*Originally published on August 22nd 2025 https://conalldiggin.substack.com/p/answering-tht-10-most-important-questions
The 2025 season is almost upon us, and with that comes a handful of questions that need to and must be answered. Having spent the past few weeks previewing the college football season on the Pro Football Ireland College Football Podcast (PFI CFB Show), I am going to try and answer a few of these questions as we head into this highly anticipated season.
Who will be a surprise team?
Auburn
I said it during our SEC preview last week that I think Auburn has every opportunity to be in a playoff spot at the end of the season. The roster is filled with blue-chip talent. Cam Coleman, Georgia Tech transfer Eric Singleton and Oklahoma transfer Jackson Arnold could lead to a big step offensively.
Keldric Faulk, Kayin Lee and Jay Crawford could possibly see this team be a top 20 defence in my eyes. Faulk in particular has the talent to be a 1st round pick in next year’s draft and is someone to really keep an eye out for on DJ Durkin’s defence.
This is a team who turned the ball over too much last season, ending the year with a -9 turnover differential. Still, 5 of their 7 losses were by 10 points or less. I don’t think it is a huge stretch to believe that even if they can get even in the turnover margin, more wins should follow.
The big but comes for this team at the QB position. There is undoubtedly talent with Jackson Arnold – you don’t become a 5-star prospect without it – but in his first year as a starter, he looked completely overmatched, and while he only had 3 interceptions, his inability to be even an effective QB was easy to see. Granted, Oklahoma’s offence would likely have been difficult for any QB, so with what looks to be a much better receiving core at Auburn may help release the talent Arnold has. If he doesn’t pan out, the possibility of playing fellow transfer Ashton Daniels or true freshman Deuce Knight may prove too enticing for Hugh Freeze.
I think the talent is absolutely there on this roster to really tear up trees, and while they seem almost a lock to lose 2 conference games this year coming up against Alabama, Georgia, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, a clean sweep in out-of-conference games and picking up 6 wins in the conference does not seem out of the realm of possibility. A 10-win season in the SEC should all but guarantee them a spot in the playoffs, which I think just might happen.
Who will underperform?
Georgia
This may be the stupidest thing I could’ve done, but I’m just not fully convinced of Georgia this year. Even though they won the SEC championship, the cracks were easy to see: a one-point win against Kentucky, needing eight overtimes to beat Georgia Tech at home, and the losses to Alabama, where their comeback came up short, and to Ole Miss made last season a slight step back for Kirby Smart’s team.
Some of this blame can be placed mostly on the offensive side of the ball, where neither the passing game nor the running game ever really got firing at the same time. Carson Beck has now transferred to Miami and will be replaced by backup Gunnar Stockton, who struggled in his appearances at the end of the year, albeit he was thrown into the fire against two of the best defences in Texas and Notre Dame. I think sophomore running back Nate Frazier will be in for a big year this year, though.
Even defensively, while I trust Kirby to get the most out of them, there is a lot of unproven talent on this roster at the moment; this unit lost nearly 50% of its production from last year. In particular, Georgia’s future NFL draft prospects outside of maybe Christen Miller and CJ Allen are the lightest we’ve seen from a Kirby Smart team for a while.
All this being said, the recruiting has not dropped off at all; there is an ever-continuing pipeline of blue-chip recruits ready to fill in at any moment for the Bulldogs, but they just might be a year away from being truly back to their best. Games against Texas, Alabama, Auburn, Florida and Georgia Tech will be the biggest tests for this Georgia team, some of which I don’t think they will be able to overcome.
Kirby Smart, however, is one of only three active head coaches with a National Championship, so if he proves me wrong, I won’t be surprised.
Who will win the Heisman?
Lanoris Sellers
South Carolina have lost the majority of their front seven on defence, their leading receiver and rusher, and yet people think this could be the year a real breakout comes for the Gamecocks.
A huge reason for that is because of quarterback LaNorris Sellers. Sellers is one of the most dynamic quarterbacks I’ve watched; his ability to run and playmake at his size are things possibly unseen at such a high level since Cam Newton. His growth as a passer, while still not refined, seemed to improve after every game, and many think another big leap will be due this upcoming season.
The weapons may be lacking in comparison to a lot of top quarterbacks, and the schedule may be the 7th hardest in college football this season, but as we saw with Miami and Cam Ward last season, a great QB can take you a long way.
Will we have a new coach win the big one?
Since the start of the 2020s, three coaches have won their first ever national championship: Kirby Smart in 2021 before repeating the feat in 2022, Jihn Harbaugh in 2023 before bolting to the NFL, and finally Ryan Day, who did what many said he couldn’t, winning with Ohio State in 2024. In particular, with Nick Saban now taking a spot behind the College Gameday desk, the opportunities for a coach to win their first game have seemingly increased.
An interesting trend between each of these three coaches and Dabo Sweeney at Clemson was that each of them either lost in the national championship game or in the semi-final of the playoffs before going on to win it in the future; while these losses only added to the discourse at the time, it seemingly only put fuel on the fire for many of these programmes.
Some of the contenders I would put down to ‘win the big one’ this year would be Steve Sarkisian’s #1 ranked Texas Longhorns, the often maligned but consistent James Franklin at Penn State, Dan Lanning’s Oregon Ducks, the man who replaced Nick Saban in Tuscaloosa, Kalen DeBoer, and last year’s runner-up, Marcus Freeman, at Notre Dame.
Four of these five head coaches have reached either the semi-final or final of the CFB playoff, with three of them doing it last year in Freeman, Sarkisian and Franklin. Deboer was a runner-up only two years ago but with an entirely different programme in Washington, so it is to be seen if he can win it for the Tide, while Dan Lanning only made the playoff for the first time last season and lost at the hands of eventual winners Ohio State.
