The margins of university football only became thinner than after the last wave of realignment of conferences. The reshaped landscape has flattened the competitive curve, transforming each conference calendar into a version from week to week. The difference between a competitor in playoffs and a team team for the eligibility for the bowl can be summed up with a few premature injuries or bad breaks in the matches at a score. As a result, several teams enter the 2025 season with floors and ceilings which are miles from each other.
Last season, several programs broke expectations – for better or for worse. Few predicted the colossal breakthrough of Arizona State, and many did not expect the Indiana to display the best season in school history. On the other side, it would have taken a psychic to predict the collapse of the state of Florida in a disaster with two victories.
Surprises are cooked in the fabric of university football. Identifying them before they occur is, by nature, an extreme challenge. But reading tea leaves on some of the largest mysterious sports teams offers an overview of their over-Mal potential to too much or to disappoint.
Here are the biggest jokers in university football before the 2025 season.
All qualifying ratings via Fanduel Sportsbook.
Costs to reach CFP: +520
The five victories that UTAH published last season was the least of its time of the power conference and broke a bowl sequence that dates back to 2014. In short: it probably does not happen. There would be a great shock value to see a team leaving below .500 in the playoffs in one yearBut it is an featable feat for a program that promises a major offensive upgrade with an attractive double threat weapon Devon Dampier Arrive to solve the devastating quarter problems of the UTES. The entire starting offensive line is also back. Would someone be surprised if the Utes were swinging again around the eligibility threshold of the bowl? Probably not. But it is difficult to bet against Kyle Whittingham when he has so many tools at his disposal.
Costs to reach CFP: +1200
With Daniels milestone Finally in good health, last season was supposed to be the occasion of Kansas to finally bring everything together and shock the world of university football. Instead, a start of 1-5 prevented the Jayhawks from reaching a bowl match. But something changed in the section when the Lance Leipold team struck three consecutive victories on classified opponents. It is impossible to predict which version of Kansas appeared in 2025. If it is the first, it could be one of the best seasons in the history of the program. If it is the latter, it will only be “another year of Kansas football” at the bottom of the Big 12.
Costs to reach CFP: +360
SMU was a polarizing team before last season, but ended up proving all his believers with a trip to the match for the ACC title and an appearance in the play football playoffs. After Rhett Lashlee fareweed more than half of his starting range, the Mustangs are Back in the off -season limbo. Only two defensive starters are back from the qualifying team, and it is just to wonder how SMU is prepared to replace them with only one year of power recruitment experience to its credit. The depth of the alignment will determine if another wave of qualifying series is in the cards.
Indiana HOOSIERS
Costs to reach CFP: +630
Live and die by the transfer portal creates an immense boom or blow potential. Indiana was on the side of the arrow in a magical and historical year 1 under Curt Ciggnetti, but a large contingent of the university football public hesitates to adhere to another of these special campaigns in 2025. 23 Other transfers joined the mix of this off -season, and none is as important as that that Fernando Mendozawhose competitor’s potential of Darkhorse Heisman gives the Hoosiers the reason to believe that they will remain a team among the first 12 on a national scale. It’s on the few backwards back – Elijah Sarratt,, Mikail Kamara,, Aiden Fisher And Angelo ponds The head of them – to ensure that turnover does not put a ceiling on the ceiling of this program.
Costs to reach CFP: +570
The USC won six games in its first regular season in Big Ten. Believe it or not, whether the team of .500 was only a few games of affirmations in the playoffs. What if the trojans reversed their match fortunes from a score and spent 5-1 in these places this year instead of the 1-5 that they went in 2024? It is obviously not as simple, but the thin margins just show What variance Exists in the potential of this team for the 2nd year in Big Ten. Avoid Ohio State And Penn State could be leaping that this program desperately needs. On the other hand, a third season of disappointment can be the start of the end of the mandate of Lincoln Riley in Los Angeles.
Costs to reach CFP: +520
The last time the Oklahoma avoided the injury bug, it won 10 games and climbed up to 5th in the CFP ranking. In many ways, the beginnings of dry Softandos’s can be thrown aside as an aberrant value. Any team has spread that Minister with a wide and offensive receiver would be required to perish during such a charged conference. Positive regression is in store. The question is how much. Brent Venables needs it to manifest themselves in the form of at least a few additional victories in order to silence his criticisms. Defense should remain solid under the guidelines of venables, so if John Mateer Click on the Quarterrière and the new offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle is a success, Oklahoma should bounce very well. Until the disappearance of the playoffs? We will see.
Costs to reach CFP: +370
The hesitation to join Auburn as a qualifying series is justified. There is no proof of concept under Hugh Freeze, and the Tigers have not won more than six games since the pandemic. This is why many quickly took the splashes of this offseason on the recruitment path with a grain of salt. If there was a time for everything to meet, however, that’s all. The entire starting offensive line and the defensive rear field is back a year ago. Auburn boasts of the most promising receiver units in the country and Jackson Arnold is a candidate in small groups in the quarter-Arrière. All from .500 to the compression of the dry title is at stake for this joker team.