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Former West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck still remembers, with vivid clarity, the day Pittsburgh and Syracuse officially announced they were bailing on the Big East to move to the ACC. He was headed east from Morgantown to the West Virginia-Maryland football game on Sept. 17, 2011, and made a plan to get to league commissioner John Marinatto as quickly as possible.

The two met alone in a suite inside Maryland’s football stadium. Marinatto sat in a high-backed chair at the bar as the two briefly discussed how exactly the Big East would survive as a football-playing conference. The elephant in the room, of course, was that Pitt and Syracuse had delivered a double gut punch that sent shock waves across the league, signaling to every remaining football-playing member that the time had come to forget about conference loyalties and look out for itself.

Neither said what appears obvious, in hindsight. Even if they wanted to, they never had the chance. Marinatto got a phone call five minutes into their meeting. Luck watched as Marinatto turned ashen and pale, then fell to the ground.

“I remember saying to myself, ‘Oh my god, the conference is falling apart, the commissioner just [fainted] in front of me and I don’t know what to do,'” Luck said in a phone interview, adding that the call concerned Dave Gavitt, the Big East founder, who died just as his beloved league was breaking up.

Luck raced to find medical personnel, who helped Marinatto regain consciousness. But there is a reason, 10 years later, that Luck remembers that moment so clearly. That day serves as a point of demarcation where nothing would ever be the same for the Big East or its league members.

In short order, TCU pulled out of its agreement to join the Big East after just 11 months. Forty days after Luck met with Marinatto, West Virginia announced it was moving on to the Big 12, beating out Louisville in a high-stakes race that drew in high-powered politicians and pitted two Big East members against each other for the final open spot.

Skepticism among remaining teams was high; trust was low. Presidents, athletic directors and coaches made calls behind one another’s backs to find a secure conference home that would not only provide stability but also a financial windfall that guaranteed their own futures, all while sitting in Big East meetings identifying schools to add in an effort to save the conference. As Big East officials worked on creating a Western flank with Boise State and San Diego State, remaining schools Louisville, Cincinnati, UConn, South Florida and Rutgers kept making entreaties to other conferences to find an escape route.

To be sure, the Big East did not set off the wave of realignment that impacted every Power 5 conference between 2010 and 2012. The Big Ten did that when it announced in 2009 that it would begin exploring expansion possibilities before ultimately adding Nebraska in 2010.

But the Big East was the only major conference to lose half its football-playing members over that span, and that ended up delivering a blow from which the conference could not recover. Ultimately, the basketball-playing contingent retained the Big East name and split off; the remaining football-playing members joined with nine new schools and formed the American Athletic Conference.

For those with deep Big East connections who watched the events unfold in real time, hurt feelings, anger and sadness remain 10 years later. Marinatto, who died in June at age 64, blamed himself for what happened to his beloved league on his watch, according to multiple former colleagues. He never granted an interview after he resigned as Big East commissioner in 2012.

“I don’t know if anybody could have stopped what happened from happening,” one former league official said. “Especially when you had schools hell-bent on taking care of themselves.”

Of course, the schools that left view what happened much differently.

“We were all aware of the movement happening around us,” former Syracuse athletic director Daryl Gross said. “We just had a TV deal fall through with the Big East, and the Big East is looking like a burning ship, and there’s a cruise ship here to pick us up. So what are you going to do?”

TO UNDERSTAND HOW everything unraveled for the Big East, a short history lesson is in order. The Big East formed in 1979 as a basketball conference and stood proudly behind that sport, even rejecting Penn State as a member in the early 1980s.

But as football grew in power and financial stature, the league invited in Miami, Virginia Tech, West Virginia and several others, and began sponsoring football in 1991, allowing long-standing league members like Pitt, Syracuse and Boston College to play football in a conference for the first time. But doing so always left the league slightly off-kilter compared to others because of the unusual football/basketball dynamic.

“Ever since the start of the Big East, there always was concern about the football schools breaking away,” one former Big East official said.

Realignment hit the Big East first in 2003 when Miami and Virginia Tech left for the ACC. That summer, the remaining Big East football-playing schools decided they wanted to split away, believing their interests were no longer aligned with those of the basketball-playing schools. Kevin O’Malley, a TV executive-turned-consultant, was brought in to help then-commissioner Mike Tranghese keep the league together.

“They had actually drafted a letter that was going to be sent,” O’Malley recalled. “As far as they were concerned, the basketball schools were history. What I pointed out was something that is a recurring theme through all of this, which is how much the basketball schools and the football schools needed each other. It took a while, but we put Humpty-Dumpty back together again.”

Boston College eventually left too. Though the league added Louisville, USF and Cincinnati to fill in the gaps, the growing importance of football from a revenue-generating standpoint, most importantly during television contract negotiations and making sure it had a seat at the table in the old Bowl Championship Series, only widened the chasm between the football and basketball schools.

It became much harder for the league to not only figure out its identity — caught between its basketball tradition and the riches of football — but also to keep everybody moving forward together.

“There are no rules in this game of realignment, right? There wasn’t an arbiter. You couldn’t go to the NCAA or the federal government. It was a game we likened to musical chairs. You don’t want to be the one standing when the music stops.”

Former West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck

“Over time, it got more contentious because the basketball side was always wary of the football side,” one former Big East athletic director said. “And as we drove some of those ideas, it was viewed as more of a football play instead of a league play.”

That essentially is at the heart of where so much went wrong, starting in December 2009. When the Big Ten announced it would explore expansion over the ensuing 12-18 months, athletic directors across the country realized a seismic shift in the landscape was about to happen. Some schools and conferences would end up with an enormous financial windfall, while others would scramble to find a suitable home.

“The day the Big Ten announced that,” former Pitt athletic director Steve Pederson said, “I think everybody said, ‘OK, here we go.’ If you don’t know whether you’re going to be one that’s going to be selected, the risk is high. So we really tried to come up with some kind of way to cement the Big East together. Understandably, a lot of schools just didn’t want to make that kind of commitment. They said, ‘Well, what if what if we had a chance to go to one of these conferences?'”

Gross remembers attending one set of meetings before the conference basketball tournament in 2011, looking at the agenda and seeing nothing listed on the topic of expansion.

“To this day, I have no idea why no one wanted to touch the subject,” Gross said. “It was almost like, if we don’t talk about it, then we don’t have to worry about it.”

He raised those concerns during the meeting. Afterward, another athletic director walked up to him and asked, “Are you guys leaving?”

Gross maintains that at that point Syracuse had no plans to leave. “I was just trying to figure out, ‘What’s the plan?'” he said. “I felt so lost. I thought for sure this would be the biggest discussion topic in the entire room.”

Whether the league was proactive or not is a matter of perspective. Multiple times, the Big East tried to form a partnership with several Big 12 schools, but it was only in response to the possibility that Texas and Oklahoma would leave.

Once Texas and Oklahoma decided to stay put, the idea fizzled.

Marinatto sent a bottle of champagne to then-Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe to congratulate him on keeping his league from disintegrating.

Soon, there wouldn’t be much to celebrate.

THE BIGGEST DISCUSSION topic in the Big East became its television rights. At the time, the Big East was working with ESPN on a new rights deal that would bump its annual payout from $36 million per year to $155 million per year. All told, the new deal would be worth more than $1.3 billion over the life of the contract. As its television partner at the time, ESPN had an exclusive negotiating window to make a deal happen with the Big East.

But there were multiple presidents and athletic directors who wanted to wait and take the Big East to the open market once that window with ESPN closed, believing its entire rights package was worth more than what ESPN was offering. That group included Georgetown, Pitt and Rutgers.

“We just felt like at the time that the deal didn’t reflect our value,” Pederson said. “As you looked at the numbers, you just said, ‘If you’re going to sign a long-term deal that you feel is undervalued, then you’re just going to be sorry almost the minute you sign it.’ We understood we were not in the same position at that point as the Big Ten or the ACC, but we felt we were in a better position than the way the numbers came out.”

Though the majority of league schools wanted to take the deal, those with misgivings controlled the conversation and became the loudest voices in the room. Things came to a head in May 2011 when the newly expanded Pac-12 with Colorado and Utah aboard announced a television package of its own with ESPN and Fox worth a reported $3 billion — substantially greater than the Big East offer.

That caused everyone in the league to reevaluate what was on the table, and the decision ultimately was made to walk away from the proposed TV deal.

