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There are 8 teams still standing in pursuit of the 2025 national title and 3 of them reside in the Big Ten, which you might’ve noticed has gotten championship-happy in college football the past few years.
So, at this very moment, with Christmas behind us and the quarterfinals beckoning, the conference that’s given college football its past 2 champions has about a 50% chance to pull off a 3-peat a few weeks from now in Miami. Besides nearly having half the remaining field, the Big Ten also boasts the top 2 seeds in newly crowned league champion Indiana and defending national champion Ohio State.
Throw in a really capable 5 seed in Oregon, which is seemingly always in the national championship mix, and you have a Big Ten trio of behemoths who all have a really good chance to win their next 3 games, with the confetti falling on them at the end of it all. Sure, those other 5 teams are really good, too, but Indiana, Ohio State and Oregon all have unique qualities that give them a great shot at this thing.
The Hoosiers have the Heisman Trophy winner. The Buckeyes can smell the rare repeat. And the Ducks are so close to finally finishing the job after so many recent close calls.
Each of them are worthy of winning it all, for their own reasons, and each of them have a great chance to win it all, for many reasons. We’ll narrow it down and discuss 3 reasons why each of these 3 remaining Big Ten powers can be that last team standing on Jan. 19. And we’ll go in order of seeding:
Indiana
The unlikeliest of top seeds wants to finish its fairy tale season.
1. The Hoosiers have the Heisman winner who’s on a mission
Fernando Mendoza has done everything you could possibly do in his first season in Bloomington. He transferred from California and transformed Indiana from Playoff team in 2024 to national championship contender in 2025. He won the Davey O’Brien Award, he won the Maxwell Award, and he became the first Hoosier to ever snag the Heisman Trophy, throwing for 2,980 yards with 33 touchdown passes to just 6 interceptions.
He did it all.
But there’s more to do, starting on New Year’s Day afternoon against Alabama and beyond. Mendoza is on a mission. You have to know he realized months ago that the national championship game was being held in his own Miami backyard and just imagine if Mendoza is able to beat Bama and whatever semifinal opponent stands in his way. Just imagine Mendoza warming up at Hard Rock Stadium on Jan. 19, one win away from leading IU to its first football crown. The best player in college football wants badly to be the quarterback of the best team in college football.
2. The Hoosiers also have a coach who only knows winning
Fernando Mendoza’s arrival this season elevated Indiana to title contender, but it was Curt Cignetti‘s arrival in 2024 that immediately launched the Hoosiers into college football relevancy. Cignetti had won everywhere he’d been as a head coach — at IUP, Elon and James Madison — and he quickly showed he could win and win big in the Big Ten, lighting the fuse on Indiana football with a brash confidence.
Last season was simply the prelude, as it turned out, when the Hoosiers earned an at-large Playoff bid as a 10 seed before taking a first-round beating against Notre Dame. This time around, it’s serious. Indiana football is the 1 seed, the Big Ten champion and many would say the favorite to win it all. It’s unreal and Cignetti is responsible for it all, because he’s a winner. And Cignetti didn’t bring IU to this point to be denied. He is hell-bent on making history.
3. And the Hoosiers have an elite D that nobody talks about
Indiana defensive coordinator Bryant Haines has now been a finalist for the prestigious Broyles Award for the past 2 seasons, which tells you all you need to know about the Hoosiers defenses since Haines once again reunited with Curt Cignetti in Bloomington. This season, Haines’ D allowed 20 or more points just twice, giving up exactly 20 in the huge victory at Oregon and 24 in that comeback victory at Penn State, so even in the 2 instances the IU defense allowed 20 or more it was good enough.
Then there was the Big Ten title game triumph, when the Hoosiers held high-octane Ohio State to just 10 points and pitched a shutout in the 2nd half. If nothing else told you this season that Haines’ defense was championship-ready, then its performance on that early December night in Indianapolis certainly did. While Fernando Mendoza and Cignetti own the headlines for these Hoosiers, it just might be Haines and that defense that are ultimately the difference in bringing home the hardware in January.
Ohio State
The defending champions don’t want to give up the crown.
1. A head coach who can navigate those Playoff roadblocks
Ryan Day was public enemy No. 1 in Columbus about 13 months ago, when Ohio State suffered that listless home loss to Michigan. Then by the grace of the first 12-team College Football Playoff format, Day got a 2nd chance at things and, well, now he’s a head coach who’s 3 victories away from leading the Buckeyes to back-to-back national championships. He’s been through the wars, with the scars to show for it and a ring, too.
And now that Ryan Day has cracked the code to the promised land, there’s no reason he can’t do it again. Heck, Day even finally beat Michigan in 2025, so anything is possible. Throw in a little motivation of losing the Big Ten title game to the team that’s now seeded above his, the team that spoiled the Buckeyes’ pursuit of a perfect season, and Day seems perfectly positioned for another run at glory. It also doesn’t hurt to have a Broyles Award finalist in defensive coordinator Matt Patricia by his side.
