at season’s end

86Programs that finish with it in at least one simulated season

2,926Unplayed games walked, 20,000 times

1 Notre Dame Holds it now 53%
2 Miami 16%
3 SMU 5%
4 Utah 3%
5 BYU 2%
6 Kansas State 1%
7 Indiana 1%
8 Texas Tech 1%
9 Ohio State 1%
10 Memphis 1%
11 Arizona 1.0%
12 Iowa State 0.9%
13 Syracuse 0.8%
14 Stanford 0.8%
15 Army 0.7%
16 Duke 0.7%
17 Navy 0.6%
18 Wake Forest 0.6%
19 Kansas 0.6%
20 Virginia 0.6%
21 South Carolina 0.5%
22 Iowa 0.5%
23 Oregon 0.5%
24 Boston College 0.4%
25 UCF 0.4%
26 Cincinnati 0.4%
27 Arizona State 0.4%
28 Colorado 0.3%
29 Houston 0.3%
30 Oklahoma State 0.3%
31 Louisville 0.3%
32 Baylor 0.2%
33 Pittsburgh 0.2%
34 USC 0.2%
35 Virginia Tech 0.2%
36 Washington 0.2%
37 Temple 0.2%
38 Charlotte 0.2%
39 Clemson 0.2%
40 Penn State 0.2%
41 Michigan 0.2%
42 Nebraska 0.2%
43 UTSA 0.2%
44 TCU 0.1%
45 Florida 0.1%
46 Kentucky 0.1%
47 NC State 0.1%
48 West Virginia 0.1%
49 Michigan State 0.1%
50 North Carolina 0.1%
51 North Texas 0.1%
52 Northwestern 0.1%
53 Campbell 0.1%
54 Florida State 0.1%
55 Hampton 0.1%
56 Illinois 0.1%
57 Monmouth 0.1%
58 North Carolina A&T 0.1%
59 Rutgers 0.1%
60 Stony Brook 0.1%
61 UAlbany 0.1%
62 UCLA 0.1%

How it works: every remaining game on every schedule is simulated 20,000 times using CFBD’s current Elo ratings (with a modest home-field bump). When the holder loses, the belt moves to the winner and the simulation keeps walking down that team’s schedule, exactly the way the real lineage works — so a program that never plays the current holder can still show up here through a chain of results. Bowl and playoff pairings only count once they are actually on the schedule. Programs below 0.05% are left off. Refreshed every pipeline run; a for-fun estimate, not a betting product.