Bad Take Tuesday: Bold predictions and hot takes for the 2025 Texas Longhorns, college football

Here are my hottest, or bad, takes for the 2025 college football season. Starting from the mild, like a spicy ketchup, to the so hot it’ll make you want to slap your mama, as they say in Friday After Next.

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We’ll start off with an appetizer everyone on Inside Texas should like, even if they don’t agree with it.

Arch Manning will win the Heisman Trophy. Manning will do something his uncles and grandfather never did and join the Downtown Athletic Club. Earlier this summer I predicted Arch would have 50 total touchdowns this season. If he does, he’ll almost certainly win the Heisman. Arch would be the first Longhorn quarterback to win the trophy and join the immortal ranks of Ricky Williams and Earl Campbell as the only burnt orange members of the club. What that means for Manning’s future? I still agree with Archie that his grandson will be back in Austin for 2026, but I sure hope an incompetent NFL team with an awful quarterback track record gets the top pick in April’s draft.

Brent Venables will not make it to Halloween. After the Sooners fall to Texas for the third time in four years, Oklahoma will cut ties with Venables to get an early seat on the coaching carousel. I don’t think Jim Nagy and the OU brass would give Texas fans the pleasure of the schadenfreude of axing Venables immediately after Red River, but I’m eyeing road trips to South Carolina and Ole Miss to end October.

Who will they bring to Norman? That’s where the coaching calendar gets tricky. My money would be on South Carolina’s Shane Beamer, but what if the Gamecocks are in SEC title and playoff contention? Will the Sooners have to make more of a reach and hire outside their comfort zone? They’re in uncharted territory, and all their fanbase and Venables’ hopes ride on John Mateer.

Somehow, some way, Texas A&M will be 8-4. OK, that’s not a hot take, or even a bad one.

Texas Tech’s casino strategy will pay off. The Red Raiders pulled out their wallet—well, Cody Campbell’s—and slapped it on the transfer portal’s roulette table. The Big 12 has a talent vacuum, and it’s ripe for takeover. Can anyone take it over long term? I have my doubts about Joey McGuire and their handling of quarterback, but I think the talent Tech added in the trenches will be enough for it to win their first outright conference title since they were members of the Border Conference.

As for the playoff, we’ll get 0 resolution on a new format this season.

Florida State will rebound from a 2-10 2024 and make the ACC title game. The ACC reminds me of the NFC South, where the last-place team of the previous year seems to be able to jump up in the following year for an inexplicable reason. I’m fading Miami and SMU. Thomas Castellanos and the Seminoles will lose to Clemson in the title game, but the temperature will be turned down in Tallahassee considerably.

Speaking of Clemson, Cade Klubnik will be 1-1 in the 2026 draft.

As for Chapel Hill and Bill Belichick, I think 2025 will be a bit of a nothing-burger. The Tar Heels will go 6-6, and Belichick and Jordon Hudson will bolt for the NFL.

Penn State barely missed the number 1 spot in the AP poll, but I’m predicting the Nittany Lions also miss the 12-team playoff. They’ll lose to Oregon and Ohio State, per usual, but a heartbreaker to the Nebraska Cornhuskers (the Indiana of 2025, not Illinois) will keep James Franklin out of the playoffs.

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I touched on it in the Venables paragraph, but I think it’s an unprecedented year for coaching turnover. I think there are at least 12 vacancies at Power 4 programs. Beyond Oklahoma, I’m looking at Oklahoma State, Iowa, and Kentucky as certainties. But there could also be a few shockers—like in Los Angeles or Columbus.