This is what we asked for: Show us the fire in your guts. Then show us guts.
This is what we wanted: Raise the sigil, write your tribe’s name across your chest, carry your lasting name on your back. Don your colors and let loose a roar. Find a place in the back of the end zone, close your eyes, pray to Him and Him alone.
Open your eyes. See the stadium full — the Coliseum in the South. Atlanta could be Athens, could be Rome, could be the dream you drove.
Grit your teeth. Up now, on your feet. Steady your helmet. Load your mouthpiece. Pick a fight one last time with a worthy foe across that sideline.
ADVERTISEMENT
Now that it’s over. Now that it’s won and we’ve seen you play one last down. Now that you inherit new glory with the sunrise, you feel the weight on your head: heavy is the crown.
Now that it’s over. Now you know it was lost and bury 2024 in the darkness, look up and see the new dawn approach. Now that you know who must be fought in this new year, drink in the pain. Resolve to go back to the forge, burn with fury and pitch battle again.
These are the top 25 teams heading into the 2025 offseason. There will be changes. Someone will fall. Someone will rise. I can’t wait to witness, record and tell their stories.
With Will Howard off to the NFL and Air Noland’s transfer to South Carolina, former five-star Julian Sayin is the presumptive starter for the Buckeyes going into a season where they will return wideouts Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate and Brandon Inniss. Perhaps he’ll be pushed by five-star freshman Tavien St. Clair, but either way, the Buckeyes will be young at QB. They’ll lean on a defense led by Caleb Downs, an All-American and talisman, to help steady their young signal-caller as the program resets for its 2025 campaign.
The Arch Manning era arrives with an extension and raise for head coach Steve Sarkisian, who joined Kirby Smart, Dabo Swinney and Ryan Day as the only head coaches to lead their respective programs to appearances in both the four-team and 12-team CFP, and the only coach to lead a team to back-to-back appearances in 2024 and 2025.
With Dante Moore as the presumptive favorite to win the starting quarterback job in Eugene in 2025 and the addition of five-star WR Dakorien Moore and transfers Dillon Thieneman and Bear Alexander, Dan Lanning’s Ducks have a chance to win back-to-back Big Ten titles.
The CJ Carr era begins in earnest with a group of playmakers led by running back Jeremiyah Love, and wideouts Jaden Greathouse and Jordan Faison, who get to drop the “young and hungry” tag for the “experienced and hunting” one. The grandson of Michigan coach Lloyd Carr will dictate who this team becomes in 2025.
Georgia will enter 2025 knowing who the starter at QB is and feeling good about the future of Gunner Stockton. Adding All-American Zachariah Branch to the receiver corps will be a real boon as he can boost the Bulldogs’ prowess downfield and in the return game.
James Franklin will have the core of his 2024 team ready and willing in 2025. Quarterback Drew Allar, running backs Nick Singleton and Kaytron Allen and linebacker Dani Dennis-Sutton hope to lead the Nittany Lions back to the CFP after falling just seconds short of earning the chance to play for the national title.
Dabo Swinney not only returns QB Cade Klubnik and offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, but he also added former Penn State defensive coordinator Tom Allen to his program. Perhaps no team has proven more resilient in the CFP era than Swinney’s defending ACC champion Tigers, who have made the CFP seven out of the last 10 years.
A season that fell just short of earning a chance to play in the CFP for the first time, Shane Beamer bolstered his roster with a prodigious passer, former Ohio State QB Air Noland, to push QB LaNorris Sellers. The addition of former Utah State RB Rahsul Faison is perhaps his best addition, though — a tailback who rushed for 1,109 yards and eight TDs last season.
Sellers put up 3,208 total yards and 25 total TDs this past year in an offense that I called “Getting It Done.” The Gamecocks turned most games into a fistfight and earned ranked wins against three opponents and nine total for the first time since 2017.
The Sun Devils get back their Big 12 Coach of the Year in Kenny Dillingham and Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year in Sam Leavitt following a Big 12 Championship and bid to the CFP.
Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers rewrote the school history book with the program’s first 10-win and 11-win season, an appearance in the CFP and just two losses — both to teams that played in the national title game on Monday night (Ohio State and Notre Dame).
After signing the nation’s No. 1 QB in the 2025 class, Bryce Underwood, and former Fresno State QB Mikey Keene, Sherrone Moore has two ready options to lift the Wolverines’ most worrisome, underperforming position last season.
Josh Heupel returns defensive coordinator and Broyles Award finalist Tim Banks and star QB Nico Iamaleava to a program that made its first appearance in the CFP this season.
Lane Kiffin added former Penn State receiver Trey Wallace to give projected starter Austin Simmons yet another playmaker who can stretch the field vertically. After building a roster capable of making the CFP for the first time last year, the Rebels will look to follow through on their promise in 2025.
