Bowl season: What you need to know about all 42 games
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ESPN staff
The most magical time of the year is finally here. It’s bowl season.
The 2022 season of bowls, featuring 43 games, kicks off Friday with Miami (Ohio) facing UAB in the Home Lenders Bahamas Bowl on Friday and lasts all the way to Jan. 9 when college football will claim a national champion at SoFi Stadium in the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
Our writers gathered together to break down every single bowl game ahead of all the action on the field.
College Football Playoff
Dec. 31
CFP semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl: Georgia Bulldogs vs. Ohio State Buckeyes
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, Georgia) | Tickets
Jalen Carter is finishing strong — and reminding everyone why scouts claimed he was the most talented player on last year’s star-studded Georgia defense. The 6-foot-3, 300-pound defensive lineman was injured for most of the first half of the season. But he worked his way back and is making a case to be the first non-quarterback taken in next year’s draft. During the last five games, he has 23 tackles, 7 tackles for loss, 3 sacks, 2 forced fumbles and 14 quarterback hurries. — Alex Scarborough
CFP semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl: Michigan Wolverines vs. TCU Horned Frogs
State Farm Stadium (Glendale, Arizona) | Tickets
This year’s David-Goliath match up is TCU, from a 10,000-student private school that last won a national title in 1938, against Michigan, with 45,000 students and boasting one of the most storied programs in college football history. It’s Sonny Dykes in Year 1 with the Horned Frogs against Jim Harbaugh, the former Bo Schembechler quarterback who returned from the NFL to restore the Wolverines to glory. Can TCU withstand Michigan’s Big Ten strength? Can Michigan keep up with TCU’s Texas speed? The Horned Frogs will have a well-rested Heisman runner-up in Max Duggan, who took punishment all year, while Michigan’s Heisman contender, running back Blake Corum will miss the game with a knee injury. TCU’s quick-strike offense will face a major challenge against a Michigan D that allows just 13.4 points and 85.2 rushing yards per game. Cincinnati held strong against Alabama last year in the semifinal, but never threatened to win the game. Can this year’s Cinderella continue its improbable run and make history? — Dave Wilson
Bowls
Dec. 16
Hometown Lenders Bahamas Bowl: Miami (Ohio) Redhawks vs. UAB Blazers
Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium (Nassau, Bahamas)
Chase Brown, Blake Corum and Bijan Robinson deserve accolades for the seasons they put together, but how UAB’s DeWayne McBride didn’t make the cut as a Doak Walker Award finalist this season is puzzling. All he did was lead the FBS in rushing yards (1,713) — and he hit that mark in one fewer game than Brown, Corum and Robinson. Among the top 10 rushers this season, McBride’s 7.35 yards per rush was the best by nearly a yard. Against a Miami (Ohio) defense that gives up an average of 135.8 rushing yards per game, McBride should pad his totals. — Scarborough
Duluth Trading Cure Bowl: Troy Trojans vs. UTSA Roadrunners
Exploria Stadium (Orlando, Florida) | Tickets
Two programs on a heater collide in Orlando, each on a 10-game winning streak. UTSA has one of the nation’s most dynamic offenses. Frank Harris is sixth in the FBS with 3,865 passing yards and completing 71.1% of his throws, and WR Zakhari Franklin‘s 14 TDs rank third nationally. Troy, meanwhile, has the eighth-best scoring defense in the FBS, allowing just 17.5 points per game and 4.7 yards per play — ninth best in the country. — Wilson
Dec. 17
Wasabi Fenway Bowl: Cincinnati Bearcats vs. Louisville Cardinals
Fenway Park (Boston, Massachusetts) | Tickets
It’s the Scott Satterfield Bowl … without really being the Scott Satterfield Bowl. The now former Louisville head coach agreed to be Luke Fickell’s replacement at Cincinnati, where the team’s last game as a non-Big 12 member will be in the Fenway Bowl. Former Cardinals star and Super Bowl MVP with the New England Patriots Deion Branch will be coaching Louisville, while Kerry Coombs will lead Cincinnati. The game will likely be a low-scoring affair, featuring two of the nation’s best linebackers in Cincinnati’s Ivan Pace Jr. and Louisville’s Yasir Abdullah. — Harry Lyles Jr.
Cricket Celebration Bowl: Jackson State Tigers vs. NC Central Eagles
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta, Georgia) | Tickets
Obviously Deion Sanders’ departure as Jackson State’s head coach is dominating the Celebration Bowl headlines, but there are a couple of other interesting storylines to follow here. First, you’ve got the QBs: JSU’s Shedeur Sanders and NCCU’s Davius Richard have combined for 5,889 passing yards, 60 touchdown passes and 18 rushing TDs and won their respective conferences’ offensive player of the year awards. Then you’ve got the redemption angle: JSU underachieved and got thumped by SC State in its only Celebration Bowl appearance (2021), and NCCU has had to wait six years for a chance to avenge a one-point heartbreaker to Grambling State in the 2016 game. — Bill Connelly
New Mexico Bowl: BYU Cougars vs. SMU Mustangs
University Stadium (Albuquerque, New Mexico) | Tickets
BYU and SMU meet for the first time since the 1980 Holiday Bowl, known as the “Miracle Bowl” after BYU came back from 20 points down with four minutes left to win 46-45. Both teams are trying to recapture past glory, with BYU trying to build to its Big 12 entrance and SMU trying to win its first bowl game since 2012 as it continues piling up new players in the transfer portal. SMU QB Tanner Mordecai is just one touchdown pass shy of tying the school record (71) for his career but will be without receiver Rashee Rice (1,355 yards this year), who’ll sit out with an injured toe before heading to the NFL. BYU’s star QB Jaren Hall is also unlikely to play with an ankle injury after throwing 31 TD passes this year. — Dave Wilson
Jimmy Kimmel LA Bowl Presented by Stifel: Fresno State Bulldogs vs. Washington State Cougars
SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, California) | Tickets
Wazzu hasn’t won a bowl game since 2018, and if there’s a player that will help them break that streak, it’s quarterback Cameron Ward. After transferring from Incarnate Word to Pullman last offseason, Ward totaled just over 3,000 passing yards and 23 touchdowns this season. It wasn’t quite the output the sophomore had at Incarnate Word, but the good news for the Cougars is Ward has at least one more year in Pullman. This game will likely be a battle of quarterbacks between Ward and Jake Haener, who is a great story and player in his own right and led the Bulldogs to another 9-4 season, including a Mountain West title. If Haener doesn’t opt out, prepare for a shootout. — Paolo Uggetti
LendingTree Bowl: Southern Miss Golden Eagles vs. Rice Owls
Hancock Whitney Stadium (Mobile, Alabama) | Tickets
Frank Gore Jr. is making a name for himself while following in the footsteps of his famous father. Gore Jr. a sophomore, ended the year for Southern Miss (6-6) with a career-high 199 yards in a win over UL Monroe. He’ll be looking to build on that effort and head into the offseason on a high note as the Golden Eagles meet Rice (5-7). Southern Mississippi’s running game (122.6 YPG) will aim to move the ball against a Rice defense that allowed 166.8 rush yards per contest. — Blake Baumgartner
SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl: Oregon State Beavers vs. Florida Gators
Allegiant Stadium (Las Vegas, Nevada) | Tickets
Oregon State is going for its first 10-win season since 2006 after a surprising season, one that earned coach Jonathan Smith a new six-year contract. While the Beavers should be close to full strength, the opposite is true for Florida, which will be without starting quarterback Anthony Richardson, All-American guard O’Cyrus Torrence and a host of other players who have either decided to opt out of the game or enter the transfer portal. Jack Miller III is expected to make his first career start for the Gators at quarterback after Jalen Kitna was dismissed from the team. Miller threw only 14 career passes at his previous stop, Ohio State. — Andrea Adelson
