5 college football teams that will be better than you think in 2025

One of the best parts about sports is every season is different. While many of the best and worst teams in each sport will largely be the same year over year for the most part due to institutional reasons, some teams that were down on their luck find a way to turn it around eventually. Since college football is built upon great coaching and recruiting, you can see the results happen fast.

The wonderful world of NIL and the transfer portal may have made the sport more unintentionally transactional than what we probably would have liked, but it is here to stay. What is not are the bad times for some of these struggling programs. Whether it be a new head coach, an incoming improvement at quarterback, or some combination of the two, we can see a few teams on the rise.

What I want to do today is identify five teams in college football I have a strong feeling will be better than most fans expect they will be in 2025. Some are more obvious than others, while some require a little more investigation. In the end, a handful of borderline bowl teams from a season ago are poised to make some noise within their respective Power Four leagues. Are you ready for what is to come?

Let's start with this second-year head coach and second-year starting quarterback leveling up.

5. Michigan State Spartans

Admittedly, I am still trying to sort out the pecking order in the recently expanded Big Ten going forward. Oregon will probably be near the top of the standings, UCLA closer to the bottom, and potentially USC and Washington somewhere in between. I think this league only gets three, maybe four teams into the College Football Playoff. You know how you are... So who may be on the come-up?

I do not think they are going to be a 10-win team, but I fully anticipate for the Michigan State Spartans to be markedly better under Jonathan Smith in year two. Aidan Chiles will return at quarterback. This is a program who has been relevant throughout much of the playoff era, but has fallen on hard times in the demise of coaching tenures. Smith will have this team in a far better spot than he did last year.

The further we get away from the Mel Tucker debacle, the better the Michigan State program will be.

4. Houston Cougars

I may be on an island with this one, but I felt compelled to pick someone to be bullish on out of the Big 12. Nobody could have seen Arizona State coming last year, but I think there is a bottom-feeder lying low in the tall grass waiting to pounce in the Houston Cougars. This will be year two U of H has been led by Willie Fritz. While Conner Weigman is not a world beater, he may be the right catalyst for them.

Admittedly, I was not high on the Fritz hire last offseason because I did not feel time was on his side. In truth, I had my reservations about Houston football really wanting to join the Big 12 party like they wanted to for years. Why can they not be as good on the gridiron as they are on the hardwood? With how well Houston played down the stretch, I feel this team could win eight games and play spoiler.

Houston is not a threat to get to Arlington, but we said the same things about Arizona State last year.

3. Auburn Tigers

The Auburn Tigers would be a sneaky-good pick for this, if they did not have to be. The amount of pressure head coach Hugh Freeze faces entering year three down on The Plains is quite significant. While he did bring in former Oklahoma starter Jackson Arnold to lead his team out of the tunnel on Saturdays, Arnold totally lost at times during his lone season as the Sooners' quarterback of note.

However, we know what that Arnold is immensely talented. We also know that for better or worse, Freeze can really coach some football. Anytime you try to cross Auburn off, the Tigers end up having one of the best seasons in a while anyway. I do not know if they will go from a five-win team to a playoff contender overnight, but I have a hard time envision them being any worse than 8-4 or 9-3.

Anything less than an eight-win season and a top-25 finish might cost Freeze his job and his career.

2. Louisville Cardinals

Were you paying close attention last year? Louisville may not have been a serious contender to make the College Football Playoff, but Jeff Brohm's Cardinals certainly had one of the most explosive offenses in the ACC from a season ago. With Tyler Shough having exhausted all of his eligibility, in comes Miller Moss from USC to help Louisville potentially make the playoff for the first team to date.

Right now, I think I like Louisville to win the ACC the most of anyone outside of Clemson. The Tigers are poised to repeat with Cade Klubnik really finding his stride last season under center. I anticipate that Louisville will be every bit as good as what we saw out of SMU a year ago, and at times, Miami. This is a team capable of winning upwards of 11 games, but will probably win closer to around nine.

Louisville taking the next step will be huge in the ACC's chances of getting multiple teams in again.

1. Florida Gators

I am not going to crown them just yet, but Florida is in a far better position than the Gators were a year ago. They survived one of the toughest schedules in the country, enough to the point where they went bowling and beat the snot out of an undermanned Tulane team. With DJ Lagway about to hit his stride in 2025, it will let us know once and for all if Billy Napier can really coach at the Power Four level.

As it is with every SEC, the schedule flips next year, meaning home games are away and vice versa. Thus, the schedule does not soften as much as you would think. To me, I think it forces Florida to remain locked in and continue to sharpen iron. If the SEC gets four playoff teams in next year, is Florida among them? I would not rule that out, but that will require wins over Georgia or Tennessee.

Right now, I can see Florida being every bit as good as what Colorado was at times last season.