2025 college football season recap – The Johns Hopkins News-Letter

By ERIC ZENG | January 31, 2026
BOBAK HA’ERI / CC BY-SA 3.0
The 2025 college football season was filled with many remarkable moments and storylines, headlined by Indiana’s first national championship.
With the conclusion of the 2025 college football season, here are some notable storylines from this past year.
Indiana wins first national championship in program history
The top ranked Indiana Hoosiers defeated the Miami Hurricanes 27-21 last Monday, capping off a fitting end to a storybook season and arguably the greatest turnaround in college football history. While Indiana steamrolled its first two opponents in the College Football Playoff, the Hurricanes proved to be a more formidable foe. Key Indiana plays included a blocked punt that was recovered for a touchdown and QB Fernando Mendoza’s 12-yard touchdown run on 4th and 5 to keep them ahead. DB Jamari Sharpe intercepted Miami QB Carson Beck to seal the victory. The Hoosiers joined the 1894 Yale Bulldogs as only the second team to go 16-0 in D1 football. Since finishing 3-9 and firing head coach Tom Allen two seasons ago, Indiana has now gone 27-2 under Curt Cignetti and look poised to contend for another national title.
Two groups of six teams make the College Football Playoff
In recent history, there has been a notable difference in team strength between the top five conferences, dubbed the “Power Five” (now Power Four due to the collapse of the Pac-12), and the other conferences, dubbed the “Group of Five” (now Group of Six). While a few non power conference teams had a compelling argument to make playoffs when it was restricted to four teams, only one ever did (2021 Cincinnati).
The expansion to 12 teams and automatic qualification for the five highest ranked conference champions meant that at least one Group of Six team was guaranteed a slot. Few expected more than one to qualify in the same year. Unranked Duke’s upset win over then #16 Virginia in the ACC Championship resulted in James Madison and Tulane, both Group of Six teams, making the playoffs. While a notable achievement, both lost their first round games in lopsided fashion. These performances were likely a significant motivator for the change to next year’s playoff format where all Power Four conference champions are guaranteed a spot in the playoff, regardless of their ranking.
Vanderbilt achieves first 10-win season
Following a promising 2024 season which included a shocking upset win over then #1 Alabama and their first bowl win since 2013, there was optimism for Vanderbilt entering this season. Led by QB Diego Pavia, who finished second in Heisman trophy voting, the Commodores started 7-1, their best since 1941, before losing to then #20 Texas. After this setback, Vanderbilt won its next two games and finished the regular season with a dominant 45-24 victory over rival Tennessee. They secured the first 10-win season in program history and ended up just outside of the playoffs. With this achievement, every team currently in a Power Four conference has reached ten wins in a season at least once. Although their season ended with a defeat, this was undoubtedly a fantastic season for the Commodores.
Success for recent newcomers to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS)
Many programs have recently made the jump from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), the second highest level of college football, to the FBS, the highest level of college football. While some of these teams have seen success, it is nonetheless a difficult transition to make and this seemed like it would be even more true for Missouri State. Unlike several teams who recently made the jump, such as James Madison or Sam Houston State, Missouri State never won a national championship in the FCS. In fact, they only made the FCS playoffs twice since 1990 and failed to advance past the first round. Other recent newcomers to the FBS, such as Jacksonville State in 2023, Kennesaw State in 2024 and Delaware saw some playoff success in recent years.
Surprisingly, Missouri State saw a surprising amount of success (7-5) in their inaugural season in the FBS. Normally, teams need to spend a few seasons at the FBS level before they are eligible for bowl games but due to other teams opting out, the Bears faced Arkansas State in the Xbox Bowl where they lost 34-28. Also seeing unexpected success, Delaware went 6-6 in the regular season and defeated Louisiana 20-13 in the 68 Ventures Bowl. Lastly, Kennesaw State completely flipped their results from the prior year (2-10), winning the Conference USA en route to a 10-4 season. While sustaining success after making the jump to the FBS won’t be easy (Sam Houston State finished this season 2-10 despite going 10-3 the year prior), other teams such as James Madison and Appalachian State have shown that it is possible.
Preseason favorites fail to reach expectations
If Penn State and Clemson fans were told at the start of the season that their teams’ seasons would end with them facing each other, many would have likely assumed that meant a national championship showdown. After all, both made the playoffs the year prior and were among the top programs in terms of returning starters. They were ranked 2nd and 4th in the preseason AP poll and had the 4th and 5th highest odds to win the national championship. Penn State was arguably only a few plays away from making the national title game in 2024 and looked to follow the footsteps of fellow Big Ten teams Ohio State and Michigan, both of which returned many starters who helped win a national championship in 2024 and 2023 respectively. 
Clemson looked to have its best chance at a championship run since the mid-to-late 2010s which saw two national champions and another two appearances for the Tigers. They stumbled immediately out of the gate, losing 17-10 to LSU in what seemed like a marquee matchup at the time but ended up being a game between two mediocre teams. After an uninspiring win over Troy, the Tigers lost to Georgia Tech and fell out of the Top 25 for good before clawing to a 7-5 regular season.
Penn State began the season 3-0. A loss to then #6 Oregon followed by two consecutive collapses to middling teams UCLA and Northwestern led to the firing of long time head coach James Franklin. The Nittany Lions would lose their next three games as well but finished the season strong with three consecutive wins to reach bowl eligibility and then beat Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl.
While many other teams also failed to live up to expectations (in fact six of the top ten teams in preseason national title odds failed to make playoffs, and four failed to end with any rank at all), these two examples are perhaps the most egregious. This demonstrates the unexpected nature of college football and how much things can change over the course of a single season.

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