Ranking College Football's Best Dynamic Duos in 2025

Some things are best when they come in pairs.

College football teams agree. When you've got a single superstar, he can carry a team. But when you've got a couple of them making plays on the field at the same time, that can change the complexion of a team to make it championship-caliber.

Even though a bunch of superb playmakers graduated their collegiate careers and are headed for NFL stardom, there are still a bunch of tandems ready to post mega-numbers in 2025.

From wide receiver partners to the quarterback connection to defensive dynamic duos, the sport is full of guys we think are going to be better together. In some cases, they've already proved it.

From all Power Four conferences and coast to coast, there are outstanding players looking to take their teams to the next level. If they do, we may just see them dotting the College Football Playoff at the end of the year.

Let's take a look at the top tandems for the 2025 college football season.

There's going to be a lot of change in Columbus this upcoming season for the defending national champion Ohio State, but one thing is certain: It's still going to be one of the nation's most talented teams on both sides of the ball.

Arguably the top defensive prospect for the 2026 NFL draft is safety Caleb Downs, who returns for his junior season after transferring from Alabama to be a part of this year's title team.

All the 20-year-old did was anchor one of the most opportunistic, muscle-flexing units in the country. Even though he didn't dominate the statistics, he was all over the place, a force in the run game and in defending passes.

The same can be said for Mathews, who perhaps wasn't the top cornerback statistically on the Buckeyes' defense, but he was the most talented behind Denzel Burke.

With Burke now off to the NFL, Mathews steps into that role alongside Davison Igbinosun.

While Igbinosun and safety Sonny Styles could have been included here, we're rolling with the talented stars in Downs (a no-brainer) and Mathews (who has the highest ceiling).

New defensive coordinator Matt Patricia has so much talent to work with in that defensive backfield. The Buckeyes straight-up can lock things down on the back end.

It would take a lot to upstage receivers like Jeremiah Smith and Ryan Williams, but super sophomore Ryan Wingo has the skill set to be on their level.

He's built like a running back but has the athleticism to stretch the field and be a force on the perimeter. And he was too good to keep off the field as a true freshman at Texas, finishing the season with 29 catches for 472 yards and a pair of touchdowns.

With Matthew Golden gone, quarterback Arch Manning is going to need a go-to weapon, and he has a major familiarity with Wingo. When you throw in DeAndre Moore Jr., don't expect the Longhorns to take much of a back seat with a 2025 dropoff.

As a matter of fact, next season's talent perhaps has a higher upside on that side of the ball with Quinn Ewers gone to the NFL and the uber-talented Manning ready to lead the way.

Everybody is ready to see the redshirt sophomore with a larger sample set, and this will be his team on the offensive side of the ball. With weapons all around him, expect him to thrive. But Wingo may be the biggest star of them all.

He showed flashes a season ago, and if there's one duo that has higher-ceiling ability than its ranking here, it's this tandem. Expect big things and plenty of touchdowns.

Welcome back to at least a modicum of relevance, Auburn. It's been a while.

It remains to be seen if coach Hugh Freeze can turn around the Tigers' win-loss record in 2025 in the loveliest village on the Plains, but they certainly have a lot more firepower on paper than in recent memory.

With Oklahoma transfer quarterback Jackson Arnold on campus to lead the way, there is plenty of excitement in the air. After all, the position under center has been the bane of the former SEC power's existence ever since Bo Nix left his dad's alma mater for Oregon.

Freeze's exceptional recruiting acumen has helped rebuild the roster, and the Tigers really committed to the transfer portal this offseason, going out and getting top receiver threat Eric Singleton, Jr. from Georgia Tech.

The 5'11", 190-pound dynamo had 56 catches for 754 yards and scored three times a season ago for the Yellow Jackets.

Still, Singleton wasn't the scoring threat he'd hoped, so he sought greener pastures. After winding up at Auburn, he finds himself alongside one of the top, young untapped pass-catchers in the sport in Cam Coleman.

The 6'3", 197-pound rising sophomore caught 37 passes for 598 yards and eight scores a season ago without a moderately decent quarterback throwing him the ball. He was overshadowed by other freshman receivers, but the former 5-star has as much ability as anybody.

Now, with Singleton alongside him, Auburn is sleepy-dangerous. Don't be surprised if this offense takes one of the biggest offseason leaps nationally and Arnold becomes a household name because of all the talent around him.

This new-look offense is built to do damage.

