The 2024-2025 season ended with the Ohio State Buckeyes beating the Notre Dame Fighting Irish 34-23 in the National Championship, signifying an end to one of the most hectic seasons of college football ever.
A tense Heisman race, a new playoff structure and a change to how players were paid all led to the historic drama unfolding with this year’s edition of CFB (College Football).
Throughout this season, college football took new twists and turns, evolving while still continuing the famous traditions of the sport. Since the developments of conference switching and NIL(Name, Image, and Likeness) money, CFB has changed forever, with some colleges benefitting and some hurting from the changes.
NIL essentially means that players can be financially compensated for their likelihood and playing time, which gives more power to the players. So, colleges have had to adjust and offer special financial packages to players to have better prospects. Colleges such as Boise State and Oregon succeeded this season due to their NIL recruiting, while universities such as Florida State and Florida have not.
The 12-Team College Football Playoff was also introduced, in order to allow more teams the opportunity to compete for a national championship. Previously, there had been a 4-team playoff, which lowered the amount of teams able to be a competitor.
PEACE Senior Sean McDermott said, “I personally liked it, for me, more teams and matches are more fun, but I didn’t like some of the teams selected.” For added context, a top 25 poll is released each week by the AP which states what teams are the “top ones”. This process of complexity ends with a college football playoff committee deciding amongst themselves which teams are “most deserving” to get into the playoffs.
There was uproar by multiple CFB commentators such as Kirk Herbstreit and others about the teams that entered due to their belief that those teams did not face as hard of competition as others, but most commentators changed their minds as the games revealed themselves as more competitive and challenging.
Additionally, the battle for the Heisman trophy (award for best CFB player) was also intense and close, with two frontrunners; Ashton Jeanty of the Boise State Broncos and Travis Hunter of the Colorado Buffaloes. Eventually, Hunter was able to win the trophy, cementing his legacy.
Millikan’s Functions, Statistics and Trigonometry (FST) teacher Andrew Lewis said, “I think Travis Hunter deserved it. I also think that Jeanty, running back on the Boise State Broncos, did something running backs haven’t done in a long time.”
Both players are entering the NFL draft this year and are expected to be drafted fairly early in the first round.
All in all, this college football season was one to remember, with drama, intrigue, and great game heroics. It’s exciting to think about what may happen in the season to come!
Ethan Enriquez • Mar 6, 2025 at 1:51 pm
Dear Corydon Editor,
On March 3rd, 2025, Cole Ritter wrote an article called “College Football Season Recap” where Ritter briefly summarizes the 2024-2025 CFB season. Ritter explains how changes like NIL deals and conference switching affected the trajectory of some teams’ seasons and the success they had. For example, Ritter explains how “…the developments of conference switching and NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness) money…” allowed for some teams like Boise State to excel this season while other teams like Florida State struggled as a result of players transferring due to different schools offering more incentivizing NIL deals for players. To add onto to this Ritter also highlighted how the adoption of a new format for the CFB’s playoffs allowed for more teams to get the opportunity to showcase their talents nationally. Many fans of CFB had mixed feelings about this as shown by PEACE Senior Sean McDermott whom Ritter quoted to show this idea. Ritter stated how although McDermott enjoyed the changes to the CFB’s playoffs, he did not like some of the teams that were selected for the playoffs. To continue Ritter finishes his summary of the CFB season by stating the finalists for the Heisman Trophy and that Travis Hunter was the athlete that was voted as the best player in CFB this season. Overall Ritter does a great job detailing the major events that happened in this year’s CFB season. He uses evidence from Sean McDermott and FST teacher Andrew Lewis to show how CFB fans felt about this season. This effectively shows some fans’ opinions. However, I feel that this summary could be improved if Ritter explained more about why this was “…one of the most hectic seasons of college football ever.” This could have been done by quickly summarizing some major games that happened and why they were important.
Pedro Hernandez • Mar 6, 2025 at 1:43 pm
On March 3, 2025, Cole Ritter wrote an article titled “College Football Season Recap”. Ritter did a great job giving a recap of the major events that took place this college football season. I found the explanation of how the new playoff rules and the introduction of NIL money in college football impacted the season and the teams very helpful. The use of others’ perspectives gave me a better understanding of the public opinion of the season and the awards. I liked how Ritter also added context to explain the quote from PEACE senior Sean McDermott and the additional viewpoint he included. Ritter did a great job mentioning the intense and controversial battle for the Heisman trophy. I appreciate the fact that we got an opinion on both players, it helped me understand the types of seasons they had and why it was such a heated battle. Overall, this article did a great job recapping the 2024-2025 college football season, as well as the playoffs and the Heisman trophy battle.
Daniel Anderson • Mar 6, 2025 at 1:37 pm
Dear Corydon Editor,
On March 6, 2025, Cole Ritter wrote an article titled “College Football Season Recap”. Ritter does an incredible job at detailing the eventfulness of the college football season this year, as well as detailing why it was so eventful. Also, Ritter’s ability to implement the opinions of students and faculty on campus is a pleasant and welcomed surprise. One thing that could have been touched on a little bit more is the individual events of the playoff games, such as the Ohio State Buckeyes taking a thirty-four point lead in the second quarter against the number one ranked Oregon Ducks in the quarterfinals of the College Football Playoffs, or the Arizona State Sun Devils and Cam Skattebo putting up an intense fight in a game that lead to overtime against the heavily favorited Texas Longhorns. On the other hand, Ritter fantastically documents the close Heisman Trophy race, as well as detailing the individual success and greatness of Ashton Jeanty and Travis Hunter, respectively.
Sincerely,
Daniel Anderson
Wes Aguilar • Mar 5, 2025 at 10:04 am
Dear Corydon Editor,
On March 3, 2025, Cole Ritter wrote an article titled “College Football Season Recap.” Ritter’s article was very insightful and useful for understanding new college football changes. For example, the article spoke about the new 12-team playoffs instead of the regular 4 team playoffs. Ritter had brought statistics up about how teams are put into the playoffs, which had some controversy around it. This is because the way teams are chosen is by how deserving they are to make it instead of how good the teams actually are. The addition of interviews also helped the article show outside opinions of college football fans. Additionally, Ritter branched out into the Heisman race, which was good because that is one of the most important aspects of college football. He talked about the two most likely to win and also got an interview with the FST teacher. I enjoyed hearing Mr. Lewis’ opinion about the Heisman race and it helped bring another outside perspective and view on the topic. Overall, this article was very intriguing and helpful to recap the college football playoffs and season.
Sincerely,
Wes Aguilar
Jackson Burns • Mar 5, 2025 at 9:42 am
Dear Corydon Editor,
On March 3, 2025, Cole Ritter wrote an article titled “College Football Season Recap”. Ritter’s article does a very good job at highlighting the major events that occurred during the college football season. This allows for someone, like myself, who did not fully engage with the season all year long to be caught up in the most notable moments from throughout the year that impacted the game, players, teams, coaches, and fans the most. I enjoyed hearing about how others at Millikan reacted to the new College football playoffs format as I was one who also enjoyed the new format for the postseason. Additionally, I applaud Ritter for mentioning the extremely heated and controversial Heisman trophy race between Hunter and Jeanty. Watching these two players throughout the season made the winner of this award tough to choose and I appreciated hearing what others had to say about the winner. Ritter’s piece undoubtedly provides an entertaining commentary on the recent College Football season including an inside perspective of what others at Millikan liked about the year that nearly perfectly summarizes what you may have missed during the season.