5 College Football Breakthrough Teams to Watch in 2025 originally appeared on College Football News.

Indiana, SMU, and Arizona State were big surprises last year, but will they have staying power? Will they be in their respective conference races for the foreseeable future?

Which teams might not just surprise a wee bit, but appear to have the upside and infrastructure to be consistent players?

Think Illinois and Navy of last year, Colorado of two years ago, and Louisville when Jeff Brohm took over. 

Which programs have the upside to be steadily above-average going forward?

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College Football 2025: 5 Teams Ready for a Breakthrough Season

5. Houston

– Houston 2025 Preview

Willie Fritz needed a year to put things in place. Houston was a 12-win team in 2021, slid downhill for a few seasons, and now it should be far stronger with an offense that should start to produce.

If the team could’ve scored 21 points in every game last season, it would’ve gone 7-5 instead of 4-8. The D is fine, the O is better, and the schedule helps.

Stephen F. Austin, at Rice, Colorado, at Oregon State. There’s a real shot to match last year’s win total before October, and then comes …

– CFN Preview 2025

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4. Texas Tech

– Texas Tech 2025 Preview

This might be the most fascinating team going into the 2025 season.

It was going to be fine, and then the portal kicked in hard with one of the best hauls of transfers of any program in the nation. 

Head coach Joey McGuire has done a great job in his first three years of making Texas Tech good, but with a very favorable home schedule and with a deep and loaded roster, this is when the staying power under McGuire is solidified.

3. Georgia Tech

– Georgia Tech 2025 Preview

After two straight 7-5 seasons under Brent Key, the Yellow Jackets return a ton of talent, a great veteran quarterback in Haynes King, and the experience and big wins to expect more.

The program hasn’t won more than seven games in a season since 2016, but with a schedule that should help with a base of winnable games out of Gardner-Webb, at Colorado, Temple, at Wake Forest, Syracuse, at Duke, at Boston College, and Pitt.

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2. Illinois

– Illinois 2025 Preview

It all should work, and Illinois should finally have that second straight big season that shows just how good the program can be, but …

It should be Missouri. It should be Wisconsin – back when it was good at football. It should be good enough in that region of the country to be an annual problem for everyone else, but it hasn’t always worked out.

The 2001 team went to the Sugar Bowl. The program won 13 games over the next five years. 

The 2007 team went to the Rose Bowl. Next year, Illinois went 5-7.

There’s a chance Bret Bielema becomes the first Illinois head coach to own two double-digit win seasons. His 2025 team is just that good.

(And there’s no Penn State, Michigan, or Oregon to face.)

1. USF

– USF Team Preview

This feels like the 29th straight season of expecting USF to bust through and be a consistent national factor, but this year’s team might be it.

Alex Golesh put up two straight 7-6 seasons after taking over a program that won a total of eight games in the previous four years, but it wasn’t all that long ago that USF won 11 games under Willie Taggart in 2016, and then ten more under Charlie Strong a year later.  

The Bulls are loaded with returning veterans, the last two years built up to this point, and if they can get past a brutal start – Boise State, at Florida, and at Miami – they should rip through the rest of the slate. They should get to eight wins or more for the first time since 2017.

Related: 5 College Football Teams Headed For a Letdown in 2025

This story was originally reported by College Football News on Aug 10, 2025, where it first appeared.

The start of the college football season is officially right around the corner when the AP Top 25 poll drops. It will do so on Monday.

Ahead of the big reveal, On3 has taken a stab at projecting the initial AP Top 25 rankings. We’ve included the full projection, tabbing the 25 teams we think the Associated Press will deem worthy of being ranked.

So without wasting any time, let’s get into it. Who is the projected No. 1 team in this year’s preseason AP poll?

Arguably no team in America has a quarterback as hyped as Arch Manning. He’s been waiting in the wings for two years, and now it’s his team. He’s got ample weapons to work with, too, on a clear preseason top 25 squad.

Quintrevion Wisner is a monster at running back, having already proven what he can do. Ryan Wingo will help anchor a receiving corps that includes some major new talent, including Five-Star Plus+ freshman Kaliq Lockett. The schedule is once again quite tough, though, starting with the opener against Ohio State.

Penn State has a returning starter at quarterback. Drew Allar wasn’t asked to do a ton for most of last year, but he slowly came into his own and was playing really good football by year’s end.

From top to bottom, Penn State might have the most talented roster in the country. There are still question marks about the quality of the receivers, but that might be the only real iffy spot on the roster.

