Week 4 of this 2025 college football season is, somehow, already in the rearview mirror.
And while, yes, it's imperative to note that windshields are much larger than those rearview mirrors for a reason, it's also important to examine each weekend of the season -- mostly to recount the greatness of college football but also because Saturdays make and break coaches and their careers.
Right now, as FootballScoop dissects Dabo Swinney and his Clemson program, Swinney looks broken. He's won at unprecedented levels as the Chief Boss of Howard's Rock, but he's in the football storm of his coaching life.
The Tigers are 1-3, their worst start in more than decades and easily their worst under Swinney. The good news? The Tigers play in the ACC, and that league appears particularly mortal this season aside from potentially very good to elite Miami and Florida State teams. Clemson faces only the latter of those two, and it has Duke, Louisville and South Carolina among other notable foes.
Clemson probably steadies itself enough to make a meaningless bowl game, but its College Football Playoff aspirations officially died on Sept. 20, 2025. That's awfully early for a team that's projected to have NFL players along its offensive and defensive lines, at wide receiver and a quarterback in Cade Klubnik who had been touted as among the top prospects at his position for the 2026 NFL Draft.
Not anymore.
Elsewhere, Florida's fade is happening again in all too familiar scene for denizens of the Swamp. The Gators can't score on offense, which is supposed to be head coach Billy Napier's specialty.
The Gators are 0-3 against FBS opponents this year and have scored a grand total of 33 points in those 12 quarters. What would happen if Florida's offense tangled with Notre Dame's oh-so-porous defense? Inquiring minds wish to know.
Defense has kept Florida in games; its offense has betrayed it, and now this is a lost season with more losses to come.
Florida faces Texas in two weeks, Texas A&M the following week and still has dates with Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Florida State.
Elsewhere, shoutout Sean Lewis and San Diego State for their absolute beatdown of Justin Wilcox's Cal Golden Bears, a 34-0 bearing down of the guests.
And props to Gerad Parker and the Troy Trojans, who had a 16-0 lead two weeks at Clemson but couldn't hang on. Instead, they went on the road this weekend to a solid Buffalo team that has found stable footing under Pete Lembo and rallied from down 17-0 to defeat the Bulls, 21-17. Character win. Program win.
All these items discussed plus Texas Tech further stamps itself Best In Class for the Big 12.
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