Biggest 2026 college football storylines: Lane Kiffin, Arch Manning, Lincoln Riley and more

Saturdays where you stay on the couch, eat great food and watch college football games all day long are officially back with the calendar now flipped to September. 

The 2025 season was an epic one. One of the worst programs in NCAA history won the national championship, we saw surprise teams emerge as College Football Playoff contenders and we also saw expected contenders fall well short of expectations. 

10 biggest college football storylines to watch in 2026

The 2026 season should have a lot of great things in store for us as well, and here at SeatGeek, we’re breaking down 10 of the biggest college football storylines to follow this season. 

How does Indiana respond after winning title and losing Fernando Mendoza?

We’ll start with the defending champs. 

The Hoosiers have been the talk of the college football world the last two years, which is something I never expected to write. But Curt Cignetti has turned Indiana from a Big Ten doormat to a national championship program in just two years, going 27-2 along the way. 

Cignetti is heading into Year 3 in Bloomington, and we now know the Hoosiers are no fluke. They’ll have a massive target on their backs, and their closing stretch is tough, with visits to Michigan and Washington and home games versus Ohio State and USC making up four of the team’s final six games. That alone is tough, but we saw the Hoosiers handle difficult games last year just fine.

Another big question is at quarterback as the Hoosiers have their third starting signal-caller in as many years, this time in TCU transfer Josh Hoover. He takes over for Fernando Mendoza, and all he did after transferring from Cal is lead Indiana to a 16-0 record, a national championship and a Heisman Trophy before going No. 1 overall in the NFL Draft. Hoover doesn’t have to be Mendoza, especially as Indiana will almost certainly have an elite run game and defense to lean on. But he’s a great QB in his own right, totaling 66 touchdowns and more than 7,000 total yards across the last two years for the Horned Frogs. 

I expect the Hoosiers to be a dominant force once again, but how they do with a new quarterback and after winning the title will be a massive storyline all season long. 

Can Oregon finally get it done with their best-ever roster?

The Ducks have never won a national championship, but they’ve been one of the best programs in the sport over the last two decades. Oregon has had some great and loaded teams over the years, but there’s a case to be made this is the most talented squad the city of Eugene has ever seen. This team will be tasked with getting over the hump, especially after suffering blowout losses in the quarterfinal round of the College Football Playoff each of the last two years – both of which came at the hands of the eventual national champs. 

Quarterback Dante Moore surprisingly came back to school after it was speculated he’d be a top-five pick in the NFL Draft. He has returning weapons like Evan Stewart and Dakorien Moore to throw to, and the defense returns basically its entire starting defensive line, which is loaded with NFL talent. 

There’s no time like now for Oregon to get its first title. On top of expectations and a dangerous Big Ten to contend with – including matchups with USC, Ohio State, Michigan and Washington and notable non-conference tilts with Boise State and a new-look Oklahoma State squad – is that the Ducks have new coordinators on both sides of the ball. Former offensive coordinator Will Stein is now the head man at Kentucky while defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi is now running the show at Cal. Oregon promoted from within for both spots, so there’s continuity there, but how the in-game play calling looks early on will be very important to follow. 

Lane Kiffin in the Bayou (and his return to Ole Miss)

In case you missed it, Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for rival LSU. Not only that, he left the Rebels after their final regular season game and wasn’t part of their College Football Playoff run to the semifinal round. Now, Kiffin is tasked with leading the Tigers after a disappointing 7-6 record in 2025 and shaking off the remnants of a lackluster Brian Kelly tenure. 

Kiffin’s LSU Tigers will be appointment viewing all year long, but no game will be more important than Sept. 19, which is at Ole Miss. Rebels fans and players didn’t take too kindly to Kiffin’s departure, especially for a top rival. You can expect an incredible atmosphere in Oxford in what’s already a heated rivalry, and things will be turned up to 11, certainly. It’s not common to get a game of this caliber so early in the season, so get your popcorn ready.

Texas Tech after offseason of scrutiny

The Red Raiders are kind of a poster child for the new age of college football. Their NIL pool is massive, they recruit very well and they also hit the transfer portal very hard. This worked well with an 11-1 regular season record, a Big 12 title game win and CFP appearance – a shutout loss to Oregon. With the offense struggling in the playoff, Texas Tech added Cincinnati transfer QB Brendan Sorsby after he had 36 total touchdowns for the Bearcats in 2025. It was a move that made it clear that the Red Raiders were a team to be feared entering 2026. 

