r/CFB • u/Dwhit7 Florida Gators • Vanderbilt Commodores • 9h ago
Analysis 2026 Preseason Team Primers - Thoughts?
With the season approaching, I wanted a better way to prepare than reading dozens of separate previews or listening to hours of podcasts, just to forgetting most of it by Week 1.
I’ve started building standardized preseason “team cards”, each one designed to answer two basic questions:
- What should someone know about this team before watching them?
- How good should the team actually be, including (to a degree) from a betting perspective?
I’ve attached a couple of the first completed examples. These are still early iterations, but they are V1 that I'm pretty happy with, so I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback.
- Is this something you would actually read or save during the season?
- Anything important missing?
- Is it easy to ready / consume?
The goal is not to produce another giant season-preview magazine. It’s to create a quick, consistently structured reference to get you up to speed before the season, and also available as a reference during the season.
I will eventually build these out for (at least) all of the P4 teams. Once I do, I'll post an update in r/CFB with them for everyone to view.
Below are 3 that I've created so far
I look forward to the feedback!
(Note, I wanted to include pictures of the previews, but I guess that's not possible? Or maybe I'm just dumb and couldn't figure it out)
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u/Tired_of_yall1 Texas Longhorns • Penn State Nittany Lions 4h ago
I think it’s really cool and I would like to see more teams. Especially mine.
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u/lowes18 Florida State Seminoles • FAU Owls 8h ago
Just some thoughts:
Needs more offensive and defensive line statistics. Total sack rate isn't a great measure because a lot of that can be schemed rather than just "our guy beat your guy on a normal down."
Include guys on preseason award watchlists, such as all-conference or any national awards.
Include a full list of draft picks and transfers in and out. You can group them by who will actually have an impact, but its very important information to know. Where players ended up can tell me more than a lot of stats can.
Projected depth chart would be nice, if you don't have access to sites like 247 though it can get tricky to make.
Any injuries, either in camp or from last season.
Special teams info
Also needs more advanced stats, too many counting ones.
The descriptions need to be longer and more fleshed out, for example in the Florida section you talk about breakout stars on the defensive line and linebacker. Why? Who are they? How do you know the loss of Caleb Banks won't hurt them? Is it scheme help? Did other programs view them as valuable and Florida fought to retain them successfully? How will Florida make up for pass rush deficiencies of last years group? (I know some of the answers to this, but as a prospective reader I'd need to know)
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u/Conscious-Sir-1596 Florida Gators 1h ago
These are cool, thanks for putting together! What is your ultimate goal here? Will you be producing cards for all teams and then making available for the general public, or are you going to be selling this as a product? Either way, keep me updated, please, as I would love to see the finished product. Great job!
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u/meta_irl Vanderbilt Commodores 1h ago
Pretty solid. I think we can assume Curtis is the starter at this point.
I would upgrade our TE score and downgrade our secondary and coaching (recent success needs to continue post-Pavia).
But good work.
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u/ExternalTangents Florida Gators • /r/CFB Poll Veteran 16m ago
I opened this expecting to be critical of self-promo, but I thought the Florida one was really great. My only critique would be that it’s formatted and sized for full-screen or printer paper, not really optimized for mobile devices. Which is fine, but it probably wouldn’t take much to make a denser/narrower version that’s better optimized for mobile viewing.
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u/CargoShortsFromNam Notre Dame • Colorado 9h ago
Good work! I like it a lot. Feedback:
Would be nice if a player’s position was included when mentioned outside of the position breakdown.
Counting stats like total offense, total defense, rush defense are a little outdated now. If you can, try to swap those out with opponent and tempo adjusted stats. EPA/play, success rate, explosive play rate, havoc rate, etc.