Every summer since 2007 I have created an intricate set of college football predictions for each upcoming season.  This year is no exception, as I will be using my blog over the next few hours to publish my 19th annual college football preview guide which will contain 19 entries in all. The records below reflect each team’s predicted regular season overall record followed by their conference record.  These records include conference title games for the two division champions but exclude bowl games which will be previewed later on in a separate column on this blog.  The teams marked in bold font are the ones predicted to gain bowl eligibility.  Without further ado, here are my predictions for the Big Ten in 2025, which after last year’s national championship is arguably the best conference in America right now.

1	Oregon (12-1, 8-1)– conference champion/CFP # 2 seed

Last Year’s Record: 13-1 (My 2024 prediction: 11-2)

Positional Strength: Linebacker

Positional Weakness: Defensive Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Indiana (October 11)- I will be in attendance for this one!

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Penn State (September 27)

Bottom Line: Don’t get me wrong, the Ducks lost a lot from last year’s Big Ten title team, including their starting quarterback, leading rusher top two pass cachers, and 13 other starters on offense and defense. However, they are also the only program in the country who has had each of their last two recruting classes and last two transfer portal classes rank in the top 5 nationally. As a result, there is a ton of talent here that is ready fill the void of last year’s squad. In addition, Oregon has a somewhat favorable schedule in that they avoid Ohio State and Michigan in conference play. Expect another dominant regular season from the Ducks that I am predicting ends with a second consecutive Big Ten title.

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2	Illinois (11-2, 8-1)– conference runner-up/CFP # 8 seed

Last Year’s Record: 10-3 (My 2024 prediction: 6-6)

Positional Strength: Defensive Back

Positional Weakness: Defensive Line

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: at Indiana (September 20)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: vs. Ohio State (October 11)

Bottom Line: I am going all in on the Illini this fall, as there is a lot to like about this football team. First of all, they return 17 starters, including their star quarterback (Luke Altmyer) and top five tacklers, from a squad that finished the year with 10 wins including an upset over South Carolina in the Citrus Bowl. To put that in perspective, Clemson, who is getting much more preseason love than the Illini, is only returning 13 starters from a squad that had a worse record in a worse conference. Illinois also has a favorable scheudle in that they don’t have to play Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State, or Oregon in their conference slate. As a result, I am calling for the Illini to run the table in regular season play except for a home loss to Ohio State on October 11th. This, based on the Big Ten tiebreakers currently in place, would put the Illini in the Big Ten title game if the result of my results hold true.

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3	Ohio State (11-1, 8-1)– CFP # 3 seed

Last Year’s Record: 14-2 (My 2024 prediction: 12-1)- I correctly projected Ohio State to win the national championship in the preseason and then again before the playoff!

Positional Strength: Wide Receiver

Positional Weakness: Running Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Texas (August 30)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Wisconsin (October 18)- watch out for this stunner in Madison!

Bottom Line: It is really hard to repeat as national champion, especially in this 12 team playoff era that requires you to win 3-4 really difficult games to end each season. However, the Buckeys are capable of repeating thanks to an elite secondary, the best receviver in the country (Jeremiah Smith), and a roster that is loaded with high-end talent. In fact, this program has brought in 21 five star players via the portal and high school recruiting over the past four years. To put that in perspective, Georgia has only brought in 17 during that same time period. The problem is Ohio State typically finds a way to drop a game they shouldn’t during the lattter half of their schedule (Michigan in 2021, 2022, and 2024, Purdue in 2018, Iowa in 2017, Penn State in 2016, Michigan State in 2025, etc.). This year I am calling for that trend to continue with a surprising road loss to Wisconsin on October 18th, as the Buckeyes will be coming off a road trip against a physical Illinois team the week prior.

