On the heels of a historic college football season, let's make a pact. No more griping, grumbling, and complaining about everything that's wrong with the sport. At least for a little while.
So, this feels like the right moment for a little reflection. On3's Chris Low looks back at some of the best and worst of the 2025 season, one that still has many of us rubbing our eyes.
Indiana won its first national championship. Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy. Curt Cignetti completed the greatest two-year turnaround in college football history. With the obvious covered, here's a look at a few moments that defined the season.
Best game: Miami 31, Ole Miss 27
It came down to the final play, with Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss heaving a pass to the left corner of the end zone as De'Zhaun Stribling tussled with Miami defensive back Ethan O'Connor. Falling down or being dragged down, Stribling could only get one hand on the ball, capping a classic back-and-forth game in the Fiesta Bowl.
The final five minutes were pure cinema. Miami and Ole Miss traded 75-yard touchdown drives, with the Rebels taking a 27-24 lead with 3:13 remaining. Miami quarterback Carson Beck answered with a 3-yard touchdown run with 18 seconds left. Chambliss' final Hail Mary fell incomplete, and the Hurricanes were on their way to the national championship game.
Best moment: "Hurts So Good"
Thousands of Indiana fans joined in singing Indiana native John Mellencamp's "Hurts So Good" as the Hoosiers celebrated their national championship at Hard Rock Stadium. In the middle of it all, Fernando Mendoza shared a teary-eyed hug with his mother, Elsa, who is battling multiple sclerosis. Mendoza later called her his "inspiration" and his "light."
Best team that didn't make the playoff: Notre Dame
Notre Dame didn't play a menacing schedule, but it was playing menacing football at the end of the regular season. The Irish would have been a tough out for anyone in the playoff. But instead of lining up for a bowl game, Notre Dame elected not to play after being left out of the CFP. You don't take your ball and go home just because you didn't like the result. Good thing Rudy never quit.
Best comeback: Texas A&M 31, South Carolina 30
Texas A&M trailed 30-3 at halftime before pulling off the largest comeback in school history. Quarterback Marcel Reed rebounded from a dreadful first half to throw for a career-high 439 yards, and the Aggies' defense held South Carolina scoreless after the break. Entering the game, teams were 0-286 in SEC play since 2004 when trailing by 27 points or more.
Best quote: Deion Sanders
"The smell of weed in the second quarter. That surprised the heck out of me. Every game, I'm like, 'Dang, it seems like it's like a light-up quarter.' You know what I'm saying."
Sanders, asked what surprised him about playing at Colorado's Folsom Field, went on to say he'd never been high a day in his life. "That's kind of new to me." For the record, recreational marijuana use has long been legal in Colorado, but the University of Colorado is a non-smoking campus.
Worst quote: Dabo Swinney
"Hey, listen, if Clemson's tired of winning, they can send me on my way, but I'm going to go somewhere else and coach. I ain't going to the beach. Hell, I'm 55. I've got a long way to go. Y'all are gonna have to deal with me for a while."
Swinney said it after Clemson started the season 1-2 with a home loss to Syracuse. The Tigers finished 7-6, with more losses than they suffered combined from 2015 to 2019.
Worst cop-out: SEC
Enough with the excuses. Bowl games count. Playoff games count. The SEC was shut out of the national championship game for the third straight season despite putting five teams in the playoff. Curt Cignetti was right. There has been a paradigm shift, and the SEC had better adjust or get used to it.
Biggest myth: Interest in college football is declining
The 30.1 million viewers who watched Indiana-Miami in the national championship made it the second-most-watched CFP title game ever and the fourth-most-watched national championship dating back to the BCS era. For all the chaos, people still love this sport. We're still watching in record numbers. It's still the best game going.
Read all 24 of Chris Low's 2025 superlatives.
No comments:
Post a Comment