Back in November of 2015, when his Clemson program was still barreling toward a national title (it would win two of them), Dabo Swinney spoke about the life cycle of a business.

“You’ve got the birth. You’ve got the growth. You’ve got plateau. You’ve got decline. And you’ve got death,” Swinney said. “Those great businesses out there, those great programs, they don’t plateau.

“So how do you do that?” he continued. “You have to constantly reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow. You change. You have to do that. You don’t just change to change, but you have to always challenge yourself each and every year and make sure, ‘OK, this may be how we’ve done it, but is it still the right way?'”

The business of college football in 2025 is different from 2015. Direct revenue-sharing, NIL and the transfer portal have not just altered the way rosters are assembled, but even how individuals and teams need to be coached.

It’s like most businesses and industries. Nothing is static. You either enthusiastically welcome that, or, in Swinney’s words, “You’ve got death.”

Mike Gundy is very much alive; he just is no longer employed at Oklahoma State, where over 21 seasons he became the program’s all-time winningest coach. He and Swinney have much in common.

Both are in their mid-to-late 50s (Swinney 55, Gundy 58). Both built up underperforming programs through their own force of will — a combination of competitive drive, innovative schemes and personal charisma. During the 2010s, few were better.

They have also been among the most vocal critics, and least enthusiastic embracers, of the new era of the sport. It shows.

Dabo’s Tigers, hyped as title contenders in the preseason, are 1-3 with losses to Georgia Tech and Syracuse. Gundy, meanwhile, was fired after a 1-2 start that included a humbling loss to Tulsa.

In his final news conference before being dismissed, Gundy bemoaned pretty much everything new.

“It’s like being in an argument with your wife,” Gundy said. “And you know you’re right. It makes zero difference. You’re wrong. You might as well just get over it, give in, and things are going to be much smoother.”

It seems that defeatist attitude and begrudging acceptance of new dynamics bled into Gundy’s program.

Anyone can add a player through the portal. But if you don’t accept and understand the portal, if you aren’t spending time passionately trying to make it work best for you, are you getting the right player? You can’t go in with feet dragging.

Swinney is a traditionalist; often for admirable reasons. He wants to be loyal to players he recruited, preferring to believe in and develop them rather than just transfer in a better talent.

Times change, though. You can lament it. You can pine for the old days. Or you can adapt so you don’t wind up like a typewriter repair shop.

Establishment coaches often rail against transfer culture, painting players who jump around as disloyal or running from a challenge. That might be the case for some, but for many others, the portal is a chance to prove their worth by working up the ladder from smaller to bigger programs.

Big programs recruit based on sophomore and junior years of high school. A lot of guys fall through those cracks. Maybe they hailed from small towns or hadn’t hit growth spurts, or their parents couldn’t afford throwing coaches and nutritionists. Maybe they didn’t get invited to the “Elite 11.”

Yet, once in college, they worked and worked and improved and improved, generally at smaller programs without the fanciest of locker rooms or some unearned sense of greatness based on “tradition.”

Others might have failed at their first school, or got spurned by a previous coach. Now, on their last chance, they are fighting the way they always should have.

As with old-school recruiting, coaches who love the portal are probably going to get the best of those players over coaches who just tolerate the portal. Diamonds are everywhere.

Syracuse and Georgia Tech didn’t have more “talent” — and certainly not higher-ranked recruits — when they beat Clemson. Same with Tulsa and OSU. They didn’t have better facilities or higher-paid assistants.

But they might have had what Dabo and Gundy used to exude in excess — an intense drive to win. High school recruiting rankings don’t matter to the scoreboard.

Gundy couldn’t make it work in the new era. Can the extremely talented Swinney? A lot of coaches can’t. It’s not an age thing, though — Indiana’s Curt Cignetti is 64 and thriving. It’s an attitude thing. It’s about fervently attacking new possibilities.

Reinvent, reinvest, reset, learn, grow.

It can’t be like holding your tongue in a fight with your spouse.

Mike Gundy already tried that approach.