But it was soon discovered Sorsby had been placing sports bets on college football – including games his teams were playing – and he was deemed ineligible. While he was reinstated after a court appeal, Sorsby later tried to go into the NFL’s Supplemental Draft, but the league opted not to hold one for him this year. He will not play college football this year and will try his luck at the NFL in 2027. 

Texas Tech’s handling of the situation has been scrutinized, particularly a social media video where many key Tech figures tried to explain “the facts.” The situation was not well received, and many schools – including in the Big 12 – said they wouldn’t play the Red Raiders in any sport if Sorsby suited up for the program in 2026. 

The Red Raiders should still be a very good team this year, and they’re the clear favorite to win the Big 12 this year. But they turned into a villain of sorts, and how they handle that role this year will be a big story to watch in 2026. 

Can Arch Manning and Texas bounce back?

It was going to be nearly impossible for Arch Manning to live up to the hype in his first year as a starter at Texas. It shows how much hype there was considering his 2025 season was considered a major disappointment. He entered the year as the favorite to win the Heisman Trophy and be the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. Instead, the nephew of Peyton and Eli led the Longhorns to “just” a 10-3 overall record as Texas missed out on the CFP. 

Manning’s overall numbers were actually better than you’d think, as he had 36 total touchdowns and over 3,500 yards of offense and tossed just seven picks. But Manning struggled mightily at times, particularly early on. He was a mess against Ohio State, completed 44% of his passes against UTEP and tossed two picks in a loss to a bad Florida team. All of that came in Texas’ first five games. But Manning played better after that point, and Texas lost just once after that, falling 35-10 to a very good Georgia team. 

Texas is a preseason top-five team, and expectations are very high for Manning and the Longhorns alike. I think Texas will be much better this year and make the CFP, and Manning should have another strong year, even if he’s not the Superman many tabbed him to be. He’s very talented, though, and has a good supporting cast around him. Texas wasn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination last year, but Manning will need to shine brighter in tough games, particularly the first game of the year versus Ohio State. The Longhorns also have Oklahoma, Tennessee, Ole Miss, LSU and Texas A&M on the schedule, but they avoid Georgia and Alabama. 

What does the return of the Pac-12 look like?

The Pac-12 is back! Sort of. 

After the conference was gutted as part of realignment ahead of the 2024 season, the Pac-12 returns with an eight-team league this year. Washington State and Oregon State are the “returning” members, and Boise State headlines the list of new teams in the fold. San Diego State, Colorado State, Texas State, Fresno State and Utah State are also new teams in the conference. 

The Pac-12 is no longer a “power” conference, instead falling under the “Group of Six” classification. As such, the conference does not have an automatic CFP qualifier. If the Pac-12 is going to make some noise this year, one of these teams will need to go likely 11-1 or better in order to try and get in as an at-large team. The two top contenders, in that regard, appear to be Boise State and San Diego State. The Broncos have been a perennial 10+ win team since the turn of the century, and they made the CFP in 2024 before slipping to 9-5 in 2025. The Aztecs went 9-4 last year. We’ll learn a lot about Boise State early on as the Broncos open the year at Oregon on Sept. 5. Boise State gave the Ducks all they could handle in 2024, losing by three at Autzen, but that was a very different Broncos team that featured Raiders standout running back and Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty. 

New-look Big Ten powers

Two perennial Big Ten powerhouses that are historic programs have new head coaches with Michigan hiring longtime Utah leader Kyle Whittingham and Penn State finally getting Matt Campbell to leave Iowa State. 

Now, the circumstances for each program hiring these coaches are very different, with Campbell simply taking over for the fired James Franklin, who is now the head man at Virginia Tech, while Whittingham inherits a Michigan program that was in the headlines for all the wrong reasons given former head coach Sherrone Moore’s off-field issues. 

As for 2026, both programs can hit the ground running in Year 1. Campbell, who won 11 games in 2024 and 8+ five times in 10 years at Iowa State, brings with him many of his key players from Ames, namely quarterback Rocco Becht. The Nittany Lions have a tough stretch where they face USC, Michigan and Washington over a four-game period, but their Big Ten schedule and non-conference slate are both very manageable as they avoid Ohio State, Oregon and Indiana. 

