Recruiting wins, transfer portal additions, retention of key players and program-defining hires — the 2025 college football offseason might not count in the standings, but it has shown exactly which coaches are playing chess while others play catch-up.

With that, there are plenty of coaches who are looking to rebound from disappointing seasons last year, and others who are determined to build on their success and prove their programs aren’t just one-hit wonders.

So, which coaches have owned the offseason so far? Who’s built to bounce back, and who’s built to stay on top? 

Our FOX Sports college football writers answer those questions here.

1. Which college football coach has won the offseason and why?

Laken Litman: James Franklin. 

In a world where players are transferring all over the place, Penn State kept a roster that’s fully capable of winning a national championship intact. Quarterback Drew Allar, a projected top prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft, returns. And not only that, but he’ll be in his second season working with offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, which is a huge plus. Then the Nittany Lions have the best running back duo in the country – Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton – who could have opted to leave for the NFL, but are back in Happy Valley as well.

Defensively, Franklin stole his rival’s defensive coordinator. Jim Knowles, who won a national championship with Ohio State last season and has been key in developing some of the best defensive players in the country as of late, is on Penn State’s staff. The Nittany Lions are 1-9 vs. the Buckeyes over the past 10 years, and now they just might have the inside track to that matchup on Nov. 1 in Columbus with Knowles on their side.

Penn State came heartbreakingly close to playing for a national title last season. But because of Franklin’s effort this offseason, he has put his program in an even stronger position to bring it home this year.

RJ Young: Curt Cignetti.

No one had a 2024 like Cignetti, who walked into a program in a manner only DJ Khaled would attempt, telling everyone all he does is win.

And just over a year and a half later, we expect Indiana to be good once again. We expect the Hoosiers to win in the portal, win on the field and compete at the top of the Big Ten.

Cignetti has won at least 11 games in four of the last six years at Indiana and James Madison. Imagine what he might do if his roster began to resemble the ones in Columbus, Austin or Athens. With the addition of Fernando Mendoza and eight starters back from last year’s 11-win team, Cignetti has a squad capable of putting together another sensational run.

Michael Cohen: Joey McGuire.

There’s a reason Texas Tech was the talk of the town at Big 12 Media Days in early July despite a relatively nondescript 8-5 record last fall and being 16 years removed from its last season with double-digit victories, a feat overseen by the late Mike Leach in 2008. And that reason, courtesy of billionaire booster Cody Campbell, who also runs The Matador Club, the school’s NIL collective, was pretty simple to understand: piles and piles and piles of cold, hard cash.

Coaches from near and far were jealous, envious and judgmental of the spending spree McGuire and his staff enjoyed this offseason in putting together the No. 2 transfer portal class in the country, trailing only LSU. The Red Raiders entered the December portal window planning to spend $5 million to upgrade the roster, according to a story on ESPN.com, but when all was said and done a month later — after Texas Tech signed seven of the top 65 prospects available — the bottom line had swelled north of $10 million as Campbell and his fellow boosters sensed an opportunity to game the system by front-loading NIL deals before the House v. NCAA settlement officially ushered in revenue sharing on July 1. Then they could spend even more money once revenue sharing began. 

Imagine how fortunate McGuire must have felt when his player-acquisition efforts were funded by the deep pockets of someone like Campbell, an alum of the program who made billions in oil and natural gas. At a time when the marketplace is often dominated by schools from the Big Ten and SEC — those two leagues accounted for 10 of the top 14 portal classes in the country, according to 247Sports — Texas Tech proved it can hold its own for top talent by signing plug-and-play starters at edge rusher (x2), offensive tackle (x2), running back and wide receiver, which are some of the most expensive positions to fill. Now it’s up to McGuire and his new roster to deliver. 

2. Which of last year’s disappointing teams is most likely to bounce back in 2025?

Michael Cohen: Washington. 

There’s something a bit unfair about describing what Washington did in 2025 as “disappointing” considering just how much turmoil the program endured over the winter, none of which the Huskies brought upon themselves. 

The shocking retirement of Alabama head coach Nick Saban on Jan. 10 — long after the coaching carousel had begun to wind down — thrust the college football world into a frenzy and ignited a chain reaction of movement that affected dozens of schools across the country. Most notably, Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne tabbed Washington head coach Kalen DeBoer to be Saban’s successor on Jan. 12, at which point the Huskies’ coaching staff and roster were decimated by departures less than a week after competing against Michigan in the national championship game. Not to mention the 10 players who would soon be selected in the 2024 NFL Draft, including seven in the first three rounds, headlined by quarterback Michael Penix Jr. at No. 8 overall. It all meant that new head coach Jedd Fisch, who joined Washington after an impressive three-year rebuild at Arizona, faced an incredibly steep climb as he guided the Huskies through their transition to the Big Ten. 

But with the 2025 season comes renewed optimism for Washington, a team that might not compete for a conference championship but should certainly improve on last year’s 6-7 overall record and 4-5 mark in the league. Much of the excitement stems from sophomore quarterback Demond Williams Jr., a legitimate dual-threat player whose dazzling performance in the Sun Bowl last December — he threw for 374 yards and four touchdowns while adding a fifth score on the ground — makes him a national breakout candidate this fall. He’ll be flanked by experienced tailback Jonah Coleman, who rushed for 1,053 yards and 10 touchdowns last season, and emerging wideout Denzel Boston, who caught 63 passes for 834 yards and nine touchdowns as a first-year starter in 2024, for what should be one of the league’s most explosive offenses. 

The bigger questions are on the coaching staff, where Fisch has two new coordinators in Jimmie Dougherty (offense), an internal promotion, and Ryan Walters, the former head coach at Purdue. 

RJ Young: Wisconsin.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Wisconsin is best when it runs the ball. Since the conclusion of the 2022 season, the Badgers are 12-0 when they rush for more than 150 yards and they’ve lost just one of their last 14 games when handing the ball off 35 times or more. So, when the offense rushes for its fewest yards in a full season (1,844) since the turn of the 20th century, it’s easy to see why Phil Longo was no longer fit to call the offense for Luke Fickell.

Had Wisconsin begun the season 9-0, we might be talking about Fickell the same way we did Barry Alvarez and Bret Bielema. Instead, Jeff Grimes takes over as offensive coordinator to fix an offense that wasn’t broken. He coordinated one that ranked in the top 15 in rushing and produced a 1,000-yard rusher in Devin Neal.

Laken Litman: Florida State

The thing about the Seminoles is that it won’t take much for this team to improve in 2025. That’s because the wheels fell off early last season and Mike Norvell’s team finished a whopping 2-10. This year, FSU should be better offensively after hiring Gus Malzahn as the new offensive coordinator and adding dual-threat QB Tommy Castellanos from Boston College. In 2024, Castellanos made BC history by becoming the first player ever to record 2,000 passing yards and 1,000 rushing yards in a single season. 

According to 247Sports, Florida State ranks sixth nationally in the transfer portal with 23 new players. In addition to Castellanos, Norvell added receivers Duce Robinson (USC) and Squirrel White (Tennessee), tight end Randy Pittman Jr. (UCF), running back Gavin Sawchuk (OU) and beefed up both the offensive and defensive lines.

The Seminoles have a tough schedule, however. They open the season at home vs. Alabama before hosting College Football Playoff hopeful Miami in early October. That’s before traveling to Clemson, NC State and rival Florida later in the season. But we should know a lot about what kind of team this is before getting into those tougher ACC matchups.

3. Which of last year’s surprise teams are most likely to build on their success in 2025?

RJ Young: Missouri.

The Tigers have been a force in the Eli Drinkwitz era. The program cemented back-to-back double-digit win seasons for the first time since 2013 and 2014, and that is in large part due to how quickly and efficiently Mizzou adapted to the NIL era. They saw a market inefficiency, and they exploited it quickly.

The addition of former Penn State QB Beau Pribula adds an element we haven’t seen from Drinkwitz in some time — a playmaker in the pocket with a set of wheels. Pribula rushed for 242 yards on just 38 rushes with nine touchdowns at PSU last year and will look to partner with Kevin Coleman, who accounted for 932 yards receiving at Mississippi State in 2024. However, a lot of Mizzou’s success is likely to depend on Louisiana-Monroe transfer Ahmad Hardy, who rushed for 1,351 yards last year — tops among true freshmen. The defense looks sneakily good with nine returning starters from a unit that allowed 20.4 points and 318 yards per game.

With a whopping eight home games on the schedule and road matchups at Auburn, at Vanderbilt, at Oklahoma and at Arkansas, there’s reason to believe Mizzou can contend for a spot in the 12-team playoff. 

Laken Litman: Arizona State. 

The Sun Devils were one of the most fun teams late last year. After winning the Big 12 in their debut season, Kenny Dillingham’s team earned a CFP bye and then came close to beating Texas in the Peach Bowl’s double-overtime thriller. While star running back Cam Skattebo is now a New York Giant, ASU returns quarterback Sam Leavitt, who completed 61.7% of his passes for 2,885 yards with 24 touchdowns to just six interceptions as a freshman last season. 

Leavitt has the moxy and confidence to build on 2024, especially with the talent returning around him, like receivers Jordyn Tyson (who missed the post-season with an injury) and Malik McClain, while also adding experience on both sides of the ball through the transfer portal.

Arizona State was picked to finish dead last in the Big 12 preseason poll last year after going 3-9 the season before. But Dillingham, 35, and his team took that personally and responded by winning 11 games, winning the conference, and going to the playoff. After that experience, these Sun Devils will be hungry to improve and do one better in 2025.

Michael Cohen: Illinois. 

This might not be the most original selection considering how much attention Illinois has received this offseason as a potential dark horse candidate for the College Football Playoff, but the logic behind the Illini’s inclusion in such conversations is too sound to ignore. 

Head coach Bret Bielema and his staff did a remarkable job with player retention to bring back 16 starters from a team that won 10 games last season for the first time since 2001. At the top of the list is quarterback Luke Altmyer, the one-time Ole Miss transfer now entering his third year as the starter and third year under offensive coordinator Barry Lunney Jr., a rarity in modern college football. Equally important are the collections of returning starters along the offensive line (five) and secondary (five) that give Illinois one of the most veteran and cohesive rosters in the Big Ten. That Bielema used the transfer portal to address one of the team’s biggest weaknesses by adding three potential plug-and-play starters along the defensive line in James Thompson Jr. and Curt Neal from Wisconsin and Tomiwa Durojaiye from Florida State is another reason for optimism.

So even though there are legitimate questions at wide receiver and inside linebacker, all of the aforementioned experience should take on increased importance during a season when perennial powers Ohio State, Oregon and Michigan are introducing new starting quarterbacks and significantly rebuilt offensive lines. There’s an argument to be made that, as of right now, Altmyer is the second-best quarterback in the conference behind Penn State’s Drew Allar, given everything he’s accomplished at Illinois since joining the program. The Illini’s schedule sets up quite favorably this fall with two of its three toughest opponents at home in USC on Sept. 27 and Ohio State on Oct. 11, while also avoiding the likes of Michigan, Penn State and Oregon entirely. The only team in the Big Ten with an easier strength of schedule — at least according to ESPN — is Maryland. 

For Bielema & Co., the College Football Playoff is within reach. 

Laken Litman covers college football, college basketball and soccer for FOX Sports. She previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, USA Today and The Indianapolis Star. She is the author of “Strong Like a Woman,” published in spring 2022 to mark the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Follow her at @LakenLitman.

RJ Young is a national college football writer and analyst for FOX Sports. Follow him at @RJ_Young.

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.

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