Remember, Simmons bulldogged the Georgia Bulldogs. He led a 75-yard TD drive with starter Jaxson Dart sidelined for a series in their upset of the SEC champs.
The Tigers are a force in the Eli Drinkwitz era. This program has cemented back-to-back double-digit winning seasons for the first time since 2013 and 2014, and that is in large part due to how quickly and efficiently Mizzou adapted to the NIL era. They saw a market inefficiency and they exploited it.
The addition of former Penn State QB Beau Pribula adds an element we haven’t seen from Drinkwitz in some time — a playmaker in the pocket with a set of wheels. Pribula rushed for 242 yards on just 38 rushes with nine TDs at Penn State last year.
Apart from the roster, Crimson Tide coach Kalen DeBoer oversaw the first season in which Alabama lost four games in a season since 2007 — Nick Saban’s first season in Tuscaloosa.
Bret Bielema coached the Illini to their first 10-win season since 2001. This is a program that should be capable of contending for a Big Ten title in 2025, especially with the unprecedented Year 1 success of Indiana — for which all turnarounds will be measured.
Mario Cristobal lost Cam Ward but added the top signal-caller in the 2025 transfer portal cycle in former Georgia QB Carson Beck. The Hurricanes have not won a conference title in 22 years and fell one win short of competing for their first in the ACC since 2017.
While Indiana rightfully made itself known as the comeback story of 2024, all Matt Campbell and QB Rocco Becht did was lead the Cyclones to their best season in program history with 11 wins and their second appearance in the Big 12 title game in four years.
Becht, who threw for 3,823 yards with 33 touchdowns, will be on the short list of players who can make a play for the league’s best offensive player in 2025.
Despite a 1-4 finish, Mike Elko’s program won eight games with two losses to programs who ended up in the semifinals of the 2024 CFP. But Elko has added a trio of playmakers at wideout in former Texas Tech WR Micah Hudson, North Carolina State WR KC Concepcion, and Mississippi State WR Mario Craver for QB Marcel Reed to provide service.
And from the “Damn That’s Crazy” file: Brady Hart.
Hart is going to be an “All He’s Scout Team” phenom. He’ll be like nectar to a Greek god for broadcasters, who will reach for this story like Bacchus for a fruity IPA at a brewery with the bacchanal broskis.
It’s not every year that a 6-foot-5, 185-pound true freshman walks onto campus at age 16. But after throwing for more than 7,900 yards with 81 TDs — including 508 yards passing in a Florida 2A semifinal against Cardinal Mooney (Florida) — I would not be shocked to find him taking snaps in earnest if Reed doesn’t show he should keep the job.
It’s really simple for the Gators. If they play the entire 2025 season like they played the last three games of 2024, then Florida can and should win 10 games for the first time in the Billy Napier era.
DJ Lagway, all 6-3, 239 pounds of him, ought to be ready to drive a fast car down the straights of the non-conference schedule and can be tossed into corners for the wheel-to-wheel combat that is the SEC slate.
Early on the throttle, late on the brake and steal their racing line, Florida.
It will be the Jake Retzlaff Show in Provo next season. He led the Cougars to their first 11-win season since 2009 and the program peaked at No. 6 in the CFP rankings with wins against SMU and Colorado while he threw for 2,947 yards with 26 total TDs and 12 INTs.
When Rhett Lashlee’s Mustangs suffer a loss in the regular season against ACC competition, it will be their first. But even after losing just once in the regular season, they’re taking a two-game losing streak into the offseason with Clemson, Miami, Duke and Georgia Tech looking to mount their own charge.
The addition of former South Dakota State All-American quarterback and national championship QB Mark Gronowski is the best recruit Kirk Ferentz has ever had at the position. Gronowski has passed for over 10,000 yards, won the Walter Payton Award — best offensive player in FCS — and is 49-6 as a starter.
Deion Sanders has his QB of the present and of the future in former Liberty QB Kaidon Salter and five-star freshman Julian Lewis, respectively. While the void left by QB Shedeur Sanders and Heisman winner Travis Hunter is sizable, few have pillaged the portal for players who can perform like Prime.
RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports and the host of the podcast “The Number One College Football Show.” Follow him at @RJ_Young.
![30th Jan: LIM YOUNG WOONG│IM HERO THE STADIUM (2024), 1hr 48m [TV-G] (6/10)](https://thedailyusnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/30th-jan-lim-young-woongx2502im-hero-the-stadium-2024-1hr-48m-tv-g-6-10-260x200.jpg "30th Jan: LIM YOUNG WOONG│IM HERO THE STADIUM (2024), 1hr 48m [TV-G] (6/10)")