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4	Penn State (10-2, 7-2)- CFP # 6 seed

Last Year’s Record: 13-3 (My 2024 prediction: 9-3)

Positional Strength: Running Back

Positional Weakness: Linebacker

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Oregon (September 27)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Iowa (October 18)- tricky trap game right before the Nittany Lions play the Buckeyes

Bottom Line: Many Penn State fans are calling this the year they claim their first national title since the Joe Paterno days, and it is definitely possible. James Franklin has a talented and experienced quarterback in Drew Allar who is surrounded by 8 other experienced starters on offense. The Nittany Lions do draw both Oregon and Ohio State in conference play, so I am calling for this squad to fall just short of a second consecutive Big Ten title game. With that being said, I believe this team will still earn a home game in the College Football Playoff where they are more than capable of making another deep run towards an elusive national championship.

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4	Southern Cal (9-3, 7-2)

Last Year’s Record: 7-6 (My 2024 prediction: 9-3)

Positional Strength: Wide Receiver

Positional Weakness: Defensive Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Michigan (October 11)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Illinois (September 27)

Bottom Line: The Trojans are typically a team that I end up overrating on a year to year basis, and I may be doing the same in 2025. The Men of Troy , however, boast an experieced quarterback and receiving corps that is returning a total of 16 experienced starters on both sides of the ball. They also lost five games by a touchdown or less last season, so if they can reverse their luck in toss-up games this squad can challenge for a CFP bid in 2025.

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6	Nebraska (9-3, 6-3)

Last Year’s Record: 7-6 (My 2024 prediction: 8-4)

Positional Strength: Quarterback

Positional Weakness: Running Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Michigan (September 20)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Minneosta (October 18)

Bottom Line: Matt Rhule has experienced major breakthrough seasons in year 3 at both of the college programs he has previously coached. at I believe the Cornhuskers are set to continue this trend this fall, as this squad returns 10 expereinced starters on offense, including star quarterback Dylan Raioila. The Huskers also avoid both Ohio State and Oregon in conference play, so as long as they don’t slip up somewhere they shouldn’t, this team should be right in the thick of the Big Ten title race and College Football Playoff conversation when they travel to Happy Valley in late November.

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7	Iowa (9-3, 6-3)

Last Year’s Record: 8-5 (My 2024 prediction: 10-2)

Positional Strength: Offensive Line

Positional Weakness: Wide Receiver

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Penn State (October 18)- one of my five or six biggest upsets of the season in college football!

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Nebraska (November 28)

Bottom Line:Do the Hawkeyes finally have a quarterback? That’s the million dollar question, as Iowa is bringing in FCS superstar, Mark Gronwoski from South Dakota State, to finally give this team a functional aerial attack. As long as the Iowa defense continues to play up to the high standard they have set for themselves under Kirk Ferentz, this squad could be a dark horse College Football Playoff contender, especially with a schedule that doesn’t include Ohio State or Michigan and that forces both Oregon and Penn State to come to Kinnick.

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7	Michigan (8-4, 6-3)

Last Year’s Record: 8-5 (My 2024 prediction: 9-3)

Positional Strength: Defensive Line

Positional Weakness: Offensive Line

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Wisconsin (October 4)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Nebraska (September 20)

Bottom Line: Can freshman QB phenom Bryce Underwood (pictured above) turn around the offensive woes we saw from this team last year? We will find out early on as was named the starter yesterday, and Michigan’s first three road games in 2025 are at Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Southern Cal. It may be too much to ask of a true freshman QB in his first two months of his career to win in any of those stadiums, especially given the question marks this team also has at offensive line and receiver. The Wolverines defense will win them a lot of games, just like last year, but I don’t envision Michigan challenging for a Big Ten title with a true freshman starting at quarterback.

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9	Minnesota (7-5, 4-5)

Last Year’s Record: 8-5 (My 2024 prediction: 4-8)- I have learned the hard way to never understimate Fleck!

Positional Strength: Running Back

Positional Weakness: Quarterback

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Nebraska (October 18)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Northwestern (November 22)

Bottom Line: Doubt P.J. Fleck at your own peril, as just when you think his tenure has grown a bit stagnant in Minneapolis, he puts together an impressive bounce back campaign like we saw last year where his squad upset USC and Illinois en route to a bowl victory. Sometimes a winning culture makes up for analytical deficiencies, as this team’s recruiting rankings and talent ratings would place them much further back in the standings than the 9th place finish I am calling for them to have in 2025. Minnesota does draw both Oregon and Ohio State on the road this year though, so don’t expect the Gophers to row their boat into the College Playoff or anything like that in 2025.