Georgia lost a talented starting quarterback from the 2024 squad, with Carson Beck taking off for Miami. Gunner Stockton, who filled in for Beck due to injury in the College Football Playoffs, will take over the reins for the preseason top 25 contender.

Kirby Smart‘s recruiting over the years will, of course, always have Georgia competitive. Can the Bulldogs manage a schedule that includes games against both Alabama and Texas, as well as Ole Miss, Tennessee and Florida?

With a quarterback battle ongoing, it’s not entirely clear who will lead Ohio State out against Texas in Week 1. Whoever it is will have the luxury of working with Jeremiah Smith, arguably the best skill position player in the game, as well as an excellent supporting cast.

The Buckeyes also have talent all over the field on the opposite side, with Caleb Downs leading what should once again be a loaded defense. The good news, schedule-wise? Ohio State avoids Oregon this year.

There’s a common theme with much of the Top 10 going into the year. Most of the teams have a good returning quarterback. That’s certainly the case at Clemson, where the Tigers have Cade Klubnik back and more confident than ever.

But the Tigers are also loaded along the defensive front, potentially as talented as they’ve been there in years. The schedule starts off with a bang — a Top-10 LSU team is coming to town — so we’ll learn about how ready Clemson is in a hurry.

When you’ve got a weapon like Jeremiyah Love in the backfield, you have a chance to have a special offense. The Fighting Irish have to figure out the quarterback position after losing Riley Leonard, but that gets easier to do with a workhorse back.

The schedule might be the tricky part to navigate. Notre Dame takes on Miami and Arkansas on the road, as well as Texas A&M and USC at home. There are a handful of other potential stumbling blocks, but the four aforementioned are likely the biggest hurdles.

Jalen Milroe is gone, so Alabama will probably be much closer to Kalen DeBoer‘s ideal offense in 2025. But that’s some elite playmaking lost. Milroe ran for 20 touchdowns a year ago and that’s never easy to replace.

Still, the Crimson Tide have an abundance of talent. The schedule is difficult but not outrageous, with road trips to Georgia and South Carolina and a home date with LSU the toughest outs.

Oregon replaces starting quarterback Dillon Gabriel but has former Five-Star Plus+ prospect Dante Moore waiting in the wings. The rest of the offensive cast is loaded with talent, even after losing a couple star skill players to the NFL.

The Ducks also really lucked out on the schedule. Not only do they avoid the Buckeyes, but they also don’t take on Michigan this fall. A road trip to Penn State will be brutal, but every other game on the schedule looks like it will have Oregon favored, a surefire sign of a Top 25 team.

The Tigers have a Heisman-caliber quarterback returning in Garrett Nussmeier, and he’ll be counted on to lead Brian Kelly‘s squad out of the perennial 9- to 10-win range and into the Playoffs. He’s good enough to get that done.

As noted with Clemson, the start of the season will tell us a lot. That season opener could provide a lot of confidence for the team going forward… or it could create a wave of noise for Kelly and company to deal with.

Cam Ward is gone and replacing the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft won’t be easy. But you can’t do much better in terms of landing a high-profile guy than Carson Beck. Beck has settled in nicely early in fall camp, throwing again after his season-ending injury in 2024.

Mario Cristobal has clearly elevated the talent on the roster at Miami and there’s been tangible year-over-year improvement. Can the Hurricanes put it all together and avoid the mental slip-ups that cost them key games last year?

Rest of the Projected AP Top 25: 11-25

11. Illinois Fighting Illini
12. Arizona State Sun Devils
13. Michigan Wolverines
14. South Carolina Gamecocks
15. Kansas State Wildcats
16. Florida Gators
17. SMU Mustangs
18. Ole Miss Rebels
19. Tennessee Volunteers
20. Oklahoma Sooners
21. Texas Tech Red Raiders
22. Texas A&M Aggies
23. Indiana Hoosiers
24. Iowa State Cyclones
25. Louisville Cardinals

THE CLEVELAND BROWNS ROOKIE QB, SHEDEUR SANDERS

In the movie “Jerry Maguire,” Cuba Gooding Jr. demanded at the top of his lungs for the world to: “Show me the money.”

According to espn.com: “College athletes weren’t always allowed to make money off their athletic ability. It wasn’t until 2021 that the NCAA changed rules to allow students to profit from their name, image and likeness—otherwise known as NIL.”

In less than 5 years, the powers-that-be have developed a specialized army and arsenal designed to attack and disarm the NIL concept for college athletes as if the NIL is an immigrant and a usurper of tradition, attempting to illegally cross a secure economic border designed to limit and/or eliminate any financial advantages for amateur athletes and allow the “haves” to operate with access to unlimited profit.