SEATTLE — It had been 24 years and five days since this city experienced its last division title, a wait that turned its baseball fans into one of this country’s most tortured. Babies were born, grew up, went to college, got a job, and their beloved Seattle Mariners still had not finished atop the American League West. Maybe this is how it was supposed to happen. With a nucleus that finally righted itself — after stumbling time and again — in the most emphatic way possible. With a dominant, soul-cleansing, late-season series sweep of the franchise’s greatest nemesis. With Cal Raleigh punctuating a division title with his 60th home run Wednesday night.

With, of all things, some help from the supernatural.

Three weeks ago, when the team was struggling and hope seemed lost, Steven Blackburn, a 26-year-old lifelong Mariners fan, found a witch. An Etsy witch, to be exact, which is precisely what you might think it is: a self-proclaimed sorcerer providing services through the popular e-commerce website.

Blackburn and one of his best friends had often joked about using an Etsy witch to fix some of their biggest problems and first thought about contracting one to help the Mariners some time around June. The Mariners weren’t playing quite bad enough then — but by Sept. 5, after a stretch of 15 losses in 21 games, they were. Blackburn searched for witches willing to cast generic spells, found a user going by the name of SpellByLuna and asked for an incantation that would turn around the Mariners’ once-promising season.

Said Blackburn: “Best $16 I’ve ever spent.”

The next morning at 5 a.m., Blackburn, an RV mechanic who lives about 30 miles north of T-Mobile Park, received a message that the spell had been cast. Later that night, All-Star center fielder Julio Rodríguez took over a game the Mariners absolutely needed, homering twice and making a leaping catch in a 10-2 victory. The next day, the Mariners blew out the Atlanta Braves 18-2. They’ve lost only once since, firing off 17 wins in 18 games since “Luna” unveiled the conjuration. Fans now show up at the ballpark in witches’ hats and, at times, full-on witch costumes. The organization has wrapped its arms around the concept, referencing the Etsy witch on social media and inviting Blackburn to the ballpark on Fan Appreciation Night earlier this month.

“It’s been super crazy,” he said. “I did this Etsy thing as a joke. I didn’t expect it to be this big.”

Blackburn wasn’t old enough to enjoy the 116-win 2001 team that claimed the previous division title and advanced into the AL Championship Series. His most vivid memories were of Mariners teams of the 2010s that featured the likes of Kyle Seager, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Félix Hernández, none of which advanced into October, and of younger groups that came up painfully short in 2021, 2023 and 2024.

Blackburn fully acknowledges the absurdity of it all. But when certain things happen — Mitch Garver hitting his first triple in six years, journeyman infielder Leo Rivas delivering a walk-off home run, Victor Robles diving from out of nowhere to make a game-saving catch — he can’t help but believe there might be something to it. The 2025 Mariners look like the franchise’s deepest, most talented collection in a generation, headlined by a transformative individual season. They have the tortured fan base, the conquest of a bitter rival, and even a little magic around them.

“It just feels like we’re almost destined,” Blackburn said. “It’s been 48 years that this team has been around. This feels like it’s about time.”

IT WAS THE first day of June when Mariners general manager Justin Hollander first reached out to Amiel Sawdaye, assistant GM of the Arizona Diamondbacks, to inquire about Eugenio Suárez and Josh Naylor. The trade deadline was still more than eight weeks away and the D-backs still maintained reasonable hope that they might contend. But Hollander vowed to stay in touch.

Under Jerry Dipoto, in his 10th year overseeing baseball operations, the Mariners had built a reputation as aggressive dealers. Trading promising prospects for veteran players on the verge of free agency, though, was the type of move they steered away from. But Suárez, a third baseman on a 50-homer pace, and Naylor, a first baseman who can hit for power, put the ball in play and even steal bases, addressed the team’s two biggest holes at a time that demanded urgency.

Raleigh was in the midst of a historic season. Rodríguez and the majority of the team’s best pitchers — starters Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryan Woo and Bryce Miller, relievers Andres Muñoz and Matt Brash — were in their mid to late 20s, representing what should be the apex of their careers. And the failure of these past two years, both of which saw the Mariners finish a game shy of the playoffs, had revealed something about the follies of pragmatism.

“You can sometimes take for granted how good you think your team is and how likely or not likely you are to make the postseason,” Hollander said. “We felt like this year’s team had the potential to be the best of any of the other teams.”

So Hollander continually scribbled reminders to call Sawdaye on the notepad he keeps beside a computer on his office desk. He checked in every week or so, just to make sure nothing had changed. The Mariners had interest in acquiring both players in a package deal, but when the call finally came near the end of July, the D-backs revealed their plans to separate them. Naylor arrived on July 24 and brought a type of edge the team needed. Suárez, a beloved figure from a previous stint in Seattle in 2022-23, followed on the night of July 30 and brought the type of vibe that soon became crucial.

Later, sources told ESPN, the Mariners were on the verge of acquiring star closer Jhoan Duran from the Minnesota Twins. But when the Philadelphia Phillies upped their offer, the Mariners relented.

They still came away with two corner infielders who lengthened their lineup and made them a more dynamic unit than they’ve been in recent years, one not solely reliant on Raleigh and Rodríguez. Since then, the rotation has gotten healthy — minus Woo, whose pectoral injury is not expected to impact his postseason availability — and rounded into the type of form it displayed amid a record-setting 2024 season, posting a 2.50 ERA over these past 18 games. The bullpen — not only Muñoz and Brash, but Gabe Speier, Eduard Bazardo, Carlos Vargas and Caleb Ferguson, the veteran lefty acquired after a deal for Duran fell through — continues to look devastating.

Said Rodríguez: “We can do it all.”

“We’ve got athleticism, we’ve got team speed, we’ve got power, we’ve got starting pitching, a back end of the bullpen,” Dipoto said. “It’s very rare in our lives you get all those things hitting at the same time. And here in the last few weeks, they are. And they showed — they’re on a mission. And I don’t think that mission stops with making it to the postseason.”

THE LAST TIME the Mariners hosted a playoff game, it was Oct. 15, 2022, and to their fans, it became the most excruciating day possible. Seventeen innings went by without a run being scored. A Washington Huskies college football game started and ended during that time. Then Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña led off the top of the 18th inning with a home run to center field. After 6 hours, 22 minutes, the Mariners’ 2022 season — the one that ended the longest active playoff drought in North American professional sports — was over.

Heading into 2025, the Mariners had existed for 47 years and made the playoffs only five times. The best group was assembled in 2001, two years after the franchise’s most iconic player, Ken Griffey Jr., left to join the Cincinnati Reds. The Mariners tied the Chicago Cubs for the most wins in modern baseball history that year, then got trounced by the New York Yankees in the ALCS. Twenty-one years went by without another Mariners team in the playoffs; 24 went by without a division championship.

That 2001 season didn’t just mark the last time the Mariners had won the AL West; it marked the last time the people of Seattle had seen its team score a run at home in the playoffs, let alone win a game.

“We all know the history,” Rodríguez said. “We all know the hunger that this fan base has. That’s one thing that motivates us.”

The Mariners emerged from this year’s trade deadline with a 9-1 homestand, validating every belief that they had morphed into a powerhouse. They were 67-53 by Aug. 12, tied with the Houston Astros atop the AL West. Then the Mariners started to slide again. They went 2-7 on a trip through Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. They bounced back by winning four of six at home but followed by dropping two of three in Cleveland.

Then they went to Tampa and lost back-to-back games to the Rays, after which Dipoto and manager Dan Wilson held a team meeting largely to emphasize that this was a talented, accomplished group that didn’t require any one individual to carry it. Suárez spoke about the importance of staying within themselves, J.P. Crawford emphasized the need for resiliency.

It didn’t work; the Mariners gave up eight runs in the first two innings of the finale, lost again, flew to Atlanta and were dominated by Braves ace Chris Sale on a Friday night, falling 3½ games out in the AL West.

Then, suddenly, everything changed.

The Mariners at one point won 10 in a row for the first time in more than three years. In one four-game series against the Los Angeles Angels, their pitchers set a major league record by accumulating 62 strikeouts. Over a 16-1 stretch, leading up to when they clinched the division, they outscored opponents by a combined 68 runs.

