Warning: This page contains spoilers for the August 22, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that today’s game is an encore presentation of the game that originally aired on February 21, 2025.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Composers) for Friday, August 22, 2025 (Season 41, Game 120):
Yale takes credit for starting a commencement tradition when it gave this composer an honorary doctorate in 1905
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
John Focht, a baseball software team lead originally from El Paso, Texas
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Roger Craig, an applied scientist from Arlington, Virginia
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Maya Wright, a graduate student from Atlanta, Georgia
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
The encore presentations of the summer of 2025 continue with quarterfinal #5 of the Jeopardy Invitational Tournament between Maya Wright, Roger Craig, and John Focht. As he says in his interview this game, John is wearing gloves thanks to neural damage and his cancer diagnosis. Coming into this, I was very intrigued about the matchup between John and Roger; the two were definitely considered the major “analytics” players of their respective generations. Roger was the first major player to apply J! Archive‘s research to gameplay, while John analyzes stats with his J!ometry website.
Things will be working a little bit differently here over the next little while; you might see things organized slightly differently on the page for the encore presentations.
(Content continues below)
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Correct response: Who is Edward Elgar?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Honoring Edward Elgar (the famous English composer) with an honorary doctorate in 1905 at Yale saw much of Elgar’s music played at the ceremony. Most famously today, the “Land of Hope and Glory” section of Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D was the processional. From there, it began tradition to play that song at graduation ceremonies throughout North America.
I was very happy with this Final Jeopardy clue when it originally aired, as it taught me something about “Why does the world work the way it does?” that I didn’t previously know!
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Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Friday, August 22, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
This game proved why Roger Craig held the 1-day record for most of the 2010s, as he picked up $22,000 on the three Daily Doubles en route to a runaway victory. He also had the best day on the signalling device, picking up 26 correct responses. John fought gamely, though, picking up 11 correct in the opening round and leading at both of the first two commercial breaks. Unfortunately for John, though, Roger was just that much better on the signalling device in Double Jeopardy, only giving John 5 selections (to Roger’s 11) before the Daily Doubles had been exhausted on clue #17. (And, as most coaches will tell you these days, the game often goes in the direction that the Daily Doubles do.)
I’m sure a number of Roger’s fans were disappointed that Roger left $6,000 on the table on the last Daily Double instead of going for a second all-in bet (though the strategy does say it was probably a good idea to leave that money on the table.) Roger, of course, made a name for himself for quadrupling his score from $9,000 to $36,000 in Day 1 of the 2011 Tournament of Champions final.
Scores going into Final:
Roger $36,000
John $13,800
Maya $1,400
Tonight’s results:
Maya $1,400 + $47 = $1,447 (Who is Elgar? Hi Mom + Matt)
John $13,800 + $915 = $14,715 (Who is Elgar?)
Roger $36,000 + $0 = $36,000 (Who is Elgar?) (Semi-Finalist)
Game Stats:
Roger $17,600 Coryat, 26 correct, 5 incorrect, 43.86% in first on buzzer (25/57), 2/3 on rebound attempts (on 3 rebound opportunities)
John $13,800 Coryat, 18 correct, 2 incorrect, 31.58% in first on buzzer (18/57), 1/2 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Maya $1,400 Coryat, 7 correct, 2 incorrect, 12.28% in first on buzzer (7/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 5 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $32,800
Lach Trash: $12,000 (on 10 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $9,400
Lead Changes: 3
Times Tied: 0
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Other than the All-Star Games (where he only played one round at a time), I had never actually seen Roger play “live” before, but just from looking at his games on the archive and watching the occasional rerun/streaming game, I knew he would be a player to fear… and after watching him dominate Double Jeopardy and pick up $22K on Daily Doubles in this game, yeah, I would say that thought ended up being pretty accurate!
Glad to see everyone in this game doing so well in their outside lives, especially John. Cancer is awful, and I’m very happy to see him doing well – and kudos to him for a very strong game against a formidable opponent. 🙂