Big Ten spring overreactions: Ohio State has title repeat in sight, Oregon evolving into the new Georgia
I've long argued that May is the single worst month of the year for college football fans. At least when the season ends you will still have whatever feelings it may have inspired in you, and you can immediately turn your attention to the transfer portal. Then comes spring practice, when you get your first tidbits of information about how the depth chart looks and who is impressing the coaches.
But then May arrives, and it's ... nothing. Spring practice is over, and you still have nearly four months of Saturdays without a football game to watch. That kind of free time can lead to wild ideas.
Why, a college football fan can talk themselves into anything during the month of May. I guarantee you fans around the Big Ten are doing so right this very moment. So, what are some of the thoughts they could be having, I wonder? Let's take a look.
We're this year's Indiana: Illinois was a bit lost in the shuffle last year as Indiana shocked the college football world to emerge as one of the best teams in the country and reach the College Football Playoff. Illinois wasn't far behind, however. The Illini finished with 10 wins for the first time since 2001, and you may have noticed there weren't many Illini who heard their names called in the NFL Draft this year. That's because, unlike previous seasons, damn near every starter from last year's 10-win team returns in 2025, including a third-year starter at QB in Luke Altmyer. All that experience combined with a manageable schedule has the word "playoff" being muttered around Champaign-Urbana quite a bit.
We're a football school now: It's hard to blame a Hoosier fan for feeling confident about their football team. It's a wild statement considering the history of the program, but welcome to 2025, where Curt Cignetti has made it clear anything is possible. After hitting a home run in the transfer portal last offseason, early buzz is the Hoosiers may have done so again this winter. The headliner is new QB Fernando Mendoza, a transfer from Cal who has already begun to garner some NFL Draft buzz.
OK, we're serious this time, the offense is fixed: What is this? The third year in a row I've made this Iowa's spring overreaction? To be fair, we saw improvement last year! Tim Lester's new offense was much better than Brian Ferentz's, but it was largely dependent on Kaleb Johnson and the run game. Johnson is gone, and while Iowa will always look to run the ball, the hope is transfer QB and Chicago Bears superfan Mark Gronowski will finally end the search for competent QB play in Iowa City.
We're going to give up a billion points per game: A lot of attention will be placed on the QB battle with the Terps as Maryland looks to rebound from a season that saw them go 1-8 in Big Ten play. What should be worrying fans more, however, is the state of Maryland's defense, particularly in the linebacker position. Ruben Hyppolite led the team in tackles, but he's off to the NFL. Caleb Wheatland and Kellan Wyatt, who led last year's team in tackles for loss and sacks, transferred to Auburn and Indiana, respectively. If you watched Maryland's spring game, what you saw of the potential replacements wasn't exactly confidence-inspiring.
Bryce Underwood will change the sport of football forever: As is always the case with Michigan football in recent years, there's a lot going on around this program. However, Michigan fans aren't paying attention to much off the field because they're too busy fantasizing about what could happen on it. Bryce Underwood is a five-star phenom QB that I've seen compared to Cam Newton, and the comparisons come from talent evaluators, not people named "GoBlue69" on a message board somewhere. Odds are Underwood won't begin the season as starter, but the last stud freshman QB in Ann Arbor who had to wait his turn left with a national title.
We have finally fixed the offensive line: There was a lot of hope surrounding Aidan Chiles last season, and I'll admit I probably had something to do with it. Chiles did not live up to that hype, though his performances were certainly never boring. Spartans everywhere hope he'll take a step forward this season, and perhaps his offensive line will help him. Sparty's offensive line was a problem last season and has been far too often in recent years. Jonathan Smith and company went about overhauling the unit this offseason with the addition of three likely starters in the transfer portal.
Our offensive line could be anything: The biggest loss on the Minnesota offensive line is Aireontae Ersery, who was a second-round pick of the Houston Texans, but he's not the lone departure. Quinn Carroll and Tyler Cooper also moved on from the college level, while Phillip Daniels and Martes Lewis transferred out. The Gophers found replacements of their own in the portal, but there are a lot of questions that won't be answered about this unit until the footballs start flying. Considering the style of play Minnesota prefers to play, how well this new-look line performs will likely dictate how happy the folks of Dinkytown are this fall.
We are back for real this time: There's certainly a Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown feel to Nebraska football these days. The Cornhuskers finally ended their seven-year bowl drought last season, which was a huge step. Seriously, this is a fanbase that's as passionate as any in the country, and they haven't had much to celebrate. Still, last year felt like a bit of a disappointment. Dylan Raiola flashed brilliance, but also reminded everybody he was a freshman. Now, the Huskers have to replace their defensive coordinator, but Raiola is back for a second season as starter and could be poised to take a leap.
