College Football Playoff contenders who should be punished for soft out of conference schedules

Summer is sneaking along and the 2026 college football season will be here before we know it. Sure, there’s media days coming up and all of the shenanigans that will happen at all of those nonsensical fan and media events, but actual football really isn’t all that far away.

That means we get to see some truly great matchups with high profile teams. Oftentimes, especially early on, that involves teams that aren’t from the same conference. 

Of course, not everyone has managed to put together such a fun out-of-conference schedule. There are some teams who will be facing some rather uninspiring competition from outside of their conference throughout the season. 

Let’s start with a team that loosely fits the bill of a College Football Playoff contender (and will have the benefit of playing in a tough conference to help shape the resume a bit).

Penn State Nittany Lions

I don’t think the Penn State Nittany Lions are going to be a national title contending team in Matt Campbell’s first season. I don’t think many (reasonable) people are going to expect those sorts of levels of success. But, in a world where 12 teams are in the College Football Playoff, a team with nine wins should be able to sneak in.

And theoretically, I think Campbell and Penn State might be able to pull off nine wins this season. Partially because the out-of-conference schedule is pretty weak for this team this year.

Here’s Penn State’s out-of-conference schedule for the 2026 college football season:

• Marshall at Penn State on Sept. 5
• Penn State at Temple on Sept. 12
• Buffalo at Penn State on Sept. 19

And that’s about it. So, if Campbell can get the Nittany Lions to be competent (which he should be more than capable of, and Penn State just field a decent team, we’re going to see three guaranteed wins right there. 

Combine that with a few conference wins down the stretch (there are plenty of tough Big Ten tests, but this is also a schedule that should yield several conference wins) and we’ll potentially see a 9-3 Penn State team try to make the argument that it should be in the 12-team College Football Playoff this season.

Indiana Hoosiers

Fresh off a national championship, Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers are looking to accomplish some great things again this season. And to be clear, this is absolutely a team that will be worth keeping an eye on this year. But the non-conference schedule for the Hoosiers isn’t great. 

• North Texas at Indiana on Sept. 5
• Howard at Indiana on Sept. 12
• Western Kentucky at Indiana on Sept. 19

There’s a whole lot of Air Raid right there. The North Texas Mean Green and the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers heading to Bloomington this season? That’s going to be interesting to watch.

With Neal Brown taking over in Denton, Texas, it’s going to be fun to see how he tries to continue building on what Eric Morris established with the Mean Green a season ago.

In theory, this non-conference schedule could be pretty tricky to navigate. But that’s just in theory. There’s nothing to indicate right now that a North Texas team that is completely rebuilding from Morris’s departure to Oklahoma State (and all of the talent he took with him to the Cowboys) will be anywhere near as good as it was a season ago. 

As for Howard and Western Kentucky? I don’t envision either of them being all that intimidating either. 

But Indiana makes up for that with a pretty robust conference schedule this season and their resume will probably look pretty good even with a weak out-of-conference schedule.

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Okay. Look. Everyone is out to get the Texas Tech Red Raiders right now and there’s a ton of reasons for that. Most of them have to do with the whole Brendan Sorsby saga (which is now functionally, fully over). Some of it predates that though because of the way the Red Raiders have leveraged NIL and revenue sharing to build a really talented team.

But that really talented team plays in a pretty weird Big 12 that doesn’t have a ton of imposing teams among its membership this season. And even though Texas Tech keeps prodding the Longhorns, it looks like Texas won’t put the Red Raiders on their schedule this year.

So, Tech’s schedule features some blah out-of-conference opponents this coming season:

• Abilene Christian at Texas Tech on Sept. 5
• Texas Tech at Oregon State on Sept. 12
• Sam Houston State at Texas Tech on Sept. 26

I don’t think Joey McGuire and the Red Raiders will be even remotely challenged on this front. They’re not going to run into issues through those first couple of games and Sam Houston State wasn’t all that impressive at all a season ago. 

More college football news and analysis:

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow