How Are You Going To React When I Tell You That 2025 Was Better Than 2024?

Here's a crazy thing I was thinking when I saw the CFP Rankings come out last night. Had we not lost to Wisconsin and Washington and were sitting at 10-2 right now... we'd still be out of the playoff. We'd be Vanderbilt. 10-2 with no way to get in.

We wouldn't have made the Big Ten Championship Game because we lost to the two undefeated teams. Duke making the ACC Championship Game and Western Michigan winning the MAC would have helped our resume, but in the grouping we'd be debated in – 10-2 Oklahoma, 10-2 Alabama, 10-2 Notre Dame, 10-2 Miami, 10-2 Utah, and a hypothetical 10-2 Illinois with only three of those seven teams getting an at-large spot in the playoff – 10-2 Illinois would have not been picked in the top three from that list. In the rankings last night, 10-2 Illinois would have likely been either 14th (ahead of Vandy) or 15th (behind Vandy).

I apologize for damaging the "terrible road performances at Washington and Wisconsin cost us an attainable playoff spot" narrative like that, but it's just not true. To make the playoff in 2025, we would have had to go 11-1. Terrible road performances at Washington, Wisconsin, and Indiana cost us the playoff. "How can this team perform better on the road?" is going to be the theme of the offseason.

OK, with that out of the way, here comes the warning. I'm going to use this NERDstats article to let you know that 2025 was a better season than 2024. That will make many people angry. I don't think many of my subscribers will be angry, but the people who have enjoyed yelling at this team all season will not like this at all. To protect them from accidentally seeing something they'd absolutely hate, I'm going to put up the paywall right... now.