Predictions are what we do at Dave Campbell’s Texas Football.

I spend my entire April driving around the state and visiting all 13 FBS programs within our border. May is spent previewing every aspect of those teams, including record predictions. And then I spend the rest of the year kicking myself for what I missed.

That’s the job.

As crazy as it sounds, each of the FBS teams in the state are 33 percent done with the regular season and we can start drawing some early conclusions about the true trajectories of each program.

What makes college football so crazy is that four games represent a true chunk of the data for the year. In Major League Baseball, it takes 60 games to watch one-third of the season. It is 20 games in the NBA. Even the NFL allows an extra data point before getting to this point of the year.

Any many ways, what makes college football so fun is the erratic nature of it. The game is played by 20-year-olds and we spend seven months dissecting and prognosticating about a team only to see it go a different direction by the end of September. There is a herky-jerky nature to it that causes whiplash reactions to the good and the bad.

We’ll combine the 10 Bold Predictions from May (looking good so far) and some summer magazine predictions to breakdown what looks right and what looks wrong so far in 2026.

What we got right

1. Texas Tech takes a step back

The first text I received when the magazine started finding its way into driveways and bookstores across Texas was from folks in Lubbock who couldn’t believe I predicted the Red Raiders would go 10-2 and lose a pair of Big 12 games this season. After all, Vegas’ win total was 11.5 and Texas Tech was more heavily favored to win its conference than any other team in the FBS.

It didn’t help that I had written a 2,500-word feature story with the Red Raider brass on the cover. But it felt obvious.

Texas Tech had quarterback drama in the offseason with Brendan Sorsby arriving and then departing before we made it to July 4 and Will Hammond was coming off a major knee injury. The defense lost Jacob Rodriguez, David Bailey, Lee Hunter, and Romello Height from the best front seven in football.

Maybe calling this a win when Texas Tech is 4-0 is premature. The Red Raiders are likely favored in each of the remaining games if they keep winning. But there are clearly cracks in the foundation that weren’t visible at this time last year. Tech might be good enough to repeat as Big 12 champs, but it won’t be with wins of 20+ points in every game.

I predicted Tech losing to Arizona State and on the road to Oklahoma State. Maybe it won’t be those games, though the trip to Stillwater does look dangerous. But I feel pretty good about my prediction that Tech won’t run the table and waltz back into the CFP like it did last year. If they repeat as conference champs and play meaningful football into December, the Red Raiders will have earned it because the margins are clearly smaller this time around.

2. UTSA finishes with most wins in the G6 (in Texas)

This is from the 10 Bold Predictions piece from May. I hedged the bet by saying this wasn’t necessarily saying the Roadrunners were the best G6 team in Texas because that would be decided in San Marcos in Week 2. Well, UTSA won that game and is now the only G6 program in the Lone Star State above .500 entering Week 5.

A lot of sportsbooks and power ratings currently see UTSA as the favorite in the American. Optimism is alive because the Roadrunners finally won on the road (they get another chance to prove that this weekend against Rice). They also don’t play Memphis and preseason favorites such as Navy and Tulane don’t look as strong as predicted.

UTSA looks like a team that can win 8 or 9 games and that will be the most in the G6.

3. Baylor’s fast start

My favorite movie growing up was “Monty Python’s Holy Grail” and one of the best scenes is when the dude is trying to put his elderly father on the death cart but the old man is alive and trying to announce how not-dead he is by saying “I feel happy. I feel happy.” He then gets clubbed over the head, added to the cart, and is rolled away.

That’s kind of how I saw the Baylor football season unfolding. My bold prediction on the Bears was that Aranda would make it through the season. My reasoning was because the Bears would get off to a 3-1 start and stay in bowl contention for most of the year. I stopped short of saying he’d be back in 2027, though, because I do think Baylor hitting the market for a new coach is the most likely outcome this offseason.

Baylor is 3-1 and Joe Klanderman’s defense looks great. The D.J. Lagway experience has gone as expected with injuries and inconsistent play. The end of the schedule is brutal. The Bears close with a home game against Texas Tech sandwiched between trips to BYU and Houston. That’s where I think Aranda’s tenure gets hit over the head with a club.

But before that? The Bears could be 6-3 or 7-2. They won’t move on from Aranda in the middle of the season with that type of record.

What we got wrong

1. TCU’s offense hits the ground running

There was a time during preseason camp where I almost went all-in on TCU playing for a Big 12 championship and flirting with a return to the CFP for the second time in five years under Sonny Dykes. I predicted the Horned Frogs to finish 8-4 in the magazine, but as the summer wore on and clips of new QB Jaden Craig emerged, I was tempted to move that win projection to 10.

Either way, I was all over the Frogs going over the win projections and being a dark horse in conference. New offensive coordinator Gordon Sammis looked like just what the doctor ordered. His offenses at UConn ran the ball effectively and rarely turned it over. Turnovers and an ineffective run game was what was holding TCU back, especially in games it was supposed to win.

But that offense hasn’t been effective. TCU averaged 37.3 points per game in the first four games last year. This year, that number is down to 29.3. The Horned Frogs are 0-2 against the Power Four, and they were favored in both losses. The defeat at UCF to start Big 12 play over the weekend was the ninth time they’ve lost as a favorite since the start of 2023.

And up next is BYU. Dykes & Co. will likely be 2-3 entering the open week. A bowl game isn’t guaranteed.

2. Texas A&M will win nine games

This one is on me and I’ve spent the better part of two weeks kicking myself for not trusting my gut. In hindsight, the massive step backwards for the Aggies should’ve been easy to see. But I let my trust in Mike Elko and outside opinions like the way-too-early preseason polls lead to second-guessing myself.  

Texas A&M lost both coordinators, the best wide receiver, four starters on the offensive line, the SEC Defensive Player of the Year, and a three-year captain at middle linebacker. And the returning quarterback everyone was banking on taking a step forward only threw two touchdown passes in three games against ranked opponents and had a TD:INT ratio against P4 opponents of 13:11 in 2025.

By preseason camp, I had changed my tune and was taking the under on the win total on our main podcast and on the Aggie War Pod with Jay Arnold. But it was too little, too late. This looks like a 6-6 team at best. I had them at 9-3 in the magazine.

Yuck.

3. Arch Manning would be the best QB in Texas

For the second straight year, we made Arch Manning the First Team All Texas quarterback in the magazine. And for the second straight year, I’m kicking myself for that choice before the end of September. It isn’t that Manning has been bad – after all, he’s led Texas to wins over Ohio State and Tennessee – but he hasn’t been great. And he certainly hasn’t had the best start to the season of all the QBs in the state.

I’ll admit that I have a hard time analyzing Manning. He’s clearly not the perfectly rated, five-star prospect he was hailed to be out of high school. But he’s also not a bust. He’s a good to very good college quarterback who has highs and lows. That might be enough for the Longhorns to win the SEC and make a run at the national title if Will Muschamp’s defense keeps playing like it has been.

SMU QB Kevin Jennings, who was the Second Team All Texas QB in the magazine, currently leads the country with 363.3 passing yards per game and already has 12 touchdown passes. Guys like Tayven Jackson (UNT) and Landyn Locke (Sam Houston) are having great seasons at the G6 level. TCU’s Craig is secodn in the Big 12 in passing. And Houston’s Conner Weigman has been great, throwing for 11 touchdowns to just one interception while adding three more rushing touchdowns on the ground.