The clocks have only just ticked into September, but boy, is football well and truly back. The reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles have raised the curtain on the new NFL season with their hosting of the Dallas Cowboys.

One of the league's greatest ever, Travis Kelce, has made the headlines once again with his proposal to global megastar Taylor Swift, with the impending wedding between the two even prompting betting sites to open up a slew of prop markets.

But for some of us, the true thrills have been brought by the return of college football. The 2025 season wasted no time igniting the nation’s imagination with no fewer than three top-ten clashes taking place before most fans had even finished their Labor Day barbecues in week one. No. 1 Texas invaded the Horseshoe to confront No. 3 reigning champions Ohio State, No. 9 LSU journeyed into the pressure cooker of No. 4 Clemson’s Death Valley, while storied powers Notre Dame and Miami staged a primetime duel that bristled with playoff implications.

But in the fierce light of these opening salvos, which teams have already shown the steel to chase a national championship? Here are the two programs that we feel are already in pole position.

Ohio State

Last season, Ohio State went all the way as they claimed the Natty for the first time in a decade with a thrilling 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in Atlanta. Heading into the 2025 season, online gambling sites considered them one of the favourites to successfully go back-to-back. The latest online gambling at Bovada odds currently price the reigning champions as a +600 second favorite to repeat their 2024 heroics, and their title defence couldn't have gotten off to a better start.

In a setting steeped in history and expectation, the Buckeyes' 14-7 triumph over top-ranked Texas was less an upset, more a declaration. This was Columbus at its raucous, cerebral best: 100,000 voices orchestrating a defensive masterpiece that shut down the Longhorns’ vaunted attack and catapulted Ryan Day’s squad to No. 1 in the polls.

Just how dominant was the Buckeye defense? Hold Texas—a program that averaged 41.5 points per game last season—to a single touchdown. Coordinator Jim Knowles dialed up relentless blitzes, collapsing the pocket around Heisman-favorite Arch Manning, forcing hurried throws, and notching a pair of takeaways that swung the momentum permanently toward Ohio State. In fact, Manning’s off-target rate spiked to 37%, already sounding the alarm bells for a Texas team desperate to contend this term.

Yet the Buckeyes’ claim doesn’t rest on defense alone. Rookie quarterback Julian Sayin displayed uncanny poise beyond his tender years. He wasn’t tasked with lighting up the scoreboard; instead, he was mandated to control the action, direct traffic, keep the chains moving, and dial up precision when pressure mounted. His knack for threading passes into tight windows on third down was the quiet underpinning of Ohio State’s victory.

And what sets this team apart? Depth, the kind that you can’t fake on a marquee stage. Transfers and blue-chip recruits alike populate both sides of the ball, but it’s their cohesion—an O-line that gave up zero sacks, a receiving corps that exploited every soft spot—that marks them not just as talented, but as complete. Ohio State dodges Michigan until the final third of the calendar, and with the pathway now mapped by an early seismic win, analysts currently give them the second-shortest CFP odds in the country.

LSU

Few teams entered 2025 under more pressure than LSU—three straight season-opening losses and a restless fan base demanding a return to glory. The days of Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Justin Jefferson seemed long gone, but six years on from arguably the greatest college football team ever assembled, the Tigers looked back somewhat close to their best. Brian Kelly’s side traveled into Clemson’s Death Valley as underdogs but left as the architects of a 17-10 stunner that upends the SEC’s balance of power.

Everything started and ended with quarterback Garrett Nussmeier. The 23-year-old senior headed into the new season under plenty of pressure after a series of high-profile picks toward the end of last season. However, he has hit the ground running, racking up 288 yards through the air, two touchdowns, and, crucially, zero turnovers against a Clemson defense entrenched among the nation’s elite.

Yet it was LSU’s reanimation on defense that turned murmurs of promise into a roar. Anchored by a transfer-reinforced front seven, the Tigers held Clemson to just 3.2 yards per carry, and the secondary—which has looked incredibly porous in recent campaigns—clamped down, yielding nothing deep and picking off a desperate Cade Klubnik late to seal the victory. Kelly put it best postgame: “When you win in Death Valley, you earn it. We found who we are tonight.”

History is instructive; teams that grabbed an early road win against a top-five opponent have made the playoff field 80% of the time since 2019. With Alabama and Georgia looming, LSU knows the path is fraught, but now the data—and the intangibles—align: this Tiger team is cut from championship cloth.