College Football Stock Watch: which teams are going up or down for the 2026 Season?

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We roll along, getting you all set for next fall and college football. Today, what we're going to do is a little stock watch, buy and sell some programs that I would buy right now in the off season and some programs that I would sell. I think that they're going to take a little bit of a dip. Now, obviously, there's some parameters here. We expect everybody on the buy list to win more games than they did a year ago. We expect everybody on the sell list to take a little bit of a step back. It's not that these programs are going to be in the tank if I'm selling them right now. It's just a step back. Let's get into it right away. We're going to alternate here, buy and sell. We're going to start with my first buy team and buy program. That's going to be Penn State. Matt Campbell is now the new head coach at Penn State and I know that they were ranked number two to start the year-to-year going. They had sky high expectations, but they were seven and six. I think that this is clearly pointed up for Penn State. James Franklin had one very specific issue and that was losing those big games. Once they lost that Oregon game a year ago, it really spiraled out of control. They land on Matt Campbell, even though it was a long and somewhat tenuous coaching search, Matt Campbell is a perfect guy at Penn State. I really believe that. These ten seasons at Iowa State should tell us one thing and that's that they're going to be solid. He brings in his quarterback, Rocco Becht, 39 career starts at some most in college football and then they hit the schedule lottery. We've talked about this a lot over the last few years and in the day and age and the era of large conferences, even with a nine game conference schedule like they have in the Big Ten and now elsewhere, you're going to have years where you just hit the schedule lottery and Rocco Becht is going to be facing what I would say is a soft Big Ten schedule. This schedule just on its face with what they've got coming in in particular from the transfer class. All these guys from Iowa State following Matt Campbell over, they've got a schedule that really has a floor of nine wins and I think that they could easily get to 10 wins. If you look at that schedule, their toughest games, their toughest games are USC at home. In the next week, they've got a travel to Michigan. Then later in November, they've got a game at Washington on the West Coast. I don't think that one's going to be very easy at all. I think Jed Fish and Washington have a good program. It's tough to go all the way out West and play well. That was proven by Penn State a year ago when they went out to Westwood. Well, I guess Pasadena, but they face UCLA and got beat by UCLA, which was a win list team and it just fired their coach. Okay. So that's tough. You go do that at Washington, which is a tougher place to play than UCLA. By the way, the next week after traveling out to Seattle, they've got to come back home and face Minnesota. That being said, that is their toughest games. And when you look at that, if I was telling you, you're a big 10 team and your toughest games are going to be USC Michigan, then Washington, Minnesota, you would think, okay, well, that's manageable. I can handle that. They don't have Ohio State on the schedule. They don't have Oregon on the Seattle, like this is a schedule that they can do some damage with. And so because of that, this is a stock up for me. This is a buy. They're certainly going to win more games than seven. There's no doubt. And I think they could be a 10 and two team fighting for a college football playoff spot. Now they won't, they won't get that playoff spot if they're nine and three because their schedule won't allow it. But this is certainly a team that could go 10 and two with all of this returning. Well, I should say transferring in talent that they have continuity that they have and that continuity really starts and begins with their quarterback, Rocco Becht. They've got their offense coordinator from Iowa State, Taylor Mauser. And so Becht is not going to have to learn a new system. He's got 39 career starts. Again, that's the most in the country. Okay. We move on. Now we go to a cell team. And this is always dicey and it always, you know, gets me in trouble and no, I don't hate this program. In fact, I picked them to win the national championship like 10 straight years. But I would go stock down and be selling Alabama right now. Bama's going to be a good football team, but I don't know if that's going to be enough. This is a team that's going to lose their most important player in Thai Simpson. He carried them to some of those wins. In particular, the way he played in the first half against Georgia in Athens. And now you don't have him. They had 11 wins last season and they reached the CFP quarter final win to the Rose Bowl and got beat by Indiana. They're not doing that again, at least in my estimation. Now they don't have a terribly difficult schedule based on SEC standards. However, this is not going to be as good of a team as what