Just like any other college football season, this one has had a variety of stories both good and bad, but not all of them are created equal.
Yeah, we’ve heard about guys like Indiana (the favorite to win the natty) and Penn State (who took the biggest tumble from preseason hype), but what about those with telling performances that flew under the radar, the ones that haven’t been picked apart by the media? They deserve their own shares of the spotlight, and that’s precisely what they’ll be given today.
But the plan is not to simply sit here and list everyone that’s starting their offseason on a remotely good/bad note; rather, it’s to acknowledge the team that’s had the most encouraging run and the one that’s had the most discouraging…at least among those that virtually no one’s seeming to notice. With that said, the choice for our big winner in this equation should be rather agreeable.
Winner: Wake Forest
If you know anything about Wake Forest’s history in the football space, you know that the Demon Deacons usually have to take whatever they can get, but that wasn't the case this season, as they finished with an objectively sound record of 9-4.
For a program so underhanded to do so well in these greedy times we live in is impressive on its own, but it involving both a road win over a ranked Virginia and a convincing bowl win over an SEC team (Mississippi State)—all while under the management of a first-year head coach in Jake Dickert—sounds borderline unbelievable.
That latter win made the 2025-26 campaign just the fourth to ever see the Deacs reach the nine-win threshold, and it also guaranteeing that the SEC wouldn’t amass a winning record against the ACC didn’t exactly kill any vibes either.
Loser: Nebraska
This selection may come off as weaker, as the Nebraska Cornhuskers are far removed from the days of their mediocrity being a surprise, but to me? This season was the first where they truly felt irredeemable.
Last season’s Huskers weren’t great, but by making and winning a bowl game against a Power 4 opponent to go positive, it appeared as if a page towards relevance was at least beginning to turn. When combining that with head coach Matt Rhule’s fame for his miracle-working usually paying off in his third year with a team (which was this season), some might have argued that 2025 should’ve been a breakthrough…yet here we are.
Despite starting its 2025 slate 7-3, Nebraska entered the Las Vegas Bowl 7-5 after suffering back-to-back blowouts against a struggling, interim-led Penn State, and rival Iowa. As for how things went in Vegas, the Cornhuskers got decimated again, this time against Utah, another team that had recently lost a legendary head coach. That left them with the same 7-6 tally they put up in ‘24, quantifying the lack of improvement.
Especially when other members of the Big Ten are successfully proving their conference to now be college football’s best, few endings are as disheartening as that one was for Nebraska—and just when you thought the gods of this great sport couldn’t test Huskers fans any harder.