If Nyck Harbor becomes what many expected when he was a raw 5-star track star with limitless potential a couple of seasons ago, the South Carolina hype train is really going to explode off the tracks.

This just feels like 2025 could be a year when everything comes together for coach Shane Beamer's program after it caught fire during the second half of the season and narrowly missed the playoffs.

It was a bummer of a finish with a bowl game loss to Illinois, but that didn't do much to dampen the excitement for the Gamecocks, which return redshirt sophomore wrecking-ball quarterback LaNorris Sellers to lead the way.

The 6'3", 242-pounder is a star-in-the-making, and though he was far from consistent a season ago, his 3,208 combined yards and 35 touchdowns weren't too shabby for a guy just learning on the job in the SEC.

Expect another massive step in 2025.

Then there's Harbor, a 6'5", 235-pound receiver who may not be the best cut-and-go runner in the nation, but he is a near-Olympic-standard sprinter with long strides and elite ability.

The light began to flicker in 2024 as a sophomore when he caught 26 passes for 376 yards and three touchdowns.

It was never going to be an instant-impact game-changer for Harbor, but now that he's entering his third year in the program, he has the potential to be Sellers' top target and a 1,000-yard receiver who is featured in the offense.

This may be a stretch, but the gamble here is both break out.

If you haven't watched a lot of Navy football, you should make it appointment television in 2025. The Middies are going to be fun to watch.

Quarterback Blake Horvath is one of the top mid-major players in all of football, and he proved that once again in the bowl game when he dominated the Oklahoma Sooners in a win.

In 2024, he threw for 1,353 yards, ran for 1,254 more and accounted for 30 touchdowns. It's been a long time since the Midshipmen had a true passing threat under center, and that makes them even more difficult to defend considering just how near-impossible preparing for the triple-option is for teams with a one-week turnaround.

When you throw in do-it-all, 6'0", 201-pound running back Eli Heidenreich, you've got a couple of hard-nosed guys who lay it on the line every Saturday.

A season ago, Heidenreich was the Robin to Horvath's Batman, running for 444 yards and scoring four times and leading the Middies with 39 catches for 671 yards and six more scores. You've simply got to account for him on every play.

Navy is a threat to win the AAC this season because it has so much offensive firepower, and teams are simply going to have to account for those two guys every snap of every game.

Whether they're breaking off chunk plays or demoralizing defenses with long, clock-consuming drives, they're more than effective; they're elite.

Most of the guys on this list can be part of a connection or are at least in the same unit. But this is the first duo of teammates who play different positions or won't be able to hook up in an aerial assault.

Still, the Notre Dame tandem of running back Jeremiyah Love and receiver Jaden Greathouse not only belong this high, but they may also be the catalysts for another title run for coach Marcus Freeman.

Love was the force behind the Fighting Irish's storming surge through the last three-quarters of the season, racking up 1,125 yards and 17 touchdowns. He's a threat to make a house call every time he touches the ball, and after announcing he's coming back to South Bend, he will be the leader of that offense.

The Irish will be breaking in a new quarterback in 2025 with Riley Leonard out of eligibility, and whoever wins the job is going to be excited to have Greathouse as the top target on the outside.

After a season that saw him pile up just 592 yards through the air, the sophomore was unstoppable in the title-game loss to Ohio State, catching six passes for 128 yards and two touchdowns.

That performance came after his semifinal breakout game against Penn State, where he had seven grabs for 105 yards and another score.

When the lights were the brightest, Greathouse was at his best. The injured Love can't say the same, though. Neither was very happy with finishing as national runner-up, so expect them to play with a chip on their shoulder in 2025.

That's not good news for opponents.

There are plenty of reasons to be thrilled with an uncertain future if you're an Oregon Ducks fan. Are you a little more unsettled than the past couple of years when it comes to the quarterback position? Yes.

However, the potential with Dante Moore is limitless.

Nobody besides, maybe, Ohio State goes out in the portal and grabs who they want like coach Dan Lanning and the Ducks, and they have built the Big Ten powerhouse by nabbing veteran transfer signal-callers like Bo Nix and Dillon Gabriel the past few years. But they also grabbed Moore from UCLA after an uneven freshman year.

Moore waited his turn last year while Gabriel dazzled, and he now has three seasons of eligibility and could give Oregon some long-term stability at the position. Or, he could come out, show out and head to the NFL after the 2025 season. Nothing is out of the question for the former 5-star.

The 19-year-old won't have a shortage of options at receiver, with capable playmakers such as veteran Malik Benson and incoming elite freshman Dakorien Moore.

