False Start - College Football Podcast · John Buhler and Cody Williams

Episode 244: False Start goes into the Upside Down, Recapping the 2025-26 CFB season with a little help from Stranger Things

January 22, 2026·1 hr 31 min·5 clips

Cade Klubnik goes from national-championship expectation to a season where the hosts say he was 'garbage.'

1. Offsides uses a Stranger Things theme to recap the 2025-26 college football season without Indiana and Miami in the playoff picture. 2. Cody Williams hosts with John Buehler, who is identified as a FanSided lead writer and the season-long debating partner. 3. The episode asks what the College Football Playoff would have looked like in an 'upside down' simulation. 4. The rebuilt bracket starts with Ohio State, Georgia, Texas Tech, and Oregon as the top four seeds. 5. The first round includes Ole Miss hosting James Madison, Texas A&M hosting Tulane, Oklahoma hosting BYU, and Alabama hosting Notre Dame. 6. Buehler calls BYU a live upset pick over Oklahoma because of Kalani Sitake, Bear Bachmeier, and a strong BYU defense. 7. The hosts also lean Notre Dame over Alabama, citing Marcus Freeman, Jeremiah Love, and Alabama’s run-game problems. 8. They send Notre Dame past Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Georgia past BYU in the Sugar Bowl. 9. Texas Tech is picked to beat Texas A&M, with the hosts arguing that Texas Tech’s defense would be better than Miami’s and strong enough to control the game. 10. Ole Miss is picked over Oregon because the Rebels were viewed as the better playoff team and played faster on both sides of the ball. 11. The national-title game becomes Georgia versus Ole Miss in a rematch of an earlier close meeting. 12. The hosts lean Ole Miss again, pointing to thin margins, a playoff run, and Georgia’s path through weaker opponents. 13. The episode’s second major segment is titled around Bob Newby, and it uses Stranger Things deaths to frame players who were loved and then 'eaten alive' in 2025. 14. Haynes King is described as a Georgia Tech leader who will not have NFL draft options and could follow a Colin Klein-style path into coaching. 15. Cade Klubnik is singled out as a quarterback who went from preseason expectations to heavy criticism after the LSU opener and a rough Clemson season. 16. Diego Pavia is discussed as a Vanderbilt spark who had a strong Tennessee game and then drew attention during Heisman-week events in New York. 17. The hosts extend the theme to Arch Manning, Lenora Sellers, Jeremiah Love, and Caleb Downs, using the phrase 'eaten alive' to describe how pressure changed their seasons. 18. The tone stays loose, improvised, and reference-heavy, with frequent Stranger Things jokes about Hawkins, Vecna, Demogorgons, and the Upside Down. 19. Listeners who like college football bracket speculation and player evaluations will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners who want a straight, serious football recap may skip this one.

As heard by us

A loose college-football hangout that turns the season into Hawkins-style chaos.

Offsides uses a Stranger Things frame to revisit the college football season, and the joke works because the hosts keep bending each school into Hawkins-style absurdity.

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Why you'd press play

Need a Stranger Things-themed college football season recap with weird, nerdy energy?

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