The 2025 NCAA Football season is almost here, and this year, three storylines represent everything that makes college football exciting. Individual brilliance, conference supremacy, and legendary names testing themselves in new arenas.
From a heavily predicted superstar freshman quarterback to a potential conference repeat champion, this year has the potential to be more dramatic than an afternoon soap opera. With that being said, let’s dive into three hot takes that will define the next five months of football madness.
Freshman Phenom Bryce Underwood Can Lead Wolverines to the College Football Playoffs
THE TAKE: There may be a lot of negative press surrounding the Michigan football program and its head coach, Sherrone Moore, but the quarterback battle between freshman Bryce Underwood and fifth-year transfer Mikey Keene has everyone talking.
VERDICT: Fact
After missing the playoffs last season for the first time in three years, the Wolverines will rely on a seventeen-year-old to guide them back to the postseason. Yes, asking a true freshman to pilot a team through the brutal gauntlet that is the Big Ten schedule is borderline crazy, but Underwood is not a regular first-year player.
Last year, the Wolverines averaged just 129.1 passing yards per game—among the worst in the nation—but that should change with the addition of Underwood. During his time at Belleville High School, Underwood led the Tigers to back-to-back State Championships, winning both the Freshman and Sophomore of the Year awards.
Sure, no freshman has ever led his team to the College Football Playoffs, but Bryce Underwood is no ordinary freshman.
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The key factor working in Michigan’s and Underwood’s favor is the expanded playoff format, as the current twelve-team field will give more margin for error than the former four-team format. Last year, the Big Ten sent two teams to the playoffs, each with a pair of losses on its record. If (and potentially when) Underwood gets the freshman jitters, having an experienced QB like Keene to lean on will help ease the pressure on the young signal-caller.
The Big Ten Will Produce Another National Champion This Year
THE TAKE: The Big Ten will capture a College Football Playoff Championship for the third straight season.
VERDICT: Fact
In 2024, the Michigan Wolverines ran over the Washington Huskies for the title, and last season, the Ohio State Buckeyes used a dominating second quarter to launch themselves to their ninth National Championship.
The Big Ten has six teams in the Top 25 with three among the Top 10, including #2 Penn State, #3 Ohio State, and #7 Oregon. Only the SEC has more teams ranked within the Top 10. The Buckeyes return with yet another stacked roster on both sides of the ball. The Nittany Lions proved that they canhang with anyone, falling four points short of a trip to the National Championship game, and the Ducks are a team that nobody wants to face after finishing 9-0 in their first Big Ten season and 13-1 overall.
Add in teams like Indiana and Illinois, and the Big Ten has a brutal regular season schedule that works in their favor when it comes to being battle-tested at playoff time. If you need a further example, just flick on the tube on August 30 when the Buckeyes and their 102,780 fans welcome the top-ranked Texas Longhorns into Ohio Stadium.
Ryan Day has the Buckeyes operating like a professional franchise, while James Franklin has the Nittany Lions constantly in the mix, and Dan Lanning’s Ducks bring a West Coast flavor to the traditional Big Ten physicality. While analysts on the best betting sites for NFL games often focus on professional football, the college game shows similar patterns in that the conferences that beat each other up in the regular season typically perform better in the playoff season.
Bill Belichick’s NCAA Debut Season Will Be A Disaster
THE TAKE: He’s the winningest coach in NFL Super Bowl history, but transitioning from the professional ranks to dealing with teenagers is a totally different game
VERDICT: Fiction
Yes, college sports are different from professional sports, but great coaching is great coaching. If you take a look at how Bill Belichick became arguably the greatest coach in NFL history, it was because he adapted, he improvised, and he had Tom Brady (just kiddin’).
Every North Carolina Tar Heels home game has been sold out since the end of July in anticipation of what Belichick will bring to the program. While he has a playbook bigger than most coaches, it isn’t just the X’s and O’s that Belichick brings to the college game, but rather a championship culture and expectation that the team has been lacking for years.
Despite having some impressive talent, including Omarion Hampton, Drake Maye, and Josh Downs over the past few years, the Tar Heels have underachieved. While nobody will confuse them with the ACC’s elite teams, like the Clemson Tigers, Miami Hurricanes, or Florida State Seminoles, don’t be surprised if “The Hoody” has his team among the top half of the ACC standings sooner than anyone expects.
Critics keep pointing to Belichick’s age and his unfamiliarity with the college game, but they are missing the bigger picture. This is a coach who spent twenty-nine years as an NFL head coach (24 with New England, 5 with Cleveland), missing the playoffs just five times in his last twenty-five years. While it may not be the smoothest of rides, betting against Belichick this season may be a mistake.
