Welcome to Sports Illustrated’s College Football Quarter-Century Week

All week long, we’ll be taking a look at the top players, teams, games, coaches and scandals from the past 25 college football seasons.

Bryan Fischer, Pat Forde | Aug 7, 2025

Kevin D. Liles/Sports Illustrated (Joe Burrow); Peter Read Miller/Sports Illustrated (Reggie Bush); Darren Carroll/Sports Illustrated (Nick Saban)

Welcome to Sports Illustrated’s College Football Quarter-Century Week. We will look back at the past 25 seasons in college football, ranking the top 25 teams, quarterbacks, non-QB players, coaches, games and scandals.

Monday: College Sports Transformed in the Past 25 Years to a Nearly Unrecognizable Product

As much as things have changed across the sports landscape in the 21st century, nothing has evolved more radically than college athletics. The economy of it. The geography. The ethics. The legality. Almost everything is different, much of it dramatically so. Some for the better, some for the worse.

Monday: The 25 Best College Football Teams of the Past 25 Years

Defensive and offensive juggernauts, back-to-back champions and a season so good that even though it’s vacated in the record books, it still makes our list.

Tuesday: The 25 Best College Football Quarterbacks of the Past 25 Years

Joe Burrow is in the top spot with several records among a decorated list of Heisman Trophy and national title winners.

Tuesday: The 25 Best College Football Non-Quarterbacks of the Past 25 Years

Reggie Bush paves the way with two titles with the Trojans among a list of outstanding offensive and defensive players beyond the one under center.

Wednesday: The 25 Best College Football Coaches of the Past 25 Years

This list could almost start and end with Nick Saban whose dominance in this quarter century is unmatched.

Thursday: The Top 25 College Football Scandals of the Past 25 Years

From criminal cases to NCAA infractions and viral dramas, college football has generated some of the most significant firestorms in sports in the past two decades.

Friday: The Top 25 College Football Games of the Past 25 Years

A championship game that transcended all the juicy storylines takes the top spot, with some of the wildest matchups and plays filling out the list.

Published Aug 4, 2025|Modified Aug 7, 2025

BRYAN FISCHER

Bryan Fischer is a staff writer at Sports Illustrated covering college sports. He joined the SI staff in October 2024 after spending nearly two decades at outlets such as FOX Sports, NBC Sports and CBS Sports. A member of the Football Writers Association of America's All-America Selection Committee and a Heisman Trophy voter, Fischer has received awards for investigative journalism from the Associated Press Sports Editors and FWAA. He has a bachelor's in communication from USC.

PAT FORDE

Pat Forde is a senior writer for Sports Illustrated who covers college football and college basketball as well as the Olympics and horse racing. He cohosts the College Football Enquirer podcast and is a football analyst on the Big Ten Network. He previously worked for Yahoo Sports, ESPN and The (Louisville) Courier-Journal. Forde has won 28 Associated Press Sports Editors writing contest awards, has been published three times in the Best American Sports Writing book series, and was nominated for the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. A past president of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and member of the Football Writers Association of America, he lives in Louisville with his wife. They have three children, all of whom were collegiate swimmers.