It is so hard for anyone to stand out in Nashville because everyone in Nashville is always trying so hard to stand out.

All of those off-the-bus would-be country music stars, performing in so many Broadway bars owned by so many actual stars, entertaining all those bachelorettes in pink cowboy hats and those dudes who look like they are attending a Luke Combs lookalike contest. Music City, USA is always a good time, but it also becomes very repetitive. This town aches for someone to come along and finally snap it out of its endless two-stepping loop. Say, a big-haired blond woman from Sevierville, Tennessee. Or a Man in Black on the train a-comin’ from Folsom. Maybe a girl from a Christmas tree farm in eastern Pennsylvania.

Or a Bama-beating water bug of a quarterback who rolled in off a desert wind that blew in from New Mexico.

“Straight out the dirt, son,” Diego Pavia says, the 24-year-old laughing as he sits up and slaps his hand on a meeting room table in Vanderbilt football’s quarterbacks meeting room. “When I first got here, you would walk down to Broadway and everyone had on Alabama stuff or Georgia stuff or the bars would just have Tennessee flags out front. Now I see a lot of Vandy V’s out there. I think maybe people didn’t see that coming. Just like they didn’t see me coming.”

They see him now. We all do. One year ago, we saw the 6-foot QB (well, that’s how tall the Vanderbilt media guide says he is, but most everyone lists him at 5-10 … but, when a 5-10 sportswriter looks him in the eye, he might be 5-9 … but who cares because he’s also built like a BMW X4) lead the Commodores to the program’s first winning season, first stint in the AP Top 25 and first bowl win since the 2013 campaign. On Oct. 5, 2024, we saw him emulate his childhood hero, Johnny Manziel, by running past No. 1 Alabama, Vandy’s first win over the Tide in 40 years and first win over a top-5 team ever, ending an 0-60 drought.

And in more recent days, the world has seen Pavia at SEC media days and on Netflix, proclaiming that longtime lowly SEC cellar dweller Vandy can be a national title contender. And as the world entered last weekend, it did so dancing along with No. 2 in a music video that dropped for the song “Pavia Mafia,” as artist Axel Varela declared: “From the 505 to the world, baby!” and “Yo me enamoré del juego,” which translates to “I fell in love with the game.”

What none of us saw were those days when that love affair began for Pavia. It was on the outskirts of Albuquerque, where he grew up as the third of four children, with two older brothers and a kid sister. They were raised by Antoinette Padilla, who found herself in the role of a single mother as Diego was becoming a teenager and realized that her job as a front desk office worker wasn’t going to cover the bills. She had grown up as one of 14 siblings, also in a single-parent home, and refused to put her kids through that same struggle. So she enrolled in nursing school.

“I remember all of her books and papers spread out all over the kitchen table,” Pavia recalls. “She would cook dinner for us and we’d all eat and I’d see she hadn’t eaten anything. I’d ask her about it and she’d just say, ‘Oh, I’m not hungry.’ Now I realize that she was hungry, but that’s all we had. We were kids, so all we knew was that ‘we good, man.’ But now we know it’s because she was always sacrificing.”

Padilla was also always working. Once she began her career as a long-term care nurse, she refused to be saddled with the loans she had taken out to pay for school. She studied house flipping and started buying fixer-uppers around Albuquerque. And who do you think did the fixing?

“We would work in the yards, paint, install new windows, all of it, as kids,” Pavia says with a little shake of his head. “She would rent them out, save up and then sell them. Then she started doing cars on the side. Buy a car cheap at auction, for like $2,000, fix it up and resell it for $6,000.”

So, if one were to buy a house with windows installed or a car detailed by 13-year-old Diego Pavia, were they going to be happy with the results?

“I haven’t received any complaints yet, man.”

In their mother’s sizable wake, the three boys attacked every aspect of their lives at full throttle, especially when it came to football and wrestling. Oldest brother Roel participated in both sports at Briar Cliff University, an NAIA school in Sioux City, Iowa. Just as Mom had shown Diego how to scramble out of debt, his brother showed him the benefits of attending college.

“As he got older, he developed into a rock,” Roel says. “He hit that growth spurt and it was all muscle. That’s when the older brothers stop picking on little brother because little brother can kick your ass.”

That growth was in the shoulders and legs. It was not in height. So, even as Diego led the Volcano Vista Hawks to a perfect regular season and the state semifinals, no one in Division I college football gave the QB a serious look. But what hurt the most was when the hometown New Mexico Lobos said they were passing not because they thought he was too small, but because he was too cocky.

“He still isn’t over that one,” Vandy football consultant Jerry Kill says with a laugh. “I don’t think he ever will be over that one. That’s always been part of his gasoline.”

Instead, Pavia settled for New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he led his team to the 2021 junior college national title. That night, his heroics for the Broncos were being shown on local New Mexico television. Bellied up to the bar in the Las Cruces Hooters were Kill and longtime mentee Tim Beck, the just-hired head coach and offensive coordinator at New Mexico State. They were watching the game to scout a quarterback — initially, Pavia’s opponent. But when the fire hydrant playing QB for NMMI ran through Iowa Western for a 34-yard touchdown and an early 14-0 lead, Kill looked at Beck and said, “Hell, man, we’ve been watching the wrong guy.”

That wrong guy became the right guy for the New Mexico State Aggies, as Pavia led the bottom-10 stalwart to a 7-6 record in 2022. The following year, the Aggies went 10-5, the program’s first double-digit-win season in more than six decades. Pavia most relished the Aggies’ win over New Mexico in Albuquerque, even more than their stunning upset at Auburn. Unfortunately, he went viral after that Rio Grande Rivalry win when video surfaced of him urinating on the UNM logo at its indoor practice facility. That incident came up again at season’s end, when New Mexico State earned an invite to the New Mexico Bowl, hosted by the Lobos, and the Aggies weren’t allowed to use that facility to prepare for the game.

“That was embarrassing and inexcusable and no one knows that more than Diego Pavia,” Kill says. “But I also told you he was still mad about what happened coming out of high school.”

“We all make mistakes,” Pavia admits now.

When Kill retired following that magical 2022 season, Pavia nearly made another mistake, though at the time most believed his mistake to be the decision that he made, not the one he backed out on. Suddenly a hot commodity at the dawn of the NIL era, Pavia accepted an invite and a nice payout to transfer from New Mexico State to Nevada. Then his phone rang. It was Kill, whose retirement had lasted all of a few weeks.

“I went to Las Cruces to try and convince Tim Beck to come help us with our offense,” Clark Lea says of the trip he took in late fall 2023, just as he had wrapped up his third season as head coach at Vanderbilt, his alma mater. It was a crushingly disappointing year, the Commodores starting 2-0 but finishing 2-10. “Jerry sat in on some of our conversations and we all connected immediately.”

Soon Beck was headed to Nashville with several of his offensive players in tow. Kill tells the story that he was on the beach in Mexico, three margaritas deep, when Beck and Lea finally convinced him to join them. Pavia tells the story that Kill then called him and said, “Don’t make a mistake and go to Nevada. I’m moving to Nashville and you’re coming with me.”

Pavia loves Kill and Beck so much that he made the move without hesitation, even leaving money on the table at Nevada. He also refused to leave Vandy after the storybook tale of 2024, telling the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast that he had passed on a $4 million-plus NIL offer from an SEC rival to remain in Music City. What’s more, he won an injunction versus the NCAA for one more year of eligibility, instead of being penalized for time served at the junior college level.

“I think that it is easy to see the guy who likes to talk a little and who likes to celebrate a lot and think, ‘Oh, he’s that guy,'” Lea says. “But look at what he has done to be here and stay here, and look at the 50 people who come from New Mexico to be with his family at our games. That’s someone who loves this place.

“Talk to our basketball office or [Vandy baseball head coach] Tim Corbin, and they will tell you that Diego is in their offices, asking about what it takes to win. He has big dreams for himself, but he came here and all of those people come here with him because they love it here.”

Now, everyone else is coming, too, to be with the Pavia Mafia to watch college football at, of all places, Vanderbilt. Yes, he is most definitely prone to hyperbole, but Pavia’s observation about the gentle transfusion of black and gold into the college football identity of the bars along the Cumberland River is no exaggeration. It’s visible. As are the construction cranes that cover FirstBank Stadium, long the SEC’s time capsule of football venues, and the ground being broken to replace the team’s cramped subterranean 1990s football facilities.

All of that renovation was already on the books before Pavia arrived. But the kid who used to flip houses with his mother has injected that sweat equity investment mentality into Nashville’s business community and Vanderbilt’s alumni base.

Nashville is a city that has been constructed atop the idea of having a good time. Residents and visitors alike have never had a problem finding that good time everywhere from Tootsies to the Titans. Now, thanks to the QB that no one saw coming, they are discovering a good time at a place that has been hiding in plain sight since it hosted the state of Tennessee’s first college football game in 1890.

“Building stuff is fun, man,” Pavia says. “It isn’t easy. But nothing worth it is ever easy. So when that work pays off, let’s enjoy it, Vandy. We earned it because we built it.”

Straight out the dirt?

“Straight out the damn dirt.”

Whew. That was some weekend. The Milwaukee Brewers kept winning — until they finally lost. The New York Mets kept losing — until they finally won. The Los Angeles Dodgers made a big statement, the Philadelphia Phillies suffered a crushing injury, and the Chicago Cubs managed to win a series even though their bats remain cold.

What’s going on with these National League contenders? With fan bases in euphoria or despair, let’s make some verdicts on those current states of overreaction.

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Overreaction: The Brewers are unquestionably MLB’s best team

“Unquestionably” is a loaded word, especially since we’re writing this right after the Brewers reeled off 14 consecutive victories and won a remarkable 29 of 33 games. They became just the 11th team this century to win at least 14 in a row, and you don’t fluke your way to a 14-game winning streak: Each of the previous 10 teams to win that many in a row made the playoffs, and four won 100 games. Baseball being baseball, however, none won the World Series.

The Brewers were just the sixth team this century to win 29 of 33. Cleveland won 30 of 33 in 2017, riding a 22-game winning streak that began in late August. That team, which finished with 102 wins but lost the wild-card series to the New York Yankees, resembled these Brewers as a small-market, scrappy underdog. The Dodgers in 2017 and 2022 and the A’s in 2001 and 2002 also won 29 of 33. None of these teams won the World Series, either.

For the season, the Brewers have five more wins than the Detroit Tigers while easily leading the majors in run differential at plus-168, with the Cubs a distant second at plus-110. Those figures seem to suggest the Brewers are clearly the best team, with a nice balance of starting pitching (No. 1 in ERA), relief pitching (No. 10 in ERA and No. 8 in win probability added), offense (No. 1 in runs scored), defense (No. 7 in defensive runs saved) and baserunning (No. 2 in stolen bases). None of their position players were All-Stars, but other than shortstop Joey Ortiz the Brewers roll out a lineup that usually features eight average-or-better hitters, with Christian Yelich heating up and Andrew Vaughn on a tear since he joined the club.

On the other hand, via Clay Davenport’s third-order wins and losses, which project a team’s winning percentage based on underlying statistics adjusted for quality of opponents, the Brewers are neck-and-neck with the Cubs, with both teams a few projected wins behind the Yankees. Essentially, the Brewers have scored more runs and allowed fewer than might otherwise be expected based on statistics. Indeed, the Brewers lead the majors with a .288 average with runners in scoring position while holding their opponents to the third-lowest average with runners in scoring position.

Those underlying stats, though, include the first four games of the season, when the Brewers went 0-4 and allowed 47 runs. Several of those relievers who got pounded early on are no longer in the bullpen, and ever since the Brewers sorted out their relief arms, the pen has been outstanding: It’s sixth in ERA and third in lowest OPS allowed since May 1.

Then factor in that the Brewers now have Brandon Woodruff and Jacob Misiorowski in the rotation (although Misiorowski struggled in his last start following a two-week stint on the injured list). The Brewers are also the best baserunning team in the majors, which leads to a few extra runs above expectation.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. The Brewers look like the most well-rounded team in the majors, particularly if Yelich and Vaughn keep providing power in the middle of the order. They have played well against good teams: 6-0 against the Dodgers, 3-0 against the Phillies and Boston Red Sox, 4-2 against the New York Mets and 7-3 against the Cincinnati Reds. They’re 5-4 against the Cubs with four games left in the five-game series. None of this guarantees a World Series, but they’re on pace to win 100 games because they are the best team going right now.

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Overreaction: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s struggles are a big concern

On July 30, PCA went 3-for-4 with two doubles and two runs in a 10-3 victory for the Cubs over the Brewers. He was hitting .272/.309/.559, playing electrifying defense in center field, and was the leader in the NL MVP race with 5.7 fWAR, more than a win higher than Fernando Tatis Jr. and Shohei Ohtani. The Brewers had started to get hot, but the Cubs, after leading the NL Central most of the season, were just a game behind in the standings.

July 31 was an off day. Then the calendar flipped to August and Crow-Armstrong entered a slump that has featured no dying quails, no gorks, no ground balls with eyes. He’s 8-for-52 in August with no home runs, one RBI and two runs scored. The Cubs, averaging 5.3 runs per game through the end of July, are at just 2.75 runs per game in August and have seen the Brewers build a big lead in the division.

Crow-Armstrong’s slump isn’t necessarily a surprise. Analysts have been predicting regression for some time due to one obvious flaw in PCA’s game: He swings at everything. He has the fifth-highest chase rate among qualified batters, swinging at over 42% of pitches out of the strike zone. It seemed likely that it was only a matter of time before pitchers figured out how to exploit Crow-Armstrong’s aggressiveness.

Doubling down on the regression predictions, PCA has produced strong power numbers despite a below-average hard-hit rate (44th percentile) and average exit velocity (47th percentile). Although raw power isn’t always necessary to produce extra-base power — see Jose Altuve — those metrics were a red flag that PCA might have been overachieving.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. OK, here’s the odd thing: PCA’s chase rate has improved in August to just 28%, but that hasn’t translated to success. His hard-hit rate isn’t much lower than it was the rest of the season (although his average fly ball distance has dropped about 20 feet). His struggles against left-handers are real: After slugging .600 against them in April, he has hit .186 and slugged .390 against them since May 1. He’ll start hitting again at some point, but it’s reasonable to assume he’s not going to hit like he did from April through July.

It’s not all on PCA, however. Kyle Tucker has been just as bad in August (.148, no home runs, one RBI). Michael Busch is hitting .151. Seiya Suzuki has only one home run. Those four had carried the offense, and all are scuffling at once. For the Cubs to rebound, they need this entire group to get back on track. Put it this way: The Cubs have won just three of their past eight series — and those were against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles and Chicago White Sox.

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Overreaction: The Mets are doomed and will miss the playoffs

On July 27, the Mets completed a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants to improve to 62-44, holding a 1½-game lead over the Phillies in the NL East. According to FanGraphs, New York’s odds of winning the division stood at 55% and its chances of making the playoffs were nearly 97%. A few days later, the Mets reinforced the bullpen — the club’s biggest weakness — with Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers at the trade deadline (after already acquiring Gregory Soto).

It’s never that easy with the Mets though, is it? The San Diego Padres swept them. The Cleveland Guardians swept them. The Brewers swept them. Helsley lost three games and blew a lead in another outing. The rotation has a 6.22 ERA in August. The Mets lost 14 of 16 before finally taking the final two games against the Seattle Mariners this past weekend to temporarily ease the panic level from DEFCON 1 to DEFCON 2. The Phillies have a comfortable lead in the division and the Mets have dropped to the third wild-card position, just one game ahead of the Reds. The team with the highest payroll in the sport is in very real danger of missing the playoffs.

VERDICT: OVERREACTION. The bullpen issues are still a concern given Helsley’s struggles, and Rogers has fanned just one of the 42 batters he has faced since joining the Mets. Still, this team is loaded with talent, as reflected in FanGraphs’ playoffs odds, which gave the Mets an 86% chance of making the postseason entering Monday (with the Reds at 14%). One note, however: The Reds lead the season series 2 games to 1, which gives them the tiebreaker edge if the teams finish with the same record. A three-game set in Cincinnati in early September looms as one of the biggest series the rest of the season. Mets fans have certainly earned the right to brood over the team’s current state of play, but the team remains favored to at least squeak out a wild card.

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Overreaction: Zack Wheeler’s absence is a big problem for the Phillies

The Phillies’ ace just went on the IL because of a blood clot near his right shoulder, with no timetable on a potential return. The injury is serious enough that his availability for the rest of the season is in jeopardy. Manager Rob Thomson said the team has enough rotation depth to battle on without Wheeler, but there are some other issues there as well:

• Ranger Suarez has a 5.86 ERA in six starts since the All-Star break.

• Aaron Nola was activated from the IL on Sunday to replace Wheeler for his first MLB start in three months and gave up six runs in 2⅓ innings, raising his season ERA to 6.92.

• Taijuan Walker has a 3.34 ERA but also a 4.73 FIP and probably isn’t someone you would feel comfortable starting in a playoff series.

• Even Jesus Luzardo has been inconsistent all season, with a 4.21 ERA.

Minus Wheeler, that arguably leaves Cristopher Sanchez as the team’s only sure-thing reliable starter at the moment. Though a trip to the playoffs certainly looks secure, all this opens the door for the Mets to make it a race for the division title.

VERDICT: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Making the playoffs is one thing, but it’s also about peaking at the right time, and given the scary nature of Wheeler’s injury, the Phillies might not end up peaking when they need to. Nola certainly can’t be counted on right now and Suarez has suddenly struggled a bit to miss bats. There’s time here for Nola and Suarez to fix things, and the bullpen has been strengthened with the additions of Jhoan Duran and David Robertson, but even with Wheeler, the Phillies are just 22-18 since the beginning of July. Indeed, their ultimate hopes might rest on an offense that has let them down the past two postseasons and hasn’t been great this season aside from Kyle Schwarber. If they don’t score runs, it won’t matter who is on the mound.

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Overreaction: The Dodgers just buried the Padres with their three-game sweep

It was a statement series: The Dodgers, battled, bruised and slumping, had fallen a game behind the Padres in the NL West. But they swept the Padres at Dodger Stadium behind stellar outings from Clayton Kershaw and Blake Snell, and a clutch Mookie Betts home run to cap a rally from a 4-0 deficit. Still the kings of the NL West, right?

After all, the Dodgers are finally rolling out that dream rotation: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Snell and Kershaw are all healthy and at full strength for the first time this season. Only Roki Sasaki is missing. Yamamoto has been solid all season, Ohtani ramped up to 80 pitches in his last start, Glasnow has a 2.50 ERA since returning from the IL in July, Snell has reeled off back-to-back scoreless starts, and even Kershaw, while not racking up many strikeouts, has lowered his season ERA to 3.01. That group should carry the Dodgers to their 12th division title in the past 13 seasons.

VERDICT: OVERREACTION. Calm down. One great series does not mean the Dodgers are suddenly fixed or that the Padres will fade away. The Dodgers’ bullpen is still battling injuries, Betts still has a sub-.700 OPS and injuries have forced them to play Alex Freeland, Miguel Rojas and Buddy Kennedy in the infield. Check back after next weekend, when the Padres host the Dodgers for their final regular-season series of 2025.

Media days are over. The polls are out. Early reports are that your team is looking absolutely fantastic in fall camp — they have lots of physicality, and the competition levels are off the charts!

We’ve passed most of the mile markers in college football’s long offseason, and the first games are less than two weeks away. Let’s cross another landmark off the list: It’s time to release the final preseason SP+ rankings. If you’ve been following along this offseason, through the initial February release and May update, the top of the rankings won’t surprise you very much. But let’s take stock one last time before Irish Farmageddon (Iowa State vs. Kansas State in Dublin) kicks off and the 2025 journey begins.

As always: SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.

Here are the full rankings (overall, offense, defense and special teams) along with each team’s average projected win total and strength-of-schedule ranking.

Since the May rankings, I’ve continued to update rosters for late transfers and fall camp injuries. But the largest changes came from some tweaking on my end — some teams with especially noteworthy luck (good or bad) saw some shifts, and after quite a bit of experimenting, I ended up tamping down the overall top-to-bottom spread of points. Translation: The top teams’ ratings aren’t quite as high as they were in May.

Some noteworthy early projections:

• Iowa State vs. Kansas State (-3.5): K-State by 4.8

• Texas at Ohio State (-2.5): Buckeyes by 5.5

• LSU at Clemson (-4.5): Clemson by 2.6

• Notre Dame (-2.5) at Miami: Irish by 1.4

• Alabama (-13) at Florida State: Bama by 14.3

• Auburn (-2) at Baylor: Auburn by 1.2

For better or worse, all of these are awfully close to the ESPN BET point spreads.

SP+ vs. conventional wisdom

As has become customary, there aren’t many huge differences between SP+ projections and the preseason polls. But there are still some differences worth noting.

(Note: Any references to poll rankings below come from mashing the point totals from the AP and Coaches polls into one ranking. That shouldn’t create much confusion since, well, the results of the AP and Coaches polls are quite similar.)

The teams the pollsters like more

Texas Longhorns (No. 1 in the polls, No. 5 in SP+). It’s pretty clear that poll voters are assuming greatness from Arch Manning, and that might be exactly what he delivers. But as I’ve written quite a bit this offseason, anything less than elite QB play might expose the fact that the Longhorns had a lot of holes to fill on the lines and in the receiving corps. Without an Arch Effect adjustment in the algorithm, SP+ sees the Horns as merely one of many potentially elite teams, not the most elite of the bunch.

Clemson Tigers (No. 5 in the polls, No. 10 in SP+). As we’ll see below, Clemson is projected to improve rather significantly this season. But since the Tigers have averaged only an SP+ ranking of 18.5 over the past four seasons — and needed major turnovers luck to win the ACC last year — major improvement simply brings them into the top 10. This is the year when we find out if Dabo Swinney can still build a program with national title upside. SP+ is skeptical.

Illinois Fighting Illini (No. 12 in the polls, No. 27 in SP+). The Illini went 5-1 in one-score games and finished 31st in SP+ despite the lofty 10-win season. Major experience should result in further improvement, but if the close-game bounces go the other way, they won’t come anywhere close to a top-15 AP finish.

The Big 12’s best in 2024. Arizona State (No. 11 in the polls, No. 30 in SP+), Iowa State (No. 21 in the polls, No. 31 in SP+) and BYU (No. 25 in the polls, No. 36 in SP+) went a combined 33-8 last season, 21-6 in conference play. But they were also a combined 15-5 in one-score games, and that’s awfully hard to replicate. All three are projected near the top of the nutty Big 12 again this season, but so are a lot of other teams that didn’t get the same bounces.

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The teams SP+ likes more

Alabama Crimson Tide (No. 8 in the polls, No. 2 in SP+) and Ole Miss Rebels (No. 18 in the polls, No. 9 in SP+). SP+ liked these two teams far more than their record suggested last year — Ole Miss was second at 10-3, Bama was fourth at 9-4 — so it probably isn’t a surprise that it still does. The Crimson Tide and Rebels went a combined 2-6 in one-score games and 17-1 in all others; their upside was spectacularly high, and that might still be the case, especially for Bama.

Michigan Wolverines (No. 14 in the polls, No. 8 in SP+). I’m struggling with this one. SP+ is basically giving the 2023 national champs the benefit of the doubt, and I’m on board with that when it comes to the Wolverines’ defense, even if projecting them to have the best defense in the country feels aggressive. But even projecting the offense 37th feels like a bit of a reach with another reset at QB, another round of turnover on the offensive line and very little proven in the skill corps. In this case, I feel like the pollsters might be closer to reality than SP+ is.

The SEC’s light heavyweights. Among Tennessee (No. 22 in the polls, No. 12 in SP+), Texas A&M (No. 20 in the polls, No. 13 in SP+), Oklahoma (No. 22 in the polls, No. 15 in SP+), Missouri (No. 31 in the polls, No. 20 in SP+) and Auburn (No. 33 in the polls, No. 22 in SP+), some of these teams are going to lose quite a few games and finish far closer to their poll rankings — if not below them — than their SP+ rankings. If nothing else, this pretty clearly spells out the difference between a power ranking such as SP+ and the sort of future-facing “Which teams are going to end up with the best records?” exercise a lot of poll voters inevitably deploy.

USC Trojans (No. 30 in the polls, No. 21 in SP+) and Iowa Hawkeyes (No. 34 in the polls, No. 25 in SP+). These two were a lower-class version of Bama and Ole Miss last season — they finished 23rd and 16th, respectively, in SP+, but they went 5-8 in one-score finishes and just 15-11 overall. USC should be pretty similar this season, but I must say I was confused by the almost entire lack of AP votes for Iowa. The offense should be set to improve further, and if we just assume the Hawkeyes will have another strong defense no matter what they lost last season (they’ve earned that benefit of the doubt), that sounds like a pretty solid team.

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SP+ vs. 2024

Let’s add some context to the 2025 ratings above by laying out which teams’ ratings are projected to change the most from last year.

Largest projected improvement over 2024

Florida State Seminoles (up 13.2 points, 39th overall). Tell me now that FSU ends up either the No. 15 or No. 75 team in the country this year, and I’ll believe you. It isn’t supposed to be possible for a team to go 13-1 one year and 2-10 the next, so I have no idea what happens next.

Michigan (up 11.0 points, eighth overall). The Wolverines definitely get the benefit of the doubt here. And hey, the quarterback play almost literally can’t get worse.

Oklahoma Sooners (up 9.3 points, 15th overall). If the offense rebounds toward its historical norm, this will be a top-20 caliber team again very quickly.

Houston Cougars (up 8.5 points, 63rd overall). After fielding their worst team in 22 years, the Cougs are natural rebound candidates, especially with top-20 returning production.

Texas Tech Red Raiders (up 8.4 points, 29th overall). The Red Raiders spent big on their transfer class, and it bought them their first preseason AP ranking in 17 years. Can it differentiate them in the crowded Big 12?

Clemson (up 6.9 points, 10th overall). The Tigers have the most returning production in the country and are all but guaranteed to improve. But how much?

Southern Miss Golden Eagles (up 6.9 points, 127th overall). That’s right, a touchdown’s worth of improvement would only bring the Golden Eagles into the high 120s. But progress is still quite likely.

UCLA Bruins (up 6.8 points, 50th overall). I was a bit surprised by this one, if only because UCLA ranks 100th in returning production. But the Bruins’ recent history and reasonable recruiting pulls them upward a bit.

Mississippi State Bulldogs (up 6.3 points, 66th overall) and Michigan State Spartans (up 6.2 points, 65th overall). Two more “It probably can’t get worse” candidates.

Largest projected regression versus 2024

Bowling Green Falcons (down 12.9 points, 112th overall). Losing your head coach after fielding your best team in a decade is a bad sign, especially when paired with bottom-five returning production. I really like what Eddie George did at Tennessee State, though.

Marshall Thundering Herd (down 12.5 points, 99th overall). The Herd lost coach Charles Huff after fielding their best team in four years, and then a huge portion of the roster hit the transfer portal. Total reset.

Texas State Bobcats (down 12.2 points, 87th overall). The Bobcats are regression candidates primarily because they reached historic highs last year: They were 48th in SP+. It was the first time they had ever ranked higher than 70th. A 12-point drop, however, feels like a bit much.

Jacksonville State Gamecocks (down 10.6 points, 104th overall). Lowest returning production in the country. That one’s pretty self-explanatory.

UNLV Rebels (down 10.4 points, 73rd overall). Making a coaching change, with an almost total roster flip after fielding their best ever FBS team? There’s some major regression potential here, even if the roster still has loads of upside (as does new head coach Dan Mullen).

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Largest projected regression versus 2024 (Power Four edition)

The largest projected tumbles all come from the Group of 5 because, well, life’s pretty hard in the G5 at the moment. (See the returning production averages below.) But here are the five power-conference teams projected to fall the most.

Ole Miss (down 5.5 points, ninth overall). That the Rebels are projected to fall only to ninth says a lot about how highly rated they were last season. They have a lot to replace.

Indiana Hoosiers (down 5.4 points, 23rd overall). Recent history obviously drags Curt Cignetti’s Hoosiers down a bit after last season’s incredible surge, but even if they settle in as merely a top-25 level program, that would be awfully impressive.

