purchase the magazine here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\u2022 Eight Big Ten teams are ranked in the Athlon Sports preseason top 25, which is headlined by No. 1 Ohio State. Indiana is No. 5, Oregon is No. 6, Michigan is No. 13, USC is No. 14, Washington is No. 17, Penn State is No. 18 and Iowa is No. 25.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Here\u2019s where the other 10 Big Ten teams stack up nationally in the preseason, according to Athlon: Illinois (No. 33), Nebraska (No. 38), Minnesota (No. 42), UCLA (No. 43), Wisconsin (No. 55), Northwestern (No. 57), Maryland (No. 58), Rutgers (No. 69), Michigan State (No. 72) and Purdue (No. 85).<\/p>\n
\u2022 Athlon picked Ohio State to win the Big Ten, followed by Indiana, Oregon, Michigan, USC, Washington, Penn State, Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, UCLA, Wisconsin, Northwestern, Maryland, Rutgers, Michigan State and Purdue.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In its CFP projections, Athlon picked Indiana to earn the No. 5 seed with a loss in the quarterfinals.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Carter Smith is first team preseason All-America and Charlie Becker is second team.<\/p>\n
\u2022 On the defensive side, Rolijah Hardy is first team preseason All-America and Isaiah Jones and Amare Ferrell are second team.<\/p>\n
\u2022 IU players on the Athlon Sports All-Big Ten first team include Becker, Smith,\u00a0 Tyrique Tucker, Jones, Hardy, Ferrell and Nico Radicic.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In its unit rankings for the Big Ten, Indiana is No. 3 at quarterback, No. 4 at running back, No. 3 at wide receiver, No. 1 on the offensive line, No. 2 on the defensive line, No. 1 at linebacker and No. 3 in the defensive backfield.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In its unit rankings nationally, Indiana is No. 8 at quarterback, No. 5 at wide receiver, No. 3 on the offensive line, No. 4 on the defensive line, No. 3 at linebacker and No. 5 in the defensive backfield.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Josh Hoover is one of eight players listed in tier one for the Heisman Trophy watch.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hoover is listed as the top incoming transfer in the Big Ten. Nick Marsh is third and Tobi Osunsanmi is No. 8.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Indiana\u2019s home game against Ohio State on October 17 is ranked as the second-best game on the schedule nationally entering the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
\u2022 In its conference rankings, Athlon has the Big Ten first, followed by the SEC, Big 12, ACC and the Pac-12.<\/p>\n
(Photo credit: IU Athletics)<\/p>\n
See More: Football<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Athlon Sports 2026 preview magazine \u2013 an annual publication previewing the upcoming college football season \u2013 is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-709984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Charlie](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/charliebecker-856x571.jpg\")
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