{"id":74262,"date":"2025-08-11T08:55:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74262\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T08:55:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T08:55:08","slug":"5-college-football-breakthrough-teams-to-watch-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/74262\/","title":{"rendered":"5 College Football Breakthrough Teams to Watch in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 College Football Breakthrough Teams to Watch in 2025<\/a> originally appeared on College Football News<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Indiana, SMU, and Arizona State were big surprises last year, but will they have staying power? Will they be in their respective conference races for the foreseeable future?<\/p>\n

Which teams might not just surprise a wee bit, but appear to have the upside and infrastructure to be consistent players?<\/p>\n

Think Illinois and Navy of last year, Colorado of two years ago, and Louisville when Jeff Brohm took over.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which programs have the upside to be steadily above-average going forward?<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

College Football 2025: 5 Teams Ready for a Breakthrough Season\"Sep<\/p>\n

Sep 28, 2024; Lubbock, Texas, USA; Texas Tech Red Raiders quarterback Behren Morton (2) after the game against the Cincinnati Bearcats at Jones AT&T Stadium and Cody Campbell Field.\u00a9 Michael C&period; Johnson-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

5. Houston<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Houston 2025 Preview<\/a><\/p>\n

Willie Fritz needed a year to put things in place. Houston was a 12-win team in 2021, slid downhill for a few seasons, and now it should be far stronger with an offense that should start to produce.<\/p>\n

If the team could’ve scored 21 points in every game last season, it would’ve gone 7-5 instead of 4-8. The D is fine, the O is better, and the schedule helps.<\/p>\n

Stephen F. Austin, at Rice, Colorado, at Oregon State. There’s a real shot to match last year’s win total before October, and then comes …<\/p>\n

– CFN Preview 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

4. Texas Tech<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Texas Tech 2025 Preview<\/a><\/p>\n

This might be the most fascinating team going into the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

It was going to be fine, and then the portal kicked in hard with one of the best hauls of transfers of any program in the nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Head coach Joey McGuire has done a great job in his first three years of making Texas Tech good, but with a very\u00a0favorable home schedule and with a deep and loaded roster, this is when the staying power under McGuire is solidified.<\/p>\n

3. Georgia Tech<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Georgia Tech 2025 Preview<\/a><\/p>\n

After two straight 7-5 seasons under Brent Key, the Yellow Jackets return a ton of talent, a great veteran quarterback in Haynes King, and the experience and big wins to expect more.<\/p>\n

The program hasn’t won more than seven games in a season since 2016, but with a schedule that should help with a base of winnable games out of Gardner-Webb, at Colorado, Temple, at Wake Forest, Syracuse, at Duke, at Boston College, and Pitt.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

2. Illinois<\/p>\n

–\u00a0Illinois 2025 Preview<\/a><\/p>\n

It all should work, and Illinois should finally have that second straight big season that shows just how good the program can be, but …<\/p>\n

It should be Missouri. It should be Wisconsin – back when it was good at football. It should be good enough in that region of the country to be an annual problem for everyone else, but it hasn’t always worked out.<\/p>\n

The 2001 team went to the Sugar Bowl. The program won 13 games over the next five years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 2007 team went to the Rose Bowl. Next year, Illinois went 5-7.<\/p>\n

There’s a chance Bret Bielema becomes the first Illinois head coach to own two double-digit win seasons. His 2025 team is just that good. <\/p>\n

(And there’s no Penn State, Michigan, or Oregon to face.)<\/p>\n

1. USF<\/p>\n

–\u00a0USF Team Preview<\/a><\/p>\n

This feels like the 29th straight season of expecting USF to bust through and be a consistent national factor, but this year’s team might be it.<\/p>\n

Alex Golesh put up two straight 7-6 seasons after taking over a program that won a total of eight games in the previous four years, but it wasn’t all that long ago that USF won 11 games under Willie Taggart in 2016, and then ten more under Charlie Strong a year later.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bulls are loaded with returning veterans, the last two years built up to this point, and if they can get past a brutal start – Boise State, at Florida, and at Miami – they should rip through the rest of the slate. They should get to eight wins or more for the first time since 2017.<\/p>\n

Related: 5 College Football Teams Headed For a Letdown in 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally reported by College Football News<\/a> on Aug 10, 2025, where it first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 College Football Breakthrough Teams to Watch in 2025 originally appeared on College Football News. Indiana, SMU, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[26980,52973,16903,11409,1769,3832,2808,399,26028,52974,9228,27124,5629,27120,52972,7737,1303,6747,398,396,397,5357,8392,17641,99,52971,52975,1022,20471,13419,1745],"class_list":["post-74262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-arizona-state","tag-behren-morton","tag-boise-state","tag-boston-college","tag-cincinnati-bearcats","tag-colorado","tag-florida","tag-football","tag-foreseeable-future","tag-gardner-webb","tag-georgia-tech","tag-haynes-king","tag-illinois","tag-jeff-brohm","tag-joey-mcguire","tag-louisville","tag-michigan","tag-missouri","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-oregon-state","tag-penn-state","tag-rice","tag-sports","tag-stephen-f-austin","tag-temple","tag-texas","tag-texas-tech","tag-texas-tech-red-raiders","tag-wisconsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}