they were a year ago. Now those that want to drink the Kool-Aid, I totally understand. And here's the thing. I like Kaelin DeBoer. In fact, I have been very pro Kaelin DeBoer. I think he is a wonderful football coach. I really do. The one thing that he has struggled with in his career is finding a requisite run game to go with what has always been an elite passing game. It was the same song and dance at Washington, even though they were so successful and went all the way to the national championship game. That was the exact reason that they were so inconsistent a year ago at Alabama. They could not run the football. It's actually quite shocking to watch Alabama line up and not be able to run the football. But that's the case. And he has to fix that. So as good of a coach as he is and he is a great coach, they've got to fix that element. I don't know if that's going to come to fruition. They lost a first round offensive tackle. They lost a first round quarterback. They lost Jeremy Bernard. Are they going to be great on defense? I think that remains to be seen at this point. And if you're telling me that they had 11 wins and reached the quarter final a year ago, I'm going to say stock down and I'm going to say at least at this point, it's a sell. Remember they also went to the SEC championship game. It's going to be a young team. They're going to be an experience. They're not going to have any experience at quarterback. And as you know, I talk about this all the time, experience at the quarterback position. At least in my estimation is the most important facet of any team in the country. It's very, very difficult to have top end success and to win 12 games to reach the national semi final with a quarterback that is an experience. You've got to have those requisites starts under your belt and they're not going to have that. My next buy team, I'm going to buy LSU. I think this is an easy one. This is a buy for me, Lane Kiffin at LSU. One, he's a great coach too. He's done this before. He's gone to Ole Miss and brought in a ton of transfers and, you know, recharged, if you will, rebuilt the culture of an organization and a program and had a lot of success. Ole Miss had very little success at the top end before Lane Kiffin. In fact, if you look back, you can go all the way back to like 1975 and Ole Miss had like two winning seasons or actually, I shouldn't say winning, two seasons of 10 or more wins and then Lane did it four or five years at Ole Miss. So the guy can coach and it's not like he's got to reinvent the wheel. I mean, this is a program that has one national championships. They expect to be at the top level and they haven't been. They were seven and six, fired their head coach Brian Kelly and now you're looking at this team and all the talent that they brought in out of the portal, including Sam Loveett. And you think yourself, is that a seven-win team? Yeah. Absolutely. That's a stock up for me. I think they're going to compete for a college football playoff spot. What's crazy to me is that they've got zero top ten finishes since winning the national championship in 2019. That's wild. This is too good of a program to be in that stretch and I think that that's going to be fixed with Lane and all this talent infused this year in Baton Rouge. Next cell, just touched on this, you lose a guy that was that important to building a culture that can win at the top end and then you lose him. Ole Miss is going to be a cell for me. I love Trinidad Chambliss. I love Kiwan Lacey. There's no doubt. But they were 13 and two and reached the semi-finally year ago. You know, Pete Golding has good of a job as he did last year. He retained the offensive staff that was under Lane for the playoff run. They're no longer there. And they had a chip on their shoulder. I mean, Pete Golding himself has talked about the fact that he didn't want to be a head coach. And now he's kind of thrust into this position in part because there was no other move for them to make. There was no other move for them to make. He had to be the coach. And he did a great job. There's no doubt. But the bar is too high, 13 and two and a semi-final birth. No. I can't do that. I can't get on board with that. So that's going to be a cell for me. They're going to take a step back, at least in my estimation. First full season for him. Like I said, I hope I'm wrong because I'm a huge fan of Trinidad Chambliss. I'm a huge fan of Kiwan Lacey. These guys can play. There's no doubt. But remember the staff. I just gave when talking about Lane Kiffin and LSU. Ole Miss dating back to 1975, it only had two 10 win seasons in their history. And then all the sudden, Lane had this explosion of success at Ole Miss. You can't expect that that's just going to continue right away. This was a middle of the road 500 program for a lot of those years, a lot of those years. I think they take a step back from 13 and two in a semifinal. Meet new groupie setting mist from Maybelline New York. Try new groupie setting mist from Maybelline New York. Maybe it's Maybelline. Next one for on the by list. And this one, you might say, well, yeah, Joel, this is a no-brainer. Okay, I'd get this. This