ESPN's FPI Preseason Top 10: Ohio State Leads, But the SEC Depth Is the Real Futures Story
Ohio State Opens as the Preseason Favorite, and the Number Makes Sense
ESPN’s FPI has Ohio State as the preseason No. 1 heading into the 2026 season with a rating of 28.7, and unlike some preseason placements that feel more like brand recognition than analysis, this one holds up under the numbers. Texas and Notre Dame round out the top three, with Oregon and Georgia completing a top five that reads almost exactly like the sport’s power rankings have read for the better part of three years now. The interesting story isn’t really the top spot — it’s what’s stacked directly behind it.
The SEC’s Depth Is the Real Market Story
Six SEC teams landed in the FPI top 10, and that kind of concentration matters more for national championship futures than any single team’s individual number. When a conference is that deep, the math around “which SEC team actually breaks through” becomes the more interesting futures conversation than the overall No. 1 slot, because depth like that usually means the eventual conference representative in the playoff isn’t obvious until well into November. Alabama and LSU both cracking the top 10 alongside Georgia means the SEC could plausibly send three playoff-caliber teams into the field, which is exactly the kind of scenario that keeps conference and playoff-field futures markets from settling early.
Indiana and Texas Tech Are the Numbers Worth Watching
Indiana at No. 6 and Texas Tech at No. 10 are the two placements most likely to move once real games start, and for opposite reasons. Indiana’s rise reflects a program that has quietly built infrastructure and recruiting momentum that the public perception hasn’t fully caught up to yet — the kind of gap between model rating and market perception that tends to produce value early in a season before the number catches up. Texas Tech’s inclusion signals a similar story out of the Big 12, a conference that’s had trouble getting consistent playoff representation and now has a data-model believer near the top 10.
What to Track Before Week One
FPI ratings this early in the offseason are inputs, not predictions — they’re built on roster returns, transfer portal activity, and recruiting rankings rather than any actual snaps. But they’re still the earliest real signal on how the market should be pricing national title and conference futures before public money starts moving those numbers around fall camp. Ohio State’s number is unlikely to move much between now and Week 1. The SEC depth chart behind Georgia, and whether Indiana’s model-driven ranking survives contact with an actual schedule, are the two threads worth revisiting once August camps wrap and real depth charts firm up.