As for the Wolverines, Whittingham won 10+ games eight times at Utah, including four of the last seven years. He isn’t bringing a bunch of stars with him from Utah, but Whittingham inherits a Michigan roster that has a ton of talent, most notably sophomore quarterback Bryce Underwood, the No. 1 recruit in the 2025 high school class. Underwood had a trial by fire last year and had less than 2,700 total yards with 17 total touchdowns, but there is a reason he was the top guy in his class. He’s extremely talented, and it will be up to Whittingham and this new staff to unlock his full potential. The Wolverines have a tough schedule this year, with their second game being at home against Oklahoma, and their Big Ten schedule features home games against Iowa, Indiana and Penn State along with visits to Oregon and Ohio State across the final three weeks of the season. 

Can Lincoln Riley get off the hot seat?

The USC Trojans are one of college football’s best and most historic programs. They’ve regularly run the sport and have won a ton of national titles while sporting Heisman winners in multiple decades. When the school stunned the world by hiring Lincoln Riley from Oklahoma, the expectation was the Trojans were going to soon be back as a powerhouse, especially after Riley’s Sooners were a fixture in the then-four-team CFP field, going 55-10 over four years. 

But that’s not what’s happened. At least, it hasn’t happened yet. The Trojans went 11-3 in Riley’s first year in 2022, but the team lost twice to Utah, including in the Pac-12 title game, costing them a spot in the College Football Playoff. The Trojans have since gone 8-5, 7-6 and 9-4, with the recurring theme being a dreadful defense that could not come close to matching up with Riley’s electric offenses. 

Riley made a big splash this offseason coaxing Hall of Fame TCU head coach Gary Patterson out of retirement to run the defense. Will it work? If it doesn’t, does Riley, who has six years left on his contract entering the 2026 season, survive? 

The Trojans have a great quarterback in Jayden Maiava, but it all comes down to the defense. USC hosts Pac-12-turned-Big Ten rivals Oregon and Washington early on, and those two games will help show just where the Trojans are overall, especially defensively. USC also has visits to Penn State and Indiana on tap, along with a home matchup with Ohio State. 

Does Clemson recover from dreadful 2025?

The Tigers went 10-4 in 2024 and made the CFP, and expectations were very high for Dabo Swinney’s group heading into 2025. A 7-6 record was not what anyone was looking for out of Clemson, especially as the team had won 10 or more games all but one year since 2011 before that. 

Swinney has been under the microscope of sorts over the last few years with NIL and the transfer portal really changing college football, as the always vocal head coach made it clear he’s not a fan of either development and wasn’t exactly excited at changing the way he runs things. Clearly things didn’t work in 2025, so can Swinney and Co. rebound? 

The ACC should be pretty open again, with Miami a clear favorite but no No. 2 option really standing out after that. That No. 2 team could very well be the Tigers. But Clemson has a lot of talent to replace, namely quarterback Cade Klubnik, who is now in the NFL. Senior and former five-star recruit Christopher Vizzina will now get his shot to lead the charge, but there’s a lot of question marks around him, the offense and really the whole operation under Swinney. 

Is this the last hurrah for Bill Belichick?

Bill Belichick’s historic Patriots tenure ended with a whimper as the legendary six-time Super Bowl-winning head coach went 4-13 in 2023 and was let go. After failing to land another NFL head coaching gig, the now-74-year-old coach made a shocking move, agreeing to be the head coach at North Carolina after never coaching in the college ranks before – even as an assistant. 

But 2025 was a disaster in Chapel Hill. The Heels went 4-8, were blown out by TCU, UCF, Clemson and NC State and scored more than 20 points just three times. Will 2026 be any different? It’s hard to think the answer is yes given what we saw in 2025. 

The Tar Heels have done a solid job recruiting, but on top of the regular attention the program gets with Belichick leading the charge, the school placed football GM Michael Lombardi on administrative leave. 

Can Belichick get the Heels moving in the right direction? His second year at the helm got off to a nice start with a win over TCU in Week 0. But if the season falls apart from here, will Belichick survive the fallout? Will he even want to try running it back in 2027 considering he’ll be 75? North Carolina shouldn’t be a big story considering its place in the college football landscape right now, but it certainly is.