Ohio State Buckeyes (down 4.8 points, first overall). Ranking 89th in returning production is actually pretty good for a defending national champ, but some projected regression was inevitable, especially when combined with the tamping down of the top ratings that I mentioned above.

BYU Cougars (down 4.2 points, 36th overall). Losing quarterback Jake Retzlaff over the summer obviously put a late ding on the Cougars’ rating.

Oregon Ducks (down 3.7 points, seventh overall). The Ducks are 115th in returning production, 125th on offense. We’ll find out just how healthy Dan Lanning’s program is this season with that amount of turnover.

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Conference power rankings and title odds

SP+ is a team ranking, but it can tell us a lot about conference expectations, too. Let’s walk through some of the averages and projections for each conference heading into the fall. Note: The title odds below are quite conservative — they take into account the possible volatility of each team’s projected rating, and teams with heavy transfer totals have even more volatility baked in. Only three projected conference leaders have a greater than 21% chance of a conference title, but maybe that makes sense considering only 22% of last year’s projected conference favorites won the crown.

1. SEC

Average rating: 15.6 (up 0.8 points, from 14.8 in 2024)

Average offensive rating: 33.3 (first)

Average defensive rating: 17.7 (first)

Average returning production percentage: 60.7% (second)

Conference title odds​: Alabama 13%, Georgia 12%, Texas 11%, Ole Miss 9%, LSU 8%, Tennessee 7%, Texas A&M 7%, Oklahoma 7%, South Carolina 6%, Florida 5%, Missouri 5%, Auburn 4%, Arkansas 3%, Kentucky 2%, Mississippi State 1%, Vanderbilt 1%

If Arch Manning is anything less than the best player in college football, this race could be utterly incredible. Texas, Bama and Georgia having only a combined 36% title chance feels particularly conservative, but with as many close games as we might see this season, something wild is on the table.

2. Big Ten

Average rating: 9.6 (up 1.6 points)

Average offensive rating: 29.1 (fourth)

Average defensive rating: 19.4 (second)

Average returning production percentage: 56.1% (fourth)

Conference title odds​: Ohio State 19%, Penn State 15%, Michigan 13%, Oregon 13%, Iowa 6%, Illinois 5%, USC 5%, Indiana 5%, Nebraska 4%, Wisconsin 3%, Washington 3%, Minnesota 2%, UCLA 2%, Rutgers 2%, Michigan State 1%, Maryland 0.8%, Purdue 0.4%, Northwestern 0.3%

The Big Ten is typically more top-heavy than the SEC, with more dead weight at the bottom. That’s reflected here — the top four teams have a combined 60% title chance, which again feels low but is still far higher than what we see from the SEC.

3. Big 12

Average rating: 7.1 (up 1.8 points)

Average offensive rating: 31.3 (third)

Average defensive rating: 24.2 (third)

Average returning production percentage: 61.4% (first)

Conference title odds​: Kansas State 14%, Utah 9%, Arizona State 9%, TCU 9%, Texas Tech 8%, Iowa State 7%, BYU 6%, Baylor 6%, Colorado 5%, Kansas 4%, Houston 4%, Oklahoma State 4%, UCF 4%, West Virginia 4%, Arizona 3%, Cincinnati 3%

Only one team has even a 10% title chance, and everyone’s at 3% or higher. Hell yes. I love this conference. Even if it almost certainly won’t produce a major national title contender.

4. ACC

Average rating: 6.1 (up 1.0 points)

Average offensive rating: 31.4 (second)

Average defensive rating: 25.3 (fourth)

Average returning production percentage: 59.5% (third)

Conference title odds​: Clemson 19%, Miami 14%, SMU 10%, Louisville 9%, Florida State 6%, Virginia Tech 6%, NC State 5%, Duke 5%, Georgia Tech 5%, North Carolina 4%, Pitt 4%, California 4%, Virginia 3%, Boston College 3%, Syracuse 3%, Wake Forest 2%, Stanford 1%

I expected Clemson to be higher here, but games against the No. 3, 4 and 5 contenders (including a road trip to Louisville) do provide at least a little bit of danger. And in a Clemson-Miami ACC title game, the Tigers would be only two-point favorites based on current ratings.

5. American

Average rating: -7.5 (down 2.6 points)

Average offensive rating: 26.2 (fifth)

Average defensive rating: 33.7 (seventh)

Average returning production percentage: 49.9% (sixth)

Conference title odds​: Tulane 19%, Memphis 17%, Navy 12%, Army 11%, UTSA 11%, USF 8%, North Texas 6%, East Carolina 5%, FAU 2%, UAB 2%, Rice 2%, Tulsa 1%, Temple 1%, Charlotte 0.8%

Tulane deserves to start out ahead of the pack, but with so many new players, both the Green Wave and No. 2 pick Memphis could see a wide range of outcomes. We aren’t that many bounces away from chaos.

