The Joel Klatt Show: A College Football Podcast - 10 Games that will shape the 2025 College Football Season

Episode Date: June 23, 2025

FOX Sports’ lead College Football analyst Joel Klatt reveals 10 games that he believes will shape the 2025 season. From a potential #1 vs #2 matchup between Ohio State and Texas in Columbus to kick off the season to games that could propel unexpected teams to the Playoff, Klatt looks at where the most impactful results will come from in the upcoming season. He explains why LSU’s trip to Clemson and Michigan’s game at Oklahoma could set the trajectories for those programs and impact the Playoff discussions later in the year. Klatt explains where Penn State can show the country they are ready to take the next step towards a National Championship. The second season in the Kalen DeBoer era at Alabama will be defined by winning or losing certain games on their schedule, Klatt explains which particular results will have a significant ripple effect through the rest of the SEC. And of course, “The Game” between Ohio State and Michigan will have huge ramifications as the Wolverines look to beat the Buckeyes for a 5th straight season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

10 games that will shape the season in 2025. It is the game. We're all waiting for it. But you also have the first start in the arch era. The SEC desperately needs a giant non-conference win. This one is going to be very important for Illinois in their opportunity to bash the playoff party. Winner of this game likely goes to the SEC championship. I don't see the winner of this game not being a top two seed in the SEC.

College football has never been better. Interest has never been higher. I believe that we are at the dawn. of the golden age of college football. Hey, everybody. Welcome into the Joel Clatt show. I am Joel Clatt. This show is brought to you by Hampton by Hilton,

and we thank them for their support. Oh, man, I cannot wait for college football season. I feel like every week, every week, it gets just a little closer and a little closer. And here's what I wanted to do today is I want to take a look at next season and start getting us primed. And the way I'm going to start getting us primed

is by talking about the 10 games that I'm most excited for that I think are going to really shape the season and how we view the season, how we see the postseason, what the postseason is actually going to be in college football. So let's do that now. Now, before we start, remember wherever you're listening, go ahead and rate and review us. If you're listening to this podcast, if you're not, go watch it on YouTube. You can subscribe to the channel there. You can also give us a thumbs up, hit the notification button. You're going to know when all of our content drops. Leave a comment down below. That would be sweet. Wherever you like to social media, we are there with our content for you. And you can follow us at Joel Clat Show wherever you're at on social media. Okay, here we go. Ten games that will shape the season in 2025 for college football. It's almost here. Trust me. Trust me.

It's going to get here. What I'm hoping is that an episode like this is going to get you through like a great, a great long drive, right? You're taking a little vacation this summer and you're on a drive. I don't know. Maybe the kids are being loud in the back seat. You can throw in like some AirPods. Is that safe?

I don't know. Am I encouraging something that's not cool? No, I'm not. Throw the AirPods in and listen to this. Ten games that will shape the season in college football. I'm going to go chronologically here. So these are not a ranking. These are going to be chronologically.

So we start in week one. And obviously in week one, there's a couple of monster matchups. And I start with our monster matchup on Fox, Texas at Ohio State. That's my first game. Rematch of the college football playoff semifinal. Sark is going to take his team up to the show. shoe and face the defending national champions, the Ohio State Buckeyes.

We've never had, by the way, teams open the season, as far as I can remember, in a one versus two matchup. That might be the case with these two teams. I think at worst, you're going to have like a 1V3 game at worst. I mean, at maybe 1-4. I can't really see that being anything outside of that. So this is going to be a monster, monster matchup. Not only do you have that, all the backstory, these teams just played in the college football semifinal,

but you also have the first start in the Arch era. Now, I know that Arch has started before, but the first start of the Arch era. This is now his team, this is his program. And so Arch Manning here as your starter for Texas, and he's going to get that start against the defending national champion on the road. That's pretty awesome. So I cannot wait for that scenario. We've also got the quarterback situation at Ohio State.

Who is it going to be? Is it going to be Julian Sayin? I know he's incredibly talented. I've really enjoyed watching what he brings to the table when I've been in Columbus and I've seen Paractus. You're going to have a new offensive play caller and Brian Hartline. You're going to have a new defensive play caller and Matt Patricia at Ohio State. You're going to have this idea that like Steve Sarkesian has, he has brought Texas back to the position where they have been or worked.

desperate to be for a decade, which is right at the forefront of college football. He's done a remarkable job, but now it's back-to-back years in which they've lost in the national semifinal. So he wants to take a step forward. He wants the program to take a step forward. They've recruited at a ridiculously high level. You know how I feel about Steve Sarkesian. He is one hell of a college football coach.

He would be easily in my top five or six in the country. And now he's going against a guy that now is easily in the top two or three. in the country, and that's Ryan Day. And how different has this offseason felt for Ryan Day and the Ohio State Buckeyes? I mean, my goodness, granted, they have not beaten Michigan in several years, but winning the national championship has made this feel totally different. Like the monkey off his back, I actually think Ohio State might go on a bit of a run here. I would not be surprised at all if Ohio State wasn't right back in this position where they were

competing for and potentially winning a national championship. this year. So we get to see all of that play out right there in front of us, week one in the shoe, Ryan Day, Steve Sarkesian, possibly Julian San against Arch Manning, you've got new coordinators, you've got all of it, the colors, all of it. I cannot wait for that game. That's week one. Also in week one, we move on to my second game. LSU at Clemson. Yep, sign me up. Did we just become best? Yep. I love this matchup as well. easily going to be a top 10 matchup in week one. Brian Kelly needs this game, guys.

He needs this game. Now, we all expect LSU to be a really good football team. They've gone all in out of the portal. They've got a quarterback back. That experience at that position, as we've seen in the last couple of years, with J.J. McCarthy and Will Howard winning national championships. You need experience at that position. And now Brian Kelly has it, although he's owing three in season openers.

and LSU, they need this. Like, let's be honest. I think LSU fans need this. They need to see this program progressing. In a lot of ways, it's not all that dissimilar from Sark's first couple of years at Texas, where it was like, oh, is this working? And then you got the breakthrough. And so we need to start seeing the breakthrough for Brian Kelly at LSU.

I think that that's totally fair. And I do think that we're going to see that this year. I'm a big believer in what LSU can do this year. I think this is a playoff team. And yet they're going to Clemson, and I actually feel a little bit better about Clemson. Dabo is clearly, he's bet on himself, his philosophy, he's bet on his model,

and now he seems to be reloading for another run. Clemson is really good. They've also got experience. the quarterback position with the guy that I had is my number one quarterback going into the season, Cade Clubnick. I think that you look at this matchup, you've got a really good defense for Clemson, you've got a quality offense for LSU, you're going to have the home game effect for Clemson, and then you get into the conference kind of aspect of this matchup, which I love.

Maybe not, I'll just say less so for Texas and Ohio State because we just know those conferences are going to be great. We know those teams are going to be great. But in this respect, when you get this SEC-ACC battle early in the year, in particular with a team that I think we all, including myself, expect Clemson to win the ACC, if LSU beats Clemson in Clemson, week one, and Clemson goes on to win the ACC, let's say even in a dominant fashion, well, now the SEC is going to be sitting there like, hey, that conference should only get one participant, obviously. And we should get all the rest of them.

That's why these non-conference games become so important is because of the lobbying that will inevitably take place as we finish up the season. I got to be honest, too. And listen, I understand that I have a certain reputation. But I think that this reputation is just based on facts. right now, the SEC desperately needs a giant non-conference win.

Now, you might say like, no, we don't desperately need it, but you look at what's going on, okay? Last year, Texas lost to Ohio State in the national semifinal. Georgia lost to Notre Dame in the playoff. Tennessee got their doors absolutely blown off their hinges at Ohio State. You had Michigan beating Alabama in a bowl game

with a lot of their players not playing in that game. And Jalen Milrow was in that game. That hasn't been the case for Clemson because they were 0 and 3 against the SEC last year. So they need a win against that conference. But the SEC also needs a marquee win against anybody else. And this is clearly, at least in my estimation, going to be a top five or six team in the preseason in Clemson. So this would be a big one for the SEC. Because what we saw late last year is that they're starting to lose their grip on this,

on this mantra that everyone, one can just pound the table and say, like, oh, they're the best conference. Well, that didn't actually play out the last couple of years, at least not on the field, not in terms of the national champion and not in some of these marquee games and in particular playoff games when everything was on the line. So implications in that respect in terms of conference supremacy and in particular the playoff moving forward. Okay, so that's week one. Those are the first two games. Let's move on and I might go a little quicker. Week two, massive game. Michigan. on the road at Oklahoma.

You bet. Cannot wait for this one. Sharon Moore goes to play his former team, by the way. This is where he played at Oklahoma. He played for Bob Stoops. And now he's going to take this Michigan team that needs a bounce back. They need a bounce back year desperately. Defense was fine last year.

Offense was not. They need to figure out the quarterback position. They spent a lot of money. They did a lot of work in the recruiting process and got Bryce Underwood. One of the most attractive. and sought after recruits that we've seen in a long time, and they landed him. They landed him.

And so this might be, you know, kind of the first major start that we see from Bryce Underwood under Sharon Moore. Sharon will still be there. Remember, the self-imposed suspension is not going to go into effect until after this game. So he's going to coach in this game in week two. But also on the opposite side, let's face it, Oklahoma needs this for a bounce back.

Granted, they played a horrifically difficult schedule last year, but Brent Benibles also needs. He needs a bounce back. He needs to gain a foothold as the head coach for OU. Everybody was excited when he came in. Okay, they all felt the sting when Lincoln Riley rode off into the sunset, literally, to the West Coast and USC, and they brought back Brent Benibles, who won a national championship as a coordinator at OU, was an Oklahoma guy, and everyone felt good about it, but now they need something to feel good about on the field. So both of these programs are in desperate need of a bounce game.

And this could provide that for either program. I would just say, like, John Mateer coming in with Ben Arbuckle, the offensive coordinator, I'm expecting Oklahoma to take a real good step and a nice step offensively. What might be difficult is that they're going to have to face a defense that is going to be outstanding. Outstanding. Wink Martindell figured it out late last year in terms of being a coordinator, at the college level. They're going to get Rod Moore back at safety.

And all those players that were on the field in the bowl game, stopping Alabama, even with Jalen Milrow, are going to be back. They also got the transfer tackle from Clemson. Like, Michigan's going to be incredible on defense. And so John Materer and that offense for OU, they're going to have quite a test early. So is Bryce Underwood. Again, winner of that game gets a major bounce forward.

And now all of a sudden establishes really the depth of that conference. each of those conferences. The winner, like I said, establishes the depth of either the Big Ten or the SEC. All right. Let's go to week three. Week three, I love this one. A&M at Notre Dame. This was a great game in College Station a year ago. This is a terrific game. And we all believe in Marcus Freeman. I think that Marcus Freeman is the perfect fit at Notre Dame. He just played for a national championship. He has recruited and brought in a level of athlete, let's face it, like wasn't there prior. This feels like a program that can go compete on the highest level and potentially go win a national championship. I am very, very bullish on Notre Dame.

I'm bullish on them this year. I also really like Mike Elko and Texas A&M. And I like the fit there because at Texas A&M, if I know anything about that program, I was able to able to, fortunate enough and honored really to compete against them. We hosted them at Colorado. I also went down and played at College Station. That's one of, if not the most unique fan bases in all of college football. It is college football in a lot of respects, you know, and Mike Elko gets it and fits there. And in that respect, like, I love this higher and this fit, and I think that it will work. Now, I've been wrong before when I've thought things will work.

I thought that, you know, I thought Scott Frost was going to work at Nebraska. That didn't workout. But I do think Mike Elko is going to work at Texas A&M. I could have also, by the way, picked Notre Dame's opener against Miami, but I did not. Here's why I didn't. I think that a win against A&M and they're likely a playoff team. There's just not a lot left on their schedule after this A&M game that would really scare you. I don't want to disparage, but like home games against Boise and USC being the toughest of their remaining games. So regardless of what happens when they go to Miami. When they play Texas A&M at home,

this is the big one. If they can win that game, then they look fine toward the college football playoff again. If they lose that game, it's another September loss for Marcus Freeman, and it would be his, what was it, fourth? I mean, they lost to Northern Illinois. They lost to Marshall.

They lost to Ohio State in the last three years. Now, one of those is not like the other. Obviously, the Ohio State game was an incredible game. But they've lost three games in September in their home stadium. So this is a big one against Texas A&M. I do want to give a quick shout out. In week three, this is a game that I just couldn't get on the list, but I just want to mention it briefly.

Florida at LSU is also week three. It's that same day that A&M plays Notre Dame. And I wanted to do this, but quite frankly, I just couldn't in good conscience because Florida has too much after that game. I wanted to say like, hey, this is Florida's opportunity to announce themselves on the Mesa. stage, but look at what they have after that game. So they would play LSU on week three, so that would be September 13th.

And then look at what they've got. They've got this LSU. Then they've got at Miami, Texas, at A&M. They still would have Georgia in November, still Tennessee in November. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So I couldn't put Florida on there, but I wanted to mention that they also play LSU in that week three, September 13th weekend. wanted to put that game on here.

I like Florida. I don't like their schedule. We move forward. Week five. What do we got week five? Oregon at Penn State. That's going to be phenomenal. Oregon last year goes undefeated, beat Penn State in the Big Ten championship game.

They were the number one seed and then obviously got bounced by Ohio State. But I actually think that this game is bigger, not for Oregon, but for Penn State. Not only is it at home, but remember, I keep telling you about this idea that they have to beat somebody that they are evenly matched with or even not evenly matched with, i.e. upset someone. Penn State has gotten so good at winning all the games that they should win. James Franklin does that perfectly, and I do not want to disparage that. That is a talent. That is not something to scoff at. have done a great job. Penn State is an excellent program. They're a great program. In a lot of ways, I think that they could win the national championship this year. One of the things that they're going to have to do is find a way to win those, what I would call matchup games. When talent is equated, and you've got the same talent

that you're looking across the field at, can you win those games? And up to this point, that's where they've struggled. Now, they've gotten closer in some of those matchups, had Ohio State the eventual national champion on the ropes. They were unable to convert inside of the five. Played a really good game against Oregon, played a great game against Notre Dame in the national semifinal. So it's there. It's there for them.

And this is their next opportunity. If they could win that game, man, that would announce to everybody like, hey, Penn State is ready. They're ready for that stage, and they could potentially make a run and do something bigger than just win the games that they should. I would also note from an Oregon perspective, this would be Dan Landings' first opportunity post-getting

by Ohio State to really show what they're made of and say to themselves like, yeah, we're over that game. You know, it was a bad process, let's be honest, with the CFP where the best team had to all a sudden play Ohio State in a neutral site. And they got beat and they got beat badly. And that Ohio State team was not going to lose to anybody. As evidence, they went on to win the national championship. but this is their opportunity, speaking of Oregon, to really show that they're going to move forward from that,

they're going to grow from it, they're going to develop, and they're going to continue to play on the elite level. And if they can win at Penn State, which I think in a lot of respects is the toughest place to win a football game in the Big Ten, then that would be saying something for that program. Also, week five, this one is a sneaky one, and it's very under the radar.