might be low-hanging fruit, but UCLA is going to be a buy for me. They were three and nine a year ago. Remember fired their head coach, Dishon Foster, right before that game against Penn State. Now, the higher that they made is why I'm so excited about this program moving forward. Because Bob Chesney is a really good coach, really good coach. They've got a returning quarterback, Nico Yamalayava, and they've got over 40 incoming transfers. So they've got the experience at the quarterback position. And you're going to have an infusion of talent. Oh, and by the way, Bob Chesney is bringing seven assistant coaches from James Madison, including his offensive coordinator, his defense of coordinator, and his special team coach. Does that sound familiar? Anybody? That's exactly what Kurt Signetti did when he left JMU and went to Indiana. To me, this is Indiana light. You could see a major bump for UCLA. Now, it's tough in that conference. There's no doubt, but they've got experience and talent at the quarterback position. They've got a real coaching staff that I think can go out there and recruit talent. They've gotten a little bit of momentum on the recruiting trail right now. A lot of energy in Westwood. They're recruiting at a high level, and we've seen them have success. Everyone says like, you can't win at UCLA. No, bullcrap. I totally disagree with that. Chip Kelly won eight plus games his last three years. Jim Moira had multiple 10 win seasons at UCLA. You can do it. You can absolutely do it at UCLA. And I think Bob Chesney will, again, three and nine last year fired their head coach. That's an easy stock up. I'm buying right now stock in UCLA. A cell. This one's a little bit tougher because I do believe in the foundation of this program. And by the way, this can be said about a lot of these cell teams for 2026. But Illinois is going to be a cell for me in 2026. They had 19 wins over the last two years. Some real sustained success for a program that had not had much before Brett Bealham got there. Now, he's still there. That's an obvious continuity piece. Their quarterback isn't though. And you think about at least I do how important Luke Altmeier was to their success. They don't know. He was a huge part of that. They're offensive line. Huge part of that. They're replacing four starters on their offensive line. They've got to replace their wide receiver, Hank Beatty. This was a really good player on the outside. They're having to replace their defensive coordinator Aaron Henry. He left for Notre Dame. They did that with Montana head coach Bobby Hauke. I like Illinois and think of it this way. This is I think a temporary step back for Illinois. And this is one of those programs. Not every program can be great every single year. There are very few that can just maintain elite level every single year. We see it with Georgia. We see it with Ohio State. Okay. We see maybe we're going to see it with Miami. Maybe we're going to see it with Oregon. They've got the resources to recruit and gain talent out of the transfer portal to to a necessary level to keep themselves elite every year. But a program like Illinois, I don't think they've got the resources to do that. So here's what you're going to see at Illinois. And it's a classic kind of similar to what Iowa State used to be. Or Kansas State used to be or Oklahoma State used to be. You're going to see them dip a little bit like I believe they'll do in 2026. It's a sell for me this year. And then they're going to gain experience and they're going to get veterans and they're filling the holes. And then they're going to be very good in a couple of years. But you're going to have these dips before you can have the amount of success that they had in particular the last two years. 19 wins over the last two years. So that's kind of what I'm expecting right now from Illinois. So for this year, at least for me, Illinois is a sell. What's up, Clutch Hill fans? I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for the best deal on tickets. And it's clear to me that SeatGeek is the answer. 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Shout out to SeatGeek for sponsoring today's show. Next buy is going to be down in the SEC, Florida. I'm buying Florida right now. Easy to go up from here, four and eight fired their head coach. I get it. I totally get it. But if I were to tell you they've only had one winning season in their last five years, that was 2024. Wouldn't that shock you a little bit? I mean, this is Florida, right? They should be better than that. Shouldn't they? They haven't. They haven't been. And now John Summer all comes in. Reach the CFP last season with two lane. He's got a 43 and 12 career record as a head coach. This guy can coach. This guy can coach. I think he brought in a lot of talent for Florida. This is a program that should should be able to acquire and sustain talent to the necessary level to be a very good SEC program. I think that he can do that. I really do. So I'm buying Florida this year. It might not be a playoff push. But I'm certainly buying an improvement over the four and eight. They were a year ago when they fired Billy Napier as their