Sports
B/R Experts Release October Bold Predictions For Games Already Played
By Michael Yappaport, . BSN Network. Satire.
NEW YORK, Oct. 8, 2026 -- Bleacher Report released its college football Bold Predictions for October on Wednesday, a 900-word document that experts at the outlet described as "a genuine swinging of the fists" at a sport whose current standings were available, for free, to anyone with a phone.
The piece, bylined by six contributors and edited by at least two others, predicted that a highly ranked team with a dominant offense would perform well against a weaker opponent at home. It also predicted that a struggling program's injury issues would hurt them, which required knowing that the program is struggling and has injuries, both of which were reported in October of last year.
The boldest prediction on the list held that a quarterback everyone has been talking about since August would continue to be talked about in November. The prediction was given four stars out of five for boldness.
Four of the eleven predictions concerned games from the previous weekend. Three of those games had final scores. One of them went to overtime, which B/R did not predict but noted "felt possible in retrospect."
Bleacher Report senior analyst and Bold Predictions lead architect Darren Folkman, who has been writing bold predictions since 2019 and has correctly predicted that college football seasons would have a champion, defended the list in a statement Wednesday afternoon.
"People underestimate how hard it is to be bold," Folkman said. "You can't just say anything. You have to say something that feels surprising but is actually fine. That's the whole craft. Anyone can be reckless. We are something different. We are bold."
Folkman added that the process involved "multiple rounds" of review in which predictions deemed too obvious were escalated to a bolder tier, and predictions deemed too risky were sent back for recalibration. He did not clarify how a prediction about a game that ended Saturday fits into either tier. He said the workflow was proprietary.
The panel does include one genuinely surprising entry: a mid-major program is predicted to lose a game they were already listed as eighteen-point underdogs in. The analyst who submitted it reportedly called it "the one that keeps me up at night."
CFB fans online were divided. One commenter noted that he had made the same predictions at a Buffalo Wild Wings on Sunday and had been asked to leave. Another said the list made him feel like he was being read his own diary.
Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State and Texas each appear in the predictions in ways that suggest the analysts are aware those programs exist, which is the floor for this genre and also, apparently, the ceiling.
The October edition arrives following B/R's September bold predictions, in which the panel correctly forecast that preseason favorites would remain favorites, that a coach on the hot seat would feel heat, and that the sport of college football would take place on Saturdays.
All three came in.
Next month's bold predictions are expected to feature the Rose Bowl, whoever is ranked first, and a description of the weather in a southern state as "a factor."
Folkman says the team is already hard at work.
"November is when it gets real," he said. "That's when we stop playing around and start being truly, genuinely bold. I can't say more than that. But I will say: some of these predictions concern games that have not yet occurred."
He paused.
"Most of them."
The full list is available at Bleacher Report dot com, below a banner ad for a sports betting app, which is doing its own bold predictions and has worse ones.
The story we are making fun of: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25504832-br-experts-october-bold-predictions-2026-cfb-season