College football predictions: Second-chance expert picks for 2026 national champion, playoff field, more

Turns out it's not easy making preseason College Football Playoff bracket predictions.

Before the season started, our nine CBS Sports college football experts took their best shots at predicting the 12-team College Football Playoff field and national champion. After an especially wild coaching carousel and transfer portal cycles that completely remade some of the biggest programs in the country, that endeavor wasn't easy.

As one can imagine, there were some hits and there were misses.

Miami, Georgia and Ohio State were popular preseason picks to earn seeds among the top four, which remains very much in play. Unfortunately, so, too, were Texas and Oregon, which are presently more likely to miss the field than earn a first-round bye.

All but two of our experts (Brad Crawford and myself) predicted Oklahoma to make the field. The Sooners, sitting at 3-3, have 0.4 percent odds to make the field, according to CBS Sports' forecasting model. If only this expert hadn't included Michigan (1% odds) in Oklahoma's place.

Fortunately, our kind bosses are giving us a midseason redo on our picks. Those who no longer wanted to keep Texas as their national champion pick were free to pick another option. (Spoiler: They picked…

Original source: https://www.cbssports.com/