Before the NIL concept was created and sanctioned less than 5 years ago, the greed-mongers at the NCAA wielded the power to charge, try, convict and sentence any college athlete for accepting gifts of any kind from boosters or fans and possibly even mom and dad as long as they were performing as “amateur athletes.” Those who were exposed while doing so usually faced severe punishment such as suspension or expulsion, even while the NCAA simultaneously raked in dough like it were leaves being shed by 10,000 oak trees in the middle of autumn, in the state of Maine.

During the ensuing four years, many disgruntled head coaches in the college ranks have been staunchly resistant to change within the college ranks and elsewhere. Why? Well, simply because their reservoir of free labor was on the pathway to drying up.

JC Shelton recently posted an article on si.com titled: “Nick Saban makes his stance crystal clear on Donald Trump’s NIL executive order.” Mr. Shelton writes: “President Donald Trump’s executive order will benefit college athletes in the Name, Image and Likeness space, according to former Alabama head coach Nick Saban. Saban, who was mentioned by Trump as a potential leader for the College Sports Commission back in May, addressed the newly signed executive order that seeks ‘balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits.’”

In the article, Saban said: “I think we need to make a decision here relative to do we want to have an education-based model, which I think the president made a huge step towards doing that, or do we want to have universities sponsor professional teams.”

Wait a minute. Saban had the nerve to say that “the newly signed executive order seeks balanced use of resources across collegiate athletic programs that preserves their educational and developmental benefits.”

No one mentions balancing resources when it comes to coaches being paid tens of millions of dollars. The NCAA and college coaches care as much about the educational value of these “student-athletes” no more than a Swiss bank cares about opening up an account with a client from Compton carrying a valid EBT card. The order also “prohibits third-party, pay-for-play payments to collegiate athletes.”

Are they stuck on stupid? Duh, that’s what the NIL concept is designed for: to “pay for play.”

Tommy Tuberville is the ex-Auburn University head-football-coach-turned-Senator as well as being one of the architects and disciples of the new and “reimagined Confederacy.” Tuberville was recently quoted in an article posted by Steven Corder on athlonsports.com titled: “U.S. Senator turns heads by wanting more control over NIL. As college athletes cash in on NIL deals, Senator Tommy Tuberville pushes for sweeping reforms—and a crackdown on player freedom and compensation.”

Mr. Corder writes, “But let’s be clear: Tuberville isn’t just concerned with fairness—he wants control. In an earlier radio interview, Tuberville spelled out what he envisions: ‘Everybody would be on the same level. We’ve got to come up with some rules for the transfer portal, possibly a contract for players.’”

Translation? Less money, less mobility, and more regulation on the athletes who are finally seeing their value recognized.

And he’s not alone. Tuberville cited conversations with Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl, who called NIL and the transfer portal “an absolute disaster.” But who’s it really a disaster for? Players like Livvy Dunne, Bronny James and Shedeur Sanders raked in millions—earning what the market says they’re worth. One recently estimated Dunne’s NIL valuation at $3.9 million, while Sanders was close to $4.6 million.

The outcry from coaches and politicians sounds less like concern for college sports and more like panic over a shift in power dynamics. Tuberville’s push to restrict freedom and earning potential paints a clear picture: they want amateurism for the players and professionalism for everyone else.

Glory, glory hallelujah, the truth is not marching on. However, let’s be perfectly clear. The truth has fled from the building. Tuberville has shucked and jived and jived and freely shucked our young athletes and their parents as if they were ears of corn at harvest time, not just for days, but for months, years and decades with little or no resistance. However, as soon as some of these athletes were economically emancipated, Tommy Tuberville and others like him abandoned their false “educational principles” and dove into the “sea of politics” to rescue and place a lifejacket around the drowning “play for no pay” mandate. Folks are again seeking to restore and place the generational yoke of servitude around the shoulders of the “play for no pay” athletes. Many of those athletes will have bleak or no futures after their college careers have ended.

The late Bill Withers composed a song about a girlfriend whose love was so pleasurable, he didn’t even mind being taken advantage of and being used by her. Withers sang, “Yes, I wanna spread the news, that if it feels this good gettin’ used. Oh, you just keep on usin’ me, until you use me up.”

Tommy Tuberville, Nick Saban and their cronies have altered the lyrics ever so slightly. Their version of the song goes something like this. “We’re gonna spread the news, that it’s good being able to use. We’re gonna keep on using you. Until we use you up.” 

The only way parents and their athletic children can be used is if they continue to allow themselves to be.

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