The height over time of a football can be represented by a quadratic equation.
The graph of this type of equation is a parabola.
Since the graph has a maximum value (the maximum height occurs for t = 2.5 seconds), that means the parabola opens downwards and the value of "a" is negative:

The y-value of the vertex is the maximum height, the value of "a" is negative and the x-value of the vertex is 2.5, therefore the correct response is the third one.