6. Sun Belt

Average rating: -8.4 (down 3.0 points)

Average offensive rating: 24.8 (sixth)

Average defensive rating: 33.2 (sixth)

Average returning production percentage: 46.5% (eighth)

Conference title odds​: James Madison 20%, Georgia Southern 10%, Louisiana 10%, South Alabama 9%, Coastal Carolina 7%, Troy 7%, Texas State 7%, Appalachian State 7%, Marshall 6%, Old Dominion 5%, Arkansas State 5%, Georgia State 3%, Louisiana-Monroe 3%, Southern Miss 2%

JMU probably should have made the conference title game last year and projects quite well. But if the Dukes drop the ball again, any of about eight different teams could take advantage like Marshall did in 2024.

7. Mountain West

Average rating: -9.0 (down 1.7 points)

Average offensive rating: 23.4 (seventh)

Average defensive rating: 32.4 (fifth)

Average returning production percentage: 46.7% (seventh)

Conference title odds​: Boise State 37%, UNLV 14%, San Jose State 10%, Fresno State 8%, Colorado State 6%, Air Force 6%, San Diego State 5%, Hawaii 4%, Wyoming 4%, Utah State 3%, Nevada 2%, New Mexico 2%

Perhaps not surprisingly, BSU is quite easily the single biggest conference title favorite in 2025. But with so much upside and downside, UNLV is a major wild card.

8. Conference USA

Average rating: -14.0 (down 1.5 points)

Average offensive rating: 19.9 (eighth)

Average defensive rating: 33.9 (ninth)

Average returning production percentage: 50.8% (fifth)

Conference title odds​: Liberty 27%, Western Kentucky 17%, Jacksonville State 12%, Louisiana Tech 10%, Sam Houston 9%, UTEP 6%, Middle Tennessee 6%, New Mexico State 6%, Florida International 5%, Kennesaw State 4%. (Delaware and Missouri State are ineligible.)

Like JMU, Liberty blew a great opportunity last year, but with solid returning production numbers the Flames start out atop the CUSA pile again.

9. MAC

Average rating: -14.2 (down 4.4 points)

Average offensive rating: 19.5 (ninth)

Average defensive rating: 33.8 (eighth)

Average returning production percentage: 41.1% (ninth)

Conference title odds​: Toledo 26%, Ohio 15%, Buffalo 12%, Miami (Ohio) 11%, Northern Illinois 8%, Bowling Green 6%, Eastern Michigan 6%, Western Michigan 5%, Central Michigan 5%, Ball State 2%, UMass 2%, Kent State 1.7%. (Akron is ineligible.)

With so many MAC teams wrecked by attrition, Toledo starts out as a comfortable favorite. But the Rockets have fallen short as favorites quite a few times before.

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Final 2025 returning production rankings

Throughout the offseason, I post updates of my returning production rankings, which (a) are based on percentages that correlate most strongly to year-to-year improvement and regression and (b) include the production of incoming transfers. Here are the final numbers that will be used for 2025:

The major story of returning production in 2025 is how drastically the number has shrunk in recent years.

• 2021 national average: 76.7%

• 2022 national average: 62.9%

• 2023 national average: 60.2%

• 2024 national average: 59.9%

• 2025 national average: 53.2%

The average fell for both power conferences (from 65.3% in 2024 to 59.4%) and the Group of 5 (from 54.9% to 47.0%). Obviously COVID eligibility had something to do with this — after everyone got an extra year of eligibility following the 2020 season, it has taken a while for those extra players to cycle out. But considering the national average tended to hover around 62-63% in the years before COVID, it’s clear there’s something else going on here, too.

That something else: the transfer portal. Obviously. The churn continues to grow each year, and it continues to hit the Group of 5 much harder, both because a) G5 stars are getting plucked away by power conference programs en masse and b) production from FCS and lower divisions — from which G5 teams might be more likely to pluck — only gets half-credit in the formula.

Based on the current returning production calculation, five of the nine lowest totals since 2022 are from 2025:

• 2022 Nevada (22%) — rating fell by 23.9 points

• 2025 Jacksonville State (28%) – ???

• 2022 Hawaii (29%) — rating fell by 16.8 points

• 2025 Ball State (29%) – ???

• 2023 Kent State (30%) — rating fell by 13.1 points

• 2025 Marshall (30%) – ???

• 2024 Troy (30%) — rating fell by 16.4 points

• 2025 Utah State (31%) – ???

• 2025 BGSU (31%) – ???

• 2023 UAB (31%) — rating fell by 11.6 points

Recent history suggests Jax State, Ball State, Marshall, Utah State and Bowling Green will struggle to come anywhere close to last year’s levels. (Ball State might be an exception, as the Cardinals were already awfully bad.)