2026 college football national championship picks
Three picks from three bands of our own model: the team we rate highest, a pick from the crowded tier below it, and a genuine longshot. Each number is our championship probability from a full-season simulation — our read, not a claim about anyone’s prices — and all three stay on this page until they settle in January, win or lose.
- Top pickOpen
Ohio State Buckeyes
16%Maiden gives Ohio State Buckeyes a 16% shot at the 2026 national title — our highest-rated team in the country.
Our number one, at 16% — which is another way of saying even the best team in the country loses this most years.
- The highest-rated team in our model at +25.0 points, and the only team more than eight points clear of the field.
- Ranks first in our ridge power ratings, second in SP+ and third in talent — all three inputs to the preseason prior point the same way.
- Projects to 9.1 regular-season wins and reaches the playoff in 77% of simulations.
- ContenderOpen
Indiana Hoosiers
5%Maiden gives Indiana Hoosiers a 5% shot at the 2026 national title — our pick from a crowded second tier.
Indiana Hoosiers at 5% — far enough down our ratings to be interesting, close enough to matter.
- Our fifth-rated team, and our pick from a second tier that is genuinely crowded — Texas, Texas A&M and Ole Miss all sit close enough that we cannot claim to have separated them.
- Projects to 8.8 wins and reaches the playoff in 47% of simulations — a team that needs one thing to break right rather than three.
- The twelve-team bracket suits this profile: they reach the field far more often than they win their conference.
- LongshotOpen
Tennessee Volunteers
2%Maiden gives Tennessee Volunteers a 2% shot at the 2026 national title — a genuine longshot.
It takes almost everything breaking right, which is what 2% means. We're not dressing it up.
- A real longshot — about one year in fifty, and we are not dressing it up as more than that.
- Our fourteenth-rated team, projecting to 7.4 wins and a 27% playoff rate.
- Gets there by winning the games our ratings say are coin flips, which is exactly the variance a longshot needs.
Common questions
- Who does Maiden pick to win the 2026 college football national championship?
- We publish three: Ohio State Buckeyes, Indiana Hoosiers and Tennessee Volunteers. They sit in different bands of our own model — our top-rated team, a pick from the crowded tier below it, and a genuine longshot — each with our championship probability attached, and all three are graded in public in January.
- What are Ohio State Buckeyes' chances of winning the 2026 national title?
- Our season simulation puts Ohio State Buckeyes at 16%. That comes from power ratings built on eleven seasons of game results, blended with efficiency ratings and recruiting talent, then run forward through the schedule, the conference championship games and the twelve-team playoff.
- How are these championship picks calculated?
- We fit power ratings to eleven seasons of game results, blend them with published efficiency ratings and recruiting talent, then simulate the full season — every scheduled game, the conference title games and the twelve-team playoff bracket — twenty thousand times. The championship probability is simply how often a team finishes as champion across those simulations. The win-probability model is checked against more than six thousand out-of-sample games, so a stated 60% has meant roughly 60% in the past.
- Is this betting advice?
- No. Maiden publishes probabilities and grades them in public. Nothing here is betting advice, no outcome is guaranteed, and we don't tell anyone what to back.
Maiden publishes probabilities, not bets. These three picks are graded in public when the title is decided — misses included.