College football may be a sport dominated by blue blood powers, but the programs atop the sport can still change in an instant, especially in the transfer portal era.
Think about the 2024 College Football Playoff.
That 12-team bracket included Arizona State and Indiana, both of which won just three games the prior season.
Then there’s the teams that did not participate. Defending champion Michigan? It won just seven regular season games. The national runners up, Washington, dropped from 14 wins to six. And let’s not forget 2023 ACC champion Florida State, which went from 13 regular season wins to TWO the following season.
Rosters turn over quickly in college football, which means teams can see their records vary wildly from year to year based on who they lose and how they recruit.
Look at what it’s been like to be a Northwestern fan since 2018:
2018: 9-5
2019: 3-9
2020: 7-2
2021: 3-9
2022: 1-11
2023: 8-5
2024: 4-8
That leads us to potential risers and fallers entering 2025. Using our insider knowledge of programs, returning production numbers and some common sense, CBS Sports is projecting this upcoming season’s big risers (a two-plus win jump) and fallers (two or more losses) from each Power Four conference.
Rise: Florida State Seminoles
2024 Record: 2-10
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 7.5 wins
It would be a historic anomaly (and a failure) if Florida State didn’t win four games this season. The Seminoles have only won three or fewer games seven times in 72 seasons as a program.
Florida State will look much different this season. The roster has turned over with just six returning starters, 46 new roster additions (23 transfers, 23 high school enrollees) and two new coordinators (offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn, defensive coordinator Tony White). That’s drastic change for head coach Mike Norvell, who had led the program to 23 combined wins over the prior two seasons.
There’s two ways to think of Florida State’s schedule. First, the top-end games are very difficult. Home tilts against Miami and Alabama. Road trips to Clemson and Florida. The Seminoles would be lucky to escape with one or two wins in that four-game gauntlet. Everything else? It’s very approachable with only one remaining game against a team (Pitt) that earned seven-plus wins last season.
Florida State is going to be a very specific test for opposing defenses with Malzahn calling the plays and run-first QB Tommy Castellanos operating the system. That’s something that should give the Seminoles a reasonably high floor from week to week, especially when you consider their roster still meets the blue-chip ratio cutoff.
I feel very comfortable projecting Florida State to reach a bowl in 2025. Yes, tripling its win total! As for that over/under … I think seven wins is a realistic target.
All win totals via FanDuel Sportsbook.
2024 Record: 10-3
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 5.5
The Orange may have the most difficult conference schedule in the ACC. They visit Clemson, SMU, Georgia Tech and Miami. Those are arguably the four best teams in the league entering 2025, and it’s not like Syracuse gets softballs at home. Duke, Pittsburgh, North Carolina and Boston College are all on deck, four teams that enter the season with bowl expectations or better.
Then there’s the nonconference portion of the slate, which opens with Tennessee and finishes with a road trip to Notre Dame in late November.
Throw in the fact Syracuse brings back just seven starters and that the team’s potential starting quarterback, Steve Angeli, wasn’t even with the team in spring practice, and it feels like a tall ask for Syracuse to make a bowl, let alone sniff double-digit wins again this season.
2024 Record: 8-5
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 8.5
This is a bet on a talent. With the nation’s No. 2 transfer portal class, Texas Tech is the most talented on-paper team in the Big 12. Remember, the margins in the Big 12 are tighter than any other league. No team in the conference ranked better than No. 28 in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite a season ago. But 12 of them ranked between 30th and 60th. There’s no talent juggernaut, which is how you end up with Arizona State and Iowa State in the title game despite being picked 16th and sixth respectively in the preseason.
But thanks to 10-plus-million dollar transfer class, the Red Raiders stand alone atop the league from a talent and depth perspective.
It helps that Texas Tech’s nonconference schedule is friendly with a trio of home games against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Kent State and Oregon State. The Big 12 draw is difficult with trips to against Utah, Arizona State and Kansas State. But again, this is a bet on talent above all else. Texas Tech should have the best defensive line in the league, one of the best o-lines, a ton of skill talent and one of the league’s most experienced passers in Behren Morton. It’s a formula built to win during what is an all-in season.
Anything less than a trip to Arlington and a double-digit win total would fail to meet expectations.
2024 Record: 11-2
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 6.5
It was always going to be tough for BYU to follow up its 11-win campaign. Not only did the Cougars lose 12 starters off that team — including eight from a top 21 defense — but BYU was incredibly fortunate last year in one-score games. The Cougars won four games in 2024 by one score or fewer, including a borderline miracle in their win over Oklahoma State.
Then came the sudden departure of starting quarterback Jake Retzlaff in the face of a suspension for breaking the school’s honor code. That change makes BYU’s already perilous path to nine wins more difficult.
It’s not like the schedule is easy. The Cougars travel to Colorado, Iowa State and Texas Tech in conference play in addition to home games against TCU and Utah. There’s also a tricky Week 2 visit to East Carolina.
The Cougars had some encouraging transfer additions. But a transfer class ranked No. 82 nationally doesn’t seem like it’ll scale the gap between departing production and the nine-win barrier the program much reach to make this a moot exercise.
