College Football 2025 Power Rating Projections:
In order to create my college football power ratings for the 2025 season, I analyze the returning players/coaches for the teams, make adjustments based upon last year’s finish and the current perception of teams, and then ensure I have not assumed anything out of the windows for normalcy for each team’s recent history or conference strength. That last point has become a bigger challenge each year, now that some teams completely revamp their rosters through the transfer portal.
I’ve taken my adjusted power numbers for 2025 and run them against the complete schedule to project the season standings. You will then find a listing of all the 136 FBS teams and their schedules for 2025, with my projected power ratings lines for each game included.
Use these numbers as a foundation for determining your favorite season-win total bets. I have included all of the teams’ win total props available at DraftKings on the season standings chart.
Before unleashing the projections, let’s look at some of the highlights from the analysis:
– I have performed at a slightly above-average level in projecting the playoff participants in recent years. However, last year, of the five teams from the Power 4 (or Independent) that I projected to win 10+ games in this same exercise, four of them made up the CFP semifinalists. If that is the case again, the CFP Final Four would consist of teams from this group: Notre Dame, Texas, Georgia, Ohio State, Penn State. As you study the ratings chart below, you’ll see there are several other teams such as Clemson, Alabama, and Oregon that could join those frontrunners.
– For a second straight season, Florida plays the nation’s toughest schedule, at least as it stands now. The Gators are ranked just ahead of Wisconsin, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Arkansas in that regard.
Wisconsin’s schedule is also brutal. The Badgers have road games at Alabama, Michigan, Oregon, and Indiana, plus they host Ohio State. My figures show Bucky Badger finishing at 5.1-6.9. The teams ranked #3-#8 and #10-#12 on the schedule difficulty list are simply victims of their conference circumstances in the SEC.
– For the third straight season, Liberty holds the country’s easiest schedule on paper, with its opponents averaging a 27.39 power rating. To put that in perspective, it would be like playing a team at the level of Central Michigan every week for an entire season. It’s no wonder my numbers call for the Flames to go 9.5-2.5 this season.
In terms of other weak schedules, Toledo, the favorite in the MAC, checks in at #135, and 10th-year head coach Jason Candle’s team comes back loaded with 13 returning starters from last year’s 8-5 team. The Rockets’ win total prop is set at 8.5, and my projections have them going 8.9-3.1 against the watered-down schedule. Other programs with lighter schedules in 2025 include Middle Tennessee State, Jacksonville State, and Buffalo.
– Notre Dame has the highest win projection of any team, with 10.6, slightly better than Penn State (10.5), Ohio State (10.3), Texas (10.0), and Georgia (10.0). There are no other double-digit win projections, thus leading many to believe that this could be as competitive of a college football season as we’ve seen at the top in a long time, or at least since last year’s thrilling playoff.
– Assuming the projections play out accurately, besides Penn State, Ohio State, Georgia, and Texas, the other Power Four conference teams that would be expected to contend for a spot in the college football playoffs this year would be: Oregon, Clemson, Alabama, Ole Miss, Michigan, Miami, Arizona State and Kansas State. All of those teams are expected to win 8.7 regular-season games or more, according to my projections.
– Boise State (9.9), Liberty (9.5), UNLV (8.9), Toledo (8.9), and Navy (8.7) have the highest projected win totals among the Group of Five teams, although each faces an early test or two that might prevent them from going undefeated and challenging for the coveted CFP spot. The Broncos, off a 12-2 season that resulted in a CFP bye and appearance in the Fiesta Bowl, face their most challenging game, at Notre Dame, on the first Saturday in October. Circle that game on the calendar as perhaps the biggest Group of Five game of the year.
– In terms of teams expected to improve from last season, either by an enhanced power rating or an easier schedule, Southern Miss and Florida State are the two teams I have with double-digit power rating increases over their 2024 finish. The Golden Eagles and Seminoles were terrible last season, but both bring in a lot of transfer talent and get the luxury of wiping the slate clean this fall.
Southern Miss turns to a new coach in Charles Huff, who led Marshall to a Sun Belt title last year, and he brings a lot of his former players with him. FSU’s struggles were well-documented and perhaps as alarming a decline as I can recall. However, the talent is there, and head coach Mike Norvell is saying all the right things about moving on. Kent State, Tulsa, and Toledo also see recognizable bumps in their BOY power ratings for various reasons.
– No teams are expected to drop off more in 2025 than Marshall and Colorado. Marshall’s situation is unprecedented as a contract dispute between the program and their former head coach led to a complete unraveling following their Sun Belt championship last December. They figure to be just a shell of what we saw last year on the field.
Of course, the Buffaloes lost two of the best and most visible players in program history this season, with QB Shedeur Sanders and WR/CB Travis Hunter off to the NFL. Head coach Deion Sanders has recruited well, and it will be interesting to see how quickly he can build the cohesiveness of what figures to be a much different team in 2025.
If you read this article last year, my teams expected to drop most were Michigan and Washington, the national title game participants of the prior season. The Wolverines dropped to 7-5, the Huskies to 6-6. Two years ago, TCU, then the returning national runner-up, went from 13-2 to 5-7, so there is some historic merit to these projections. Elsewhere, Jacksonville State and Texas State are other teams expected to drop off by 9.0 on my PRs for this fall.
– In terms of the projections and how they correlate to the Season Win Total Props offered up at DraftKings, here are the biggest differences. Teams expected to win more games than their DK win props include Liberty (+1.0), Illinois (+0.9), Ole Miss (+0.8), Florida (+0.9), Michigan (+0.8), and BYU (+0.8). Note that my projections for the Cougars do include the departure of QB Retzlaff.
Teams expected to fall short of their season win props by the biggest margins include Delaware (-1.0), Bowling Green (-0.9), Hawaii (-0.8), and Missouri State (-0.8).
On the chart below, you will find my projected standings for each of the conferences. The teams are sorted by conference wins. You will also find their season win total from DraftKings, their 2025 Steve Makinen Power Rating, Home and Road Field Ratings, Schedule Strength and National Ranking, plus their overall and conference record projections.
