Welcome back, oh great and wonderful college football fans, to episode 683 or Day 8 of the 2026 season. Today is the lone Monday Night Football game for college football in the regular season. It features an ACC conference game with SMU (0-0/171) at Florida St (1-0/21) on ESPN at 7:30 (all times Eastern).
…..
As we’ve mentioned in early posts, the GCR cannot predict games unless both teams have played at least one game. Because tonight’s game is not predictable, we can present our to-date progress for those we could predict. It’s a new table (of course it is) as we’ve revamped how we show these data. In the table below, C4 indicates Core 4 (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and Notre Dame) teams, G6 indicates Group of 6 (American, C-USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac 12, Sun Belt, and UCONN) teams, FCS indicates the 14 conferences that make up that sub-division. We do not predict games involving non-division I games. The upper set of numbers in each box show the GCR’s prediction accuracy when simply projecting the winner of the game. This week, the algorithm was correct 18 times out of 28 predictions for a 64.3% rate. The lower set of numbers show the GCR’s accuracy when calculating which team will cover the Vegas spread. In those games, the algorithm was 14-12 (53.8%). The calcs should become more accurate as the season progresses, and via suggesting by Carl L, we created this table so that we can follow that (we hope) improvement throughout the season.
| Week | C4/C4 | C4/G6 | C4/FCS | G6/G6 | G6/FCS | FCS/FCS | Total |
| 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 1 | — | — | — | 0-2 (000) 0-2 (000) | 3-0 (1000) 2-1 (667) | 15-8 (652) 12-9 (571) | 18-10 (643) 14-12 (538) |
| Season | — | — | — | 0-2 (000) 0-2 (000) | 3-0 (1000) 2-1 (667) | 15-8 (652) 12-9 (571) | 18-10 (643) 14-12 (538) |
…..
At the beginning of the season, we also see a larger than normal share of mixed sub-division games, such as Core 4 vs FCS. We may or may not keep this data going for the full season, but in weeks 0 and 1, here is the breakdown of how those games finished. Overall, the higher sub-division won 95 out of 104 (91.3%) of those games, so upsets matter in these cases. In the table below, we show the different categories of these games. In the lowest row, we list the winner/loser of each of the “losses” listed in the middle row.
| Core 4 vs Group of 6 | Core 4 vs FCS | Group of 6 vs FCS | FCS vs Non-Division I |
| 23-2 (920) | 23-0 (1000) | 19-2 (905) | 30-5 (857) |
| UMASS/Rutgers Tulsa/Oklahoma St | — | Tarleton/Bowling Green Idaho St/Utah St | Ohio Dominican/Morehead St Concord/Davidson South Dakota Mines/Drake Louisiana College/Nwestern St Roosevelt/Chicago St |
…..
Because tonight’s game is a conference game, we already know the conference records for each. Here is a breakdown of each conference’s total record. In the table below, CG means Conferences Games played. If a conference has a winning percentage above 500, the conference games lower the overall. Likewise, if one has a W% below 500, the conference games raise the overall. During the course of the season, we will publish actual conference ranking comparisons. We just thought this was a good way to show where each conference is starting the season. For reference the Core 4 teams are (or will be after tonight’s game) 58-13 (817), the Group of 6 are 37-41 (474), and the FCS is 107-122 (467).
| W% Rank | FBS | FCS |
| 1 | SEC (16-0/1000) | MEAC (7-5/583) |
| 2 | Independents (2-0/1000) | SWAC (13-10/565) |
| 3 | Big Ten (17-2/895) | SoCon (11-9/550) 2 CG |
| 4 | Big 12 (13-3/813) | Big Sky (14-12/538) 7 CG |
| 5 | American (9-6/600) | Missouri Valley (9-8/529) |
| 6 | ACC (11-8/579) 3 CG | Patriot League (9-9/500) 7 CG |
| 7 | Sun Belt (10-4/571) | Coastal (11-14/440) 3 CG |
| 8 | Mountain West (7-7/500) 1 CG | UAC (7-9/438) 1 CG |
| 9 | Conference USA (5-7/417) | Pioneer League (8-11/421) |
| 10 | MAC (4-11/267) 1 CG | Southland (8-11/421) 3 CG |
| 11 | Pac 12 (2-6/250) | Northeast (5-9/357) 2 CG |
| 12 | — | Big South/Ohio Valley (5-11/313) 1 CG |
| 13 | — | FCS Independents (0-4/000) |
| 14 | — | Ivy League (no games played) |
…..
But today is about this special Monday Night edition of college football. Here is the information. Other than the Ivy League which does not kick off their season until September 19th, SMU is the last Division I team to take the gridiron this season. Vegas has the Mustangs taking out FSU by 2.5 points on the road. Being SMU’s first game, the GCR cannot calculate a winner.
| Time (ET) | Games of September 6th | Conference | Vegas | GCR | Cover | TV |
| 7:30 | SMU (0-0/170) at Florida St (1-0/22) | ACC | SMU -2.5 | — | — | ESPN |
…..
Thank you for reading, suggesting, and sharing with others. All that our readers do challenge us to continuously improve and help us grow. Tune in tomorrow for our first full Evaluation or Top 266 of the season. Until then, Happy Labor Day, JoJo and G.
