My Dear Old Dad passed at 98 years of age, and he waited for over eight decades, ‘Until Next Year’, which finally happened in 2004. It took 86 seasons for his Beloved Red Sox to overcome the curses of trading The Bambino (Babe Ruth) to the hated Yankees, and Fenway Park opening on the night the Titanic went down. Mr. FishDuck took a break from his fun at killerrobotsgames.com to hope out loud that the wait in Eugene for a ‘Natty won’t be as long!
For Oregon football fans, first in line Uncle Phil, who have come oh so close (Dyer’s knee was down!) to winning it all, 2025-26 will be ‘Next Year’ right? Right!
It’s College Football, so contending teams, teams with Blue Chip Rosters, like OBD, no matter how a team finished in 2024-25, will be in the playoff mix in 2025-26. Teams with 4* and 5* recruits making up 50% or more of a team’s roster, (Blue Chip teams) have won every BCS, 4-team playoff, and 2024-25’s 12-team playoff.
The rankings below, and I am only going as deep as the 2025-26 12-team playoff rankings, are compared with the AP Final Poll (AP), released after Ohio State defeated Notre Dame to win last season’s title. There is a possibility that playoff seeding in 2025-26 will mirror the playoff committee final ranking, but until it happens, I’m using the 2024-25 format, and teams below reflect the same seeding. SIGH!
1. Texas – 4 AP- Putting a lot on a QB with great genes, but not much game experience. And with a piece-of-cake opener, right?
2. Ohio State – 1 AP – Many studs off to the NFL, a new OC and DC, but Blue as it gets Blue Chip roster. And IMO, Day getting over the hump matters.
3. Clemson – TSN 7/ AP 7 – Clemson is ranked higher in many revised polls, as high as No. 1. Dabo, Dabo, Do?
4. Arizona State -TSN 14/ AP 13 – The Sun Devils battled beyond the wire vs. Texas in the Peach Bowl. Do it again? Come On, Dilly!
5. Georgia – TSN 3/ AP 6 – HMMMM? UGA 2-0 vs. Texas in 2024, with the games in Austin and Atlanta. The Dawgs will be Hornyed in Athens? I don’t 👁️ it.
Penn State has an incredible 106,000 fan capacity home field edge. (Photo by Steven Walter, Courtesy of Penn State Athletics)
6. Penn State – TSN 4/ AP 5 – In revised post-spring polls, you can find the Nits at the top. Following the Michigan and Ohio State model, some great add-ons and quality starters in 2024 being shown the money.
7. Notre Dame – TSN 5/ AP 2 – The schedule ramps up. Like OBD, will a QB without Bo and Gabe-like experience come through?
8. OREGON – TSN 6/ AP 3 – Will OBD come up Roses or be pricked again? TSN sees a 1st round home game versus…
9. Alabama – TSN 8/ AP 17 – We want Bama! Right? How about evening the score with DeBoer?
10. LSU – TSN 9/ AP Not Ranked – The move up comes from winning the December and Spring portal rankings and returning an experienced QB in Nussmeier. Tough opener at Clemson’s version of Death Valley.
11. Illinois – TSN 10/ AP 16 – This season’s Indiana? 18 starters back, including QB Altmeyer, for a 10-win team.
12. Boise State – TSN Not Ranked/ AP 8! Others in the G6 running, Navy, UNLV, and Memphis, among others. Whatever, the G5 candidate based on any and every metric should not be ranked above a P4 champ, even if an NFL 1st round draft choice is on the roster.
Make No Mistake! This is most definitely, assuredly, no doubt, OBD’s Year!
(If not? I’ll Wait Until Next Year!)
Jon Joseph
Aiken, South Carolina
Top Photo by Eric Becker
(In previous articles, I have used The Sporting News (TSN) Preseason Composite Top 25 ranking, which combined the TSN preseason top 25 rankings and the rankings of nine other prominent college football sites. But stuff happened between the release of this ranking on January 21, 2025, and today’s TSN post-spring stand-alone ranking, released on May 2, 2025.
TSN’s updated ranking is not a composite ranking. Rankings post-spring have been released by some, but not all, of the sites used in the earlier composite rankings. But I like using TSN rankings; TSN does not have a Dawg or a Duck in the fight, a broadcast deal that arguably biases the ranking.)
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Jon Joseph grew up in Boston, Massachusetts but has been blessed to have lived long enough in the west to have exorcised all east coast bias. He played football in college and has passionately followed the game for seven decades. A retired corporate attorney Jon has lectured across the country and published numerous articles on banking and gaming law. Now a resident of Aiken South Carolina, Jon follows college football across the nation with a focus on the Conference of Champions and the Ducks.