Every dawger knew going into the CFP this year that Indiana was going to be hard to beat. Not so many thought Miami would be last team the Hoosiers would have to contend with, though. And contend, the Hurricanes did, right up until Indiana's defensive unit, probably the best in college football this year, snatched a game saving interception just when it looked like Miami was going to shock the college football world. In the end though, Indiana became the first college football team to go 16-0 since some Yale team did it way back when photography was in black and white. After Indiana easily knocked off Oregon earlier in the season, I wrote in this column that Curt Cignetti famously quipped at his introductory press conference when asked why he thought he could turn around the Hoosier football program he said something like, "Simple, I win. Google me." Well, Google is no longer necessary as Coach Cignetti proved you can turn around a very bad program and win the Natty in two years. It's a whole new world out there in college football land and those teams that can hire the best coaches, pay the best players and develop their recruits will be the new powerhouses in the sport. I'm not saying that the days of the blue bloods are over, since they obviously have resources, but the days of the blue bloods are certainly over this year.

And we have a new member of the dirty-dawg blue blood crowd, as long-time dirty-dawger Jeff Zoltowski, from Gaylord, MI, bested 410 other players to take home the College Football Confidence Contest crown for 2025! Jeff finished with 1233 points giving him an 8 point cushion. Jeff's victory was propelled by his 273 point CFP Blowout performance, third best of the field. Jeff had 12 on Indiana, but his best pick was slapping 6 on Miami, a solid 1.9 confidence points better than the field consensus. He also had 8 on Ole Miss (+2) and 10 on Oregon (+1.9). Jeff was in the Top 75 players all season and busted into the Top 10 for good after Week 9, jumped into 2nd place after Week 13 and sealed the deal with his stellar CFP Blowout score. Congratulations, Jeff! It sure would be nice if this crown came with a new car, or perhaps a trip to Hawaii to escape the brutal Michigan winter, but you will have to settle for the admiration of dirty-dawgers everywhere forever, instead. Awesome season.

Our runner-up for 2025 is Gary Petti, from Weeki Wachee, FL. Gary led the contest from Week 10 into the CFP Blowout and had a stellar season totalling 1225 points and a record of 152-58. He did have 12 on Indiana, but the 3 on Miami and 6 on Oregon ultimately hurt him down the stretch. While these are the first bones for Jeff and Gary, it is the 2nd bone for our 2025 third place finisher, Dean Moseley of High Point, FL. Dean finished with 1198 points, which was 35 off the championship number. Dean also finished 3rd place in 2019 and veteran players may recognize him as part of the vaunted Florida Dummies powerhouse group team.  

But of course, that's not all of the stellar performances for 2025. The CFCC went 15 weeks this year and just out of the money were players like dirty-dawg overlord Mike Coyne, from Mansfield, TX who finished with 1190 points, only 43 points back tied for 4th place with another of the Moseley clan named Howie, strangely enough also from High Point, FL. Jonathan Frazier from Justin, TX finished up in 6th place, while our 2024 champion, Courtney Carpenter from Roseville, CA wound up in 7th. Lynn Bobay of Kitty Hawk, NC (really!!) finished in 8th, perennial power Brett Williams from Lees Summit, MO finished 9th, tied with dirty-dawg veteran Tim Oram from Keller, TX. Congratulations to everyone in the Top 10 this season. It ain't easy!!

Even though it doesn't matter, it's always fun to take a look at the best record for the season and the very best record for 2025 belongs to Manuel Rodriguez from Beckley, WV. Manuel went 155-55 to take home best record honors, which doesn't get you anything other than this shoddy mention. Manuel's performance was impressive from a shear picking winners standpoint, which IS important, but unfortunately only good for 80th place in this case. Great job Manuel. Sorry you joined the wrong contest! Like we like to say, "winners are important, but the confidence factors rule!" Several players had second-best records with 153 wins and those dawgs would be Nancy Hamill, Bryan Tilley (our only triple-boner dawg!), Candise Ryder and Scott Kahn.

Now, we mentioned last article that the only dawgers to successfully nail the CFP Final was Todd Barron, from Madison, AL and since we can do basic math most of the time, Todd did go on to win the CFP Blowout with 295 points. Todd had 12 on Indiana and 11 on Miami. This Red Raider fan also appreciates Todd's 10 on Texas Tech, but thankfully the rest of his picks worked out pretty well. Tyler Castillo of Pelham, AL was the CFP 2025 runner-up with 274 points. Tyler had 12 on Indiana and 7 on the Hurricanes. Ken Gribek was tied for third with Mr. Zoltowski with 273 points, along with Jonathan Marcus to round out the Top 5. Great job with the CFP Blowout, gentlemen!

And for the always-popular group competition, it was Stratus-Faction Guaranteed taking home the glory for the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Shreveport, LA! Stratus-Faction was powered by 6th place overall Jonathan Frazier and 14th place overall Chris Nuttall. They survived a stiff challenge from The Border War Still Lives in KC by an average player score of 6.17 points. Does anyone every check our math?? Border War was a force in group play all season and held first place for much of it. BoomerBacks, who are absolutely destroying group play over in the PFCC finished third here, followed by The Florida Dummies - Legacy, who did their old patriarch proud we would say. Water Warriors finished 5th. Congratulations to Stratus-Faction and we hope you all enjoyed another season of group play for the 2025 CFCC. We have heard from many of you about the group standings smack-talking and lack of productivity in the work place thanks to dirty-dawg.com. You're welcome!