Preston Stone will save us: There is no kind way to spin Northwestern's performance at quarterback last season. If the majority of the Big Ten world hadn't spent last season pointing and laughing at Michigan's QB room and turned its focus to Evanston, it would've found a unit that finished with seven touchdowns to 11 interceptions while barely completing half its pass attempts. Enter Preston Stone. Stone may not be a world-beater, and he lost his hold on the starting job at SMU to Kevin Jennings last year, but he's a far more proven commodity than anybody with the Wildcats last season. This is, after all, a player who threw for 28 touchdowns with only six interceptions in 2023 as starter. For perspective, Northwestern QBs have thrown for 27 touchdowns over the last two seasons.
There's no reason we can't repeat: I have a theory that one of the new realities of college football is repeating as national champion will be damn near impossible — not only because the playoff field is expanding but because teams that do win the natty will likely be veteran teams, and it's not as easy to replace skill and experience in this era. Make no mistake: Ohio State -- currently a favorite to repeat at +600, according to FanDuel Sportsbook -- remains talented but has to replace a lot from last year's team. But this team still has Jeremiah Smith and Caleb Downs, so try telling a Buckeyes fan they're probably not going to repeat.
We are the new Georgia: Oregon's first Big Ten season was bittersweet. It began with a Big Ten title but was ended abruptly by Ohio State in a Rose Bowl shellacking. The Ducks allowed 143 points in four games against playoff teams last season, and you can't win national titles if you allow that many points against elite teams. The buzz coming out of Eugene this offseason is they won't in 2025. Dan Lanning's staff has recruited well since taking over, and many expect the fruits of that labor to be evident this season, particularly on defense, where this team is stacked with talent at all three levels.
National title or bust: I mentioned when discussing Ohio State how the new formula for winning it all seems to be amassing as much talent and experience as possible. It worked for Michigan by retaining players in 2023, and Ohio State did it in 2024. Penn State's followed that formula in 2025, and the hope is to finally break through and "win the big one." The Nittany Lions did win two playoff games last season but lost to Ohio State and Oregon in the regular season and fell to Notre Dame in the CFP semifinals. Will 2025 be the year Penn State beats the elite? Plenty of fans certainly think so.
You know, it's not as hard to turn programs around these days: Oh, but my dear college football fan, it is still hard. Particularly when you have as much ground to cover as Barry Odom and the Purdue Boilermakers. Last year was a disaster in every area, and I don't care what you do in the transfer portal or high school recruiting; there's no way for the Boilermakers to recover in Odom's first season. Realistic hopes should be winning a conference game or two and then hoping the basketball team still kicks ass.
Our pass rush is terrible: Rutgers has not been great at getting to the quarterback since joining the Big Ten. The Knights have never finished ranked higher than 11th in the league in total sacks in any full season. The hope was the return of a healthy Mo Toure would change that; however, Toure, who led the Knights with 4.5 sacks in 2023 but missed last season with a torn ACL, exited the program via the transfer portal. Now, picking up the slack is on the shoulders of a few portal additions in Eric O'Neill (James Madison) and Bradley Weaver (Ohio).
NICOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO: Say what you want about the way it all went down, but Nico Iamaleava was a highly rated recruit out of high school who was handed a giant bag of money for a reason. Did he fully live up to those expectations in Knoxville? No, but does that mean he can't live up to them in Westwood? Also no! Seriously, at this time last year, UCLA fans were shellshocked by losing their coach to an offensive coordinator gig within their brand-new conference. Now, they have a guy who could be their most talented QB since maybe Troy Aikman almost 40 years ago? I'll forgive them for being a bit overzealous.
Lincoln Riley has figured it out: Last year, Riley made sure to overhaul the defensive staff. This offseason, he's gone to work reconfiguring USC's entire recruiting apparatus, as well as other stuff behind the scenes that many other elite programs have always had, but, for whatever reasons, USC was behind on. He also has a returning starter at QB and one of the more talented receiving rooms in the country. Nobody will be shocked if USC is good this year. Of course, nobody will be shocked if they're mediocre, either. That's the one problem Riley truly needs to fix.
The world has no idea what Demond Williams is about to do to it: I probably owe Will Rogers an apology. Not because I was wrong about his talent or anything, but because after getting glimpses of Demond Williams in the Washington offense last season, it made me angry to see Rogers come back into games. And I would vocalize this anger from my office in the basement. He couldn't hear any of what I said, but I still feel the need to apologize and let him know it was nothing personal. I just wanted to watch more of Demond Williams, and this year, I will, and I'm excited about it. Washington fans are, too.
We have to play the most difficult schedule in the history of sports: The timelines don't sync, but there's so many similarities between Lincoln Riley's tenure at USC and Fickell's at Wisconsin. Both were brought in to "fix" things. Neither has "fixed" anything at the rate the fans would like, and in some ways, things have gotten worse. It feels like a big year for Fickell in Madison. He's brought in a new offensive coordinator, finally purging himself of the "Dairy Raid" narrative I'm not sure he was ever excited about, and has a new QB in Maryland transfer Billy Edwards. All of that could be a good thing, but the schedule is an absolute monster. I don't know if any improvements that are made will be reflected in the team's record at the end of the season, and I wonder how that will or won't impact Fickell's place.
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