Here's to 2025 and onto 2026

A much-delayed recap and look ahead

Sunset over the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. Credit: Patrick Barron, MGoBlog.

I don’t love starting off a piece by apologizing, but yes, I’ve missed out on more than a few posts and haven’t posted much during the playoffs to this point.

For that, I’m sorry. But, I was burnt out and needed a long break to get my bearings back. And, now entering a very busy season at my actual work, posting is going to be sporadic here until the end of the month. I won’t make any promises on content, but expect at the very least some coaching stuff and playoff previews.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s get onto the good stuff. We had a great year at SID Sports in 2025 and I’m eternally grateful for everyone that’s been along for the ride and made SID Sports a part of your daily routine. Still, to this day, I’m floored by the amount of people that apparently value what I have to say on the internet.

So, it’s time to take a look at 2025 and a look ahead at 2026 to see what’s coming down the pipe.

2025 Recap

As, by now I’m sure you all know, I’m a stat head. So why don’t we take a look at some stats?

• Subscribers up 63.4 percent

  • Jan 1, 2025: 174

  • Jan 1, 2026: 284

• Total Views up 74.6 percent

  • CY 2024: 17,800

  • CY 2025: 31,000

Absolutely wow. I can’t begin to say how much this growth means to me. You all are amazing. Thank you so much for this.

I never expected this newsletter to take off like it has, but we’re getting traction now. That’s because of you all reading and liking and commenting.

Now comes the time where I, as a content creator, beg you to share the newsletter as much as possible. Like a post? Share it far and wide. Let people know. SID Sports is a free newsletter and I have no plans of sticking the content you all love behind a paywall anytime soon. This newsletter exists on the two above stats: subscribers and views. I’m not looking at dollars and cents, I’m looking to see what you all want to see more of and topics I’m interested in covering.

Sure, most of those views are from the typical content you’ve seen from me in the past three years: Games of the Slots, Rankings, Coaching Updates and more. But we also launched two new massive projects.

The first was the big ticket winner: the SID Sports Season Preview Magazine. It was the culmination of months of work and, clocking in at over 125,000 words, a true labor of love. Yes, there are plans to make it a yearly installment.

The second was Historical Portal, a six-part series on college football’s biggest what-if’s. And, honestly, that was one of the most fun things for me to write. It gave me a chance to blend fiction with research and storytelling that you don’t see often in this world.

Those projects did great numbers, but I want to focus on the biggest of big tickets. What were the five biggest posts of the year?

• College Football 26 realignment ideas

  • For some reason, this article has been my top viewed two years in a row. Maybe we need to do more fun things like this? I might have something like that in the works, if that’s the case.

• SID Sports 2025 Season Preview

  • We’ve already talked about this one, but I was surprised to see that it didn’t top out the levels. It was, though, the most-liked post by a wide margin. Oh well, we’ll have to make it better for next year!

• Historical Portal: A Vision Becomes Reality

  • Historical Portal was very well received, but the hypothetical of Penn State joining the Big 12 in 1982 was a bit of a surprise, mostly outperforming the rest of the bunch.

• Historical Portal: The game that changed everything

  • The series-launcher of Historical Portal absolutely blew up on Reddit and was our second highest-viewed post of the year. And, if we’re being honest, it was the main inspiration for the series as a whole.

• Is the College Football Playoff broken?

  • Our most recent entrant got shared a ton and has basically spawned a new spin-off series for me. At this point, I’ve teased it enough, but I’m sure you can read between the lines and see what’s coming down the pipe when we hit the offseason.

I also joined in on a ton of collaborations, hosting a ton of writers in the Season Preview and hosting the 2025 Substack College Football Awards - which narrowly missed the cut behind the CFP post - once again.

All that, and we haven’t even mentioned that I’ve started popping up on podcasts near you. Brian J. Shaw has been kind enough to host me on his Brian Vs. Utah Show more than a few times to talk coaching carousel, House settlement, transfer portals and more. I’ve also hopped on a few one-off shows.

All that’s to say, the 97 posts I sent you all in 2025 were the result of a lot of work and a true labor of love.

I love the community we’ve built here. I’m so thankful for all of you for making this a great year on the newsletter front. It feels like SID Sports is truly becoming something special.

But that’s enough waxing poetic about posts gone by. It’s time to take a look at what’s coming in the future.

Looking to 2026

You hear this tossed around a lot, but I really and truly mean it in this case: 2026 is going to be a massive year for SID Sports.

I can’t get into it right now, because so much is up in the air, but there’s an opportunity things change here in a big way. Whether it’s an improvement or not for the newsletter is one thing, but it’s an opportunity and something I’m very excited about. Again, nothing is for certain and I’m planning to go on business as usual.

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, there are going to be constants on this newsletter. The Coaching Carousel updates will keep coming. Games of the Slot aren’t going anywhere. Rankings are a given. The culmination of the year - the Substack College Football Awards Show - will be bigger and better.

Some new things, like the Season Preview Magazine, are likely to come into the new year. I’ve already started tweaking and envisioning how that looks going forward.

But, more than anything, I need to revamp some of what is done here. While I enjoyed writing and covering every inch of the sport this Fall, it drained me. There were multiple weeks that went by and I didn’t post. Burnout was a constant battle.

So, for 2026, I’m going to be tweaking the existing content some to make it more efficient and engaging. Don’t worry, this isn’t some major rebrand into clickbait nothing-burger posts. Just making the load a little lighter.

It’s going to be a bit of a balance, but I truly believe that I’ll figure it out.

But, with that said, I can’t make any decisions on good conscience without hearing from you all. So, I’ve crafted a survey for you to give your input on. It shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes if you’re really taking your time. I appreciate everyone that will take the time to fill it out and I’ll really, truly take the feedback into account.

In conclusion, I am awestruck each time I open the dashboard for SID Sports and see the numbers coming in. Really and truly, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for reading this newsletter. What started as a way for me to cosplay as continuing my SID career has blossomed into a special collection of readers, writers and individuals. Thank you, each and every one of you.

I’m excited for what 2026 has in store. It may be a massive departure from the content I’ve published in the past. It may be a natural evolution from where we are now. But it won’t be the same. I hope you stay along for the ride.