Day wasn’t shy about telling reporters that “everyone is pissed off” after losing to Indiana. Everyone would include Day himself. Championship experience and sheer motivation can be a powerful combination.
2. Jeremiah Smith is healthy and motivated, with hometown team on deck
The South Florida wunderkind could’ve stayed home and been a Miami Hurricane, but Ohio State won the big-time recruiting battle for Smith. Now, after already leading the Buckeyes to a national championship during his magical freshman season, Smith is out for more hardware and has those Hurricanes in his path, including a lot of familiar names from South Florida and his own high school.
You think Ryan Day is motivated? How about Smith, who wants to show everyone just how right of a decision he made in picking Columbus during the 2024 recruiting cycle. Losing to Miami and those area guys he left behind would be a disaster, but Smith has a huge feather in his cap that he recently revealed to reporters — he’s “fully healthy” going into the Playoff after almost missing the Michigan game a month ago because of a quad injury.
3. The pressure of being perfect is gone — that’s Indiana’s burden now
When Ohio State won it all last season, it instantly didn’t matter that the Buckeyes were a 2-loss team that couldn’t even beat Michigan at home. Likewise, it wouldn’t matter that they lost to Indiana in the Big Ten title game if Ohio State is able to win the most important title game. Would going undefeated on the way to a repeat national championship have been really cool? Of course, and it’s not like the Buckeyes couldn’t have dealt with the burden on the path there.
But better to not be burdened, right? And better to leave that burden of being unbeaten to the conference rival Ohio State just lost to in the Big Ten title game, because college football has never had a 16-0 national champion, at least not at the Power 4 level. That’s what Indiana will need to become in order to fulfill its ultimate goal. For Ohio State, it’s a lot simpler and condensed now — the Buckeyes just need to win their next 3 games, which is one less than they had to win on the way to the title last season.
Oregon
The high-flying Ducks believe their time has finally arrived.
1. Dante Moore is young and hungry — look at those stats
Moore represents a fresh face at the helm of Oregon’s latest dance with destiny. There have been a lot of heartbreaks in Eugene over the years, but the first-year starting quarterback isn’t attached to any of them, except that he plays for the same program. Moore wasn’t close to perfect this season despite leading the Ducks to a 12-1 record. He wasn’t good in that one loss to Indiana, and Oregon struggled to score during some stretches.
But the sophomore from Detroit still threw for over 3,000 yards this season with 28 touchdown passes and just 8 interceptions. His season QBR was a solid 81.0, and a 72.4 completion percentage is usually a ticket to success. Moore fell under the radar this fall while playing in the same conference as Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza and Heisman finalist Julian Sayin. That doesn’t matter now, because it’s just about winning the next 3 games, starting with Texas Tech on New Year’s Day in Miami. And Moore is more than capable of being the one who finally ends Oregon’s championship drought.
2. The Ducks are due after being so close so many times
Oregon is one of those high-profile programs that is always really good that you would swear has won a national title, maybe a few. But the Ducks have never won one — look it up. They’ve been wildly successful, crazy uniforms and all, in recent decades, getting to 2 national championship games in 2010 and 2014 but losing to Auburn and Ohio State, respectively.
Last season looked like it might finally be Oregon’s time. The Ducks steamrolled their way to the No. 1 seed in the first 12-team Playoff before getting bulldozed themselves in the quarterfinals by Ohio State, the team that eventually won it all instead. Once again, it was somebody else’s time, which leads us to now and Oregon being a 5 seed that not many people are talking about. That might be perfect, because sometimes championship droughts are broken by a team not expected to do it. Oregon isn’t due, it’s overdue, and just maybe it’s this less-heralded Ducks team that ends all the heartache in the Pacific Northwest.
3. Dan Lanning is hell-bent on avenging last season’s quick exit
Lanning isn’t even 40 years old yet and he’s already 47-7 with 4 double-digit-win seasons in 4 years in Eugene. Last season, he took Oregon on a ride to 13-0, a Big Ten title and the No. 1 seed in the Playoff, and his statue was already being built outside Autzen Stadium. But the momentum from the regular season never materialized in a blowout loss to surging Ohio State in the quarterfinal.
The Rose Bowl rout threw cold water on the Ducks’ 2024 season, and here is an immediate chance for Dan Lanning to make up for that. He would never admit it, but it had to be a little embarrassing to flame out that badly in the first Playoff game after being undefeated. Lanning has tasted the ultimate success, being a part of national title teams as a graduate assistant at Alabama in 2015 and as a defensive coordinator at Georgia in 2021.
Lanning is still really young, but he yearns for the right ending this time, and he surely learned a lot of lessons in last season’s failure to help make sure things go differently.