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10	Wisconsin (6-6, 4-5)

Last Year’s Record: 5-7 (My 2024 prediction: 7-5)

Positional Strength: Offensive Line

Positional Weakness: Defensive Line

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Ohio State (October 18)- the upset of the year in the Big Ten!

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Minnesota (November 29)

Bottom Line: Sometimes a coach can seem like a great hire and a great fit for a particular program and it just not work out (see Scott Frost at UCF). I think that might be what is happening with Fickell at Wisconsin, as he just doesn’t seem to be able to turn the corner with this Badgers squad. This team should definitely been better than last year’s squad but it might not show in their overall record, as Wisky has an absolute bear of a schedule this season. The Badgers have to first travel to Alabama in non-conference play and then they play most all of the upper echelon league foes thereafter (at Michigan, vs. Iowa, vs. Ohio State, at Oreogn, at Indiana, vs. Illinois). In fact, I have this team pulling off a shocker over Ohio State just to earn a sixth win to garner bowl eligbility in 2025.

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11	Indiana (7-5, 4-5)

Last Year’s Record: 11-2 (My 2024 prediction: 3-9)- just slightly off on my prediction of the Hoosiers last year!

Positional Strength: Wide Receiver

Positional Weakness: Running Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. UCLA (October 25)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: vs. Wisconsin (November 15)

Bottom Line: It is rare that you see a team have a shocking Cinderella season one year and not regress the next. Look at Oregon in 1996, Northwestern in 1997, Arizona State in 1998, Wake Forest in 2007, and TCU in 2023 as examples of this phenomenon. And just like I predicted with Arizona State and SMU, I think Indiana will take a significant step back in 2025 following their Cinderella run to the College Footbal Playoff last year. The Hoosiers just lost too much on both sides of the ball (only 4 returning starters on offense and defense) and will inevitabley not be able to recreate their +15 turnover margin from 2024 which ranked 3rd in the entire country. Cignetti is still a really good coach though, and I think this team will play hard enough for him that they find their way into a bowl game this year.

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12	Rutgers (6-6, 3-6)

Last Year’s Record: 7-6 (My 2024 prediction: 6-6)- I was dead-on with my forecast for the Scarlet Knights last season

Positional Strength: Running Back

Positional Weakness: Defensive Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: at Washington (October 11)- I’ll be at this Friday night matchup on the banks of Lake Washington

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Minnesota (September 27)

Bottom Line: Like P.J. Fleck at Minnesota, Greg Schiano has established a culture of toughness at Rutgers that has allowed this team to annually ascend much higher than their recruiting rankings and talen level would indicate. This year’s Scarlet Knights should once again find their way into a bowl game with the help of a vertan quarterack, an an experienced offensive line, and an athletic assemblage of linebackers, running backs, and receiver.

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13	Michigan State (6-6, 3-6)

Last Year’s Record: 5-7 (My 2024 prediction: 6-6)

Positional Strength: Wide Receiver

Positional Weakness: Running Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: at Minnesota (November 1)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Iowa (November 22)

Bottom Line: As you can see from above, I called for the Spartans to make it to a bowl game in Jonathan Smith’s first season in East Lansing in 2024, and this squad came up just short. The Spartans should be able to take the next step forward this year though thanks to their freakishly athletic quarterback in Aidan Chiles, a skilled receiver corps, and a deep and talented defensive backfield.

