Badgers Draw Sneaky College Football Playoff Love From National Analyst

Wisconsin and the College Football Playoff aren't two entities that are typically found in the same sentence.

Over the past three seasons, the onset of the Luke Fickell era in Madison, the Badgers haven't even sniffed late season College Football Playoff hype, let alone an appearance in the tournament.

Wisconsin has made just one bowl game under Fickell, losing the ReliaQuest Bowl to LSU after the 2023 season. It hasn't been ranked in the College Football Playoff poll since 2021, when it sniffed a No. 14 ranking at one point in the season. The Badgers haven't finished ranked in the CFP poll since 2019, when they lost in the Rose Bowl to Oregon and finished at No. 8.

This season, the national read on Wisconsin appears to be renewed optimism and hope coupled with some very valid skepticism that's undoubtably the result of just how poorly the last two seasons, especially, have gone in Madison.

But Manny Navarro of The Athletic, in a College Football Playoff predictions article, uttered two words that haven't been in the same sentence in some time: Wisconsin and CFP poll.

Specifically, Navarro placed the Badgers into his list of teams who are unranked in the preseason but who he believes will finish with a number next to their name in the final CFP poll. That list featured:

12. UNLV (12-1)
14. Arizona (10-3)
15. TCU (10-2)
16. Wisconsin (9-3)
21. Florida (9-3)
22. NC State (9-3)
24. Clemson (9-3)

Could Wisconsin win nine games in 2026?

Wisconsin QB Colton Joseph. | Christian Borman.

Nine wins, especially for a Big Ten program, likely means that team is fighting for a CFP spot until the bitter end. Three losses is likely too much to actually make the dance itself, but it goes without saying how massive of a season a 9-3 2026 campaign would be following the sheer horror that's unfolded on the field in recent seasons for the Badgers.

How could the Badgers get to nine wins? They'll have to beat some ranked teams, some teams that folks at least currently believe to be considerably better than them. Navarro didn't outline Wisconsin's path to 9-3, but he does have the Badgers topping Penn State on the road in Happy Valley on Sept. 26. Quite specifically, he has Wisconsin coming back to win following a halftime deficit in that game.

If the Badgers fall to Notre Dame in the opener, against whom they're 21-point underdogs, they could only falter twice more on the way 9-3 record. With a win over Penn State, they could still drop games to USC and Iowa and finish with nine wins if they ran the table the rest of the way.

While nine wins seems like something of a stretch for this iteration of the Badgers, it's not completely out of the question. And some national analysts are starting to take note.

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