But bear with me, USC at Illinois, week five. This one is going to be, I think, very important for both teams, specifically for Illinois and their opportunity to be this year's Indiana and kind of crash the playoff party. Both teams could very well be four and O entering this game. I think that that's absolutely within the realm. and a win for Illinois would put them at 5-0 with really their only difficult game left

being hosting Ohio State several weeks later. At that point, it's almost identical to what Indiana was a year ago. Remember, Indiana won some games, important games early, and then they had this looming Ohio State game, and it almost didn't matter if they won or lost because at 11 and 1, they were going to go to the college football playoffs,

which they did, and they should, regardless of what some people wanted to, say in particular during their game. They earned their way in, and Illinois could do the same, and this is really the game that's the crux of the argument. If they can get past USC, now all of a sudden that Ohio State game doesn't quite look as daunting. I think Brett Bilema is building something very special. What they're going to have to fight is that it's very difficult for a program that hasn't enjoyed top-level success to all of a sudden be the apple of everyone's eye in the postseason and everyone telling them how great they are and they're going to

make a run and you've got experience at the right positions and then to continue to go out there and do what you need to do in order to win games because they're going to be in close games. They still don't have the talent to go and blow everybody out, but Beulamah is building something that I think is very sustainable. It's tough. It's defensive oriented. It's winning the line of scrimmage. It's winning with experience and in a smart way. So like, could they be in the playoff? Absolutely. But I don't think they are in that conversation if they lose this game at home week five against USC. And then the USC side, like, this is pretty obvious. They need wins desperately because Lincoln Riley needs to stack up some wins.

He needs to stack up some goodwill. Riley has done, I think, a really great job early in his tenure at USC. And then over last year, it was like, oh, okay, well, this is going to be interesting. What are we moving forward? And this is the problem with losing this game if you're USC is that you are staring right down the barrel of another seven and five season, which nobody is going to be happy with. And then you really start to hear the chirps around this program. They've done a great job in recruiting for next year, one of the best recruiting classes, if not the best recruiting class in the country. So they're trying to build momentum off the field and they need to build momentum on the field. This would be a great opportunity on the road to go and beat an Illinois team that a lot of us

think a lot of. If they lose, their next three games would be Michigan, at Notre Dame, at Nebraska. So things could go off the rails quite quickly if they were to lose this one to Illinois. Also, week five, big weekend in college football. Big. Someone would call it huge. Alabama is at Georgia. Hello. This is an obvious one. I don't have to go into this deeply at all. This game is a classic. It is always great. There's a couple of games on this list that fall into this category that it's just like, yeah, they can play in a parking lot. It's going to be not only a great game, but it's going to be a highly meaningful game. Winner of this game likely goes to the SEC championship.

I don't see the winner of this game not being a top two seed in the SEC. So that's why it's vital, really, and so important. Then you get the implications of like, is Alabama back at their level that they were with Nick Sabin? This is a huge early test for Kalin DeBoer in year two. if they're able to beat Georgia, is Georgia slipping back to them? They beat them last year. If they beat them again this year, it's like, wait, well, wait, what's going on with Kirby and Georgia?

They lost Alabama last year and DeBore's first year. They lose to Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame in the college football playoff. Is Georgia still Georgia? I think they need to win this game to be considered that. If Bama wins, by the way, bunch of winnable games after this. So Kirby and the dogs, they'll be ready. that game is between the hedges. Then we move forward all the way to week 10.

There's a few in there that I wanted to incorporate, but again, we only have 10. These are the 10 games that are going to really develop the slate for this season. Most important games, if you will. Week 10, November 1st, Penn State at Ohio State, that's obvious. Likely another top five matchup. Another opportunity for James Franklin and Penn State to get a marquee win. Okay, if they don't get it against Oregon, there's going to be a ton of pressure on them in this matchup to get it against Ohio State.