Rise: Washington Huskies
2024 Record: 6-7
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 7.5
Yes, the Huskies followed up a 14-1 season with just six wins a season ago. But context is important when considering what Jedd Fisch inherited from Kalen DeBoer. The 2024 Huskies returned just two starters. It was a total rebuild. Six wins, including over USC and Michigan, was a respectable Year 1 effort given that level of turnover.
There’s plenty of new faces at Washington once again in 2025. Only six starters return, but those around Seattle remain bullish. Much of that hype centers around new starting QB Demond Williams, who was brilliant (944 yards, 8 TDs, 1 INT, 78.1 CMP%) in limited action last season. Williams is one of the most athletic quarterbacks in college football. He’s expected to bring a dynamic rushing element to the Huskies offense the program lacked last season with Will Rogers under center.
While the defense returns only two players who started a season ago, they are important pieces in edge Isaiah Ward and cornerback Ephesians Prysock. It also helps Fisch brought in a pair of all-conference transfers from Arizona in linebacker Jacob Manu and cornerback Tacario Davis.
The Big Ten schedule isn’t easy, but it could be worse. The Huskies draw both Ohio State and Oregon at home, and they have some reasonable road trips outside of flight to Ann Arbor.
This is among the riskier calls on this list. But I’m a believer in what the Huskies can be this season with Williams. Washington’s staff is excellent schematically and there’s plenty of talent. This team hits at least eight wins.
Tumble: Indiana Hoosiers
2024 Record: 11-2
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 8.5
Indiana is the obvious answer here, right? The Hoosiers have only won 10-plus games once in their 127-year history. And that happened last year! So don’t think of this as a bet against Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers’ roster. I like the way they’re built, and the schedule sets up nicely (more on that in a second). But this is a bet on history. Indiana’s never won 10-plus games in back-to-back seasons. It’s only won nine-plus games three times. Another run like that would be an almost unexplainable anomaly.
It should be said, the Hoosiers have a very friendly schedule. This is their nonconference slate: Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. They also avoid Ohio State and Michigan. But when you dive in there are still difficult games on deck. Indiana will travel to Iowa, Oregon and Penn State. It will host Illinois, Wisconsin and UCLA.
There’s a path for Indiana to get to nine wins this year. That feels very possible given Cignetti’s history — he’s 130-37 in his career for a reason — but 10? That’d mean pulling an upset on the road and maintaining their torrid 2024 pace with only eight returning starters and a much more difficult schedule.
2024 Record: 5-7
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 7.5
Let’s be blunt, if Auburn doesn’t hit the seven-win barrier, Hugh Freeze is likely out of a job. That’s the sort of pressure that’s on the Tigers. The good news for Freeze: His roster is more than good enough to win seven-plus games. If Jackson Arnold can live up to his recruiting billing as QB1, Auburn is talented enough to sneak into the SEC championship conversation.
There really are no obvious holes on Auburn’s roster. The Tigers return four o-line starters and added two four-star tackles in the portal. They’ll have one of the best wide receiver duos (Cam Coleman, Eric Singleton) in the country. The defense is led by All-American candidate Keldric Faulk on the d-line and returns four starting members of the secondary, which helped anchor a top-20 defense last year.
If Arnold can be an even top half SEC quarterback and avoid some of the red zone turnovers that crippled Payton Thorne a year ago, the Tigers should be an eight-plus win team.
If you’re scoffing at that idea, let’s remember how Auburn tumbled to five wins a season ago. Seven points to Cal. Ten against Arkansas. Six against Oklahoma. Four against Missouri. Fourteen against Alabama. The Tigers were in every game they lost. It was never a talent issue. Instead, it came down to execution in the red zone and some ill-timed turnovers.
The schedule could be worse for Auburn, too. The Tigers draw Georgia and Alabama at home. They avoid Texas. We’ll know whether Auburn can clear the seven-win barrier by October. Early road games against Baylor, Oklahoma and Texas A&M will tell the story of the season.
2024 Record: 9-4
2025 FanDuel Win Total: 7.5
Do I love betting against one of the best quarterbacks (LaNorris Sellers) and defensive players (Dylan Stewart) in college football? No. But there are just a lot of questions about the rest of the roster.
Barring a huge leap from junior Nyck Harbor, the Gamecocks lack a go-to receiver. No receiver on the roster cleared the 400-yard barrier a season ago and South Carolina did not add in the portal. Running back is a huge question with Rahsul Faison’s status hanging up in the air. The o-line, while experienced, remains a concern coming off a season in which the unit ranked 98th nationally in PFF’s pass block metric and 105th in run blocking. Sellers and Raheim Sanders covered up a lot for that unit last year on the ground. The defense — arguably the best in the SEC last year — lost seven starters. That list of departures includes two All-Americans in EDGE Kyle Kennard and safety Nick Emmanwori.
The Gamecocks have shown an ability to recruit well and strong play in less spoken about phases of the game — special teams, turnovers — keeps them in a ton of games. But there are just a lot of concerns with the roster even with two superstars who help cover up for many deficiencies.
And the schedule isn’t easy once the Gamecocks get out of a reasonably soft early slate. LSU, Oklahoma, Alabama, Ole Miss and Texas A&M is a gauntlet that will begin Oct. 11 and not end util Nov. 15. Of course, Clemson is awaiting South Carolina at season’s end.
There are scenarios in which South Carolina sees internal development at key spots and maintains its momentum. But more likely than not this feels like a year of at least some regression.
Add Comment