Unmasking the 2025 College Football Season’s Game-Changers: Who’s Dominating the Field?

Well, here we are—already a third of the way through the 2025 college football season. Seems like yesterday we were gearing up for kickoff, and now, if you blink, you might just miss the next big play. It’s still way too soon to throw down bold statements about which teams will rule the roost this year, but one thing’s clear: some players are straight-up stealing the spotlight. Ever wonder who’s making jaws drop and highlight reels sizzle across the FBS landscape? I’ve been tracking the standouts—those with performances so electric you can’t help but watch—and I’m here to share a snapshot of the season’s most intriguing athletes so far. Ready to see who’s rewriting the playbook in 2025? Let’s dive in. LEARN MORE

Although it’s still too early to make any grand declarations about too many things in FBS college football, it’s not too early to note this season’s must-watch players.

Time flies when you’re having fun.

The 2025 college football season is already one-third done. It’s still a touch early to make big, declarative statements about a lot of teams, but it’s not too early at all to celebrate the players who have been particularly awesome in the season’s first four full weeks of action.

Here are some of my favorite performances to date, along with some of their highlights.

The Eight Most-Intriguing College Football Players

QB Fernando Mendoza, Indiana

I didn’t think Indiana would crater after last year’s playoff breakthrough, but also didn’t think the Hoosiers would get better, either. We have to consider the possibility they have, now that they’ve welcomed a top-10-ranked Illinois to Bloomington and disemboweled the Illini 63-10.

Indiana’s dominance started on the line of scrimmage and spread outward, but the quarterback should get his flowers, too.

Here’s a thought: Is Mendoza the best QB in college football right now? The Cal transfer is rarely talked about in that light, but look at what he’s put on the field through four weeks:

He’s second nationally in well-thrown rate at 90.6%.
He’s the only QB in the top five in well-thrown rate who’s also averaged more air yards per attempt (9.3) than the national average.
He’s been great at avoiding interceptions and taking sacks. His 2.1% pickable pass rate and 2.9% sack rate are both much better than average, as is his 13.6% sack per pressure rate.

Mendoza is a non-factor in the run game, and that might hurt his case as the best in the sport. But who would you really take over him right now?

Certainly not Cade Klubnik or Drew Allar. Not Arch Manning, at least for the moment. Maybe LaNorris Sellers, but he’s been injured and created huge problems for South Carolina with his inclination to take sacks. Maybe Garrett Nussmeier? Maybe TCU’s Josh Hoover?

Anyway you slice it, Mendoza is right there.

RB Ahmad Hardy, Missouri

Hardy transferred in from ULM in the offseason. He was very good for the Warhawks, but he’s been on a different level for the Tigers – including in their early Power Four wins over Kansas and South Carolina.

He handles more volume than almost anyone with 80 carries already, a level just five backs have reached. He leads that group comfortably in yards per carry (7.5) and yards after contact (3.9).

There’s only one other back in the country (Stanford’s Micah Ford) who’s even cleared 50 carries with after-contact figures on Hardy’s level. Hardy has caused a missed or broken tackle every three carries on average, one of the highest marks in FBS.

He will also crush you in pass protection if you dare go after Beau Pribula.

Ahmad Hardy power in pass pro. Goodnight! pic.twitter.com/3miSCszOVj

— Trevor Sikkema (@TampaBayTre) September 21, 2025

WR KC Concepcion, Texas A&M

No player has a better sizzle reel from the first month of the season than Concepcion, who joined the Aggies from NC State. He returned a punt for a touchdown and scored a winding run-after-catch TD in his first A&M game and made several elite plays in a win at Notre Dame two weeks later.

Concepcion has already recorded 21 “burns,” the Opta measurement of targets on which he shed his nearest defender to make himself open for QB Marcel Reed. His 87.5% burn rate is elite (around 62% is average), and he’s achieved that on an 18.2-yard average target depth, farther downfield than anyone else who’s burned defenders as often as he has.

The Aggies’ downfield passing game runs through him.

EDGE Rueben Bain/Akheem Mesidor, Miami (FL)

Miami is going to make the College Football Playoff this year and probably win the ACC for good measure. Dominance on both lines of scrimmage is the reason why.

There are lots of Hurricanes trench players worth highlighting in this spot, but none more so than a tandem of edge rushers who have made life absolute hell on Notre Dame’s CJ Carr, USF’s Byrum Brown and Florida’s DJ Lagway.

Bain was supposed to break out last year, but injuries got in the way. It’s happening this year, as he’s generated a 23.5% pressure rate (10 pressures on 51 pass-rush snaps) and created five adjusted sacks. (An adjusted sack is when a pass rusher gets to the quarterback and someone on the defense sacks him. The idea is to capture a rusher’s contributions to getting the QB on the ground.)

Bain’s also been a bear against the run, recording a team-leading 10 run stuffs.

As a pure pass rusher, Mesidor has been even better. His 16 pressures (good for a 37.5% pressure rate) and six adjusted sacks lead the team. He’s also been sturdy against the run.

The Hurricanes have 10 sacks in three games as a team, and all of those games have come against serious competition. (Well, Florida’s not exactly serious, but the Gators at least have SEC bodies on their roster.)

LB Ray Coney, Tulsa

We move from the Hurricanes to the Golden Hurricane. Tulsa has been a good story in the early going under first-year coach Tre Lamb, whose resume already includes getting Mike Gundy fired by delivering Tulsa its first win against Oklahoma State in 27 years.

The anchor of the defense that held the Pokes to 12 points is Coney, the inside linebacker who’s already generated 15 run stuffs and seven pressures, while holding up very well in pass coverage. (On 79 coverage snaps, he’s allowed a 33.3% burn rate.)

No other linebacker has Coney’s mixture of run-stopping, pass-rushing, and coverage numbers. He calls to mind Zaven Collins, the Tulsa linebacker who won the Bronco Nagurski Award in 2020.

CB Mansoor Delane, LSU

Virginia Tech has a million problems this year, and losing Delane to LSU in the offseason is one of them.

Among cornerbacks to face 20 or more targets in 2025, only Delane has allowed a burn rate below 20%. He has four passes defensed and was particularly dominant in the only competitive game LSU has played to date (three passes defensed and a pick against Clemson in the season opener).

Delane looks like a first-round NFL Draft pick and the single biggest difference for LSU’s defense between last year and this year. He’s also a willing and physical tackler in the open field.

K Kansei Matsuzawa, Hawaii

We all met Matsuzawa for the first time in Week 0, when he kicked a walk-off field goal to lift the Rainbow Warriors past Stanford. The Japanese 26-year-old newcomer learned both English and kicking on YouTube, and it was a quintessential college football moment to watch him have a big moment in his first game.

Things have only gotten better since then. Matsuzawa has been absolute nails for the ‘Bows, making all 13 of his field-goal attempts as the team has started 3-2. Eight of those have come from 40+ yards, and no kicker in college football has helped his team’s bottom line as much as this rocket leg in the Hawaiian islands.

Matsuzawa’s 12.9 expected points added from field goals are four better than anyone else, and in his case, they’re also the difference between his team being above .500 or below it.

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