IlliniGuys.com’s Matt Stevens gives his weekly Top 25 ballot with analysis as we enter the third week of September. 

September 16, 2025

(Cover photo courtesy Jonathan Mailhes/TigerRag.com)

Lord God in heaven please help me, I’m about to advocate on behalf of Louisiana State University head football coach Brian Kelly.

Kelly apologized in private on Sunday and publicly on Monday to local television reporter Michael Cauble of WBRZ-TV. And let’s be honest, he should have.

Kelly fielded the first question of the post-game news conference from Cauble, who asked the LSU head coach about the inconsistencies in the run game and third down for the Tigers against Florida, despite the 20-10 home win over the Gators.

“Stop. Really?” Kelly said Saturday night. “Is that the first question? We won the game 20-10. Try another question. What do you want me to tell you? I just laid it out for you. We played the game to win the game.”

Let’s understand a couple of things: 1) There are 136 Football Bowl Subdivision programs and LSU currently only higher than 19 of them in rushing offense. LSU’s inability to consistently run the football led them to being 4 of 14 on third down conversions on Saturday night.

I understand Kelly being defensive and even maybe caught off guard that this was the first question asked after a 10-point win in the Southeastern Conference opener. However, this isn’t a unique environment in Louisiana media covering this football program. Les Miles made a near decade-long tenure out of basically having the vibe of every SEC win he managed to somehow pull off be something like: ‘Great win Les, how’d that grass taste tonight? By the way, why does the offense still kinda stink?’

These are legit questions to ask and Kelly knows this because the second part of this answer on Saturday night exemplifies why.

"LSU won the football game, won the game,” Kelly said Saturday night. “I don't know what you want from me. What do you want? You want us to win 70-0 against Florida to keep you happy?”

Okay…and this is where Kelly went just too far because my man, who unsuccessfully tried the southern accent and was immediately tagged with the ‘carpet bagger’ label by everyone who was born south of the Mason-Dixon Line, knows exactly what is expected of him. He is in the fourth season as the head coach of the LSU football program and he has yet to put a national championship trophy in the football building in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Kelly knew exactly what the bar of expectations was when he left a small private school program in South Bend, Indiana to coach three letters that are synonymous for winning in the Deep South: L-S-U.

Nick Saban, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron all won national titles in a four-year span at LSU. Let’s put it this way: The last guy who failed to do this task at LSU is the lead football analyst for the Big Ten Network - everybody say hi to Mr. Gerry DiNardo.

So, Brian Kelly knows exactly why that question was asked after a 10-point win over Florida and he knows what the expectations are of his current employer. The only follow-up question that we don’t know the answer to is: Can he hold up to this standard? We’re all about to find out.

2025 Matt Stevens Top 25 College Football Ballot

NOTE: It’s important to note this Top 25 is a combination of what I believe are the best teams in the country and not necessarily what I think the final rankings will look like in December. Thank you.

1. Ohio State - Okay, I broke my own rule on this because Ohio State is the defending national champions and have done nothing this season to prove they don’t belong in this top spot through three games of the 2025 season. I apologize. I blame myself and the abundance of talent in Happy Valley for blinding me to all of these things. The key, once again for Ohio State, is not the offense - which I just wasn’t prepared for Matt Patricia to slide right in for Jimmy Knowles and be the play-caller of what looks like the most fundamentally sound defensive unit in the country.

2. Penn State - So, yeah, I dropped Penn State one spot because well, I need Drew Allar and the Nittany Lions offensive line to be better than this. Look, I still think James Franklin’s roster is the most talented in the Big Ten this season. But we’re going to find out how real this national championship caliber run is in two weeks when they host Oregon.

3. Oregon - Yeah, that’s right folks. I have three Big Ten teams 1-2-3 in my poll because once again, Oregon is reminding everybody in Big Ten country that yes, they are again this darn talented and Dante Moore might just be scratching the surface of what offensive coordinator Will Stein can tap into once he gets more quarterback starts to his name.

4. Georgia - Saturday may have been the moment where Georgia head coach Kirby Smart may have realized his program isn’t the King Kong of the Southeastern Conference anymore. For several years now, Smart has been operating a program that, on defense, has been essentially the minor affliate of the Philadelphia Eagles. And then they went to Knoxville and gave up 41 points….but still managed to win. Here’s the scary part both ways: 1) What if Georgia’s defensive problems aren’t easily solved over the next two months? 2) What if, God forbid, they are solvable?

5. LSU - As we stated in the preamble up top, do I love LSU’s offense right now? No. Do I love the fact that their defense is something not seen in the bayou since Les Miles was winning the ‘Game of the Century’ in Tuscaloosa 9-6? Yeah, I think I do. LSU can and has rode a all-world defense to a national championship level before, why not again?

6. Miami (Fla.) - Okay, Miami is 3-0. But can we all just admit what we’re all doing? That’s right, we’re all going down the Hurricanes schedule and trying to figure out when Mario Cristobal’s let’s call it game management is going to bite them in the backside. They still have trips to Tallahassee (Florida State) and Highland Park (SMU) and a tricky home game against Jeff Brohm’s Louisville to navigate in the regular season.

7. Texas A&M - After Week 1, I was bold enough to point out that one of the most underappreciated talents in college football might just be Texas A&M quarterback Marcel Reed. Yeah…that is no longer the case because that young man might be the early clubhouse leader for Heisman Trophy hype.