However, the best of the bunch is Evan Stewart, who becomes the bell cow on the perimeter with Tez Johnson and Traeshon Holden heading to the NFL.

The former Texas A&M receiver caught 48 passes for 615 yards and five scores a season ago, but he will be Moore's primary target this year, and a 1,000-yard season is coming.

The Moore-to-Stewart connection could be one of the most explosive in the country.

After a disappointing four-loss season in 2024 (that, somehow, still saw them getting College Football Playoff love at the end of the season), the Alabama Crimson Tide need to restock the shelf a bit on offense.

It's time to move on from the uneven Jalen Milroe era for coach Kalen DeBoer, and even though the immediate future is uncertain, it's probably going to more resemble a DeBoer offense.

The receiver tandem of incumbent rising sophomore star Ryan Williams and incoming transfer Isaiah Horton, who left Miami for Tuscaloosa, is a good start.

While they have to find somebody capable of getting them the ball between the trio of junior Ty Simpson, incoming elite freshman Keelon Russell and redshirt freshman Austin Mack, both are capable of putting up huge numbers.

Everybody knows what Williams can do after last year's Georgia game, and he's no longer 17 years old—as every college football announcer on the planet liked to proclaim a season ago. Despite his young age, he led the team with 48 catches for 865 yards and eight scores.

With Cam Ward throwing to him in Coral Gables, Horton caught 56 balls for 616 yards and five scores. Now, he's moving closer to his Murfreesboro, Tennessee home, and he's already turning heads.

"The lights aren’t going to be too bright for him," DeBoer told the Tuscaloosa News' Colin Gay. "You can see just his focus in the phase of workouts that we had. It’s important to him. He came here for a reason because he wanted to be pushed. He wanted to be challenged."

That sounds like some help for Williams and a coach excited about his receiver room.

Perhaps the story of the 2024 college football regular season was the Arizona State Sun Devils, which came from nowhere in coach Kenny Dillingham's second season to win the Big 12 and make the College Football Playoff.

But that was Cam Skattebo's team, and he's off to the NFL.

What's next will more closely resemble the explosive offenses for which Dillingham is known. Yes, the Sun Devils went out and got Army transfer running back Kanye Udoh, who could post big numbers, but the two biggest returning stars can put up pinball numbers through the air.

Last year, an unsung story was the emergence of redshirt freshman quarterback Sam Leavitt, whose first year in Tempe after transferring from Michigan State was outstanding. Skattebo was the catalyst, but the young signal-caller was much more than a game manager.

His 3,328 combined yards and 29 touchdowns were far from pedestrian, and his top target was pass-catcher Jordyn Tyson, who caught 75 passes for 1,101 yards and 10 touchdowns.

The rising junior from Allen, Texas, is a quality bet to be a first-team All-American wide receiver this year. And with Leavitt throwing him the ball, that connection has big-time potential.

If they stay healthy and get some help from Udoh, it wouldn't be surprising to see them right back in the final 12 at the end of the 2025 season.

We've now reached the Clemson Tigers portion of our show, and we'll start with a sturdy defense. After all, there's a couple of buddies on that side of the ball worthy of being up here on this list.

Back when Clemson was winning national titles, they had monstrous defensive linemen who would stock NFL franchises with top-tier talent every year.

It's back to the future for coach Dabo Swinney in 2025. He has enjoyed tremendous success over his career recruiting his home state of Alabama, and this year's top defensive line duo nationally both hail from the Yellowhammer State.

Both also just happen to be first-round draft picks waiting to happen.

First and foremost is 6'3", 315-pound behemoth defensive tackle Peter Woods, a former 5-star talent who was perhaps the nation's top young interior lineman two years ago and backed it up with another solid campaign last year, registering 26 tackles, three sacks and forcing a fumble.

Woods is a star against the run, clogging up the middle. While he does the dirty work, fellow Alabamian T.J. Parker makes the flashy plays.

Last year, the 20-year-old tackled opponents 57 times, made 11 sacks and forced a stunning six fumbles, recovering two. He also has a great first step, and the duo now get to play for elite coordinator Tom Allen, who arrived from Penn State and is ready to help the Tigers win a title.

If they do, it will be on the shoulders of Woods and Parker.

Want a bold statement for 2025? Clemson is back.

Maybe you didn't think they went anywhere considering coach Dabo Swinney had the Tigers in the College Football Playoff in 2024, but let's be real: They back-doored their way into the final 12, right? That won't be the case this year.