Frisco Bowl: Boise State Broncos vs. North Texas Mean Green
Toyota Stadium (Frisco, Texas) | Tickets
Boise State (9-4) is a win away from its first 10-win season since 2019. The Broncos’ offense (29.1 PPG) faces a North Texas (7-6) defense that gives up 460 yards a game, and junior running back George Holani (1,133 yards, 10 TDs) will look to exploit that. The Mean Green hired Washington State offensive coordinator Eric Morris as head coach on Dec. 13 following Seth Littrell’s dismissal after seven seasons. North Texas junior quarterback Austin Aune‘s (3,309 yards) 32 TDs were eighth in FBS, but he will be tasked with moving the ball against a tough Boise State pass defense (160.7) that’s ranked fourth best in the FBS. — Baumgartner
Dec. 19
Myrtle Beach Bowl: UConn Huskies vs. Marshall Thundering Herd
Brooks Stadium (Conway, South Carolina) | Tickets
Jim Mora’s resurrection of UConn has been one of the season’s better stories — from 1-11 to bowl eligibility. It’s truly been a team effort in Storrs as they’ve found ways to win. The Huskies (6-6) haven’t been bowling since 2015 and last won a bowl game in 2009. They now face a Marshall team that beat Notre Dame in South Bend back in September. The Thundering Herd (8-4) bring a stingy defense (16.2 PPG) and a stout running back (senior Khalan Laborn; 1,423 yards, 16 TDs) to the party. — Baumgartner
Dec. 20
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl: San Jose State Spartans vs. Eastern Michigan Eagles
Albertsons Stadium (Boise, Idaho) | Tickets
San Jose State (7-4) prefers to move the ball through the air (263.9 YPG) more than on the ground (92.5 YPG). Whether the Spartans are successful in beating Eastern Michigan (8-4) may depend on the ability of senior Kairee Robinson (696 yards, 10 TDs) to find holes against a defense that surrenders 158.1 rush yards a game. Eagles senior running back Samson Evans (1,084 yards, 13 TDs) goes opposite a Spartan run defense (122.1 YPG) that’ll provide a stiff push. Eastern Michigan’s only previous bowl win came in 1987 against San Jose State (California Bowl). — Baumgartner
RoofClaim.com Boca Raton Bowl: Toledo Rockets vs. Liberty Flames
FAU Stadium (Boca Raton, Florida) | Tickets
It’s a much different Liberty team that will play in the Boca Raton Bowl than the one that beat BYU and Arkansas in back-to-back games in late October and early November. Gone is coach Hugh Freeze, who left Nov. 29 to take the Auburn job. As speculation swirled that he might be leaving, the Flames faltered down the stretch and lost their last three games, including a 49-14 beatdown at home to New Mexico State in the finale. Josh Aldridge will serve as interim coach for the Flames, who will go up against a Toledo team that won the MAC championship thanks to a strong running game (236 yards). Liberty struggled to stop the run in each of its last three losses. — Chris Low
Dec. 21
R+L Carriers New Orleans Bowl: Western Kentucky Hilltoppers vs. South Alabama Jaguars
Caesars Superdome (New Orleans, Louisiana) | Tickets
He didn’t make the cut as one of the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year finalists, but South Alabama’s Kane Wommack certainly stood out during his second year on the job. The 35-year-old led the Jaguars to 10 regular-season wins — their most since South Alabama became an FBS program in 2012, and a far cry from 2019, when the team finished 2-10. A former defensive coordinator, Wommack has helped put together a defense that gave up the third fewest yards per game in the Sun Belt (304.5). — Scarborough
Dec. 22
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl: Air Force Falcons vs. Baylor Bears
Amon G. Carter Stadium (Fort Worth, Texas) | Tickets
These two haven’t met since 1977, and have just three times in history (Baylor has won all three). Air Force running back Brad Roberts is third among FBS running backs in total yards (1,612) and has 15 TDs. The Falcons led the FBS with 330 rushing yards per game, which will test Baylor, a team that ranked 44th and allowed 137.6 rushing yards per game. The Bears will also be replacing defensive coordinator Ron Roberts, who was dismissed after the regular season. Air Force is trying to complete its second straight 10-win season since 1997-98 while Baylor is seeking to avoid its second losing season in three years. Richard Reese has become a breakout star for the Bears, already rushing for a school freshman record 962 yards, and will force the Falcons defense to make plays. — Wilson
Dec. 23
Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl: Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns vs. Houston Cougars
Independence Stadium (Shreveport, Louisiana) | Tickets
Michael Desormeaux’s first year replacing Billy Napier at Louisiana resulted in the school’s fifth consecutive bowl game, where it will be going up against a Houston team that was picked to win the American Athletic Conference in the preseason. The Cougars won five of their last seven games, with quarterback Clayton Tune having thrown for over 2,600 yards, 28 touchdowns and 7 interceptions in that span. He’ll be the player to watch in this one. — Lyles Jr.
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl: Missouri Tigers vs. Wake Forest Demon Deacons
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida) | Tickets
On paper, it’s difficult to find a more even matchup, but how much might end-of-season momentum matter in a bowl game? The answer will dictate the advantages in the land of Gasparilla Pirate Fest: Missouri won four of its last six games to rally to 6-6, while Wake Forest lost four of five to slump to 7-5. Mizzou quarterback Brady Cook averaged 238 passing yards and 105 rushing yards over his last three games as the Tigers’ offense found its footing, but Mizzou has been hit harder than Wake by early transfer portal entry, and QB Sam Hartman appears to be sticking around for at least one more game in a Demon Deacons uniform. — Connelly
Dec. 24
EasyPost Hawai’i Bowl: Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders vs. San Diego State Aztecs
Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex (Honolulu, Hawai’i) | Tickets
There might not be a single 2022 bowl with a wider array of realistic potential outcomes than this one. Middle Tennessee blew out Miami but got blown out by a bad Louisiana Tech team. All of the Blue Raiders’ seven wins came by double digits, as did all of their five losses. SDSU still has one of the best defenses in the Group of Five and still has one of its worst offenses, too. The Aztecs have won four games by at least 16 and lost three by at least 18. Name the result — a 49-16 MTSU win? a 20-0 SDSU win? — and it could absolutely happen. What more could you possibly want to distract you from family festivities on Christmas Eve? — Connelly
Dec. 26
Quick Lane Bowl: Bowling Green Falcons vs. New Mexico State Aggies
Ford Field (Detroit, Michigan) | Tickets
New Mexico State (6-6) rebounded in its first year under Jerry Kill after combining to win just seven games in the last four years. The Aggies haven’t been to a bowl game since 2017. The running game may dictate things. Bowling Green (6-6) had trouble running it (100.8 YPG) and trouble stopping the run (163 YPG) this season. New Mexico State’s sophomore running backs, Star Thomas (477 yards, five TDs) and Jamoni Jones (368 yards, six TDs), have an opportunity to break out in the bowl game. — Baumgartner
Dec. 27
Camellia Bowl: Buffalo Bulls vs. Georgia Southern Eagles
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama) | Tickets
Georgia Southern (former Buffalo) quarterback Kyle Vantrease is the player to watch in this game. Vantrease started 25 games for Buffalo over five years before ultimately making the move to Statesboro. In 2022, Vantrease completed over 61% of his passes for 3,895 yards, 25 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. Clay Helton has helped him get the most out of his talent this season, and Vantrease will certainly be hoping to do his best against his former team. — Lyles Jr.