8. Texas - Arch Manning is now getting booed at home. ESPN/SEC Network analyst Paul Finebaum has given up on the young man. Manning was 11-of-25 passing against UTEP and had 10 consecutive incompletions in the second quarter. It’s almost like Steve Sarkasian has every reason to play the ‘Arch vs. The World’ card of motivation.

9. Iowa State - By all accounts Iowa State athletics director Jamie Pollard is considered one of the current best in his profession. And yet, he’s the same guy who scheduled his power conference program for a home-and-home contract with Arkansas State. Why Jamie?! Good news for Cyclones fans, their favorite team has Rocco Becht playing quarterback for them. “In the moment, you trust that guy with everything you have because of who he is,” coach Matt Campbell said of his quarterback. “He just keeps proving it time after time after time.”

10. Illinois - I was asked last season what the Illini’s 2024 record would be (as most of you know - one of my favorite questions to avoid). My answer? What happened in the Kansas game? In 2025, my answer to that year’s version of predicting the Illini’s record is: What happened in the Indiana game? I’ll be ranking Illinois in the top 8 if they pull off this victory in Bloomington. And if they don’t, they likely won’t move out of the Top 15.

11. Oklahoma - Look, the Sooners (and its fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants quarterback John Mateer) have plenty more chances to stumble in this 2025 season. Do I think one of these stumbling blocks is a home game against Auburn tbis weekend? No….no I do not.

12. Tennessee - The Volunteers are my first example of ‘Why do you want me to punish a team for being highly competitive but losing a game I honestly didn’t think they were going to win in the first place?’ team of the 2025 season. Josh Heupel said after the overtime loss to Georgia that he wanted this one to hurt for quite some time. No worries there, buddy. Here’s the good news: Tennessee may still very much be in line for a SEC Championship Game spot despite this early loss.

13. Florida State - Florida State safety Earl Little Jr. leads the team with 11 tackles, including a sack. His defensive coordinator Tony White is winning the early-season award for best quote when he described his new roving defensive back this way: “He is trying to hit somebody's soul out of their body.”

14. Utah - The Utes went to Wyoming and missed three field goals before having a turnover in the game….and still won 31-6. How you may ask? Well, they ran for 311 yards, dominated time of possession by a 2-to-1 margin and limited Wyoming to just 108 yards passing in a game they were down 17-0 at the end of three quarters.

15. Georgia Tech - Brent Key is one of a few coaches on my short list of ‘First coach I’d call to run a college football program’. For the first time since Paul Johnson was running the triple option to perfection in Atlanta, Key has delivered a physical identity to this program to point where you’re just not shocked when they handle Clemson up front on both sides of the ball like they did on Saturday. A little homework assignment: The Yellow Jackets host Georgia in the rivalry regular season finale but before then, find me a guaranteed loss for Tech before that game.

16. Texas Tech - I still don’t have any idea how great the Red Raiders’ $20-30 million roster is exactly. Cody Campbell’s….I mean, Joey McGuire’s Texas Tech team is about to travel to Salt Lake City this weekend to play the Utes in a game that is going to be really fun at 11 a.m. on Fox.

17. Indiana - The Hoosiers lead the Big Ten in rushing offense after they’ve totaled at least 300 yards on the ground against Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State. Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti was asked what the keys were to being so dominate in the run game: “Well, we were probably much more talented than them up front?” Asked and answered.

18. Louisville - Their are 64 voters in the Associated Press Top 25 poll. Five of them have Louisville ranked after three weeks. This is the underappreciated by also under-the-radar world that Jeff Brohm cherishes.

19. South Florida - So, USF has fallen out of the Top 25 poll after being blown out in a road game at No. 6 (in my poll) Miami? How does this make sense? It really doesn’t even matter if you don’t think Florida is good because Boise State is likely to win somewhere between 8-10 football games this season and USF opened the season with a 34-7 win.

20. Michigan - So, I think Michigan has figured out this quarterback thing. Bryce Underwood passed for 235 yards and rushed for 114, totaling three touchdowns and leaving Wolverines interim head coach Biff Poggi to say “I have a Labrador retriever who could coach that guy.”

21. Notre Dame - Yeah….I know they’re 0-2. I don’t care. I know what I see and what I’ve seen is they’re literally about three totals plays away from being 2-0 at Miami (Fla.) and against Texas A&M. Marcus Freeman has defensive front issues that will keep him up at night this season but watch Notre Dame now run off at least 7-8 straight wins.

22. Ole Miss - I don’t think Ole Miss’ defense could stop a nose bleed right now. And when Lane Kiffin is your head coach and offensive play-caller, the first sentence just might not matter much.

23. Tulane - 38 days. That’s how long it took former BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff to win the starting job at one of the favorites in the American Conference and then suddenly look like one of the most dangerous dual-threat quarterbacks in the country.

24. Vanderbilt - The Commodores are a living embodiment of why the triple option offense (with a passing element) is still one of the most fun things to watch in this sport.

25. Missouri - The Tigers are averaging 302.3 rushing yards per game and should be unbeaten when Alabama comes to town in Week 7.

On the outside, looking in (in no particular order): Alabama, Clemson, TCU, Auburn, UNLV, Memphis, California and North Texas