“That deal came out of nowhere, and people started to ask, ‘If they’re willing to pay that for the Pac-12, why wouldn’t we be able to get more?'” one person with knowledge of the discussions said. “So now everybody’s thinking Comcast has all this money, and we had a year to go before the end of our contract, so people said we should go to the open market.”

One former Big East official said ESPN asked for a counteroffer, but none ever came. O’Malley described multiple athletic directors as being “in disbelief” that the league walked away from the deal.

“I’ve always been the ‘one in the hand is better than two in the bush,’ and that would have kept us very stable,” then-Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said. “But I was the newcomer talking. We were very happy where we were, and maybe those schools weren’t happy. Maybe they had bigger aspirations. I don’t know.”

Officials from the schools that eventually left deny they were in negotiations with other conferences at the time the TV deal was nixed. But there are some former Big East officials who remain dubious.

One went so far as to say “sabotage” would be an accurate way to describe the way some schools led the push against the TV deal only to later leave, though others in the room at the time felt that was too strong of a word.

“There were so many people that just loved the conference and were so invested in it, and then you had double agents in the room,” another former Big East official said.

Multiple sources pushed back on that assertion.

“There was sincere and genuine effort put towards trying to figure out a way to shore ourselves up and present more value to the market to capitalize on our deal,” one former school official said. “This theory that we deliberately tried to stop the TV deal from happening because we were all at the finish line with other conferences is bulls—.”

Multiple sources confirmed that Pitt and Rutgers tried early in the process to get league members to agree to a grant of rights, in which schools relinquish control of their TV rights to the conference. But there was no consensus. With no grant of rights, no expansion plan and no television deal, there was simply nothing to hold the league together.

Add to that a perceived vacuum in leadership — with the more mild-mannered and less well-connected Marinatto now the commissioner instead of Tranghese — and it seemed like a foregone conclusion that the competing agendas threatened to fracture the conference for good.

“There was no guarantee if we did that deal things weren’t going to still shift, but it would have helped the schools left behind to at least have that in their pocket, and if we had to renegotiate it down, fine, but we still had it,” a former Big East official said.

Despite the behind-the-scenes drama, league officials spoke optimistically at media days in Rhode Island in August 2011 about the lucrative potential for a TV package despite turning down ESPN. One league official told The New York Times, “We’re excited. It feels like the tide is turning in our favor.”

Clearly, not everyone felt that way.

Gross, who was in favor of taking the TV deal, said once that fell through “things were fragile and could fall apart or crumble.” He said he first heard from the ACC in early September, recalling that his phone rang as he walked to his car following a tennis match at the US Open. When ACC officials asked whether Syracuse would be interested in joining, Gross said yes without hesitation.

Within a week, the Syracuse trustees met at a hotel in Beverly Hills, California — where they had traveled to watch Syracuse play USC in football. Gross made a presentation, and the group voted to accept the ACC invitation. Similarly, the situation with Pitt and the ACC moved quickly in September. Both Gross and Pederson said they had no idea they would be joining together until the end of the process.

Despite the uncertainty and fragility of the Big East, multiple people described feeling “blindsided” that Syracuse and Pitt — two of the league’s most identifiable members, including one founding member — would leave. One person said it “shook the conference to its core.”

“Syracuse and the Big East were synonymous with one another for the entire history of the conference,” a former Big East official said. “When they left, there was no recovering.”

Added Jurich: “I know a lot of people’s feelings were hurt, especially the schools that had been in that league for a while. They were crushed because they had such a great loyalty and relationships with those schools.”

Pederson, when asked whether he thought the decision to leave surprised the league, said Pitt was always upfront about the situation. “I guess that would be from their perspective,” he said. “Nobody knew exactly where anybody might be going, and all those negotiations are very private. So maybe there were people that were surprised. I don’t know.”

At that point, any existing loyalties seemed to vanish.

“When one starts splitting away, then the avalanche occurs,” Jurich said. “Everybody was scrambling. It’s, ‘What are we going to do? How are we going to survive? How do we keep our head above water now that the TV deal is out?’ You don’t have a chance to use that as any leverage. From our standpoint, all I cared about was our program.”

Meanwhile, TCU, which agreed in November 2010 to join the Big East as a way of boosting its profile as a member of a BCS conference, pulled out to join the Big 12 in mid-October. By then, the Big East was pushing hard for Boise State to join as a football-only member — all while Louisville and West Virginia were jockeying for the last open spot in the Big 12.

“There are no rules in this game of realignment, right?” Luck said. “There wasn’t an arbiter. You couldn’t go to the NCAA or the federal government. It was a game we likened to musical chairs. You don’t want to be the one standing when the music stops.”

BOISE STATE PRESIDENT Robert Kustra took a keen interest in realignment, believing his football program had positioned itself well for a move into a bigger conference with better access to the BCS. In 2010, he met with the presidents of Utah, TCU and BYU to discuss whether Boise State was ready to make a move from the WAC to the Mountain West.

“I gave my salesman pitch, and then I said to them, ‘How can I know that the Mountain West is going to be the Mountain West it is today?'” Kustra recalled in a phone interview. “‘Are you all going to be there for the Mountain West?’ And these presidents, they were either lying through their teeth or they were completely ignorant of their athletic directors’ plans.”

Only a few days after Boise State announced it would join the Mountain West, Utah accepted an invitation to join the Pac-10. Then BYU announced it was going independent in football. In November 2010, TCU agreed to join the Big East. This was not the Mountain West the Broncos agreed to join.

At this point, Boise State had played in two BCS games as an undefeated team (2007 and 2010 Fiesta Bowls) but had never gotten a legitimate shot at playing for a national championship. Beyond national championships, the Mountain West did not have an automatic spot into the BCS, meaning Boise State would have to go undefeated every year and then hope for a selection as an at-large team.

Kustra felt he had to do something to improve those chances. He had previously lobbied the Pac-12 to no avail. So when the Big East, with an automatic bid into the BCS, called in October 2011 to see whether the Broncos would be interested in a football-only partnership, he listened.

At the time, Boise State was ranked in the top five. On paper, the move made sense: Boise State needed access to a BCS conference, and the Big East needed to fill gaps and boost its football-playing profile. As a way to make its move east more palatable, Boise State needed a travel partner from the West, boosting San Diego State into the conversation.

“I personally thought that taking the Boise State story on the road with the Big East was a great opportunity to get national coverage that we weren’t getting here in the Intermountain region,” Kustra said.

The Mountain West had taken one hit after another during realignment and could not afford to lose Boise State, its highest-profile school. Commissioner Craig Thompson worked the phones to both Kustra and then-San Diego State president Elliot Hirshman, telling them both, “There’s a lot of money being dangled in front of your face, but there’s not going to be a Big East in the long term,” according to a person with knowledge of their conversation. Thompson declined to comment for this story.

The Big East also had conversations with Air Force, Navy and Army but ultimately opted for football-only partnerships with Boise State and San Diego State. In addition, UCF, Houston and SMU would join as full-time members. The moves gave the Big East the largest footprint in the country.

But because the conference looked so different, nobody knew whether it would retain its BCS status or what a future television deal would be worth. Skepticism remained that bringing in Boise State and San Diego State from the other side of the country would actually keep the Big East together. The basketball schools were not thrilled either.

Though Boise State coach Chris Petersen and San Diego State coach Rocky Long spoke in positive terms about the move publicly, they expressed reservations privately. Long declined interview requests for this story; Petersen did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“There were some ideas that were not ideal, but when you’re in a position like that, you start to look at everything,” Jurich said. “They were not just saying let’s put our head in the sand and say we’re fine when it truly wasn’t. Did it fit for everybody? Absolutely not, including us. It didn’t, but I don’t think you could look at and say it’s about fit when you were looking for survival.”

Several former Big East officials still believe this alignment could have worked long term at the time. But in April 2012, a plan for a four-team playoff was announced, and it became clear there would be no automatic qualifying designation for the Big East under the new format, taking away a huge advantage the league had over the Mountain West.

Marinatto resigned in May 2012 with the league in turmoil. As one friend of his said, “He was just a guy that was the student manager for the basketball team for Dave Gavitt at Providence College and was Mike Tranghese’s friend, and was handed the reins by the two of them. And the conference collapsed. That’s the weight that he carried with him.”

Whether he could have done anything differently to keep the league together is a question up for debate, considering all the outside factors that were beyond his control.

“I don’t think anybody deserves any particular blame for anything,” Pederson said.