head coach. Next on the cell list. I think Vandy is a cell for me this year. Last year they set a program record with 10 wins. And now they've got to replace the entire energy. The engine to that 10-win team, Diego Pavia. Heisman finalist, right? Like you don't just do that. I know that they brought in some elite level talent. I get it. And in particular, a quarterback. But now it's an experienced talent. Pavia had a ton of starts under his belt. If you go back to his career in New Mexico. And this is a guy that knew how to play and played well in big moments. Do we really expect them to all the sudden have another 10 wins this year? That was a program record. As much as I like Clark Lee and I like him a lot. This is a step back for Vandy. Very similar to Illinois. This is a program that's going to take a step back in order to move forward in the coming years. So for 2026, my stock for Vandy is low. I'm going to sell on Vandy this year. My next buy team. And again, you can go up from here pretty easily. But it's going to be Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech with their new head coach James Franklin. Listen, say what you want about James Franklin and what he did in big games at Penn State. But truth be told, guy can coach. He raised the level of Penn State. And I believe he's going to raise the level of Virginia Tech. If you look at what they did last year and the season's prior four straight seasons without being ranked at any point, I mean, come on now. Like Virginia Tech should be better than that. We think that they should be better than that. Now James Franklin is in and this guy can coach. He retained Brent prior. It was the prior head coach. And now he's the defensive coordinator. Those two when they were together, that was a combo that was really tough on the big 10. When Brent prior was the defensive coordinator at Penn State, that was a marriage that really worked, really worked. And they had one of the better defenses in the conference and really in the country. Aggressive, getting the backfield, a lot of sacks, a lot of mayhem, havoc style plays. A lot of the offensive coordinators in the big 10 when I would talk to them, would talk about Brent prize being the most difficult coordinator that they faced. So now he's back in the role where I think he can excel as a coordinator. James Franklin, clearly a guy that can coach and raise the level of a program just like he did at Penn State. So this is a raise. This is a level up. This is a Virginia Tech buy and the stockwatch for 2026. 27 incoming transfers to all of them from Penn State. They're going to raise the level of the talent. And it's not a very difficult conference. So this is a team that I think at some point this year can certainly be ranked. And maybe they can make a push towards qualifying for that ACC championship game. My last cell team is going to be Georgia Tech. Again, I like Georgia Tech, but you're coming off a really great season. Couple of really great seasons. And Haynes King was the engine similar to Diego Pavia for all the success at Georgia Tech. So you had nine wins last year, most since 2016. And now you've got to replace Haynes King and both core Coordinators losing continuity and losing experience is a recipe for taking a little bit of a dip Very similar to the other programs on this cell list. You're going to take a little bit of a dip Georgia tech has 11 games versus the power for This year. It's not an easy schedule. Look at their non league games They've got Tennessee and Georgia and the non league. This is not a team that's going to win nine games and again like I really love what Georgia tech does as a program But they're not a program that's going to sustain a level of nine or 10 wins You're going to take a little bit of a step back so that in the future You can step forward and get back to a point that you were at this year previous years Under Hanes King and everything that they had at Georgia tech So there's my buy and cell list right there stock watch for 2026 in college football I hope you've been been enjoying the offseason content if you haven't caught some of our Previous episodes this offseason they're all on the youtube page. You can go back there You could subscribe to the channel hit the notification button You'll find out when everything drops hint. It's Mondays Mondays we've got content dropping all year long And certainly here during the offseason preparing you for the season in 2026 We've got content coming your way and we've got shorter version of our content on social media If you haven't followed us on social media do so you can do that at Joel Platt show We will be back with you next Monday with more content getting you ready for the sport that we love In 2026 have a great week everybody Imagine setting your makeup then forgetting it's even theirs Meet new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York Delta mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours with flexible all day comfy grip No tightness, no stickiness, no residue Just plump, dewy hydrated skin that still feels like your skin Try new grippy setting mist from Mabelie, New York Maybe it's Mabelie