We are just over 50 days away from kickoff of the 2025 college football season. The road to a national championship includes many steps along the way, with one of the first major goals for every team being a conference title.
Under the 12-team College Football Playoff format, winning your conference carries even more weight with the five highest ranked conference champions receiving an automatic bid. Last season saw a fair share of league favorites take care of business, along with a few surprise teams that rose above and claimed a conference crown.
With realignment shaking up many conferences, including more teams and deeper competition, repeating as champion will be no easy task. With that in mind, let’s rank last season’s conference champions based on their likelihood to repeat in 2025.
In a rare move at the Group of Five level, Marshall and head coach Charles Huff mutually agreed to part ways following their Sun Belt Championship last season. Huff moved on to conference foe Southern Miss and the Thundering Herd are now led by former NC State defensive coordinator Tony Gibson.
Huff’s departure triggered a massive roster change with 50 players transferring out, 21 of which followed him to Southern Miss. This massive exodus, combined with several key departures due to graduation or going pro, has left Marshall with one of the biggest roster turnovers in the country. On top of that, the Sun Belt is a strong Group of Five conference with a solid group of contenders at the top, making it highly unlikely that Marshall will repeat as champion in 2025.
Jacksonville State is another team that will look very different this season due to the departure of former head coach Rich Rodriguez who returned to West Virginia. Taking over in his place is longtime defensive coordinator Charles Kelly who recently had stops at Auburn, Colorado, and Alabama.
In Kelly’s first year as a head coach he will lead a team that ranks near the bottom in all of college football in returning production, largely due to 11 former Gamecocks who transferred out and landed at Power Four programs. While a repeat as Conference USA champions may be a longshot, Jax State should be extremely happy with where their program stands entering just their third season at the FBS level.
The Sun Devils have the most returning starters at the Power Four level with 17, including the QB-WR duo of Sam Leavitt and Jordyn Tyson, along with their entire coaching staff back. However, if there’s one conference champion I could see having a surprising letdown season, it would be Arizona State. This way of thinking is more about the Big 12 and less about ASU.
We saw it last season when the Sun Devils came out of nowhere, and with possibly eight teams having a legitimate shot at the title this year, the Big 12 is wide open. This conference is just pure chaos, and for that reason, I am not very confident in Arizona State’s chances of winning it again in 2025.
Army captured their first-ever conference title in their first season in the AAC last year. Being a service academy, Army is a team that will not see drastic change via the portal, but they did lose several key players to graduation. Among them is Bryson Daily who finished sixth in the Heisman race in 2024 and served as the Black Knights starting quarterback the past two seasons, a position that is critical in their triple option offense.
They do return two starters from an offensive line group that won the Joe Moore award last season in AAC First-Teamer Brady Small and 2024 AP Third Team All-American Paolo Gennarelli. Jeff Monken will always have a competitive team, but entering the season, Army appears to be behind Tulane, Navy, and potentially a few other programs in the conference.
Georgia won the SEC last season despite suffering two regular-season losses, and it would not be surprising to see the conference champion finish with one or even multiple losses again this year. Gunner Stockton, who started in last year’s playoff game for the Bulldogs, will take over the offense, while the defense, once again hit hard by the NFL Draft, returns just three starters. I would not worry much about that side of the ball, as Kirby Smart has consistently shown the ability to reload and field one of the top defenses in college football.
That said, the SEC is arguably the toughest conference to win, and just reaching the title game will be a tall task; especially for Georgia, whose schedule includes road games at Tennessee and Auburn, along with matchups against Alabama, Ole Miss, Florida, and Texas. Sportsbooks would likely have the Bulldogs higher on this list as they are currently tied with Texas as favorites to win the SEC.
Ohio will aim to be the first team since 2011-2012 (Northern Illinois) to repeat as MAC champions. The Bobcats avoided the typical roster turnover that often follows a head coach’s departure, likely thanks to promoting from within, as former offensive coordinator Brian Smith takes over as head coach in Athens.
They return 2024 Second Team All-MAC quarterback Parker Navarro and brought back running back Sieh Bangura to create a dangerous rushing backfield duo. Bangura began his college career at Ohio, where he won MAC Freshman of the Year, before transferring to Minnesota where things seemingly did not work out. Ohio’s toughest competition in the chase for a second straight title will be Toledo and Miami (OH), but look out for Buffalo coming off a surprisingly strong first season under Pete Lembo.
The Ducks proved they were ready for the jump to the Big Ten, finishing the regular season undefeated and capturing the conference title in their first year in the league. Like Georgia, Oregon lost a significant amount of talent, but strong recruiting and transfer portal additions should keep them from missing a step. The biggest factor in who this team will be this season is quarterback Dante Moore, the projected starter, who brings valuable experience from his time at UCLA.
The main reason I have Oregon above Georgia on this list is their schedule. To have a chance to win the conference, you obviously have to make it to the conference championship game, and the Ducks are well-positioned to do that with a favorable schedule. If they are able to get there, they would likely face either Penn State, who they meet in the regular season, or Ohio State.
Few teams enter the 2025 season with more hype than Dabo Swinney and the Clemson Tigers. After a brief dip from their usual dominance, Clemson once again looks like the team to beat in the ACC and has a strong chance to repeat as conference champions.
The Tigers return eight starters from a defensive unit that was not as strong as usual last season, but is expected to see major improvement under new coordinator Tom Allen. On offense, quarterback Cade Klubnik returns for his third year in Garrett Riley’s system and enters the season as a top Heisman contender. It’s no secret that the ACC has been weak in recent years, which gives Clemson a good chance to reclaim their dominance and control in 2025.
Boise State is currently the only team in college football with minus odds to win its conference at -135. The Broncos have consistently been one of the premier Group of Five programs, and I would not expect that to change anytime soon with the new playoff format guaranteeing a spot to at least one Group of Five team.
Head coach Spencer Danielson gets his quarterback back in Maddux Madsen, who consistently stepped up in big moments last season, but we all know the story for Boise State in 2024 was the rushing attack led by Ashton Jeanty. I do not expect to see much decline in that aspect with four starting offensive lineman that paved the way last season coming back.
Once again, the Mountain West appears to be a two-horse race, with UNLV as the only real threat under new head coach Dan Mullen. If the Broncos win the conference title this year, it would be a three-peat, marking the first time a team has won three consecutive Mountain West titles in the Championship Game era.