The 2025 college football season is almost here.
With Week Zero less than two weeks away, here are 10 of the biggest storylines ahead of what could be a wide-open season after the first 12-team playoff.
The future format of the College Football Playoff
The second year of the 12-team College Football Playoff looks like it will be dominated by questions about its future.
There’s no resolution in sight regarding an agreement on the format after the 2025 season. The arguments about how the playoff should expand to 16 teams appear to be at a standstill. The Big Ten wants to guarantee a specific number of bids for each of the four power conferences — and give itself and the SEC more bids than the Big 12 and ACC — while the other conferences and Notre Dame are much more in favor of a model that guarantees bids to five conference champions and leaves the other 11 spots for at-large teams.
In this case, the stalemate could end up being OK. If there’s no agreement on how the playoff should expand to 16, it could simply stay at 12 for next season and maybe even beyond. After a decade of a four-team playoff, moving on from the 12-team format after two years would be quite hasty.
Will byes hurt the top playoff seeds again?
The top four teams in last season’s CFP all went one-and-done. No. 1 Oregon got blitzed by Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. No. 2 Georgia lost to Notre Dame. No. 3 Boise State fell to No. 6 Penn State and No. 4 Arizona State lost to No. 5 Texas.
Thanks to the format of the playoff, all four top seeds had a month off between games. But they were all also underdogs because of the way the playoff was structured. And that structure only lasted a season.
In 2024, the top four seeds were the top four conference champions in the playoff committee’s rankings. Arizona State was No. 12 in the final set of rankings but got a bye for winning the Big 12.
This season, the top four teams in the College Football Playoff will be the top four teams in the rankings no matter if they won their conference title game or not. With that in place, it’s hard to see how the semifinals won’t feature at least one top four team.
Arch Manning’s future
Archie Manning’s comments to Texas Monthly aren’t going to totally quell speculation about Arch Manning’s 2026 plans.
The former Ole Miss and New Orleans Saints QB said that his grandson will stay at Texas for the 2026 season. The redshirt sophomore is entering his first season as the full-time starter for the Longhorns and is the preseason Heisman favorite despite throwing fewer than 100 career passes.
If Manning stars and the Longhorns win the SEC, the draft chatter is only going to intensify until the early-entry deadline even if Manning is fully committed to staying in Austin.
The race for top QB in the NFL Draft (with or without Arch)
If Manning leaves early for the NFL, it’s not a total lock that he’ll be the top QB in the class of 2026. There are multiple QBs vying for that spot, and the season should be fascinating for numerous quarterbacks’ NFL prospects.
Players like Cade Klubnik, Garrett Nussmeier and Drew Allar have all been mentioned as the top QB available in the draft even if Manning would choose to leave Texas. Klubnik had a stellar 2024 after a rough first season in Clemson’s new offensive scheme in 2023. Nussmeier threw for 29 TDs in his first season as a starter and will face some of the best defenses in college football in 2025. That includes Clemson in Week 1.
Allar has all the tools you want from an NFL QB and his stats improved in 2024 after Penn State changed offensive schemes. Allar threw for over 3,300 yards and averaged 8.4 yards an attempt after throwing for fewer than seven yards a pass in 2024. A big season from any of those QBs could vault them to No. 1.
Bill Belichick's first year
North Carolina is the most fascinating program in college football ahead of the 2025 season. And that’d be true even without an offseason full of stories that included Jordon Hudson.
The six-time Super Bowl-winning coach’s transition to college football comes at a school looking for its first conference title since 1980. North Carolina hasn’t won 10 games in a season since 2015 and Belichick hasn’t coached at the college level.
Belichick has surrounded himself with familiar faces on his coaching staff. His son Steve is the defensive coordinator and former Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens is the offensive coordinator. Two former college head coaches in Garrick McGee (UAB) and Bob Diaco (UConn) are also assistants at UNC. Belichick worked the transfer portal hard as soon as he arrived in Chapel Hill, signing players like South Alabama QB Gio Lopez and Boise State linebacker Andrew Simpson. After 6-6 wasn’t good enough for Mack Brown in 2024, a winning season is the minimum standard in Belichick’s first year.
Battle for supremacy between Big Ten and SEC
Both the Big Ten and SEC claim to be the best conference in college football. The Big Ten got four teams in the College Football Playoff a season ago and can boast the defending national champion. The SEC had three teams in the playoff — the ACC was the only other conference with multiple bids — and says it’s a much deeper league. The Big Ten had five teams in the final CFP rankings. The SEC had seven.
Don’t expect this debate to be settled anytime soon, either. Both conferences will likely have more than half the playoff field again in 2025 and, outside of Clemson and Notre Dame, the national champion is likely to come from either conference. Oh, and the rivalry extends off the field too since the two conferences can’t agree on a future playoff format.
Deion Sanders' new normal
Deion Sanders revealed this summer he had his bladder removed after a cancerous tumor was discovered. Sanders has been given a clean bill of health by doctors and will be on the sidelines in 2025.
However, Sanders said that the sideline may have more things occupying it. As he detailed his recovery process — and said he wanted to make circumstances like his more comfortable to talk about — Sanders noted that there may be a portable toilet on the Colorado side of the field during games.
What Sanders is experiencing is an incredible adjustment for anyone, and there may be moments where he has to slip away for a second. But with his cancer now cured — and Sanders saying he feels like his old self again — he can fully focus on football and a team that is replacing eight starters on the offense including Shedeur Sanders and Heisman winner Travis Hunter.
Who will be the first coach fired?
The 2024 hot seat season was relatively quiet across the power conferences. That seems likely to change in 2025. While coaches like Belichick and Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer are under pressure for different reasons, coaches like Arkansas’ Sam Pittman, Wisconsin’s Luke Fickell and even Auburn’s Hugh Freeze need winning seasons to solidify their standing. You can never rule out a September firing in college football if things go poorly enough, but we think there will be at least one power conference coach fired in October after a poor first half of the season.
Will the American’s depth hurt it in the playoff race again?
The American was the fifth-best conference in college football in 2024. But that depth took it out of the playoff race. As Boise State went undefeated in the Mountain West with a Heisman contender at running back, every American Conference team outside of Army lost at least two games.
The Black Knights were 11-1 when the playoff field was selected, but that loss came by 35 to Notre Dame and the Knights didn’t have a signature victory outside of their American title game win over Tulane.
Does the American need someone to go 11-1 with a signature non-conference win to have a shot at the playoff? Army plays at Kansas State in 2025 while Memphis hosts Arkansas and Tulane hosts Duke. There are a lot of good teams atop the conference. But Boise State should still be considered the favorite to make the playoff among all the teams outside power conferences.
The Mountain West’s last stand
The 2025 season is the Broncos’ last in the Mountain West as the conference will look a lot different in 2026. The Mountain West as we’ve come to know it since it split off from the WAC will lose Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, San Diego State and Utah State at the end of the season. Those five schools are heading to the remade Pac-12 to join Oregon State and Washington State and Texas State in the conference.
This is easily the Mountain West’s last best chance to make the playoff. With the Pac-12 rebuilding, it’s set to slip at least one spot down the pecking order.
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