And that's a wrap on another stellar CFCC season here at dirty-dawg.com. We were on-line in the 20th century and will continue to provide you with the best free sports contests on the web as we head into the 2nd quarter of the 21st century! We have been hard at work this season with a complete site redesign along with more features and a mobile phone friendly experience. Many of you have had a peek at that work and we will be rolling it out with the College Basketbal Confidence Contest in March, so make sure to take part in that when the time comes. We promise an easier confidence form for the 64 Big Dance teams. Until then, the PFCCers among you still have 3 games to get through before we crown that champion and then it is on to the best event in the sporting world, the NCAA Basketball Tournament. Otherwise, we will see you all right back here in August. Thanks for playing this year and thanks for being a dirty-dawg!!

All of the dirty-dawg picks are in for the 2025 football season. All that's left now is to kick back and watch those points roll in with no threat of negative ticks in the CFP or Super Bowl Blowouts! Next up are the Divisional Rounds for the NFL this weekend, followed by the CFP Final on Monday evening, featuring juggernaut Indiana and resurgent Miami. Hoosiers versus Convicts won't sell any shirts, but we are looking forward to an entertaining final.

After the six NFL Wildcard games, Teddy Overton from Claremore, OK continues to lead the PFCC field with 1072 points. Hot on Teddy's heals are 5 bone earners in the form of John Zittel (2016 Silver), Mark Plate (2024 Bronze), Jane Banks (2019 Champion) and another of the Overton Clan named Jeffrey (2023 Silver). The only player in the Top 6 without a bone (besides Teddy) is dirty-dawg powerhouse Matthew Brady who is in 5th place 20 points off the mark. 

For the Super Bowl Blowout itself, David Lemmons from Jefferson City, MO is the early leader with 65 points out of the gate. His 10 (Jacksonville) and 9 (Philadelphia) didn't work out, but he nailed the other winners to take the early advantage. Dirty-dawg director Dick Wagenmaker is in 2nd place with 63 points, tied with veteran dawger Keith Ventimiglia. Steve Friend and Benjamin Lott are tied for 4th heading into the Divisional Round.

And has been having for most of the season, BoomerBacks is completely embarrassing the PFCC Group hopefuls with a ridiculous 61.72 average score lead over the closet competitors No Mistakes by this Great Lake. Tulsa Twisters are 70.79 back and Hurricane Elvis is 81.92 off the pace.

That's a quick wrap of the latest and greatest performances from the blowouts! We will be back early next week to wrap up the CFCC and crown the 2025 Champion as well as catch-up with the PFCC after the Divisional Round games!

After 20 weeks of college and pro football selections, all picks are now in with the launch of the PFCC Super Blow Blowout this weekend! If you play both contests and successfully submitted picks for all 20 weeks (15 CFCC Weeks and 19 PFCC Weeks, 20 total weeks) congratulations on being both organized and committed enough to pull off such a feat! 

We are going to take a quick look back af PFCC Week 18 so we can pass along our usual hearty congratulations to Carl Lindecrantz from Waterloo, IA for winning Week 18 with 86 points and 12 wins. Dan Spaeth from Paducah, KY was the Week 18 runner-up. The overall leaderboard offers no excitement, however, with Teddy Overton back on top for the 2nd week in a row with a 15 point lead over John Zittel, who happens to be the 2017 PFCC Silver Bone recipient. The average score for Week 18 was 48.6 with the low clocking in at -46. Yikes! And just when you think BoomerBacks lead can't get any bigger in group play, you're wrong as they have extended their lead to 61.22 points over No Mistakes Near This Great Lake. We'll see if there are any surprises in the NFL playoffs to shake up the leaderboard as we close out the season.

The CFP semi-finals went down Thursday and Friday and opened with an incredibly entertaining game between Miami and Ole Miss, culminated by a last minute TD run by Carson Beck. I lost count of how many lead changes occured during the game but it was a fantastic tilt under command of Beck and Trinidad Chambliss from Ole Miss. That game is what the CFP is all about, and it was fun to watch Ole Miss make a deep run after their coach skated on them. In the other match-up, the Indiana juggernaut continued to steam down the tracks completely demolishing Oregon along the way. I know there are a lot of people out there that don't think Fernando Mendoza should have won the Heisman, but I'm sure not one of them. It's going to take a perfect effort from Miami to knock off the undefeated Hoosiers next Monday night!

Now, with 318 entries for the CFP Blowout, you may wonder how many dirty-dawgers successfully put their 11 and 12 on Miami and Indiana. The answer is one. One dirty-dawger, by the name of Todd Barron, from Madison, AL has 12 on Indiana and 11 on Miami. Not surprisingly, Todd is now leading the CFP Blowout with 175 point and no player within 10 points of Todd has a 12 on Miami, so Todd will win the CFP Blowout. We will congratulate you later, Todd!

We will also be congratulating Jeff Zoltowski of Garylord, MI who took sole possession of 1st place overall after the CFP semi-final round. Jeff only has an 8 point lead over Gary Petti who has led the CFCC much of the season, but Jeff has a 12 on Indiana and 6 on Miami. Only one player within striking distance of Jeff has a higher confidence on Miami and that would be Jonathan Frazier from Justin, TX and Jonathan trails Jeff by 39 points. In other words, Jeff Zoltowski will be the CFCC 2025 Champion! 

About the only drama we can find is in CFCC Group Play where Stratus-Faction Guaranteed has vaulted into 1st place after the semis. The average score of that 7-dawger team is an impressive 1012.57, lead by the aforementioned Jonathan  Frazier. Stratus-Faction has a small 4.17 point lead over The Border War Still Live in KC so it will be interesting to see which group takes home the crown following the CFP Final on January 19. 

Okay, that's a wrap for now. We don't have any more deadlines to warn you about so we will be back following the NFL Wild Card Round later this week. Until then, enjoy the NFL playoffs and the CFP Final and as always, thanks for playing dirty-dawg.com!