Mike Aresco was hired as commissioner in August with an eye toward maximizing television rights. But first, Notre Dame announced it would be taking all of its Big East-affiliated sports to the ACC while remaining independent in football. When Rutgers (Big Ten) and Louisville (ACC) announced their own departures over a one-week span in November 2012, the Big East as a football-playing conference fell apart.

For good.

In mid-December 2012, the seven Big East basketball-playing schools announced a split from the football-playing schools. A few weeks later, Boise State struck a deal to return to the Mountain West. San Diego State followed shortly after that. The Broncos were given the green light to sell their home games separately from the conference’s television package, allowing them to earn more money than the other members of the conference — about $1.8 million more per year in revenues.

Kustra said the Mountain West presidents at the time called him and offered more money from television rights as a way to get Boise State back into the league.

“I’m asked, if you had to do all over again, what would you do?” Kustra said. “And I’d say, I would do exactly the way I did it. I didn’t know that the Big East was going to fold. But look what we got out of it. We landed on our feet financially. And to this day, the Mountain West is still trying to figure out what to do about that.”

Tensions over the special deal Boise State secured have grown over the past several years — and it was a major point of contention during the Mountain West’s most recent television rights negotiation.

Meanwhile, the newly reconfigured Big East – with Xavier, Creighton and Butler – has been led by Villanova basketball over the last decade, winning national titles in 2016 and 2018. But perhaps the biggest news in recent years involved UConn, which decided to go independent in football so it could rejoin the Big East, where it thrived as a basketball power. The Huskies officially rejoined in 2020 after a seven-year absence.

The American Athletic Conference — renamed and rebranded after the basketball split — has thrived as a Group of 5 conference. The league has secured the most Group of 5 automatic bids into the four-team playoff. With the playoff format soon expanding to 12 teams, its chances of making the playoff have increased. But the same could be said for Boise State in the Mountain West.

“Realignment hit us pretty hard,” said Aresco, now the AAC commissioner. “We were in disarray, making sure that the conference would survive. But it turns out, not only did we survive, we thrived immediately. We’ve been thriving ever since.”

While that is true, there are still those with a deep abiding affinity for the Big East who remain emotional about its breakup 10 years later. Because, as one former league official said, “it’s not what it was and will never be the same again.”

ESPN reporter David Hale contributed to this report.

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Connelly’s Week 1 overreactions: Belichick, Arch Manning, Bama’s debacle and more

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September 2, 2025

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Connelly's Week 1 overreactions: Belichick, Arch Manning, Bama's debacle and more

  • Bill ConnellySep 1, 2025, 11:35 PM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

The 2025 college football season opened in earnest with incredible weather in most locales (Lubbock, Texas, aside), exciting and jam-packed environments … and very few points. No one topped 17 points in either of Saturday’s top-10 matchups, FBS teams averaged only 23.5 points per game against other FBS teams, and throughout the country, rebuilt offensive lines and new quarterbacks seemed at a disadvantage against rebuilt defenses.

What did we learn about how 2025 will play out? Not a ton. The season doesn’t end for almost four more months, after all. As LSU coach Brian Kelly said to ESPN’s Molly McGrath after his Tigers’ win over Clemson, the only statement his team made Saturday night was “that we got to 1-0. I mean, this is a long season. This is a journey, and this wasn’t our destination. We have to play better … but that’s why I love playing games like this, on the road, against a top-five team. It just gets you better for the rest of the season.”

Kelly is right, of course. But that’s absolutely no fun. From Thursday evening through Monday night, there were so many games and a lot to react to. It wouldn’t be fun if we didn’t let ourselves overreact a bit. We might even be right about a thing or two!

I’m not a “hot takes” person by nature, but Week 1 is the perfect time to fire off a few. So from Arch Manning, Bill Belichick and Alabama having really bad times to Tulane and Iowa State looking like playoff teams and Jonah Coleman looking like a Heisman contender, here are some (perhaps foolish) overreactions to everything we just saw.

Arch stinks! Matt Patricia for the Broyles Award!

OK, there might be a little hyperbole there. But it’s like Saturday’s Texas–Ohio State game — a 14-7 win for the defending national champs over the visiting Longhorns — was designed in a lab to maximize the potential takes emanating from it. New Ohio State defensive coordinator Matt Patricia looked like the greatest defensive coach in the history of the sport, and new Texas starting quarterback Arch Manning, after an offseason of limitless hype, laid an egg on national television.

First things first: My apologies to Chip Ferguson. In the intro to my Friday preview column, I referenced the 1988 Florida State-Miami game, in which preseason No. 1 FSU entered the game as just four-point favorites over the defending national champions — the narrowest point-spread for a preseason No. 1 since at least 1978 — and got rocked by the Canes 31-0. Ferguson started for FSU and was benched by the third quarter because of poor play, and I mentioned that Manning would almost assuredly clear the Ferguson bar.

He did. Barely.

Ferguson vs. Miami (1988): 10-for-16 for 121 yards and two interceptions — 101.0 passer rating

Manning vs. Ohio State (2025): 17-for-30 for 170 yards, one TD and one INT — 108.6 passer rating

Manning completed three passes for 65 yards late in the fourth quarter in Texas’ lone TD drive of the game. That allowed him to narrowly clear the bar. But it was about the only one he cleared. Manning was nervous and inaccurate for large portions of Saturday’s affair, and when he had time to look for an open receiver, none came open. With Ohio State’s all-world safety Caleb Downs lurking in the back, leading returning receivers DeAndre Moore Jr. and Ryan Wingo combined to catch four of 12 passes for 41 yards, and the Buckeyes secondary blanketed Manning’s options.

I got a lot of mileage out of the “Matt Patricia hasn’t been successful in a job since 2016” line this offseason — what can I say, I enjoyed saying it — but any time I said it, I also acknowledged that it might turn out that nothing but raw talent matters. Ohio State clearly has a lot of that.

I couldn’t tell if Patricia was doing anything impressive schematically; all I knew for sure was, wherever Manning and Texas looked for a matchup advantage, they failed to find one. It seemed like they thought they’d run the ball behind their interior line, and they created some rushing efficiency overall, but they got stuffed on fourth-and-short twice, including once on fourth-and-goal from the OSU 1. And wherever Manning was looking downfield, he rarely saw what he wanted. He was forced to check down repeatedly: Only five of his 17 completions gained double-digit yardage, and when he tried to force the issue in the third quarter, his pass was picked off by Jermaine Matthews Jr.

There are quite a few differences between coaching at the pro and collegiate levels, but the biggest one might be that, at the right school, you can lean heavily on talent advantages than you can in the pros and put players where they need to be to exploit those advantages. What we saw Saturday certainly suggests Ohio State will have massive advantages over just about any offense it will face over the next three months.

The major question for the Buckeyes, at this point, is what advantages will they find on offense? Because, for as poor as Texas’ offense might have been Saturday, it was the more successful unit of the two.

Total yards: Texas 336, OSU 203
Yards per play: Texas 5.0, OSU 3.8
Success rate: Texas 43.3%, OSU 33.3%
First downs: Texas 16, OSU 11

Ohio State won because its defense stopped Texas inside the OSU 10 and forced the game’s only turnover. The Buckeyes offense finished only two drives inside the Texas 40, running backs CJ Donaldson Jr. and James Peoples averaged just 3.0 yards per carry, and in his first collegiate start, Julian Sayin went just 13-for-20 for 126 yards. Jeremiah Smith, the No. 1 player heading into the season, caught six of 10 balls for just 43 yards, and Carnell Tate‘s 40-yard touchdown catch early in the fourth quarter was very well timed and OSU’s only gain of more than 16 yards all game.

Neither of these teams is a finished product, and with both teams’ overall inexperience, especially on offense, it will take a while for them to become their finished versions. But while I billed this game as a fantastic opportunity to answer a lot of my questions about these two teams, I think I finished the game with more questions than when I started.

I was wrong about Alabama

The most disappointing thing about Alabama’s performance Saturday wasn’t quarterback Ty Simpson, though he wasn’t good enough (4.9 yards per dropback and as many negative plays as 20-yard gains). It wasn’t receiver Ryan Williams dropping multiple passes and catching just five of 11 targets for 30 yards. It wasn’t an experienced offensive line that I thought would hold the biggest advantage in the ballgame, but it did no such thing. It wasn’t even a Bama secondary that gave up a couple of big plays to speedy receivers Squirrel White and Jaylin Lucas. That stuff happens.

The most disappointing thing about the Tide’s performance in Tallahassee was how totally unprepared they looked.

When FSU’s Mike Norvell hired Gus Malzahn as offensive coordinator and brought former Malzahn recruit Tommy Castellanos aboard to run the offense, it was fair to make a few assumptions about how things would go. Malzahn has built lots of fun rushing attacks around mobile quarterbacks through the years, and Castellanos is similar to Kyler Murray with his legs and running style (and very much not like Murray with his arm). It was easy to craft a vision of a motion-friendly FSU offense occasionally utilizing misdirection and giving Castellanos freedom to run and make things happen.

FSU drove 75, 65 and 52 yards and scored 17 points in its first three drives, then began the second half with a 68-yard TD drive. The progress slowed from there, but the Noles uncorked a 10-play, 75-yard drive to ice the win midway through the fourth quarter. Castellanos rushed for 86 yards, and five FSU ball carriers had at least one 10-yard rush. (Micahi Danzy had gains of 26 and 32 yards among his three carries.) When Castellanos was at Boston College last season, opponents quickly learned that, instead of attempting to sack him when he dropped to pass, it was best to corral him and force him to make plays with his arm. It was as if Bama’s defenders hadn’t watched any film. Time and again, they flew in for the sack, only to see him spin away and make a play with his legs.

Almost everyone on the Bama offense — including a few somewhat known players like Williams, who is expected to make big contributions this year — performed poorly, aside from receiver Germie Bernard and tight end Josh Cuevas (though even they combined to catch only 11 of 21 passes). But when the defense was getting bullied and Bama needed its offensive stars to keep up, they instead disappeared for swaths of time. FSU went 7-for-14 (50%) on third and fourth downs, while Bama went only 8-for-22 (36%), and though the Tide looked like they might come back from down 17 points, they never got the ball with a chance to tie.

My general approach to Bama heading into this season was pretty simple: If Simpson is good, Bama is great. Coach Kalen DeBoer’s pre-Bama track record was almost flawless, and I thought if Simpson was solid and the pass rush improved a little, the Tide would have everything they needed. But neither Simpson nor Bama’s pass rushers (in either sacks or containment) performed well enough, and the units I wasn’t concerned about also failed to come through. It was an all-around dud, starting with the coaching staff, and it’s not like they lacked motivation. This is a long season, and the Tide have time to recover. But it takes your GPA a while to rebound from an F on the first test of the semester.

This section is primarily about Bama, but Castellanos & Co. deserve massive praise. They made the Tide look unprepared. I’m still not sure what to expect from the Seminoles in 2025, and I still have the memory of Castellanos running out of steam after a lovely start to 2024. The crowd at Doak Campbell Stadium was loud enough to almost drown out Joe Tessitore on the TV call, and the team looked like it had all the motivation it lacked last season. And when you’re already 50% to last year’s win total after one game, you’re doing something right.

I was right about Clemson (and Miami is winning the ACC)

As questionable as it may have been to buy lots of Bama stock this offseason, I certainly felt justified in not buying Clemson stock. The Tigers led the nation in returning production in 2025 and were extremely likely to improve, but I struggled with the idea that a team that has averaged an 18.5 SP+ ranking and 3.5 losses per season over the past four years could suddenly become a top-five team, as poll voters suggested.

Clemson is obviously talented and will threaten to win the ACC this year. But a 17-10 home loss to LSU on Saturday night certainly threw doubt on the Tigers’ supposed top-five bona fides.

The Clemson run defense, a liability in 2024 despite loads of blue-chippers on the line, was mostly solid Saturday. Of course, the visiting Tigers were terribly inefficient on the ground last season, and LSU’s Caden Durham and Zavion Thomas still combined for 100 yards in 20 carries. Still, when you hold LSU — a team that hasn’t ranked in the defensive SP+ top 20 since 2019 — to 17 points, you should like your chances, and the experienced Clemson offense simply couldn’t move the ball. Only two of Clemson’s 58 snaps gained more than 20 yards, and half gained one or fewer. And with the game in the balance, Cade Klubnik‘s final 14 dropbacks netted 47 yards and a dreadful 14.3% success rate. Clemson has now lost its past seven games against ranked SEC foes.

Like any other Week 1 disappointment, the Tigers obviously have time to rebound and grow. But the whole point of buying stock in a team with actual experience — as opposed to all the highly ranked teams with major continuity and/or experience issues heading into 2025 — was that it would be pretty fully formed when the season began. The Tigers might not have that much room to grow, and within the ACC they now have to worry about a Miami team that actually has its act together.

Well, maybe. Miami looked really good to start 2024, too, so we know it can backfire to fully buy in on the Hurricanes. But with a 27-24 win over Notre Dame on Sunday night, they scored their first victory over a top-10 team in nine tries and nearly eight years. The Miami offense fell into a second-half funk as the Irish came back from 14 down to tie the game, but Georgia transfer Carson Beck threw for 205 yards and two touchdowns, North Dakota State transfer CharMar Brown moved the chains twice in short yardage on Miami’s final drive, and Carter Davis‘ 47-yard field goal provided the winning points. And against what is supposed to be an excellent Notre Dame offensive line, Miami sacked CJ Carr twice on the Irish’s final possession.

It was an excellent start against what is, on paper, the best team Miami will face in the regular season. LSU transfer CJ Daniels and freshman Malachi Toney combined for 11 catches, 128 yards and 2 touchdowns, including the single best play of Week 1. And at the very least, Miami erased the bitter taste from its poor 2024 finish.

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CJ Daniels makes jaw-dropping 1-handed TD grab for Miami

CJ Daniels goes full extension for a one-handed touchdown grab to put Miami up late in the first half.

Rapid-fire overreactions

The big games were the big games, but we had so much else to overreact to. Here are some quicker takes:

A defensive player is winning the Heisman

Don’t ask me which one, though if Ohio State let Caleb Downs line up on offense a few times, I think we might have our answer. But some defender needs to get on a roll because offenses stunk in Week 1 — OK, some didn’t, but go with me here — and there has never been a better chance for an Ndamukong Suh-like charge from a defender (only, with the proper respect from Heisman voters this time).

Indeed, all the major offensive measures are down compared to where they were this time last year. In Week 1 of last season, in FBS vs. FBS games, teams averaged 2.11 points per drive and 5.52 yards per play; this year it was 1.9 points per drive and 5.4 yards per play. Efficiency numbers actually improved — success rate rose from 40.6% to 41.2%, completion rate rose from 61.0% to 61.3%, sack rates fell from 6.0% to 5.1% and overall turnover rates improved slightly from 2.0% to 1.7%.

So what’s the problem? Big plays vanished: The percentage of completions gaining at least 20 yards fell from 16.3% to 14.7%, and despite the uptick in completion rate (and the downtick in sacks), average yards per dropback fell from 6.4 to 6.0. You know how pro defenses adapted to force Patrick Mahomes to settle for checkdown after checkdown because they were basically forming an umbrella at the back? It appears college defenses are doing the same thing. They’re forcing quarterbacks — who, on average, are less experienced than in recent years — to dink and dunk and score points before making a crippling error or coming up short on third down. It’s working.

Somehow, scoring plummeted in Week 1 even as coaches got much more aggressive on fourth down. Or perhaps because of it. Teams went for it on fourth down in opposition territory 44.0% of the time in Week 1 (again, looking only at FBS vs. FBS games), up from 33.1% in Week 1 last year. And despite this increase, fourth-down conversion rates also went up, from 49.6% to 54.7%.

Coaches increasingly understand when going for it is to their advantage, but might that be further tamping down their willingness to take shots downfield, since it’s now more OK to come up just short of the line to gain and utilize fourth downs? “Nerds ruined college football” is quite the overreaction, especially coming from a nerd, but consider that food for thought as we advance further into the season.

At one point Saturday, the Under was 17-3 for the weekend; it ended up 29-14 (67.4%), a solid improvement over last year’s 26-16 (61.9%) in Week 1. Offenses eventually picked up steam a bit in 2024, and they probably will this season too. But damn, were points hard to come by this weekend.

Iowa State is winning the Big 12

ISU and Kansas State returned from Ireland just a few days ago, and both scheduled Week 1 games against FCS opponents. Perhaps somewhat predictably, K-State had to labor significantly against both jet lag and a solid North Dakota team, but against South Dakota, a top-five FCS team on paper, Matt Campbell’s Cyclones cruised.

Projected to win by 21.4 per SP+, they rolled 55-7. Rocco Becht completed 19 of 20 passes for 278 yards and 3 scores, and after giving up 80 yards in 12 plays on USD’s opening drive, the Cyclones allowed just 129 from there. Kicker Kyle Konrardy crushed a 63-yard field goal at the end of the first half.

ISU couldn’t have been more dialed in, and though plenty of other potential Big 12 teams looked the part — especially TCU (def. North Carolina 48-14), Utah (def. UCLA 43-10), Arizona (40-6 over Hawaii), BYU (69-0 over Portland State) and Texas Tech (67-7 over Arkansas-Pine Bluff) — the Cyclones passed a particularly unique test and blew me away.

The kids are alright

For as much as QBs seemed to struggle in Week 1, some particularly young ones looked the part of future stars. Michigan’s Bryce Underwood, the most touted freshman in the country, was solid in his debut against New Mexico, weathering a couple of mini-funks and finishing 21-for-31 for 251 yards and a touchdown. But a couple of others did even better.

No one made more of an out-of-the-gate impression than Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele. In Cal’s surprisingly easy 34-15 win at Oregon State, the blue-chipper completed his first nine passes for 146 yards and 2 scores and finished with 234 yards and 3 TDs, no sacks and 2 rushes for 30 yards. It was one of the more poised and mistake-free debuts from a true freshman.

Maryland’s Malik Washington went about similar numbers differently: He started 3-for-11 for 19 yards, and the Terrapins were tied with Florida Atlantic 7-7 after one quarter. But from there, he went 24-for-32 and threw three touchdown passes in a 39-7 romp.

Thanks to offseason attrition, Cal and Maryland were forced to undergo youth movements of sorts, handing the reins to youngsters and hoping they could get enough help from transfers and random incumbents to get by. Both more than got by in Week 1.

While we’re at it, a couple of redshirt freshmen looked outstanding at the Group of 5 level: North Texas’ Drew Mestemaker went 24-for-32 for 329 yards, 3 touchdowns and 30 non-sack rushing yards in a 51-0 blowout of Lamar, while Texas State’s Brad Jackson, with help from a rampant run game, went 18-for-26 for 214 yards and 4 TDs (plus 57 rushing yards) as the Bobcats rolled 52-27 over Eastern Michigan. Quality quarterbacking was rare in Week 1, but these teams found plenty of it with youngsters.

Tulane to the CFP

A football game lasts a long time. About 45 minutes or so into the USF–Boise State game Thursday evening, things had loosely gone as BSU would have hoped. Sure, the Broncos had lost a costly fumble at the USF 20 on the opening drive, but they were moving the ball efficiently, and USF was not. Boise State had a 46% success rate to USF’s 10%, and the Bulls’ first nine snaps had lost 10 yards.

Then came the final 2 hours, 45 minutes. USF put together a couple of good drives, and BSU stalled. After looking strong early, the Broncos trailed 10-7 at halftime. Then it was 17-7. And 24-7. Boise State kept turning the ball over on downs, and USF kept scoring. And after about 3½ hours, the Bulls had won 34-7 — somehow BSU finished plus-6 in yardage and minus-27 in points — and completely flipped the race for the Group of 5’s guaranteed CFP spot on its head.

Now, Boise State remains a contender. The Broncos are still very talented and will likely be favored in every game besides their Oct. 4 trip to Notre Dame. But the upset opened a door, and above all others, Tulane walked through it.

The Green Wave were 6.5-point favorites against Northwestern on Saturday, but that was a bit of an insult to the home team. SP+ projected Tulane as a 15-point favorite, and even that eventually undersold the Green Wave in a 23-3 win that was more dominant than the final score indicated. They converted most of the game’s big plays and made new Northwestern quarterback Preston Stone‘s life hell, picking off four of his passes and sacking him three times. Green Wave QB Jake Retzlaff threw for 152 yards and rushed for 113, including a 69-yard touchdown sprint in the second quarter. Tulane was basically bigger, stronger, faster and angrier than the Wildcats at every position. The Green Wave could also be favored in all but one remaining game — their Sept. 20 trip to Ole Miss being the exception — and unlike BSU, they haven’t used a mulligan yet.

Rice will bowl

Because I didn’t include a “how sexy is your offense?” component in preseason SP+ projections, Rice was projected only 116th, with an average projected win total of 4.8, heading into Scott Abell’s first season in charge. But that offense did something sexy Saturday.

It took the Owls no time to spin an opponent into the ground with Abell’s option offense. Rice rushed for 206 yards, and thanks to a surprisingly spry defensive effort, the Owls upset Louisiana 14-12. They’ll probably need another upset or two to get to 6-6, but this is overreaction territory! I say they get to at least 6-6!

North Carolina won’t

If nothing else, Bill Belichick’s first North Carolina team won the scripted portion of its first game. TCU’s defense had no way of really knowing what the Tar Heels, with almost completely new personnel and a coaching staff heavy in pro influences, were going to attempt when their Monday night affair started. And sure enough, UNC carved the Horned Frogs up for 83 yards and a touchdown in just seven plays. TCU quickly went four-and-out, and everything was sunshine and moonbeams in Chapel Hill.

Unfortunately, the game continued. Over the next 30 minutes and change, TCU outgained the Heels 402-39 and outscored them 41-0. UNC briefly perked up when backup quarterback Max Johnson came in and threw a touchdown pass to his brother Jake Johnson — unfortunately not the same guy who starred in New Girl — but the Horned Frogs rolled, 48-14.

When Michael Lombardi, UNC’s general manager and a longtime NFL front-office guy, would talk to the media this offseason, you would hear a lot about running an NFL-style organization at North Carolina, with all sorts of scouting and cap knowledge. That’s great, and maybe that know-how will benefit the program in future seasons as it learns some lessons from 2025. But 2025 doesn’t look like it’s going to go particularly well. The roster Belichick and his NFL staff compiled this season simply doesn’t have enough talent, especially in the trenches, to aim for anything higher than 6-6 in year one. This isn’t the NFL, and you can’t draft talent — there’s still a recruiting element to the college game that goes with all the cap math. We’ll see what happens in future seasons, but in 2025 it looks like the college game, with all its quirks and oddities, is going to get the best of the best coach in NFL history.

But on the bright side, just think of how many Super Bowls TCU’s Sonny Dykes might win if he gets the chance!

Who won the Heisman this week?

I am, once again, awarding the Heisman every week of the season and doling out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, 9 for second, and so on). For the first time last season, I had a different winner than the actual winner — Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty took the crown with a slight advantage over the actual winner Travis Hunter and Miami’s Cam Ward. How will this Heisman race play out, and how different will the result be from the real Heisman voting?

With almost no preseason Heisman favorites really looking the part in Week 1, this race hasn’t begun. But we still had some standout performances.

Here is this week’s Heisman top 10:

1. Jonah Coleman, Washington (24 carries for 177 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 22 receiving yards against Colorado State)

2. Rocco Becht, Iowa State (19-for-20 passing for 278 yards and 3 touchdowns against South Dakota)

3. Parker Navarro, Ohio (21-for-31 passing for 239 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 93 rushing yards and a touchdown against Rutgers)

4. Taylen Green, Arkansas (24-for-31 passing for 322 yards and 6 touchdowns, plus 53 rushing yards against Alabama A&M)

5. Mekhi Mason, Louisiana Tech (9 tackles, 4.5 TFLs, 2 sacks, 1 pass breakup against Southeastern Louisiana)

6. Marcel Reed, Texas A&M (22-for-34 passing for 289 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 39 rushing yards against UTSA)

7. Robert Henry Jr., UTSA (16 carries for 177 yards and 2 touchdowns against Texas A&M)

8. Devon Dampier, Utah (21-for-25 passing for 206 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 87 rushing yards and a touchdown against UCLA)

9. Dani Dennis-Sutton, Penn State (5 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 1 sack and 2 forced fumbles against Nevada)

10. KC Concepcion, Texas A&M (three catches for 72 yards and a touchdown, plus an 80-yard punt return TD against UTSA)

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KC Concepcion with a spectacular touchdown vs. UTSA Roadrunners

KC Concepcion (Texas A&M) with a spectacular touchdown vs. UTSA Roadrunners on Saturday, Aug. 30, 2025.

Jonah Coleman’s “beast mode” run late Saturday night was one of the best plays of the weekend, and without his efforts, the Huskies would have been in trouble against Colorado State. And though plenty of QBs posted good stat lines against FCS opponents, only Rocco Becht went 19-for-20. He and his Cyclones were almost perfect against a solid South Dakota squad.

Honorable mention:

• Jackson Arnold, Auburn (11-for-17 passing for 108 yards, plus 151 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns against Baylor)

• Bryson Donelson, Fresno State (23 carries for 167 yards and a touchdown, plus 25 receiving yards against Georgia Southern)

• Jordan Dwyer, TCU (nine catches for 136 yards and a touchdown against North Carolina)

• Justice Haynes, Michigan (16 carries for 159 yards and 3 touchdowns against New Mexico)

• Jayden Maiava, USC (15-for-18 passing for 295 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus a rushing touchdown against Missouri State)

• Garrett Nussmeier, LSU (28-for-38 passing for 230 yards and a touchdown against Clemson)

• Beau Pribula, Missouri (23-for-28 passing for 283 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 72 rushing yards and 2 touchdowns against Central Arkansas)

• Braylan Shelby, USC (4 tackles, 3.5 TFLs, 2 sacks against Missouri State)

• Evan Simon, Temple (19-for-25 passing for 248 yards and 6 touchdowns against UMass)

• Steven Soles Jr., Kentucky (3 tackles, 2 sacks and 2 forced fumbles against Toledo)

My 10 favorite games of the weekend

We can admit that Week 1 wasn’t exactly overloaded with great games … or close games of any kind. But here’s where college football’s endless depth kicks in. There’s always a great game and a heart-stopping finish somewhere, even if you have to search a bit.

1. No. 10 Miami 27, No. 6 Notre Dame 24. Loud crowd, late drama and a jaw-dropping one-handed touchdown catch? Yep, this game was awesome.

2 and 3. NAIA: No. 2 Keiser 38, No. 6 Indiana Wesleyan 31 and No. 4 Benedictine 38, No. 3 Morningside 34. The NAIA’s top-10 doubleheader produced a pair of thrillers. First, Keiser traveled from Florida to Marion, Indiana, and led most of the way. But Arjun Lothe scored on a keeper and threw a 21-yard touchdown pass to Isaac Smith to tie the score at 31-31. But then Jaden Miller ripped off a 70-yard touchdown run, his fourth score of the day, and Keiser prevailed. Meanwhile, in Atchison, Kansas, there were some long touchdowns and nine lead changes, the last of which came with 12 seconds left: Jackson Dooley’s 2-yard keeper allowed Benedictine to open the season with a thrilling win over NAIA royalty for the second straight year.

4. Tarleton State 30, Army 27 (2OT). On Friday, I wrote that Tarleton State jumping to second in FCS SP+ last week might have been a bit of a small-sample overreaction. Whoops. The Texans forced three Army turnovers, got a combined 196 rushing yards and two scores from Caleb Lewis and Tre Page III, overcame a 14-point second-half deficit and took down the defending American Conference champs with better late-game place-kicking.

TSU is one of the most ambitious programs in the country; the Texans moved up from Division II recently and are almost openly pining to move up further. They’ve certainly looked like an FBS team in 2025.

5 and 6. No. 9 LSU 17, No. 4 Clemson 10 and No. 3 Ohio State 14, No. 1 Texas 7. Great games with huge plays from all the big-name guys? Not really. Down-to-the-wire battles with electric atmospheres? Absolutely.

7 and 8. FCS: Gardner-Webb 52, Western Carolina 45 and Monmouth 42, Colgate 39. We got two enormous comebacks at the FCS level Saturday evening, both from visiting teams. First, Gardner-Webb spotted Western Carolina a 35-7 lead in the second quarter, then scored 45 of the next 52 points. WCU kicked a late field goal, but the Bulldogs recovered the onside kick and survived. Then, in upstate New York, Colgate took a 31-7 lead midway through the third quarter, but watched Monmouth score 35 points in 14 minutes to take a stunning 42-31 lead. The Raiders responded with a touchdown, but Monmouth moved the chains three times and ran out the clock.

9. Kent State 21, Merrimack 17. Kent State entered the game with a 21-game (and nearly two-year) losing streak, and it looked like that streak could continue for a while when Merrimack took a 17-14 lead with 5:40 left. But Da’Realyst Clark — DA’REALYST CLARK! — returned the ensuing kickoff 100 yards for a score.

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Merrimack Warriors vs. Kent State Golden Flashes: Full Highlights

Merrimack Warriors vs. Kent State Golden Flashes: Full Highlights

10. Prairie View A&M 22, Texas Southern 21. The HBCU universe did its best to provide. Howard upset Florida A&M 10-9 with a Matt Conord field goal at the buzzer, and NC A&T missed a tying field goal at the buzzer in a 24-21 Tennessee State win. In Orangeburg, South Carolina, SC State blew a fourth-quarter lead against Wofford but scored late to win anyway. And after a weather delay at Shell Energy Stadium in Houston, Prairie View gave up a go-ahead touchdown to Texas Southern with 1:15 left but drove 84 yards and won the game on a 14-yard walk-off touchdown pass from Cameron Peters to Rodny Ojo.

(Also, a quick shoutout to Presbyterian: The Blue Hose knocked off their highest-ranked FCS opponent ever, No. 11 Mercer, with a 16-yard Zach Switzer touchdown run and a late stop. Blue Hose 15, Bears 10.)

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Five months from Olympics, here’s what you should know about Team USA men’s hockey

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September 2, 2025

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Five months from Olympics, here's what you should know about Team USA men's hockey

The 4 Nations Face-Off last February was a smash hit and set the stage for an even more competitive 2026 Olympics in Milan in February. With NHL players participating for the first time in 12 years, USA coach Mike Sullivan said “the stakes have never been higher” for the 12-team tournament.

As Team USA gathered for an orientation camp last week in Plymouth, Michigan, the players and management did not shy away from the pressure .

“The expectation is to go to Milan and win the gold medal,” Vegas star Jack Eichel said Wednesday at the camp. “I think anything short of that, it would be disappointing.”

With the U.S. looking to win its first Olympic gold in men’s hockey since the 1980 Miracle on Ice team, the talent pool is deeper than ever. General manager Bill Guerin and his staff have a series of difficult decisions.

“The guys that played in [4 Nations] did a great job, but we have to go back to the drawing board and start over again,” Guerin said. “Guys have to be playing well. They’ve got to be healthy. So it’s really tough to say how much is the roster going to change. I don’t know. We will see as time goes on, but having the two extra spots is huge.”

Five months out, here’s what you should know about how Team USA is being constructed.

THE TWO-DAY CAMP — about three weeks before NHL training camps open — featured no on-ice sessions, and no systems and strategy were discussed. The focus was building camaraderie and setting expectations. Guerin gathered the 44 players in a ballroom for a talk once they arrived. According to players, the message was this: Team USA had a good showing at the 4 Nations but fell short. The Olympics are a bigger stage, with more tradition. The 2026 Games are a prime opportunity to make a statement on how far the United States has come as a hockey country.

“I think the message is that we can play any style,” said Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh, joined by Patrick Kane as the only holdover invitees from the 2014 Olympic team in Sochi. “We can go against any team, how they’re built and we feel confident that we can win.”

“They had a good talk with us,” Devils defenseman Brett Pesce said. “The expectation is gold and nothing else — and I completely agree. Whoever makes the team, the talent pool is insane.”

ALL 23 PLAYERS who were named to the 4 Nations team were in attendance except Matthew Tkachuk — plus Jake Sanderson, Tage Thompson and Pesce who were later brought on as injury/illness replacements. Tkachuk tore his adductor muscle and suffered a sports hernia injury during 4 Nations, which sidelined him for most of the final against Canada, then Florida’s last 25 regular-season games before he returned in the playoffs. He had offseason surgery and is expected to sit out the start of the NHL regular season.

This summer was a big one for Tkachuk: he got married back home in St. Louis, then underwent surgery. Guerin said he was “planning and expecting” for Tkachuk to be ready for Milan. Tkachuk’s brother, Brady, was even more emphatic. “I think it’s a full expectation of him not just to play but be at his best,” he said. “It goes back to the injuries that he has had and he’s played through, he’ll just give you absolutely everything that he has. I know with his preparation and his work ethic that he’ll probably be in the best shape he’s ever been in after this surgery.”

Matthew and Brady talked constantly during the two-day camp, which Matthew didn’t attend because it wasn’t a good idea for him to travel. “He’s had the most FOMO that I’ve ever seen him have,” Brady said.

THE 44-PLAYER camp roster featured some notable omissions — but also some surprising additions: young players such as Jackson LaCombe, Frank Nazar, Shane Pinto and Alex Vlasic, all long shots to make the team. What they have in common: they were on the roster in May for the world championships, which the U.S. men’s team won for the first time in 92 years. That commitment was rewarded.

“We’re doing things differently now, and the world championships are absolutely connected to this. If you’re saying no and you don’t have a legit excuse, it will hurt you,” Guerin said. “I am not afraid to say that we don’t look at that with the Olympics coming up. That’s the biggest stage. The world championships are huge. They might not be as popular in the United States, but in Europe, in Canada, it is, and it has to be important for us. … We need to know what you’re all about. We need to know that you want to help USA Hockey win.”

TAGE THOMPSON SAYS he believes he should have been on the 4 Nations team.

The Sabres star said Guerin called him well before the roster was released to let him know he was on the outside. “When I received the news, obviously it sucked,” Thompson said. “That was a big goal of mine and I wanted to be on the team. To be honest with you, I felt like I would do a good enough job last year.”

The 6-foot-7 forward says he adds an element Team USA covets: versatility. “In the early stages of my career, I was in a different role and was playing more of a fourth, third line checking, defending role,” Thompson said. “As I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve been given opportunities to move up, with the ability to score and create plays. If that’s something they already have and they don’t need, then I also believe with my size and my speed, I can play pretty much any role that they need me to. PK, power play, whatever.”

Thompson said he didn’t want to project it out loud but acknowledged he did use the snub as motivation. After his call with Guerin, Thompson scored 33 goals and 54 points over his final 57 games. Thompson says he’s putting an extra emphasis on consistency and cleaning up some of his game in the defensive zone. But the 27-year-old remains confident.

“You’re looking at the 25 best players in the country,” Thompson said. “So now it’s, what role are you going to play and who is going to do their job the best? I believe I can do any of those roles the best.”

JOHN TORTORELLA WAS an unsung member of Team USA’s coaching staff at 4 Nations. Sullivan asked his former mentor to take on a different role. “I don’t want you to be the hammer,” Sullivan told Tortorella. “I’ll be the hammer. I want you to be the old wise man. I want you to reveal yourself to the players and the other coaches, to show the John Tortorella that I know, that my wife knows, my kids know, that your kids know. The side you don’t show the world very often.”

While the younger players loved having Tortorella around, Sullivan credited the former Flyers coach for being his sounding board; it was Tortorella who gave affirmed to Sullivan that they should put the Tkachuk brothers together on a line halfway through the opening game against Finland — which changed the complexion of the tournament.

Since Tortorella is not on an NHL bench this fall, Guerin has tasked Tortorella with another new role. The 67-year-old will be hitting the road early in the NHL season to scout, with an extra focus on bubble players.

BEFORE 4 NATIONS, it had been a long time since NHL players competed in a best-on-best competition, and even the stars were taken aback by the intensity.

“The game really didn’t translate to the NHL game; it was a different skill level, different speed,” goalie Connor Hellebuyck said. “When I got back to my NHL game, first I had to shake off losing. Then I had to get back into my routine.”

Quinn Hughes, watching at home while injured, noted: “I don’t want to say you couldn’t notice anyone, but it felt like everyone was just fitting in because guys were so good. I felt like no one could really stand out or you couldn’t really put your imprint on the game too much. You might’ve had one chance or two chances and it’s either you take advantage of those chances or you don’t, but no one was getting six, seven chances, which you might get in an NHL game.”

HUGHES WAS GUTTED to miss 4 Nations because of injury.

“Obviously I feel like I could have made a difference. I mean there’s still moments in the game where I feel like I could have taken advantage of some things, but you never know,” Hughes said. “The beautiful thing is that I’ll hopefully have the chance in February again, so really test myself there.”

It was a challenging season for the Vancouver captain, as he managed several different injuries.

“I tore my oblique, then came back a little too early and hurt my groin because my oblique was probably weak,” Hughes said. “And then I hurt the ligament in my hand in late December off a one-timer, and I’ve taken two million one-timers in my career, and for whatever reason that happened.”

He was able to play with a cast on his hand, which he said “actually worked out great.” It was the oblique, Hughes said, that kept him out of 4 Nations. The good news heading into important season — both for the Canucks, and Team USA — is that Hughes said he had a great summer, which he called a mental and physical reset.

THE TRADE FROM Chicago to Florida changed Seth Jones‘ hockey life. When the 4 Nations roster was submitted in December, Jones was on the Blackhawks and it seemed nobody talked about the 30-year-old as a notable omission. Fast-forward a few months and Jones played the most of any Panther (outside goalie Sergei Bobrovsky) in Florida’s dominant 23-game Stanley Cup run. Jones is now firmly back on the radar.

He’s careful to compare his situation with the Blackhawks and Panthers, but believed he played “more confidently” with Florida.

“I’m comfortable with where I’m at; over a long playoff run you can show you can play with that physicality, and in different situations over those 2½ months,” Jones said. “Hopefully they saw that.”

With Hughes, Charlie McAvoy, Jaccob Slavin and Zach Werenski basically locked into the top four, the final spots on the blue line are fierce. Adam Fox is coming off a down season, but talk at USA camp was that the Rangers’ defenseman is poised for a major comeback. Sanderson, an up-and-comer, earned his way into a more regular role after being thrust into 4 Nations as a 22-year-old.

“I’m not sure what my chances are,” Jones said. “But I’m going to do my best to make it.”

IT’S GOING TO be an intense start to the season. With dozens of players across several countries and NHL teams fighting for bubble spots on Olympic rosters, there’s a common prediction among players: games over the first three months are going to have extra juice.

“Obviously it’s going to be interesting playing for your team, your personal team, then in the back of your mind, you’re kind of playing for this as well, right?” Jones said. “Usually you have the first 20 games after training camp, everyone’s getting settled into their system. I think you’re going to see a lot more guys look faster early on this season, because they’re fighting for something.”

4 NATIONS MARKED the first time Brady and Matthew Tkachuk were teammates, outside of an All-Star game. “It was the little moments — going back to the hotel and going to each other’s rooms, hanging out, getting dinner, I felt like we were just inseparable for the two weeks. It felt like we were kids again,” Brady said. “It was just so special in the locker room, looking across the room and seeing him and hearing what he has to say and his Stanley Cup experience of giving it to everybody.”

Now, the Hughes brothers, who are good friends with the Tkachuks, have a chance to do the same. Quinn Hughes has already been named to the team; Jack and Luke hope to join him. Quinn and Jack were teammates for a World Juniors team. Jack and Luke are teammates in New Jersey. But Quinn has never played with Luke, who is 23.

“It’s something we’ve always dreamed of, to play with each other and wear the crest,” Luke Hughes said. “The three of us to do that together would be such an honor. So it will happen someday. I think it will happen someday.”

The Hughes brothers enjoyed being together at camp last week, and they were together … a lot.

“It’s like three brothers, they bicker back and forth,” said Pesce, Luke’s defense partner in New Jersey. “And then you add Quinn, he’s the older brother. I feel like he’s kind of the middle man. They’re always barking at each other. Sometimes it’s hockey, sometimes it’s the Chipotle bill. They’re always goofing on each other; it’s fun.”

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MLB September predictions: From best record to playoff races and more

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September 2, 2025

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MLB September predictions: From best record to playoff races and more

Sep 2, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

Welcome to September! Five months into Major League Baseball’s 2025 season, a number of things seem to be settled — from a few divisions to some award races — but plenty of intrigue remains entering the homestretch.

Which of the current contenders will reach the playoffs? How will the closer division races play out? Which teams will secure first-round byes? And how many games will the Colorado Rockies lose?!

To discuss what the final month of the regular season might bring, we asked 16 ESPN baseball experts some of the game’s biggest questions, covering September and beyond, and to explain their answers. We also asked them to make bold predictions about what will happen over the final stretch.

Let’s get into it.

Which team will finish with the best record in baseball?

Milwaukee Brewers: 14
Detroit Tigers: 1
Los Angeles Dodgers: 1

What makes the Brewers the favorite to secure the majors’ best record? Besides the buffer the Brewers have built as we enter the final month of the regular season, there’s just nothing to suggest a falloff. They are on track to win about 100 games and their run differential supports that pace. The remaining schedule is friendly. And Milwaukee’s production has come from every position and category. It’s just a really complete team. — Bradford Doolittle

How many of the current 12 teams projected for the playoffs will be in the postseason field?

All 12: 15
11: 1

You have the Royals ousting the Mariners from the playoff field. Why do you think that will happen? The Kansas City Royals will make the playoffs. Crazy? Not so. They’ve played great in July and August. Vinnie Pasquantino is mashing home runs, Bobby Witt Jr. is red hot and the players they added at the trade deadline have chipped in to make this a good offense. The Royals also have a pretty easy schedule the rest of the way. But which team can they catch?

It might hinge on a three-game series at home against Seattle in mid-September. The Mariners have a recent history of falling just short of the postseason — including last year, when the Royals clinched a wild-card spot with 86 wins and the Mariners won 85 (the Mariners blew an 8-0 lead against Kansas City in June, which loomed large at the end of the season). Seattle has struggled on the road, so the aforementioned series can catapult the Royals back into the postseason. — David Schoenfield

Who will be the No. 1 seed in the AL: Toronto or Detroit?

Detroit Tigers: 14
Toronto Blue Jays: 2

The Tigers were the overwhelming choice. Why did you take them? For me, this was mostly a schedule play. The top seed, based on the standings, is likely to be the Tigers or the Blue Jays, with the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners all within plausible striking distance. Toronto doesn’t have an easy series left. Detroit’s schedule isn’t nearly as rigorous. In a race this close, with teams this close in talent and production, little things like schedule luck often determine the outcome. — Jeff Passan

You were one of two voters to pick the Blue Jays. Why do you think they top Detroit? The Tigers are a wonderful story, but not so much since the All-Star break, as they have played .500 ball, struggled to score runs and their ERA is among the bottom 10 in baseball. The Blue Jays are peaking at the right time, scoring plenty of runs, and Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber make the rotation formidable. Frankly, all three AL East contenders are better than the current Tigers, and it should show in the final standings. — Eric Karabell

Assuming the Brewers get one, who will get the second bye in the NL?

Los Angeles Dodgers: 9
Philadelphia Phillies: 5
San Diego Padres: 2

Despite dealing with star players slumping and a mountain of injuries this season, the Dodgers are still the slight favorites for the No. 2 seed in a stacked NL. Explain why. Because those are the very reasons why the Dodgers firmly believe their best baseball is still ahead of them. Their bullpen will soon be as close to whole as it has been all season. The same can be said about the lineup. The rotation already is, and the four-man group they’ll put together in October will be scary if the starters remain healthy.

That’s a big “if,” considering the pitching ailments that have plagued them the last couple years. But at the end of the day, the Dodgers possess the most depth and talent in the sport. They feel as if they’re on the verge of truly showcasing it. — Alden Gonzalez

The Phillies also received a fair number of votes. What makes them your pick? The Phillies seem to be flying under the radar for a team that has spent most of the season on a 95-win pace. Maybe it’s the Zack Wheeler injury, maybe it’s their struggles against the New York Mets — or maybe it’s just that this is about what we’ve grown accustomed to seeing from Philly over the past few seasons.

But there is plenty to like here over the final month and into October as well. Even without Wheeler, the Phillies have the best Game 1 starter of any NL contender in Cristopher Sanchez. Kyle Schwarber has a real shot at Ryan Howard’s franchise home run record (58). They acquired the best reliever to move at the deadline in Jhoan Duran and filled their biggest hole by trading for outfielder Harrison Bader. Oh, and they currently hold that second spot in the NL — with a 1 1/2 game cushion over the Dodgers. — Dan Mullen

Will the Dodgers or Padres win the NL West?

Los Angeles Dodgers: 13
San Diego Padres: 3

The Dodgers were our voters’ overwhelming favorite to win the division. Why — and how — do you think San Diego can overtake L.A.? More than any other team, I think the Dodgers look at their seasons from 30,000 feet, rather than succumbing to the concerns of the moment. They demonstrate this every year with their handling of pitching injuries — they essentially rest veteran starters through long stretches of the season, rather than push them in May and June, in order to do what they can to ensure that the players will be relatively fresh in October. This is why we’ve seen such a deliberate ramp-up with Shohei Ohtani.

That’s why I think the Padres will wind up winning the division. They bolstered their bullpen with Mason Miller at the trade deadline, and since then, it feels like they’ve been playing a series of Game 7s. And, let’s face it, San Diego is all-in in trying to win right now, with its top-heavy roster and the likes of Dylan Cease and Michael King headed for free agency in the fall. The Dodgers, on the other hand, won’t go to the whip in September in the same way. No matter how their own division plays out, they’ll make the playoffs and have a shot to repeat as World Series winners, while it feels as if San Diego is going to go all-out down the stretch to win the NL West.

Different pressures, different styles, different context. — Buster Olney

Who will win the AL West?

Houston Astros: 8
Seattle Mariners: 8

Make the case for the Astros: Picking Houston to win the West isn’t going out on much of a limb: They’re currently in first place, just got slugger Yordan Alvarez back from injury and simply have more pedigree than Seattle. The Mariners have a slightly easier schedule the rest of the way but their road woes are for real — and will likely prevent them from going on an extended run. Picking against the Astros would be the headline-scratching move. They’re the division champ once again. — Jesse Rogers

Make the case for the Mariners: The Mariners aren’t playing their best baseball, but they are healthy and within striking distance of the Astros for the division entering September. Their starting rotation is elite. The bullpen and offense should be better. Meanwhile, the Astros have recently gotten Yordan Alvarez back from injury, but they’re without Josh Hader and Isaac Paredes, among others. The division could come down to the three-game series between the two rivals in late September. — Jorge Castillo

How many games will the Rockies lose?

119: 1
118: 3
117: 1
116: 3
115: 3
114: 3
113: 1
112: 1

We got quite the breadth of answers to this question, but you were one of three to say 118 losses — our second-highest loss total. Why is that your prediction? The Rockies aren’t far removed from being on a modern record-setting pace for losses, and they’ve been especially awful against the current 12 teams in the playoff field: 9-50 (.153). They play 13 of their final 24 against that group, at a time when they’re increasingly leaning on younger and less experienced players. Their September isn’t going to be pretty. — Tristan Cockcroft

Make one bold prediction about the final stretch

Tim Kurkjian: Seattle Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh will finish the season with 60 home runs.

Matt Marrone: With most of the playoff field set — other than last-minute jockeying for seeds — all eyes will be on the Mariners over the final days of the season, as Raleigh sets a new AL home run record.

Kiley McDaniel: Between hitting and pitching, Shohei Ohtani catches Raleigh in total WAR.

Passan: Athletics first baseman Nick Kurtz will finish in the top five of AL MVP voting.

Karabell: The Phillies call up top pitching prospect Andrew Painter on Sept. 7 and he goes 3-0 with a 1.50 ERA.

Mullen: Nolan McLean will be the NL’s best pitcher not named Paul Skenes over the final month and take the mound in October — as the Mets’ Game 1 playoff starter.

Paul Hembekides: Boston’s Garrett Crochet will overtake Detroit’s Tarik Skubal and win the AL Cy Young Award.

Schoenfield: The Red Sox will catch the Blue Jays and win the AL East.

Gonzalez: Actually, the Yankees will win the AL East.

Cockcroft: Not only do the Yankees overtake Toronto for the division title, but they also grab a first-round bye, even if they can’t quite catch the Tigers for the No. 1 seed.

Olney: The Yankees have such a soft schedule in the final weeks that they wind up with the second-best record in the AL … but because Toronto holds on to win the division, New York is the No. 4 seed and faces Boston in the wild-card round.

Tim Keown: The Padres, with the easiest remaining schedule in baseball, will go 7-0 against the Colorado Rockies in September to win the NL West and take the second first-round bye spot.

Castillo: The Mets will overtake the Phillies and win the NL East.

Doolittle: If we started the playoffs tomorrow, the bracket would look exactly the same as it will after we’ve played out the season.

Voters: Dan Mullen, Liz Finny, Paul Hembekides, Jeff Passan, Eric Karabell, Alden Gonzalez, David Schoenfield, Tim Kurkjian, Kiley McDaniel, Tim Keown, Jorge Castillo, Matt Marrone, Bradford Doolittle, Jesse Rogers, Tristan Cockcroft, Buster Olney

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