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14	Washington (6-6, 3-6)

Last Year’s Record: 5-7 (My 2024 prediction: 6-7)

Positional Strength: Running Back

Positional Weakness: Offensive Line

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: at UCLA (November 22)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: vs. Rutgers (October 11)

Bottom Line: I like Jedd Fisch a lot, but I am a little down on this year’s Washington squad compared to most experts. The Huskies will be breaking in new coordinators with new schemes on both sides of the ball this season, and this offensive line might be the worst in the league. Washington does have one of the more manageable schedules in the Big Ten though, which is why I am predicting them to go bowling again this season. The Huskies start off with three very winnable non-conference games (Colorado followed by a conference slate that features games against most of the league’s bottom feeders (UCLA, Maryland, and Purdue).

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15	UCLA (4-8, 2-7)

Last Year’s Record: 5-7 (My 2024 prediction: 3-9)

Positional Strength: Quarterback

Positional Weakness: Running Back

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Maryland (October 18)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Michigan State (October 11)

Bottom Line: Speaking of teams that I am expecting to have disappointing seasons in 2025, the Bruins fit that description despite their recent acquisition of quarterback Nico Iamaleava from Tennessee. First of all, the Bruins were quite lucky to get five wins last year as they finished with a 5-2 record in one score games. Now, they basically are starting over with an entirely new squad made of transfers on both sides of the ball. Like I said earlier in this preview guide, sometimes these mercenary squads find lightning in a bottle and exceed expecations (see Indiana 2024) but more often than not they end up having chemistry issues that prove difficult to rectify (see Florida State last year).

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16	Northwestern (5-7, 2-7)

Last Year’s Record: 4-8 (My 2024 prediction: 6-6)

Positional Strength: Defensive Line

Positional Weakness: Wide Receiver

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Minnesota (November 22)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: vs. UCLA (September 27)

Bottom Line: This program’s results over the past decade are fairly baffling, as their typical stay at the bottom of the Big Ten standings has been broken up by random surges to the very top of their conference/division (2017, 2018, 2020, 2023). A lot of teams have topsy turvy results from year to year, but the Wildcats are interesting in that they need seem to land in the middle. In fact, Northwestern has not had a season in which they finished within two games of .500 since 2016. They are either well above that mark or well below it. Well I am calling for that trend to finally end this season, as I think the Wildcats dig themselves out of the league basement, albeit barely, and at least flirt with bowl eligbility thanks to a major upgrade at quarterback (Preston Stone arrives from SMU), a talented sixth year running back who should benefit from the threat of downfield passing attack, and a hard nosed, defensive front that proved rock solid against the run last season.

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17	Maryland (3-9, 0-9)

Last Year’s Record: 4-8 (My 2024 prediction: 7-5)

Positional Strength: Wide Receiver

Positional Weakness: Quarterback

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Northern Illinois (September 6)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Rutgers (November 8)

Bottom Line: As mentioned earlier in my ACC preview guide, the Terps join Wake as one of the only two teams that I think will run the table in non-conference play but then go winless in their conference slate. Mike Locksley’s tenure in College Park may be coming to a close, as this team was only able to win one conference game in 2024 and seven of those eight Big Ten losses came by 14 or more points. Now, the Terps bring in two new coordinators to try to mold 18 new starters into a functional football team that will likely be a double digit underdog in all nine of their Big Ten games. And unfortunately for Maryland, neither of the two conference foes this squad has a chance of beating, Purdue and Northwestern, are on their 2025 schedule.

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17	Purdue (2-10, 0-9)

Last Year’s Record: 1-11 (My 2024 prediction: 2-10)- The Boilermakers somehow failed to make it to my lowly two win projection for them last season

Positional Strength: Running Back

Positional Weakness: Quarterback

Biggest Predicted Win of the Year: vs. Ball State (August 30)

Worst Predicted Loss of the Year: at Northwestern (October 18)

Bottom Line: The only direction this program can go is up after fielding what was by far the worst Power 4 team in the country last year. I think Barry Odom can eventually get things turned around in West Lafayette, but this squad has a long way to go before they are relevant again. It wouldn’t shock me to see Purdue pull off an upset to get a conference win in 2025, but when a team ranks dead last in the league in terms of talent, experience, and continuity a second consecutive 0-9 Big Ten record seems like the most likely outcome.

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