CFB Index · National Outcome Map · LIVE model · Preseason 2026
Who's in, and how far they go.
We ran the 2026 season 20,000 times. Each bar is a team's odds of making the 12‑team field, then how far it goes once in — from first team out to national champion. The cut line marks the projected 12th seed: in to its right, out to its left.
● 20,000 season simulations on the live 2026 schedule (CFBD) · preseason rating = opponent‑adjusted (ridge) prior + talent + returning production + portal · committee = Wins‑Above‑Bubble proxy · Market lens = real de‑vigged polymarket (10 teams) ·fan‑belief band still illustrative
Who's in — probability of reaching the 12‑team fieldcut line = the projected 12-team field · the grey band on each bar below is the mirror of this
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Season clock — watch the field firm up
Preseasonpreseason · in-season weeks animate here later
Third lens
Fan belief
TeamOut · R1 · QF · SF · Final · Champion →Title %
Projected 2026 bracket
12 teams · straight seeding (top‑4 ranked get a bye) · 4 Power‑4 champions + best Group‑of‑5 + 7 at‑large
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the read on one program
Last season our preseason top‑12 went 9 / 12 into the real field calibration ✓Biggest preseason mover: Penn State ▲ on returning‑production + scheduleMost contested spot: the final at‑large — six teams inside 8 pts
2026 field rule. 12 teams. Five auto‑bids — the four Power‑Four champions (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, guaranteed regardless of ranking) plus one for the highest‑ranked Group‑of‑Six team, who need not be a champion. Seven at‑large. Straight seeding: the top four ranked teams get the first‑round bye — not the champions. That's why a team can win its league and still open in the first round, and why a bye band can be absent from a row above.
Live forecast. Real numbers from our model — 20,000 Monte‑Carlo season simulations, refreshed daily and sharpening week by week. The chart is a render of the same Monte‑Carlo draws that drive the Bubble Watch beeswarm: the leftmost missed‑the‑field band is the bubble number, extended rightward into the bracket. Honesty rules in force: frequency framing on hover ("84 of 1,000"), confidence‑saturation (early‑season bars sit desaturated and firm up as results land), bucketed week deltas (▲▼ only past ±4 pts), and a published track record. Fan‑belief band = our discourse/market delusion signal — the gap between what the model gives a fanbase and what the fanbase lives at.