The 2025 Tigers have playmakers all over the field on both sides of the ball, and even though senior quarterback Cade Klubnik isn't featured on this slide, he's the maestro who is going to make it all tick.

His weapons of choice are rising junior pass-catcher Antonio Williams and sophomore Bryant Wesco, Jr. Oh, and if you want to throw in another guy, Wesco's classmate TJ Moore isn't so bad, either.

It's an embarrassment of riches for Klubnik and offensive coordinator Garrett Riley, and those dudes can have the Tigers at the top of the ACC and maybe competing for national titles.

The tandem of Williams (904 receiving yards, 11 touchdowns) and Wesco (708 yards, five touchdowns) were dynamic a season ago, and Moore tacked on 651 more yards and five additional scores.

There isn't a more seasoned, high-level signal-caller in all of college football than Klubnik, and he just so happens to have the best arsenal in the sport surrounding him.

Clemson definitely needs to find a consistent force running the ball, but this unit is going to be hell on wheels throwing the ball.

Let's just say this and get it out of the way: Penn State coach James Franklin may not ever have more offensive talent in Happy Valley than what he has coming back in 2025.

It's national championship or bust for Penn State, and if you think that's a lofty expectation, well, it's time.

Last year, the Nittany Lions' run ended in the national semifinal with a loss to Notre Dame, where quarterback Drew Allar was ineffective. But he's back under center, and there are some decent playmakers in the passing game.

Still, Penn State will live or die with its elite running game, with two explosive runners who make up the top backfield in the country.

For the past three years, Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen have led the way, and both have decided to give it one more shot at a title. Last year, the tandem combined for 2,207 yards and 20 touchdowns.

Now, they are both remarkably back.

It was just par for the course for their immaculate careers that have churned out 5,789 combined rushing yards, 56 rushing touchdowns, 1,200 receiving yards and 12 more scores through the air. The worst individual season either of them had was a 752-yard effort.

They are mass-producers and superstars who are hungry for a title run.

Last year, the Ohio State Buckeyes lost the nation's top receiving playmaker to the NFL and replaced Marvin Harrison Jr. with Jeremiah Smith to go alongside Emeka Egbuka.

With Egbuka off to the pros following a national championship, Smith will be joined in the starting lineup by magnificent No. 3 receiver Carnell Tate, who is more than ready to step into the spotlight.

Talk about an embarrassment of pass-catching riches in Columbus the past few years. The duo already have proved they feed off each other, too.

There's no bigger talent at any position than Smith, who caught 76 passes for 1,315 yards and 15 scores a season ago as a true freshman who looked nothing like a first-year player.

Tate seemed like an afterthought at times, but he still finished with 52 catches for 733 yards and five scores.

He, too, is a former 5-star talent who has No. 1 receiver and first-round draft pick potential, and now he will get his chance to shine as a junior.

The Buckeyes will be trotting out a youngster under center in redshirt freshman Julian Sayin, but again, he has immense potential. Last year, he was the nation's top high school quarterback and signed with Alabama before leaving for Ohio State after Nick Saban retired.

Now, Sayin gets the keys to a Porsche in Columbus with a ready-made receiver corps that can be the top group of playmakers in the nation.

Repeat, anyone? The Buckeyes' offense is built for that possibility.

The Achilles' heel for the Texas Longhorns not too long ago was an inconsistent-to-awful defense. But that was before coordinator Pete Kwiatkowski arrived and the program decided to go NIL-heavy on that side of the ball.

Boy, have they hit the jackpot on young superstars the past couple of seasons.

In 2023, it was Anthony Hill Jr. who took the college football world by storm as an elite freshman who flashed every time he took the field. This past year, Colin Simmons followed closely in his footsteps, becoming a guy everybody talked about.

The athleticism of both men is undeniable. They look like longtime NFL All Pros waiting to happen. For now, though, they will lead a 'Horns defense that is good enough to be the best in the nation this upcoming season.

Hill leads the way. He's a do-it-all linebacker who is the next generation of second-level defender, able to be a weapon in pass coverage but going downhill after running with elite closing speed. Last year, he led the SEC with 17 tackles for loss (17) and four forced fumbles. He added 113 total stops and eight sacks.

Simmons is an outside linebacker/edge who added 48 tackles, nine sacks and three forced fumbles. He looks like a kid who could reach 13-15 sacks the more acclimated he becomes to the system.

Either of these guys would start and star for anybody in the nation, and they just so happen to play alongside one another. That's a terror for opponents.