Bill Connelly Nov 1, 2026, 05:35 PM ET Close Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.
The first two months of the college football season were messy and increasingly chaotic. Week 9 was no exception, though a lot of its surprises were either (A) games that were projected to be close but were blowouts instead or (B) close calls for top teams. No. 1 Miami (tight win over North Carolina), No. 4 Indiana (overtime win over Minnesota) and No. 8 BYU (tight win over Arizona State) all fit the latter category. Other than USC knocking off a wounded Ohio State, the underdogs couldn't quite get it done against the top teams this time around.
But forget all that -- it's November now. Virtually everything we eventually remember about the 2026 season will happen from this point forward. And with the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season coming out Tuesday, let's spin this forward a bit with help from some playoff tiers.
Playoff tiers Using a combination of the Allstate Playoff Predictor and odds driven by my SP+ rankings, we can pretty easily bunch teams into groups of playoff likelihood. Tier 1 Miami (8-0, 98.3% average playoff odds) It only briefly felt like Miami was in true danger against North Carolina on Saturday night: The Tar Heels took the lead early in the fourth quarter before Miami responded with a nine-play TD drive, recovered a fumble and scored again. The response to adversity was strong, just as it was a couple of weeks ago against Florida State.
The Hurricanes have underachieved defensively for three straight weeks, however, allowing 31 points per game and forcing their amazing offense to be amazing at all times. Defense is why they're projected underdogs at Notre Dame this coming weekend, but while it might be a fatal flaw as far as winning the national title goes, it hasn't prevented them from all but locking up a CFP spot. They would have to lose to Notre Dame and then potentially lose two of their last three after that to miss out.
All three of those games are at home, and the Canes are currently projected favorites of at least 17 points in each. They're likely still in with a 10-2 record, and SP+ gives them only a 1% chance of finishing the regular season 9-3 or worse. Tier 2 Indiana (8-1, 89.2%) Notre Dame (7-1, 86.4%) Utah (8-0, 85.6%) Georgia (7-1, 84.7%) Based on these odds, about 3.5 of these four teams will make the CFP.
They're all in pretty good shape but still have to finish the job. For Indiana, that means figuring out a sudden QB crisis. Josh Hoover has completed just 16 of 37 passes in his past two games while battling arm issues, and he hasn't completed more than 55% of his passes in a game since Oct. 3.
He evidently picked up another knock in the first half of the Hoosiers' overtime win over Minnesota, and backup Grant Wilson had to come in to save the day. He wasn't amazing (9-for-17 for 156 yards and a touchdown), but he was a massive improvement over Hoover. Curt Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan now have a much-needed bye week to either get Hoover healthy and back on track or officially switch to Wilson.
They barely escaped Week 9 with an 8-1 record, and while they're projected double-digit favorites in each of their three remaining games, they were nearly three-touchdown favorites against Minnesota, too. For Notre Dame, that means better starts. In the Fighting Irish's loss at BYU, they trailed 21-10 at halftime; on Saturday against Navy, they got sliced up by the Midshipmen's offense in the first half and trailed 13-7 after 29 minutes before finally finding the accelerator.
A slow start against Miami could be devastating with the way the Hurricanes can pile on points, and it could leave them vulnerable to upsets against SMU and Syracuse. They should still get into the CFP at 10-2 but almost certi.
Source: ESPN General · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing