2025 College Football Season

[NWI_Irish96]

SEC not involving the playoff (3-3) are 1-4 in bowl games. If you don't include the conference vs conference playoff games (Bama/OU, Ole Miss/Georgia), they are 1-6.

Texas is your lone bowl win so far
Ole Miss is the last chance in the playoff, MSST plays today

I don't put any stock in non-playoff bowl results. So many players opting out it's not a true representation of the relative strengths of the teams, and I say this as someone who rather enjoys seeing the SEC fail.

[NWI_Irish96]

Well, the committee looks pretty good for taking Miami right now.

Teams with byes are now 0-5. This may prompt them to expand to 16 teams.

With bye teams finishing 1-7, I think expansion to 16 teams for next year is a lock.  The decision has to be made by January 23.

Going beyond 16 teams requires another week and would re-create first round byes, assuming the next number is 24.  The extra week would probably come at the cost of eliminating the conference championship games, which in my opinion is no particular loss.  The Group of Five Six conferences might consider shortening their seasons from 12 to 11 games, or eliminating bye weeks, and retaining their conference championship games, because beating a decent conference opponent in a championship game would help a lot more in gaining playoff consideration for a G6 team, compared to beating somebody like UMass 75-3 in a final regular season game.

Anyway, I think they will stick with a 16-team playoff for a few years, and reconsider it when the next wave of realignment hits in the early 2030s.

They need to expand to 16 teams. Autobids for conference champions only if they're ranked in the Top 20.

Move the entire season up a week. Make Thanksgiving weekend Championshp weekend. Have the first round two weeks later, the quarterfinals a week after that, and the semifinals on January 1.

Also, let all of the broadcast partners have a role, not just ESPN. They can keep the semifinals and championship and some of the early rounds, but give CBS, FOX and NBC each a quarterfinal and a couple first round games each.

[JayhawkCO]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

[gonealookin]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

Cal '84 here.  Yeah, it's pretty much "root for the laundry".  There's not much connection between the players and the schools, they're mercenaries now.  Unlike when I attended Cal and would see the football and basketball players sitting in classes with me.  Football does still give me some tenuous connection to my alma mater, though I'd agree that doesn't feel as close as it was even ten years ago.

Watching guys improve at another school...well, Fernando Mendoza was Cal's QB for much of 2023 and all of 2024.  He took the NIL offer, went to Indiana, won the Heisman and is in the CFP semifinal.  Good for him, that was a smart business decision on his part because the talent surrounding him on the football field in Berkeley could not possibly have put him within sniffing distance of the Heisman this past season.

I chuckled when the announcers mentioned during the Rose Bowl that Mendoza has taken all his graduate classes at IU online so he has more time to study for football (I think Mendoza got a bachelor's degree at Cal).  Sit in a classroom listening to some professor drone on about economics or whatever?  Bah!

[CoreySamson]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

I currently am an undergrad senior at Oral Roberts University, so I'll tell my experience rooting for my team. Now ORU doesn't have a football team, but we have a basketball team which should suffice for this conversation.

When I first came to ORU, we had a great basketball team. We had just gone on our famed Sweet Sixteen run in March Madness, and that year we went 30-4, which was incredible to watch. As a result of our success, our head coach and best player went to other schools to be paid more (coach Mills went to Wichita State, and our star Max Abmas went to Texas), which I could see being related to NIL. With our coach and star gone, we had a disappointing year before everyone else from that 30-4 graduated. Since then, the team has been rebuilding and has brought in transfers every year to try to remain competitive, but we haven't been good at all.

The point that I'm trying to make is that it is extremely hard for a small-to-mid major school like ORU to sustain success over multiple years now as a result of NIL because the moment that they get good, a larger school comes calling offering better NIL money. Heck, Arkansas just poached the women's basketball team coach because they almost made the NCAA tournament, as another example. It's also not fun as a fan anymore, because since players are constantly transferring, the team is debuting new players every year that no one knows and not keeping players around for all four years so the fans can get to know them. For me, the constant shuffling means that I haven't been to an ORU basketball game in several years. I've been attending more ORU soccer matches because that team has managed to keep its core together the past several years (also the fact that I'm friends with a few players on the team).

[Max Rockatansky]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

I don't recall ever having viewed being a fan of Michigan Wolverines football as all that dissimilar being a fan of the Detroit Lions.  Both were just local rooting interests in football when I was growing up.  With NIL both are both just professional sports now.  Players on professional teams come and go.

[bugo]

Alabama shouldn't have been in the playoff to begin with.

Agreed. A 3-loss team should never get into the playoffs when there are several 2-loss teams. I think BYU should have gotten in, not because I'm a BYU fan (I kind of don't like them) but because they had one fewer loss and one more win than Alabama, making Brigham Young a full game ahead of Alabama in the pennant race. Alabama got in because of politics. Alabama has become the second most coddled team in college football, and sports journalists believe they are entitled to get into the playoffs every year, even when they don't deserve it.

[bugo]

The Group of Six and the Power Four should have separate playoffs. The NCAA allows a couple of token G6 teams to play in the playoffs, but they aren't really threats and their games are going to be mostly blowouts with an occasional upset in the first round. Mid-majors can win a national championship in basketball, but a G6 team will never win a football national championship. This way, a G6 team would be guaranteed to win a national title every year. Under today's system, it would be next to impossible for a G6 team to win a national championship. P4 and G6 teams could still meet in the regular season, but they are on different levels and the G6 teams shouldn't have to compete with the titans of the P4. It's incredibly unfair for the G6 teams, and it makes for some bad football. The current system is like if the MLB allowed a minor league team to play in the playoffs every year.

[JayhawkCO]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

I don't recall ever having viewed being a fan of Michigan Wolverines football as all that dissimilar being a fan of the Detroit Lions.  Both were just local rooting interests in football when I was growing up.  With NIL both are both just professional sports now.  Players on professional teams come and go.

Yeah, but not every single player, every single year, which is basically the landscape in college sports at the moment. You had Calvin Johnson forever. You had Barry Sanders for a long time. You had Matthew Stafford, etc. You had guys you could feel like were "your guys". With the current turnstile, it's so you don't even recognize guys. There's a reason, as a Kansas basketball fan, I feel far more affinity for Frank Mason, Devonte Graham, Kirk Hinrich, etc. than I do for Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, or Kelly Oubre. The former were guys who were there for 3+ years and got better every year. The latter were all one and dones before the era of NIL.

[Roadgeekteen]

The Group of Six and the Power Four should have separate playoffs. The NCAA allows a couple of token G6 teams to play in the playoffs, but they aren't really threats and their games are going to be mostly blowouts with an occasional upset in the first round. Mid-majors can win a national championship in basketball, but a G6 team will never win a football national championship. This way, a G6 team would be guaranteed to win a national title every year. Under today's system, it would be next to impossible for a G6 team to win a national championship. P4 and G6 teams could still meet in the regular season, but they are on different levels and the G6 teams shouldn't have to compete with the titans of the P4. It's incredibly unfair for the G6 teams, and it makes for some bad football. The current system is like if the MLB allowed a minor league team to play in the playoffs every year.

Both JMU and Tukane scored more points than Bama

[NWI_Irish96]

The Group of Six and the Power Four should have separate playoffs. The NCAA allows a couple of token G6 teams to play in the playoffs, but they aren't really threats and their games are going to be mostly blowouts with an occasional upset in the first round. Mid-majors can win a national championship in basketball, but a G6 team will never win a football national championship. This way, a G6 team would be guaranteed to win a national title every year. Under today's system, it would be next to impossible for a G6 team to win a national championship. P4 and G6 teams could still meet in the regular season, but they are on different levels and the G6 teams shouldn't have to compete with the titans of the P4. It's incredibly unfair for the G6 teams, and it makes for some bad football. The current system is like if the MLB allowed a minor league team to play in the playoffs every year.

Both JMU and Tukane scored more points than Bama

If the G6 loses access to the playoff, they lose most of the TV money that keeps those programs operating at the FBS level.

The playoff needs to be expanded to 16 teams, and needs to continue to include the 5 highest ranked conference champions. With NIL, it's not impossible for a G5 team to have a legitimate playoff contender once every few years.

The bigger problem is that the committee that ranks teams for the playoff is using criteria like number of losses and strength of schedule that doesn't accurately reflect who the best teams are. There are 83 computer rankings and 2 human polls indexed by Massey. Nearly 90% of them, including both human polls, said Notre Dame was better than Alabama, but the committee decided they knew better. Thus we get a team getting humiliated by Indiana in the quarterfinals.

Conferences also need to use something better than the random tiebreakers they're using to determine their conference championship game participants. Duke was objectively the worst of the five teams tied for 2nd in the ACC. There's no way they should have been in that game.

[skatcher]

The Group of Six and the Power Four should have separate playoffs. The NCAA allows a couple of token G6 teams to play in the playoffs, but they aren't really threats and their games are going to be mostly blowouts with an occasional upset in the first round. Mid-majors can win a national championship in basketball, but a G6 team will never win a football national championship. This way, a G6 team would be guaranteed to win a national title every year. Under today's system, it would be next to impossible for a G6 team to win a national championship. P4 and G6 teams could still meet in the regular season, but they are on different levels and the G6 teams shouldn't have to compete with the titans of the P4. It's incredibly unfair for the G6 teams, and it makes for some bad football. The current system is like if the MLB allowed a minor league team to play in the playoffs every year.

Both JMU and Tukane scored more points than Bama

If the G6 loses access to the playoff, they lose most of the TV money that keeps those programs operating at the FBS level.

The playoff needs to be expanded to 16 teams, and needs to continue to include the 5 highest ranked conference champions. With NIL, it's not impossible for a G5 team to have a legitimate playoff contender once every few years.

The bigger problem is that the committee that ranks teams for the playoff is using criteria like number of losses and strength of schedule that doesn't accurately reflect who the best teams are. There are 83 computer rankings and 2 human polls indexed by Massey. Nearly 90% of them, including both human polls, said Notre Dame was better than Alabama, but the committee decided they knew better. Thus we get a team getting humiliated by Indiana in the quarterfinals.

Conferences also need to use something better than the random tiebreakers they're using to determine their conference championship game participants. Duke was objectively the worst of the five teams tied for 2nd in the ACC. There's no way they should have been in that game.

Each conference has different rules for their tiebreakers. As South Florida fan, I was pretty invested in how the dominos fell in the run-up to last month's American Conference Championship Game. Obviously, the first tiebreaker is head-to-head results. In the American, the second tiebreaker is the teams' rankings in the CFP, with the higher ranking getting the nod.

If the ACC had this model, then a 12th ranked Miami would have gotten the nod over an unranked Duke and would have played a 17th ranked Virginia in their conference championship game. That would have guaranteed a slot for the ACC in the playoffs, but we then lose the chaos of 24th ranked JMU getting the nod.

Ironically, if Notre Dame was a full member of the ACC, instead of having this weird contract where they only have to play 5 ACC teams each year, then the conference championship game would have most likely been a rematch of 10th ranked Notre Dame vs. 12th ranked Miami.

In this scenario, if Notre Dame wins, Notre Dame is in, BYU is in, and Tulane goes to Oregon in the first round. Miami gets left out, and Alabama probably drops to 11th due to their loss against Georgia. If Miami wins, then Notre Dame would probably drop to 11, eliminating BYU from the playoffs; there's no way the committee will ever eliminate Alabama and their -3 rushing yards against Georgia

Yes, I'm aware if the ACC Championship was Miami vs. Virginia, Notre Dame would have gotten in anyway, but I doubt a Virginia win would get the Hoos ranked as high as 11. I just thought my scenario is more fun, and it gives BYU an opportunity to get in to the playoffs.

[Max Rockatansky]

Legit question for those that are college football fans here. Assuming you're not a fan of a team that's in the playoffs or close to it, why do you like college football under the current NIL rules? Seems like half the guys on every team try to transfer. Do you literally just cheer for a jersey at this point? I used to love college sports because you got to cheer for your guys and watch them improve. Now you just watch them improve at another school.

I don't recall ever having viewed being a fan of Michigan Wolverines football as all that dissimilar being a fan of the Detroit Lions.  Both were just local rooting interests in football when I was growing up.  With NIL both are both just professional sports now.  Players on professional teams come and go.

Yeah, but not every single player, every single year, which is basically the landscape in college sports at the moment. You had Calvin Johnson forever. You had Barry Sanders for a long time. You had Matthew Stafford, etc. You had guys you could feel like were "your guys". With the current turnstile, it's so you don't even recognize guys. There's a reason, as a Kansas basketball fan, I feel far more affinity for Frank Mason, Devonte Graham, Kirk Hinrich, etc. than I do for Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, or Kelly Oubre. The former were guys who were there for 3+ years and got better every year. The latter were all one and dones before the era of NIL.

While that is all true with the Lions it belies the fact that Michigan has won two championships in my lifetime with way less all-time great players.  Charles Woodson is the only player on the 1997 or 2023 teams that was an all-time great. 

The Lions would endear to me a lot more if they actually had done something with any of those great players.  Maybe it is my NFL team sucking so bad historically towards an opinion I probably ought not have?

[bugo]

The bigger problem is that the committee that ranks teams for the playoff is using criteria like number of losses and strength of schedule that doesn't accurately reflect who the best teams are.

The playoffs aren't supposed to feature the "best" teams at the end of the season. They're supposed to have the teams with the best win-loss records. That doesn't apply to Alabama, who gets special treatment like the titty babies that they are. They got into the playoffs in 2013 despite having a loss. Florida State was unbeaten that year, and they got left out of the playoffs. The NCAA's excuse was that FSU's quarterback was injured and they had zero chances of winning. Which was a total bullshit excuse. They put Alabama in there because of politics and greed. Not because they earned it on the field. Something very similar happened in 2025. Alabama had 3 losses and got in above several two-loss teams. I believe that Brigham Young should have gotten in over Alabama because they won one more game than Alabama, and they lost one fewer game. I don't even like BYU, I just give credit where credit is due. There is no question that Alabama gets special treatment. What's next, a rule guaranteeing Alabama a playoff spot if they end up in the top 25? Notre Dame is used to getting special treatment like that, and when things didn't go their way this year, they threw a hissy fit and took their ball and went home. Alabama is becoming even more entitled than Notre Dame. I know you are a fan of theirs, but nothing I said was false. This is how they are seen by non-ND fans, as an entitled school who gets special treatment that other teams don't get. There should be a level playing field, which means that Notre Dame should be required to join a conference. It simply isn't fair that one team in the entire FBS gets treated this much better than every other team does. But yeah, the Alabama Gumps shouldn't have been in the playoffs in 2023 or 2025.

[bugo]

The bigger problem is that the committee that ranks teams for the playoff is using criteria like number of losses and strength of schedule that doesn't accurately reflect who the best teams are.

That's literally false. The "best" teams are the teams with the most wins and fewest losses. Period. Wins and losses are the only statistics that matter in competitive sports. If these teams like Alabama (which finished with a whopping FOUR losses) were the best teams in the country, they would have won those games they lost. Objectively, Alabama wasn't a very good team this year, and definitely not as good as BYU or some of the other two-loss teams, because they lost 4 games. Deciding who the so-called "best" teams in the country without basing your decisions on objective facts brings opinions and bias into the picture, and leads to atrocities like the 3 loss Gumps getting into the playoffs over several more deserving teams. There are objective ways to judge the value of a team, so there is no reason to guess who the better teams are. The committee is subjectively selecting the playoff bracket using opinions, which is terrible for the sport. There is an objective, black-and-white way to determine who the best teams are, but the NCAA stopped selecting teams by wins and losses because of greed and the desire to treat Alabama like they're better than everybody else.

[hotdogPi]

The bigger problem is that the committee that ranks teams for the playoff is using criteria like number of losses and strength of schedule that doesn't accurately reflect who the best teams are.

That's literally false. The "best" teams are the teams with the most wins and fewest losses. Period. Wins and losses are the only statistics that matter in competitive sports. If these teams like Alabama (which finished with a whopping FOUR losses) were the best teams in the country, they would have won those games they lost. Objectively, Alabama wasn't a very good team this year, and definitely not as good as BYU or some of the other two-loss teams, because they lost 4 games. Deciding who the so-called "best" teams in the country without basing your decisions on objective facts brings opinions and bias into the picture, and leads to atrocities like the 3 loss Gumps getting into the playoffs over several more deserving teams. There are objective ways to judge the value of a team, so there is no reason to guess who the better teams are. The committee is subjectively selecting the playoff bracket using opinions, which is terrible for the sport. There is an objective, black-and-white way to determine who the best teams are, but the NCAA stopped selecting teams by wins and losses because of greed and the desire to treat Alabama like they're better than everybody else.

As a side note: I play Magic: the Gathering, where the first tiebreaker is opponents' average win percentage.

Tiebreaker. Alabama had one more loss. There's no tie to break there. (There might have been among the 2-loss teams.)

[DTComposer]

That's literally false. The "best" teams are the teams with the most wins and fewest losses. Period. Wins and losses are the only statistics that matter in competitive sports.

So a hypothetical team with these results:
L vs Ohio State, 28-21
W vs Georgia Tech, 35-24
L vs Notre Dame, 41-38 (OT)
W vs USC, 21-17

Is worse than a team with these results:
W vs Boston College, 28-21
W vs Kansas, 17-10
L vs Iowa, 42-17
W vs South Carolina, 24-17

Because they're 2-2 instead of 3-1?

[hotdogPi]

If not for the point differential, yes.

[ModernDayWarrior]

^ Neither of those hypothetical teams is making the playoffs, but the first team is clearly better. (For anyone following along who isn't a college football fan, those schedules aren't remotely comparable. Team B was blown out by Iowa, who finished 9-4, and won three one-score games against teams that all finished with losing records. Team A's two wins are against teams that finished 9-4, and their two losses are against teams that lost four games total.)

Here's another blind resume test. These are real teams.

Team A finished the regular season 11-2 in a power conference. 54th-hardest schedule according to ESPN. Scored 574 points in 13 games, conceded 225 (average score 44-17). Played two games against a playoff team, lost both.
Team B finished the regular season 13-0 in a non-power conference. 98th-hardest schedule according to ESPN. Scored 530 points in 13 games, conceded 295 (average score 41-23). Played no games against a playoff team.

Which team is better?

[NWI_Irish96]

^ Neither of those hypothetical teams is making the playoffs, but the first team is clearly better. (For anyone following along who isn't a college football fan, those schedules aren't remotely comparable. Team B was blown out by Iowa, who finished 9-4, and won three one-score games against teams that all finished with losing records. Team A's two wins are against teams that finished 9-4, and their two losses are against teams that lost four games total.)

Here's another blind resume test. These are real teams.

Team A finished the regular season 11-2 in a power conference. 54th-hardest schedule according to ESPN. Scored 574 points in 13 games, conceded 225 (average score 44-17). Played two games against a playoff team, lost both.
Team B finished the regular season 13-0 in a non-power conference. 98th-hardest schedule according to ESPN. Scored 530 points in 13 games, conceded 295 (average score 41-23). Played no games against a playoff team.

Which team is better?

We have lots of metrics to help us out here. Just because you played a weaker schedule doesn't necessarily mean you aren't better. We have the ability to opponent-adjust game performances to more accurately compare teams. With the data you've provided, it's likely that team A is better, but we have more data available to show that definitively.

[thspfc]

Some of you need to realize your sports opinions suck and you should either learn something or stop having them.

[bugo]

That's literally false. The "best" teams are the teams with the most wins and fewest losses. Period. Wins and losses are the only statistics that matter in competitive sports.

So a hypothetical team with these results:
L vs Ohio State, 28-21
W vs Georgia Tech, 35-24
L vs Notre Dame, 41-38 (OT)
W vs USC, 21-17
Is worse than a team with these results:
W vs Boston College, 28-21
W vs Kansas, 17-10
L vs Iowa, 42-17
W vs South Carolina, 24-17
Because they're 2-2 instead of 3-1?

Objectively, yes. Wins and losses are the metric that football teams are judged with. Wins and losses are ultimately the only stat that matters. By your standard, teams with a lot of 1 score losses should get into the playoffs. In 10 years, we won't remember how many yards the winning QB in the national championship game passed for, but we'll remember the final score. Because the final score matters, and nothing else does.

[ModernDayWarrior]

We have lots of metrics to help us out here. Just because you played a weaker schedule doesn't necessarily mean you aren't better. We have the ability to opponent-adjust game performances to more accurately compare teams. With the data you've provided, it's likely that team A is better, but we have more data available to show that definitively.

Yeah, that's true. I mainly posted this as a response to the "wins and losses above all else" discussion above and was curious to see if anyone would pick team B. (I constructed this example because in this case we don't actually have to guess which team is better. They played each other in their bowl game, so we have direct evidence.)

FWIW, SEC fan though I am I agree that Alabama should have been the team left out of the playoffs.

[bugo]

Neither of those hypothetical teams is making the playoffs, but the first team is clearly better.

If the first team were better, they would have found a way to win those games. Being successful at football doesn't necessarily mean dominating in every way and having the best athletes. As long as you win, it doesn't matter if it's by 1 point or 100. The Patriots didn't exactly dominate during Tom Brady's first Super Bowl season, and they barely won some of those games. But a win is a win, and winning is what separates good teams from great teams. You are basing the value of teams on their potential. How good a team is on paper is irrelevant. If that were the case, then there would be no reason to play the game.

[DTComposer]

That's literally false. The "best" teams are the teams with the most wins and fewest losses. Period. Wins and losses are the only statistics that matter in competitive sports.

So a hypothetical team with these results:
L vs Ohio State, 28-21
W vs Georgia Tech, 35-24
L vs Notre Dame, 41-38 (OT)
W vs USC, 21-17
Is worse than a team with these results:
W vs Boston College, 28-21
W vs Kansas, 17-10
L vs Iowa, 42-17
W vs South Carolina, 24-17
Because they're 2-2 instead of 3-1?

Objectively, yes. Wins and losses are the metric that football teams are judged with. Wins and losses are ultimately the only stat that matters. By your standard, teams with a lot of 1 score losses should get into the playoffs. In 10 years, we won't remember how many yards the winning QB in the national championship game passed for, but we'll remember the final score. Because the final score matters, and nothing else does.

So to be clear, this would have been your playoff seeding, in order of most wins, then most conference wins.

1. Indiana 12-0, 9-0
2. Ohio State 11-1, 9-0
3. James Madison 11-1, 8-0 (won their conference, no conference losses)
4. Texas Tech 11-1, 8-1 (won their conference)
5. BYU 11-1, 8-1 (finished second in their conference
6. Oregon 11-1, 8-1 (finished third in their conference)
7. North Texas 11-1, 7-1 (finished second in their conference)
8. Ole Miss 11-1, 7-1 (won their conference)
9. Georgia 11-1, 7-1 (finished second in their conference)
10. Texas A&M 11-1, 7-1 (finished third in their conference)
11. Tulane 10-2, 7-1 (won their conference)
12. Virginia 10-2, 7-1 (won their conference)

On the outside:
Navy 10-2, 7-1 (did not win their conference)
Alabama 10-2, 7-1 (did not win their conference)
Notre Dame 10-2 (0 conference wins)