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl: Utah State Aggies vs. Memphis Tigers
Gerald J. Ford Stadium (Dallas, Texas) | Tickets
It was a rollercoaster of a season for Memphis, who started off 4-1, before ultimately finishing the year 6-6. Seth Henigan didn’t take quite the leap the Tigers had hoped he would after a standout 2021 season, but it’s understandable given the weapons lost (like Calvin Austin III). Regardless, you should still expect to see flashes of greatness from Henigan, who has tons of potential. Utah State, on the other hand, started 1-3, and lost quarterback Logan Bonner for the season after their loss to UNLV. Since then, Cooper Legas has been running things at quarterback, where the Aggies have been 5-3 since. Expect to see some fight from two teams who had challenging seasons. — Lyles Jr.
TicketSmarter Birmingham Bowl: East Carolina Pirates vs. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers
Protective Life Stadium (Birmingham, Alabama) | Tickets
This battle of the Carolinas features a pair of teams that overcame some tough losses to finish with winning records. East Carolina (7-5) had won four of five games, but lost 42-3 to Houston on the road in the next to last game of the regular season. Running back Keaton Mitchell is ECU’s go-to guy on offense and piled up 300 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns in the 49-46 win over Temple to close the regular season. Coastal Carolina will be led by interim coach Chad Staggs, who’s filling in for Jamey Chadwell, who left to take the Liberty head job. The Chanticleers (9-3) lost in the Sun Belt championship game to Troy after losing 47-7 to James Madison the week before. The health of Coastal Carolina quarterback Grayson McCall and his status will be key in this game. — Low
Guaranteed Rate Bowl: Oklahoma State Cowboys vs. Wisconsin Badgers
Chase Field (Phoenix, Arizona) | Tickets
The only thing certain for this matchup is uncertainty. Both teams’ veteran starting quarterbacks — Spencer Sanders at Oklahoma State and Graham Mertz at Wisconsin — have entered the transfer portal. The Badgers’ two backups, Chase Wolf and Myles Burkett, have attempted a combined 11 passes this season. True freshman Garret Rangel started two games for the Cowboys this season filling in for the injured Sanders, a four-year starter. New Badgers coach Luke Fickell said he will act as head coach for the game alongside six of the assistants who have been with the team this year. — Wilson
Dec. 28
Military Bowl Presented by Peraton: Duke Blue Devils vs. UCF Knights
Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium (Annapolis, Maryland) | Tickets
While UCF quarterback John Rhys Plumlee might be the more well-known dual-threat QB in this game, nobody should sleep on Duke quarterback Riley Leonard — a huge reason why the Blue Devils are in a bowl game for the first time since 2018. Leonard threw for 2,794 yards, 20 touchdowns and 6 interceptions, while adding 636 yards and 11 touchdowns on the ground. Plumlee was banged up for the last month of the season, so this game will be his opportunity to showcase his best — especially since he announced he will return for 2023. — Adelson
AutoZone Liberty Bowl: Arkansas Razorbacks vs. Kansas Jayhawks
Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (Memphis, Tennessee) | Tickets
Two 6-6 teams, two teams that feel very differently about that record. For Kansas, this is a step on the climb, a chance to beat an SEC opponent for the first time since beating Vanderbilt in 1985 (of course, it hasn’t played an SEC member since 1988). For Arkansas, it marks the end of a disappointing season against one of the toughest schedules in the country, losing four of its six games by a total of nine points. The Hogs’ All-American linebacker, Drew Sanders, is not playing and Arkansas just lost defensive coordinator Barry Odom, who became the new head coach at UNLV. Star linebacker Bumper Pool is out with injury and leading receiver Jadon Haselwood is also bypassing the game after declaring for the draft. — Wilson
San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowl: Oregon Ducks vs. North Carolina Tar Heels
Petco Park (San Diego, California) | Tickets
Both the Ducks and the Tar Heels had opportunities this season to emerge as fringe playoff contenders. Both got off to 8-1 starts before faltering late in the season and ending up here. It’s partly why the Holiday Bowl matchup between them feels fitting. The tone of this game will shift if quarterback Bo Nix decides to return to school for another season. Meanwhile, UNC has a rising Drake Maye on their side. Should Nix run it back for one more year, not only will this game look a lot different given that Oregon will have new offensive coordinator Will Stein, but the Ducks will be looking forward to building on the offensive foundation Nix and offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham (now the head coach at Arizona State) built this past season. — Uggetti
TaxAct Texas Bowl: Texas Tech Red Raiders vs. Ole Miss Rebels
NRG Stadium (Houston, Texas) | Tickets
These two teams, both of whom finished 7-5, were going in opposite directions when the regular season concluded. Ole Miss was trying to navigate through a wave of coaching drama surrounding Lane Kiffin. Was he going to Auburn or was he staying? He wound up staying and signing a new contract that will pay him $9 million per year, but the Rebels lost four of their last five games. The Red Raiders, meanwhile, played their way into the postseason by winning their last three games, capped by a thrilling 51-48 win against Oklahoma in overtime. Texas Tech had a tough schedule and played six teams nationally ranked at the time of the game. One of the key matchups in this game will be sensational freshman Quinshon Judkins and that Ole Miss running game against a Texas Tech defense that finished 90th nationally against the run (166.4 yards per game). — Low
Dec. 29
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl: Syracuse Orange vs. Minnesota Golden Gophers
Yankee Stadium (New York, New York) | Tickets
This game is an enigma because neither team has been easy to predict all season. Few schools were as confounding in 2022 as Minnesota, which statistically speaking had one of the nation’s top defenses, a solid offense and a top-20 ranking in both ESPN’s FPI and SP+. On the field, however, that all added up to just an 8-4 record, and none of those eight wins came against an opponent who finished the regular season better than 6-6. Meanwhile, Syracuse opened the year 6-0 and nearly got a win at No. 7 Clemson before succumbing to the Tigers’ backup QB in the fourth quarter. After that, the Orange looked like a shell of a team, dropping five straight before a win over Boston College in the regular-season finale. Syracuse also lost both coordinators since the season ended. So, who exactly will show up here? The Minnesota that the deep-dive stats loved or the one that mustered just 10 points in a loss to Iowa? The Syracuse that started off the season 6-0 or the one that stumbled to the finish and then waved goodbye to two essential assistant coaches? It’s anyone’s guess. — David M. Hale
Cheez-It Bowl: Oklahoma Sooners vs. Florida State Seminoles
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida) | Tickets
This has to qualify as a dream matchup for the Cheez-It Bowl organizers — two storied programs, with fan bases that love to travel. The excitement is on a different level for Florida State and understandably so. The Seminoles are in their first bowl game since 2019, and their fans from across the state can easily get to Orlando. With quarterback Jordan Travis already announcing he will be back for 2023, and All-ACC players Jammie Robinson and Jared Verse saying they will play in the bowl game, this is a game the team itself is geared up to play in, as they have a chance to win 10 games for the first time since 2016. — Adelson
Valero Alamo Bowl: Texas Longhorns vs. Washington Huskies
Alamodome (San Antonio, Texas) | Tickets
Outside the New Year Six bowls, the Alamo Bowl matchup between these two teams might be one of the best on the slate. The matchup between Quinn Ewers and Michael Penix Jr. alone will be worth the price of admission, and both programs will be looking to prove they are headed in the right direction. The Longhorns had their usual up-and-down campaign but ended on a two-game winning streak and a promising look ahead to next season. The Huskies, meanwhile, were turned around from a 4-8 team to a Pac-12 contender overnight by new head coach Kalen DeBoer and the addition of Penix Jr. Both teams should be intriguing heading into next season and it should make for an entertaining high-scoring affair in San Antonio. — Uggetti
Dec. 30
Duke’s Mayo Bowl: NC State Wolfpack vs. Maryland Terrapins
Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte, North Carolina) | Tickets
Two former ACC rivals will get together with the winner getting a giant vat of mayonnaise dumped on them. What’s not to like here? NC State and Maryland have a long — and occasionally colorful — history but have not faced off since the Terrapins left the ACC for the Big Ten in 2014. Maryland struggled down the stretch this season, dropping three of its last four games. The Terps didn’t beat a bowl-eligible Big Ten team, but there remains a big question about how much gas is left in the tank for an NC State team beset by injuries in 2022. The Wolfpack had four different starting QBs win games this year, but lost two different starters to injury at the position and relied heavily on a defense that was among the ACC’s best. The matchup between Maryland’s talented QB, Taulia Tagovailoa, and a dominant NC State linebacking corps led by Drake Thomas should go a long way in determining who will finish the season with a win. — Hale
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl: UCLA Bruins vs. Pitt Panthers
Sun Bowl Stadium (El Paso, Texas) | Tickets
For the second straight year, Pitt will play its bowl game without its starting QB. Last year, Kenny Pickett opted out of the Peach Bowl to prepare for the NFL draft. This year, Kedon Slovis hit the transfer portal. Against Michigan State last season, Pickett’s loss — as well as backup Nick Patti in the fourth quarter — proved Pitt’s downfall, but this is a much different Panthers team. Rather than rely on their QB, the Panthers have routinely been a run-first offense, led by star tailback Israel Abanikanda, who finished with 1,431 yards and 20 touchdowns on the ground. That should make for an interesting matchup against UCLA’s defense, which ranked second in the Pac-12 in yards per rush allowed this season, but gave up 565 yards and seven TDs on the ground in its three losses. — Hale
TaxSlayer Gator Bowl: Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs. South Carolina Gamecocks
TIAA Bank Field (Jacksonville, Florida) | Tickets
South Carolina’s Shane Beamer did one of the best coaching jobs in college football this season. The Gamecocks (8-4) suffered some serious beatdowns (48-7 to Georgia and 38-6 to Florida), but got back up off the ground to finish the season with back-to-back wins over top-10 teams Tennessee and Clemson. Notre Dame, in its first season under Marcus Freeman, also finished 8-4. But much like the Gamecocks, the Irish played their best football down the stretch. Their only loss in their last six games was on the road to USC to close the regular season. Both teams will be without talented players. South Carolina tight end/running back Jaheim Bell entered the transfer portal. Notre Dame All-America tight end Michael Mayer and linebacker and career sacks leader Isaiah Foskey opted out to prepare for the NFL draft. — Low
Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl: Ohio Bobcats vs. Wyoming Cowboys
Arizona Stadium (Tucson, Arizona) | Tickets
Both the Bobcats and Cowboys stumbled late in the regular season — Ohio lost star quarterback Kurtis Rourke to injury, then lost the MAC championship to Toledo; Wyoming won four straight to move to 7-3 but lost a shot at a division title with a home loss to Boise State, then got thumped by Fresno State. This is definitely a “Who wants it more?” bowl, but the matchup of Ohio’s run game against Wyoming’s run defense could still be a delight, and both of these teams tend to deliver in the postseason: They’re both riding three-game bowl win streaks. — Connelly
Capital One Orange Bowl: Clemson Tigers vs. Tennessee Volunteers
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida) | Tickets
The ultimate battle of orange should undoubtedly take place in the Orange Bowl. This will also be a battle of quarterbacks who didn’t open the 2022 season as the starter. True freshman Cade Klubnik will make his first career start for Clemson. He came off the bench to replace DJ Uiagalelei in the season-ending loss to South Carolina. Uiagalelei then announced he was entering the transfer portal. Joe Milton III will be the starter for Tennessee after Hendon Hooker, the SEC’s Offensive Player of the Year, suffered a season-ending ACL tear in the loss to South Carolina. Milton, who has an incredibly strong arm, started in the regular-season finale against Vanderbilt. He also started the first two games of the 2021 season before being replaced by Hooker. The ACC champion Tigers are trying to win 12 games or more for the sixth time in the last eight seasons. The Vols are trying to win 11 games for the first time since 2001. — Low
Dec. 31
TransPerfect Music City Bowl: Iowa Hawkeyes vs. Kentucky Wildcats
Nissan Stadium (Nashville, Tennessee) | Tickets
Who gets a chance to play quarterback for Iowa before former Michigan quarterback Cade McNamara comes in next year? Fifth-year senior Spencer Petras‘ shoulder injury and junior Alex Padilla entering the transfer portal has the Hawkeyes (7-5) scrambling. Iowa’s defense (277.9 YPG, 14.4 PPG), led by senior linebacker Jack Campbell (115 tackles, two interceptions), will go up against a Wildcats’ offense (336.3 YPG, 22.1 PPG) that ranked last in the SEC and will be without senior quarterback Will Levis. Kentucky (7-5) has a defense that isn’t a slouch either as it ranked second in the SEC in passing (173.4) and points (19.1). — Baumgartner
Allstate Sugar Bowl: Kansas State Wildcats vs. Alabama Crimson Tide
Caesars Superdome (New Orleans, Louisiana) | Tickets
Will the Wildcats mix it up with a two-quarterback system against Alabama? Will Howard will be the starter, that much seems sure. Ever since he came in for an injured Adrian Martinez against Baylor, he’s been terrific. Kansas State is 4-0 and won a Big 12 championship as Howard threw a combined nine touchdowns and one interception. He also rushed for two scores during that time. But Martinez is healthy enough that he nearly appeared in the Big 12 title game. With an extended layoff, he could be called upon as a change-of-pace back against a tough Alabama defense. — Scarborough
Jan. 2
ReliaQuest Bowl: Illinois Fighting Illini vs. Mississippi State Bulldogs
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida) | Tickets
Illinois junior running back Chase Brown (1,643 yards, 10 TDs) needs 54 yards to eclipse Mikel Leshoure’s single-season school record. The Fighting Illini (8-4) have been a force on defense (12.3 PPG) all year but will have to deal with Mississippi State’s potent offense that averaged 314.3 passing yards per game. Junior quarterback Will Rogers (3,713 yards, 34 TDs) had a great year for the Bulldogs (8-4) but will need to find a way to solve the fifth-best pass defense (165.4 YPG) in FBS. — Baumgartner
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl: LSU Tigers vs. Purdue Boilermakers
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida) | Tickets
Nine wins is already more than many LSU fans could have hoped for, especially after a sloppy loss to Florida State in the season-opener. Brian Kelly was able to turn things around, beat Alabama and get all the way to the SEC championship in his first season in Baton Rouge. But after an inexplicable loss at Texas A&M to end the regular season and a 20-point loss to Georgia in the SEC title game, LSU needs to get a bad taste out of its mouth. The Tigers also need quarterback Jayden Daniels to get healthy again, the passing game to make strides and the defense to bounce back — in particular the front seven vs. the run — to feel better about the team’s chances heading into next season. It needs a win. — Scarborough
Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic: USC Trojans vs. Tulane Green Wave
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas) | Tickets
All eyes may still be on Heisman winner Caleb Williams once the Trojans suit up to play the Cotton Bowl, but the player to watch may be running back Raleek Brown. A five-star prospect who had flashes of serious speed and agility this season in limited carries could be fully deployed in this game. A lot will likely change on USC’s roster between now and next season, but Brown’s role will only grow. The Green Wave won’t make it easy for Lincoln Riley and Co., though. Tulane will be hoping to close out their storybook 11-2 season with a statement win over a program that, as Tulane athletic director Troy Dannen pointed out last week in Las Vegas, has “no business going up against financially.” On the field come Jan. 2, the two will be able to face off as equals. — Uggetti
Rose Bowl Game: Utah Utes vs. Penn State Nittany Lions
Rose Bowl (Pasadena, California) | Tickets
Utah made a resounding statement with its rout of USC for the Pac-12 title. Back in the Rose Bowl for a second straight year, the Utes (10-3) have unfinished business after losing to Ohio State. Junior quarterback Cam Rising (2,939 yards, 25 TDs) leads Utah’s offense against a Penn State defense (317.9 YPG) that was seventh in the Big Ten. The Nittany Lions (10-2) only lost to Michigan and Ohio State. Their revived running game behind freshmen Nicholas Singleton (941 yards, 10 TDs) and Kaytron Allen (830 yards, nine TDs) tangles with the Pac-12’s best run defense (107 YPG). — Baumgartner
Sports
‘When can I play again?’: Inside Bryce Steele’s journey back to football after battling cancer
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David Hale
BEFORE CANCER, BRYCE Steele loved to run.
He became a prized recruit for Boston College as a linebacker, but as a kid, he played receiver, reveling in any chance to put distance between himself and a defender. He was on the high school track team, and he still follows the drills his coaches taught him. When COVID-19 scuttled his senior football season, he’d wake at sunrise most mornings, pop in his earbuds and run a few miles through a nearby park in his hometown of Raleigh, North Carolina, taking breaks only to dash off 100 situps or pushups.
After cancer, running was hell.
It was December 2023, just two months removed from his latest cancer surgery, and Steele was determined to rebuild his life, to return to the form that made him one of BC’s best prospects. Instead, he emerged from a hospital bed with nearly a half-dozen incisions twisting around his rib cage “like bullet hole wounds” where chest tubes had been inserted into his abdomen. They’d healed over by the time he started running again, but the scar tissue still burned as he pumped his fists in a wide ellipse with each stride, just the way his track coach had taught.
He could run in quick bursts, but afterward, he’d gasp for air.
“It felt like I was suffocating,” Steele said, “like someone had a bag over my head.”
Still, he kept running, first in short stumbles, then up and down the stairs outside his apartment in Chestnut Hill, then back at practice with the rest of his teammates at Boston College, a little farther and a little faster most days until this spring, when he’d reached something close enough to his old pace to work with the first-team defense again.
“This offseason, I hit it as hard as I possibly could, literally to the point of nearly passing out,” Steele said. “I want it that bad, and any way I can push myself to get back to what I was before, I’ll do it.”
Sometimes when Steele runs, he’s chasing a ghost. He’ll thumb through old highlight videos on his phone and catch a glimpse of the player he was, the player he thinks he should be again if he keeps working.
At times he’s chasing a dream. He has wanted to play football since he was old enough to hold a ball, and though cancer has often clouded that image, he still sees its contours, a little sharper with each stride.
Sometimes, though, it’s as if he’s running in place, caught between gratitude and regret, unsure whether to measure the miles from where he began or the steps left in front of him.
Steele wants to move forward. But cancer is like his shadow.
Still, he believes there’s a life beyond cancer, if he can just outrun it a little while longer.
STEELE STARTED PLAYING football when he was 4 years old, and he fell in love.
“You could just tell the way he planned for his games,” his mother, Nicholle, said. “He’d lay his uniform out the night before a game. He was meticulous.”
At Episcopal High, the boarding school he attended in Virginia, he blossomed into a star. At 6-foot-1, 230 pounds with a relentless work ethic, he had nearly three dozen scholarship offers by his sophomore year, and that summer, he took a bus tour to work out at camps across the Midwest, including at his dream school, Ohio State.
It was during those camps he first sensed something was wrong. He’d deliver a hit on a ball carrier, and it would take a moment or two longer than usual to recover. And there was that cough — a dry, hacking, full-body lurch. It had been nagging him for weeks, and when he went home to Raleigh in July, his mother sent him to urgent care. He was prescribed an antibiotic. When he returned to Episcopal a few weeks later, the cough still hadn’t gone away.
Steele’s parents, Wendell Steele and Nicholle Steele, visited for Episcopal’s season opener in late August. They insisted he see the campus doctor, who sent him for X-rays and an MRI. The family was eating dinner near campus that evening when Nicholle’s phone rang.
“We’re all laughing and joking,” Bryce said, “and immediately her face fell.”
Nicholle stepped outside to talk. When she came back, Bryce said, it was obvious she’d been crying.
Bryce didn’t pry. Instead, Wendell and Nicholle dropped him off at his dorm where he played video games with his roommate, then grabbed his scooter and went for a ride around campus. When he passed by the medical center, he noticed his parents’ SUV in the lot.
Then his phone buzzed.
“We need you to come see the doctor right now,” his mother said.
When he arrived, Bryce found Nicholle doubled over and sobbing. Nicholle still feels guilty for not recognizing the severity of her son’s symptoms earlier, she said, but Bryce was young and a high-performing athlete. Who would think of cancer?
The doctor showed Bryce his chest X-ray, pointing out a dark splotch just beneath his heart. That shouldn’t be there. More tests were needed, but the splotch could be a tumor.
“Can I play tomorrow?” Bryce asked.
The answer was obvious to everyone except him, and when it finally sunk in that he’d miss the game — maybe the season — he broke down.
His parents tried to console him, wrapping their arms around him, but Bryce pushed them away.
“I was angry at the world,” Bryce said. “I heard the term ‘possible cancer,’ but I didn’t care about that. I wanted to play football.”
That night, Bryce went back to his dorm room and said a prayer.
“God,” he asked, “whatever you do, let me play football tomorrow. I don’t care what happens in the future. Just let me play in the game.”
STEELE WAS DIAGNOSED in September 2019 with thymoma, a rare form of cancer — particularly for someone his age — that develops in the thymus gland in the upper chest. From there, things moved fast.
Steele had surgery at Duke Medical Center in North Carolina, where doctors removed a 13-centimeter tumor, then he underwent proton radiation at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., to avoid chemotherapy. Doctors expected he’d make a full recovery, but they warned that, due to the tumor’s size, there were no guarantees cancerous cells wouldn’t be left behind. He missed his entire junior season, but he kept the diagnosis private. What had been a steady stream of coaches texting and calling dried to a trickle.
Steele ended up with a half-dozen offers he seriously considered. He’d settled on South Carolina, but just weeks before he planned to enroll, head coach Will Muschamp was fired, so Steele reconsidered. That’s when he got a call from Jeff Hafley, who’d first met Steele as Ohio State’s defensive coordinator and was now the head coach at Boston College.
“We knew of his diagnosis, but he fit BC,” Hafley said. “He was made of the right stuff. Smart guy, great person. We recruited him really hard.”
Steele flashed potential as a freshman, then saw his role grow as a sophomore, racking up 51 tackles, a pair of sacks and a forced fumble. But after each season, the cancer came back.
In 2021 and again in 2022, doctors removed a small amount of cancer cells that had shown up on routine scans. The surgeries were relatively minor, and each time, Steele was back at practice within a few weeks.
By the spring of 2023, he was on the brink of a breakthrough.
“The Bryce Steele we knew was coming came that spring,” said Boston College general manager Spencer Dickow. “He’d come into his own and there was a thought for us that he’d be an All-ACC player.”
A few weeks after spring practice ended, Steele went in for a routine scan, where he always approached doctor’s visits pragmatically.
“If I go in here thinking I’m going to walk out fine, and they hit me with cancer, it’ll be that much more emotional,” he said.
So when Steele met his oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in May 2023, he expected bad news.
It was worse than he’d imagined.
THE APPOINTMENT UNFOLDED like the three before. His doctor held out a chest X-ray, and Steele stared at it blankly. Instead of a large mass or scattered cells, however, his doctor pointed out a maze of grim markers.
“This conversation was a little different,” Steele said.
His doctor spoke, and Steele nodded, not fully understanding. Then he asked the same question he’d asked each time before: When can I play again?
“Honestly,” the doctor said, “I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to play again. Not at the capacity you want.”
Steele had two options for treatment. The first, which doctors recommended, involved splitting his sternum and removing cancer cells that had spread throughout the lining of his chest wall, a procedure invasive enough to likely end his football career. The second, riskier alternative was to try chemotherapy, hoping it would kill enough cancer cells to allow for a less invasive procedure that would give Steele a shot to pick up football where he’d left off.
The decision was simple.
Steele’s first chemo session came in July 2023. Given his age and otherwise good health, doctors had recommended a maximum dosage, and as the final drops drained out of the IV, Steele was amazed at how good he felt. As he left the hospital, he texted BC’s then-head strength coach Phil Matusz that he planned to lift with the team the next morning.
“Let’s see how you do overnight,” Matusz replied.
Steele awoke around 1:30 a.m., dizzy and nauseous. He ran to the bathroom vomiting and wrapped himself around his toilet. He spent the next few hours sprawled on the cold bathroom floor with his rottweiler, Remi, curled next to him.
Three days later, Steele was back working out.
“We’d say, ‘Hey Bryce, you don’t have to do this, man,'” Hafley said. “But there’s no stopping him. He’s driven to have no regrets.”
Steele had one more round of chemo in August, and near the end of summer, he returned to Dana Farber for new scans. The news wasn’t encouraging. They showed no significant improvement, his oncologist said. The surgery would be invasive, debilitating and, quite possibly, career-ending.
“I’d have to relearn how to breathe,” he said.
IN THE WAITING room at Dana Farber, just before doctors delivered the grim news of his latest diagnosis, Steele sat alone working on homework, wearing a gray BC T-shirt with his Eagles backpack slung alongside his chair.
It was the backpack that Matt Moran first noticed, pegging Steele as a football player. He was struck by the image of the muscular athlete with Steele’s relaxed demeanor in a place filled with anxiety and fear.
Moran was 54, from Orchard Park, New York, and he was in the late stages of a nearly 10-year battle with renal cell carcinoma. Doctors had just given Matt and his brother, Bill, news that the latest treatment hadn’t worked.
Bill excused himself to collect his emotions, leaving Matt alone in the lobby. When Bill returned, he found Matt chatting with the football player like old friends.
“They’re talking like they’d known each other for 10 years,” Bill said.
They had a lot in common. Matt was a football fan, and one of his good friends had a son on BC’s team. They were both outgoing, making easy conversation. And they both had stared into the abyss of cancer.
Matt left Dana Farber that day knowing his odds of survival were dwindling, but in Steele, he saw hope. He texted Steele that evening, a simple “Nice to meet you, hope the scans went well.” A little while later, he got a reply.
“It was just something polite,” Bill said, “and no mention of his scans. You can kind of guess what that could mean.”
The brothers didn’t want to pry, but their brief encounter had cemented something for Matt. He had always focused on small moments of gratitude and encouraged his brother to do the same.
“I was just so taken by Bryce,” Bill Moran said. “And Matt always said, if you have a chance to send a note to say thank you to someone, you should do it.”
So Bill scrawled out a few pages of appreciation and an offer to be a sounding board if needed, then dropped the letter in the mail. It took weeks to reach Steele, however, and by the time he read it, Matt had died. He was 54.
During the eulogy, Bill talked about Matt’s chance encounter with Steele. It had been a perfect reminder, he said, of Matt’s knack for finding blessings even in the worst of times.
That’s the message Steele found in Bill’s letter, too. As he considered the dark and winding path ahead, he was looking for some inspiration. Bill’s note offered optimism from a stranger he’d met in a hospital waiting room just moments before hearing the worst news of his life.
The letter is now framed, sitting on a mantel inside his front door.
“Any time I’m feeling down,” Steele said, “I look at it, and I’m immediately reminded of who he was.”
Last Christmas, Steele’s girlfriend, Madi Balvin, gifted him a pair of cleats with a phrase from Bill’s letter inscribed on the side, a phrase that has come to define Steele’s journey: “You never used your situation as an excuse, but used it as motivation.”
STEELE’S SURGERY WAS performed on Oct. 3, 2023. It lasted 15½ hours. Afterward, he was unrecognizable.
“He was so pumped full of fluids,” Nicholle said. “He looked like the Michelin Man.”
Steele had been tireless in his workouts leading up to the surgery, theorizing the better he felt going in, the less work he’d have to do afterward, but when Hafley and Dickow saw him just a few days later, they were stunned.
“The Bryce Steele I knew was this 235-pound, rocked-up, whale of a man,” Dickow said. “And I walked in and saw this kid, and I couldn’t believe it.”
During surgery, doctors found the chemotherapy was more successful than initially thought, reducing the scope of the procedure a bit. Still, Steele’s body was ravaged. He’d lost the use of a sizable portion of his diaphragm, making breathing difficult. He spent a week in the ICU, sleeping more than he was awake.
Steele took his first steps just a day or two after surgery. He couldn’t shuffle more than a few feet without losing his breath — “like teaching a baby how to walk,” he said — but nurses encouraged him to keep moving.
He did laps, with chest tubes, a chemo port and IV lines tethered to his wrist, hand and neck, inching his way down the hallway, dragging a caravan of medical tubes and bags in his wake. But he kept going.
“There would be times I’d come into the hospital,” Balvin said, “and he’d be doing laps alone.”
After nearly a month in the hospital, he was allowed to go home. A month later, he was cleared to resume noncontact training at Boston College, to attempt to run again.
Matusz had developed a plan to help Steele rebuild his strength and conditioning metrics while closely monitoring his body’s response, adjusting Steele’s effort as needed, but always looking for small victories.
“I’d tell him, ‘You’ve never done this post-chemo,'” Matusz said. “You could tell the fight never left him.”
Steele met with breathing experts and private physical therapists, nutritionists, speed and agility specialists. He cut out any foods that weren’t optimized for energy or recovery. If he felt the slightest tweak of a muscle, Balvin would book him a deep-tissue massage or time in a cryotherapy chamber. Steele estimates he has spent hundreds of dollars per week on his body since surgery, using his limited NIL income and support from his parents to make the finances work.
At the end of January 2024, Hafley abruptly resigned. Bill O’Brien took over as head coach, and his new strength staff, helmed by Craig Fitzgerald, put a significant emphasis on conditioning. Under the new regime, the Eagles would run — a lot — and Steele wanted to prove he could keep pace.
“At times, I hated it,” Steele said, “but it’s exactly what I needed to teach my body to work with what it had.”
In August, O’Brien gathered the team for an announcement: Steele had been cleared to return to full practices.
“They went nuts,” O’Brien said. “That was a cool moment.”
Steele struggled to hold back tears, but before he snapped on his helmet and jogged onto the field, he had a message for his teammates.
“If you look at me differently,” he said, “I’m going to be pissed off at you.”
What he didn’t say, however, is that he harbored his own doubts. The chemotherapy had wreaked havoc with his focus, and it would be more than a year before he felt the fog begin to lift. He’d be exhausted after chasing down a tailback. He’d deliver a hit, and for a moment, he’d be dazed.
“That was my telltale sign I should not be out there,” he said.
After a handful of snaps in BC’s first two games of 2024, Steele came to a decision: He wasn’t ready to play football yet.
NICHOLLE HAD ALWAYS dreamed of spending Christmas in New York City, and so Boston College’s date with Nebraska in the 2024 Pinstripe Bowl was something of a celebration.
What she’d really come to see, however, was her son, back on the field.
Bryce’s redshirt status allowed him to play in two late-season games and BC’s bowl. He played sparingly against SMU and North Carolina, but the bowl game would be his most game snaps in two years.
In the stands, Nicholle whooped, hollered and cried, and when Bryce made his first tackle, she shouted, “Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”
“I know the people around me thought I was crazy,” she said.
For Bryce, however, it wasn’t a moment of triumph.
The previous months had been an emotional slog. He’d gone to every BC practice, willed his body to heal through relentless workouts, and he’d attended each Eagles game, stalking the sideline in a jersey and sweatpants without a chance at action.
“He’d come home after games and tell us, ‘I just want to be out there so bad,'” Balvin said.
Steele built a relationship with former BC linebacker Mark Herzlich, a fellow cancer survivor who’d played seven seasons in the NFL, and he talked often with other patients such as Chuck Stravin, a 57-year-old BC alum and a friend of Matt Moran’s. They offered Steele a sounding board.
“I was always goal focused, and I think that’s the hardest thing about cancer,” Stravin said. “Guys like me and guys like Bryce, we’re used to being in control. And cancer takes that all away.”
Eventually, Steele formulated a plan. He afforded himself a few minutes every day to be angry, to let out the frustration, regret and sadness. And then he’d flip the switch.
“Those thoughts aren’t going to make you better,” he said. “Just work. Work until you can’t work anymore.”
When coaches approached him about a return to the field late in the season, he felt almost obligated. He owed it to his coaches, teammates and, most of all, his mother.
“I pushed through a lot for her,” Steele said. “She was always saying she wished she’d gotten cancer instead of me. I knew it had been tough for her, and I really wanted to see her smile.”
By the bowl game in New York, BC’s linebacker room had endured so much attrition, Steele was put into the regular rotation. He played 18 snaps and made two tackles. When he watches that film, however, he doesn’t see a player who’d overcome nearly insurmountable odds. He sees a blurred vision of the player he wants to be.
“Did I feel good enough to play? No,” Steele said. “And I feel like that wasn’t really me out there.”
Who Steele wants to be after so many years battling his way back to the field was still a question though.
When he first had cancer, Steele recovered at Duke Children’s hospital. He’d walk the hallways and peek into the rooms, finding kids no more than 4 or 5. Steele would think, “How lucky am I to have gotten 17 years?”
The last time he had cancer, Steele shared a room with men nearly three times his age, some of whom he still keeps in touch with. They talked about life, faith, hope and death. Steele walked the halls there, too, and he found enough empty beds in once occupied rooms to understand just how closely he’d flirted with the end.
“It made me appreciate being alive, regardless of the pain I was in or not being able to play football with my brothers,” Steele said. “I was grateful to be there at that moment.”
He still feels lucky. He’s still grateful.
Does that mean he must be satisfied, too?
“It’s one thing to look at small victories, but he wants more,” Dickow said. “And it’s tough to deny him, because he’s always beating the odds.”
AFTER THE FIRST day of Boston College’s spring practice in March, Steele came home beaming. He hadn’t been perfect, but he felt reinvigorated
“You could tell he was proud of himself,” Balvin said. “He just had a giddiness about him.”
Steele built his recovery around the football maxim of getting 1% better each day — progress accumulated over time. He is still a half-step slower than he was before cancer, and he might need an extra beat to recover after a big play, but he’s smarter, more refined. He can sniff out a play before the snap, cheat two steps toward a ball carrier’s intended destination, and accomplish the job better than how his body worked previously.
O’Brien said he expected Steele to nab for a starting job in the fall, and his position coaches raved his spring performance was “like night and day” from just a few months before. This, Steele said, was the best he’d felt since the surgery.
The better he felt, however, the more he started to believe he could recapture more of what he’s lost.
On April 26, the final day of the spring transfer portal, Steele announced he was leaving Boston College. He thanked BC, his coaches and teammates for supporting him, but said he also understood how easily an opportunity can slip away. He didn’t want to miss any more.
Steele thought about life before cancer, when the biggest programs in the country wanted him. Wasn’t it only fair that, after all the pain, effort and determination, he should get the chance to script his own ending?
“My mother’s always told me, ‘It’s up to you to achieve your goals,'” Steele said. “Nobody determines your future but you.”
Within a few days, he reconsidered.
If cancer is a journey, Steele thought, the path isn’t supposed to loop back around to the beginning. Cancer took a lot from Steele, but maybe, he thinks, this is what it has given him. There is no ghost to chase. There is only some new version of himself to discover each day.
On April 30, Steele met with O’Brien for the second time in less than a week, asking to return to BC.
Whatever awaited on the other side of the portal was something the old Bryce Steele wanted, he said. He wants to be someone new now, a football player who had cancer but not one defined by it.
“I’ve changed my perspective,” Steele said. “If things don’t work out the way I think they will, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to be back on the field with my teammates. I’m more than just a football player, and it might’ve taken me a while to realize that, but now that I do, it’s made this whole journey a lot easier.”
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Eli Lederman
BYU secured its highest-ranked quarterback pledge since 2002 when four-star recruit Ryder Lyons, No. 49 in the 2026 ESPN 300, announced his commitment to the Cougars over Oregon on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday.
Lyons, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound prospect from Folsom, California, is ESPN’s No. 5 pocket passer in the 2026 class and entered Tuesday as the nation’s top-ranked uncommitted quarterback. While Lyons will sign as part of BYU’s 2026 class later this year, he intends to serve a Latter-day Saints mission after graduation next year and will not formally join the Cougars until the spring of 2027.
Following a string of unofficial visits this spring that included stops at Michigan, Ohio State and Ole Miss, Lyons trimmed his finalists to BYU, Oregon and USC in May and scheduled official visits with each program for June.
Lyons later canceled his trip to USC, ultimately closing his recruitment with visits to the Ducks and Cougars on consecutive weekends from June 13-22.
With BYU, Lyons lands as a potential quarterback of the future with the program that offered him his very first scholarship offer in December 2021. He is the second-ranked of three ESPN 300 commits in coach Kalani Sitake’s 2026 class.
“They’ve poured a lot into me and made me feel very needed,” Lyons told ESPN. “The love they’ve shown — not just the coaching staff, but everyone there — they’ve shown me just how much they want me more than any other program.”
Lyons, the 2024 California Gatorade Football Player of the Year, would also arrive on campus in 2027 as BYU’s highest-rated quarterback signee since Ben Olson joined the program in the 2002 class.
A skilled improviser who can extend plays with his feet, Lyons exploded in his sophomore season at Folsom High School. He completed 67.9% of his throws for 3,578 yards with 38 passing touchdowns and eight interceptions as a first-year starter in 2023, then followed with another 3,011 yards and 46 touchdowns through the air as a junior last fall. Lyons has also proved dangerous on the ground in the high school ranks, combining for 1,514 rushing yards and 37 rushing scores across two seasons as a starter.
The Cougars have significantly stepped up their NIL efforts across the athletic department in the past year, sources told ESPN. In December, BYU’s men’s basketball program secured the addition of No. 1 overall prospect A.J. Dybantsa, a coveted 6-foot-9 wing who reportedly commanded a high seven-figure NIL deal.
The football program now has its latest cornerstone in a potentially historic 2026 class that includes in-state tight end Brock Harris (No. 32), the program’s highest-ranked pledge since at least 2006, and in-state defensive tackle pledge Bott Mulitalo (No. 105), who flipped from Oregon.
With signatures from Harris, Mulitalo and Lyons later this year, the Cougars would have their first-ever recruiting class with at least three top 300 prospects in the ESPN recruiting era (since 2006).
For coach Dan Lanning and Oregon, Lyons’ pledge to BYU marks the program’s latest high-profile miss in the 2026 cycle. The Ducks were finalists for five-star offensive tackle Jackson Cantwell (Miami) and No. 1 overall quarterback Jared Curtis (Georgia) last month. On June 19, Oregon lost out to Texas A&M in the recruitment of five-star athlete Brandon Arrington (No. 14).
The Ducks are now expected to turn their attention to three-star passer Matt Ponatoski, a two-sport star who visited the program this past weekend, sources told ESPN. Boise State decommit Bryson Beaver is another recent visitor on Oregon’s radar, with Alabama, Auburn and LSU also among those registering significant interest in the late-rising three-star quarterback from Murrieta, California.
Upon Lyons’ pledge, only two of the 18 quarterbacks within the 2026 ESPN 300 remain uncommitted. No. 1 dual-threat passer Landon Duckworth (No. 104) is expected to commit in the coming weeks following official visits to South Carolina and Auburn. Four-star quarterback Oscar Rios (No. 192) is set to choose between Arizona and UCLA on Friday.
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Eli Lederman
After landing a pledge from four-star quarterback Jaden O’Neal on Sunday night, Florida State secured a pair of commitments from top-130 pass catchers Xavier Tiller and Devin Carter on Monday.
Tiller, a former Texas A&M pledge, is ESPN’s No. 6 tight end and No. 82 overall recruit in the 2026 ESPN 300. A 6-foot-5, 215-pound prospect from Fairburn, Georgia, Tiller logged 50 receptions for 696 yards and 10 touchdowns across his sophomore and junior seasons at Langston Hughes High School.
He chose the Seminoles over Auburn and Alabama following visits to all three schools this month, and he stands as the top-ranked commit in Florida State’s incoming class.
Carter is ranked No. 129 in the 2026 ESPN 300. His father is former Seminoles running back Dexter Carter, who played at FSU from 1986 to 1989 and returned to the program in 2007, spending three seasons as an assistant under legendary head coach Bobby Bowden.
The younger Carter initially joined FSU’s 2026 class in April 2023, but he later pulled his pledge and then committed to Auburn in January. His flip back to Florida State followed a series of visits with the program this spring, including an official visit June 6-8, during which Carter was swayed by the revamped coaching staff assembled this offseason by coach Mike Norvell following a 2-10 finish, sources told ESPN.
Arriving in the wake of O’Neal’s flip from Oklahoma, Tiller and Carter represent a pair of key additions to Norvell’s 2026 class, which has secured pledges from six ESPN 300 prospects in June.
O’Neal, ESPN’s No. 7 pocket passer in 2026, would mark the program’s highest-ranked quarterback signee since 2022 if he ultimately joins Florida State later this year, and the Seminoles are forming a formidable class of skill position talents around him this summer.
Tiller and Carter’s commitments follow the June 11 pledge of four-star wide receiver Brandon Bennett (No. 107). Florida State also holds commitments from four-star athlete prospects Efrem White (No. 172) and Darryon Williams (No. 16 ATH), both of whom could slot in at wide receiver when they join the Seminoles.
Florida State will aim to continue its recruiting momentum to the December early signing period after it saw the program’s 2025 class spiral last fall, ultimately finishing 26th in ESPN’s rankings for the cycle. Four-star cornerback Chauncey Kennon (No. 48) ranks among the targets who could soon join Florida State’s latest class.
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