In particular, in a year in which Ohio State's going to be breaking in a new quarterback, breaking into new coordinators. It's like if you don't beat this version of Ohio State, don't you just expect Ryan Day to continue to reload and build something that might even be better in the future? I think that would be your anticipation, in particular with the fact that this is the most experienced and talented team that James Franklin's going to have at Penn State in his tenure. So this is a monster. Drew Alar back in Ohio. Huge opportunity for him. And the loser of this game, precarious spot as it relates to the Big Ten championship game. We'll see how it all plays out.

But it was just like a wild loss from Ohio State against Michigan that got Penn State back and into the back door and into that Big Ten championship game last year. against Oregon. Can you expect that again? Probably not. So the loser, I just don't think that you can expect, even though it happened last year. You can't expect that you're going to go to the Big Ten championship game. So that one's going to be a huge one. That one's going to be in Columbus, November 1st. Week 11, November 8th, I started thinking to myself like, okay, if games kind of go how we think, like let's just say Georgia beats Alabama in week five. That's not out of the realm of possibility. Clearly, in particular being at home. Let's just say that Clemson, where to beat LSU because I think Clemson's going to be amazing. Clemson's going to be at home. Well, now all of a sudden, you've got this game, Week 11, November 8th, LSU at Alabama. And you're talking about a monster game with playoff implications.

You know, like, I don't know if the loser of this game can get over that and still get into the playoffs. Maybe they can. But I don't know if they can. This is not like an Alabama Georgia game, you know, where I'm like, okay, listen, winner's going to go to the SEC championship game. This game, LSU Alabama, feels a lot more like you got to win it to go to the playoff. Now, we'll see what happens in some of those weeks prior, but this one could be that type of

implication. Battle for maybe the 3-4 spot in the SEC, presumably that playoff birth. You've got, again, the implications that I talked about for LSU earlier in Brian Kelly needing to take the step forward. And then certainly for Kailin DeBore, you can't expect that he's going to get a ton of runway from the faithful at Alabama. The way things finished last year was not, quote, Alabama. And so he's got tough test at Georgia, but you've got to beat LSU at home.

These are kind of the standards that they've set for themselves there with Alabama. and he's going to have that chance there, week 11, November 8th. And that was the ninth game. And so we only have one more game. And there's really only one more game that you can possibly put on this list. And that is Ohio State at Michigan. It is the game. We're all waiting for it.

Why? These are the two teams that won the last two national championships. You've got all of the backstory of how this game finished last year. My goodness, how many times are we going to see all of that video? with Mason Graham pounding his chest, and then all of a sudden the flag is getting waved around. The Michigan flag, they're trying to plant it on the field. And then all of a sudden the pepper spray comes out

because there is a fight going on. Like, holy cow, like we get to see this matchup again. It's going to be in the big house. If you're watching on YouTube, you should be. We're showing footage of that crazy wild end to the classic game between Ohio State and Michigan. a year ago. Ohio State got their national championship, but then you still have these Michigan guys that are like, yeah, well, you didn't beat us. And we won our national championship going 15 and 0.

So this year's game is going to be, it's going to be epic. Could Michigan, who's got five straight wins in this series, could they actually get to, or excuse me, four straight wins in this series? Could they actually get to five? Like, if we just think back to the COVID year, I'll be real honest. I didn't think Michigan was going to win for the foreseeable future. And now all of a sudden they've rolled off four straight. Last year, you got the fighting, you got the pepper spray, you got the flags. You got the game. You got the game.

That has to go on the list. There are others that I missed, and I understand. But I tried to give you guys a walk through next season with the 10 games that will shape the season. And I think that we were able to do that. Hey, if you've got another matchup and another game that you wanted me to hit on, maybe I can hit on it at a later date, leave a comment below. Remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening. Subscribe to the YouTube channel as well.

That would be awesome. And then follow us wherever you like to social media. We are there. You can get all of this content out there on social media. We'll be back with new episodes next Monday. I want you to have a wonderful week with the ones you love and cannot wait for college football, right?