With the huge turnover Georgia and Ohio State have had this offseason at many key positions, paired with Clemson’s inconsistencies over the last few years, it may open the door for a new coach to rewrite their narrative again this season.
What will be the best game of the regular season?
As with every season, high-profile matchups are at a premium, and with the changes the SEC is making to their schedule starting next year, they will become even more common, but just because a game is high-profile doesn’t mean it will be the best game.
I’ve decided to remove any week one matchups in this just because the lack of overall jeopardy in those games can at times be something that is forgotten come the end of the season. I didn’t want to include any late-season rivalry games because those are obviously not only big games but also ones that, even if one team is not in contention, still have a fight for pride between the two teams.
Even after all my talk, I’ve not gone full hipster and selected Boise State against UNLV in week 8, which in its own right should be a great game. Instead I’ve gone for a bit of an obvious one, but I truly believe the best game this year is Oregon at Penn State in week 5.
Everything about this game seems set up to be a huge game: a weak schedule to start the season, along with this being arguably the hardest game on each other’s schedules, a rematch of last season’s conference title game and the opportunity of this being one of the best atmospheres at Beaver Stadium with the famous white-out scheduled for this game. Everything points at this being one of the best games of the season. From the players on the field, the coaches on the sideline and the fans in the stands, it should all come together to create a beautiful night of college football.
Realistically we all know, though, the best game this season is guaranteed to be Farmageddon in week 0.
Which Group of 5 team will make the playoffs?
Last year was the first time since 2014 that no G5 team was ranked in the preseason AP Poll. By the end of each year Boise State was the highest-ranked G5 programme. From 2015 to 2024, seven of the ten highest-ranked G5 programmes would not be the highest-ranked come the end of the season.
The question then comes: could we see a similar story this year? All signs probably point to no. Boise State are currently ranked 25th in this year’s preseason poll. A tough-fought loss to Penn State in the CFB Playoff quarter-finals and the loss of Heisman runner-up Ashton Jeanty give good reason to believe that regression is possible.
Those fears of regression are offset by the fact they have the most returning talent in the Mountain West, those of whom include starting quarterback Maddux Madsen and star defensive lineman Jayden Virgin-Morgan. All this combined with keeping a majority of their offensive line and trying to recreate Jeanty in the aggregate with James Dunbar and Malik Sherrod should be enough to see them their 3rd conference championship in a row.
But if there is one thing we know in college football, it is that the only thing that is certain is that nothing is.
So let’s say the Broncos lose expectedly to Notre Dame, Dan Mullen gets himself his first big win as UNLV head coach, and the Broncos struggle to overcome two emerging sides in Air Force or Fresno State; the likelihood of a 3-loss G5 team making the playoffs is very low.
So who could take their spot?
Tulane seems to be the obvious next man up. John Sumrall’s first season started with 2 losses in the first 3 games and ended with three straight losses. But between weeks 4 and 12 they went 8-0 with an average winning margin of 28.5 points.
The programme has gone from strength to strength since its disastrous 2-10 season in 2021, and last season may have been a slight slip-up, but the belief within and outside the programme is still there even after losing some of the best players at the G5 level last year to the transfer portal.
Even with those losses, having such a highly regarded young coach in John Summaral, a manageable schedule and some of the best talent in the American conference should lead to another big year for the Green Wave.
Some other teams who could stand a chance are James Madison; the Dukes have been one of the most dominant teams since moving up to the FBS level, so much so that an 8-win season last year was seen as a step back for a team only 3 years removed from the transition. They are clear favourites for the Sun Belt this year, and should they give Louisville a tough game in week 2, that could be enough to tip them over the edge in the eyes of the committee.
UNLV seems to be the only other realistic team to push Boise State for a playoff spot. Former Florida and Mississippi State head coach Dan Mullen is now in charge of the Rebels after Barry Odom left to take the Purdue job. For a coach who is not renowned for his recruiting record, a G5 programme may be the perfect spot for him to show his strengths. UNLV has the backing to make moves in the portal and did so this year, bringing in two Power Four QBs in Anthony Colandrea and Alex Orgi, Utah running back Jaylon Glover, Alabama/TCU receiver Jojo Earle and some top defensive recruits too.
Similar to the Rebels in Cork, UNLV have finished second in the last two conference championship games. We’ll see if third time’s the charm this year and if a possible play-off spot meets them on the other side.
Who wins each conference?
MAC
Toledo over Miami (Ohio)
C-USA
Liberty over Louisiana Tech.
Sun Belt
James Madison beats Louisiana.
Mountain West
Boise State over UNLV.
American
Tulane beats Navy.
Big 12
Kansas State over Utah.
ACC
Clemson beats Louisville.
Big Ten
Penn State beats Oregon.
SEC
Alabama beats Texas.
Who makes the playoffs? (In no particular order)
Bama
Auburn
Texas
Clemson
Louisville
Kansas State
Penn State
Ohio State
Oregon
Nebraska
Notre Dame
Boise State
Who are the final 2?
Texas vs Penn State
Who wins it all?
Texas
While I have some reservations over their offensive line, the defence has maybe the most talent in college football, with Colin Simmons, Anthony Hill Jr, Malik Muhammed and Colin Taafe just some of the names who can help tip this team over the edge. While on offence, Steve Sarkisian will get to release a 3rd generation Manning as Arch, who, while largely unproven, seems like he can live up to the hype and, in the end, bring Texas their first championship in 20 years.