Week 0 has come and gone and I’m just now sitting down to write my college football preview. That’s on me, I know it. But there’s a reason I let a little football hit the ground first instead of rushing something out over Labor Day weekend, and we’ll get to that.
Real quick, a confession that has nothing to do with strategy. The reason I even watch the Mountain West every year traces back to a blue football field. I remember seeing Boise State’s turf for the first time as a kid and thinking it was the coolest thing I had ever seen on a broadcast. That’s it. That’s the whole origin story. There was no scouting report or betting angle behind it. I was a kid, I thought blue grass looked cool, that was the whole thing.
So this year that blue turf is gone from the conference that made me care about it in the first place. Boise State, along with Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State, all left the Mountain West for the newly rebuilt Pac-12 this offseason.
Can you blame them? That’s real money on the table.
I could just follow Boise State over to the Pac-12 and call it even, but as long as the Mountain West keeps UNLV and Wyoming on the schedule, I’m sticking around.
One more thing worth saying up front. Phil Steele covers every FBS conference, all 136 teams, in a 350-plus page magazine he spends six months and 80-plus hours a week putting together. That’s a more than full-time job. An entire, all-consuming, admirable job. What a life that would be. I’m not trying to do what Phil does (in another life, maybe I could have been). I’m one guy running this thing on the side. So instead of spreading myself thin across ten conferences (and the independents), I’m going deep on two: the Big Ten, which has my team in it and The Division I football team closest to me, and the Mountain West, which made me a college football fan before I could legally bet the spread.
The Mountain West, New Faces and an Old Flame Gone
This conference looks almost nothing like it did a year ago. Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State, and Utah State all packed up and left for the newly rebuilt Pac-12.
In their place, the Mountain West brought in three new members: UTEP as a full member coming over from Conference USA, Northern Illinois as a football-only member from the MAC, and North Dakota State as a football-only affiliate from the Missouri Valley Football Conference.
And this part actually makes me laugh. Boise State, Fresno State, and San Diego State are all expected to finish near the top of the new Pac-12.
(Quick honest flag for you: I haven’t independently verified Pac-12 projections myself, so treat that as a side observation rather than a hard stat.)
Meanwhile, two of the three teams that just joined the Mountain West are projected to land at the very bottom of the standings. And the third, North Dakota State, just walked away from ten FCS national titles in fifteen years to become a middle of the pack Group of Five program. How long before the Bison are competing for Mountain West titles and knocking on the door of an at-large CFP bid? Rhetorical question. I genuinely don’t know, and I don’t think anybody does yet.
I’m close to Phil here but not exact. He’s got New Mexico at the top, I’ve got UNLV. What can I say, I love Las Vegas! I also slide North Dakota State down to sixth instead of fifth, since a program adjusting to a completely new level of competition deserves a little benefit of the doubt before I put them ahead of teams that already know what Mountain West football looks like week to week.
The Big Ten, Crowded at the Top
Three of the last three national championships have come out of the Big Ten, with Ohio State, Michigan, and Indiana combining to win them, and the league doesn’t look like it’s slowing down. The unofficial preseason media poll had Ohio State edging Oregon by a whisker, 11 first place votes to Oregon’s 15, if you can believe a team can get more first place votes and still finish second overall. Indiana checked in third and can no longer be called anybody’s feel-good underdog story after last year.
“Phil and I don’t agree on everything, and this is the first big gap. He’s got Indiana at number two; I’ve got them sliding all the way to six. I just don’t trust a team to run it back at that level two years in a row in a conference this deep, and I’d rather be early on that fade than late to it. I also have Oregon and Michigan a tick higher than Phil does. Oregon is the team the media actually gave more first place votes to this preseason, and Michigan is the team some of the computer models like best behind Ohio State. When two different measuring sticks agree a team belongs near the top, I listen.
Iowa Deep Dive
Now let’s talk about my Hawkeyes, because I can’t write this preview and bury them in a numbered list.
I’m an Iowa fan first and a numbers guy second, but I try not to let the two fight each other too much. My honest projection is nine wins. My pessimistic projection, the one where Iowa loses a game, they had no business losing, because that happens every single year, is eight. But I can’t talk myself down into seven. Not with this schedule.
So, I’m over the win total. My local sportsbook has Iowa’s season win total at over 7.5 at -140, meaning I’d lay $28 to win $20 if I put money on it. And I would. My actual philosophy on Iowa this year is the same thing as it is most years; tease the unders on their game totals all season long, because that offense is not going to light anybody up, and their defense is always at the top every year. Take the over on their season win total and you’ll become a Hawkeye fan just like me.
The schedule backs this up. Ohio State comes to Iowa City on October 3rd, by far the toughest game on the slate, but it’s a home game, and Kinnick Stadium under the lights against the defending juggernaut is exactly the kind of environment where Iowa has snuck out results before. The bigger threat to the over is the middle of the schedule, a road trip to Michigan to open Big Ten play and a road trip to Washington a couple weeks later. Split those the wrong way and eight wins starts to feel like a ceiling instead of a floor.
Where I Land
That’s the Big Ten and the Mountain West as I see them heading into the 2026 season. I stacked my order of finish right next to Phil Steele’s on purpose, because I’d rather show you where I disagree with the best in the business than pretend I’ve got it all figured out on my own.
So, tell me, where do you think I’m more wrong, my Mountain West order of finish or my Big Ten one?
Just Paper Money. Not financial advice. Do your own homework.