Maybe it was sorcery. Maybe it was the mustaches so many of the players and coaches started rocking when things went poorly, no matter how absurd some of them looked. Maybe it was the bag of crunchy Cheetos Dipoto began delivering to radio play-by-play voice Rick Rizzs on a daily basis, a callback to an old slump-busting ritual that reemerged on that Saturday in Atlanta because, as Dipoto said, “When he gets Cheetos, we score runs.”

Maybe it was a team that grew through struggle and finally learned how to overcome.

“We never give up,” Rodríguez said. “I feel like there’s a lot of people that break under pressure, and I feel like us as a team, we stick together. We’ve had some tough stretches, but I feel like that made us stronger. We were able to break through that. And we stayed together through that.”

DURING BATTING PRACTICE at Daikin Park in Houston last Sunday, Crawford wore socks that read: “Do Epic S—.” Then he came to bat in the second inning and hit the grand slam that basically took the archrival Astros out of the game, catapulted the Mariners to an emphatic three-game sweep and put them in position to capture their long-awaited division title.

The Astros’ ballpark is the site of the Yordan Álvarez walk-off home run against Robbie Ray in Game 1 of the 2022 AL Division Series, a moment from which those Mariners never recovered. It’s the home of a team that had claimed seven division titles over the past eight years, continually pushing Seattle into the background. And it’s a reminder of a year like 2023, when the Mariners arrived in Arlington, Texas, on the second-to-last weekend of the regular season trailing the division by only a half-game, were swept, and later watched the playoffs from their couches.

This time, though, it felt different.

“You could just feel the energy around in the clubhouse,” Crawford, the Mariners’ longest-tenured player, recalled. “Like, ‘Oh s—, it’s go time.’ It was cool.”

The Mariners never trailed in that series. Woo, Kirby and Gilbert combined to give up one run in 17 innings, during which they struck out 18 and walked two. Eight Mariners hitters drove in at least a run. The Mariners went into Houston tied for the top spot in the AL West and came out of it leading by three games, while holding the tiebreaker, with six remaining. Before their home series this week against the last-place Colorado Rockies was over — an eventual sweep, putting their winning streak at seven games — the Mariners had clinched a playoff spot, sealed the division, and earned a first-round bye, guaranteeing home-field advantage in the ALDS.

Given the opponent, the time of year and the ramifications, that series against the Astros might have been the most important in franchise history.

“We knew that was what had to happen,” Raleigh said. “It’s no secret — the Astros have owned this division for a long time. And to go out there and do it at their place, it meant a lot. It’s not just a random three games somewhere. They’re a really good team, they’re really tough. To do it in that fashion was special to these guys.”

The Mariners have fallen just short of the playoffs by stumbling down the stretch in each of the past two years. In 2023, an incredible August was followed by a brutal September that prompted elimination on the second-to-last day of the regular season. In 2024, the late-season firing of longtime manager Scott Servais was not enough to save a season that saw the Mariners blow a 10-game lead in 31 days and find themselves once again chasing over the final month. They grew from it.

“I just think that over the years, besides when we got to the playoffs in ’22, there’s always been so much pressure on us to get to the playoffs,” Kirby said. “And I think all of us were just like, ‘Screw that. Take every game one game at a time, do what you gotta do to get ready today and help the team.’ I think the vibes were so good. Normally, we feel all this pressure, but we just went out there and did our thing.”

When the final out was recorded Wednesday night, and the AL West had been secured, Wilson stood on the top step of the dugout and attempted to take it all in for a moment. Before he was thrust into the role as manager near the end of last August, Wilson spent a dozen years as a stalwart catcher during the best run in franchise history.

The Mariners made the playoffs four times with Wilson behind the plate from 1994 to 2005. Experiencing the emotions of it again felt “weirdly familiar and weirdly unfamiliar,” he said. He’s in a completely different role now, but he remembered the feeling so vividly. Of an entire city coming alive. Of a baseball team mattering so much. Of the excitement over what lies ahead.

“It brings back a lot,” Wilson said. “And it just feels really good that T-Mobile was as loud as it was, and as positive as it was, and that these guys are the reason why.”

A NAVY BLUE felt board is plastered on one of the walls inside the home clubhouse at T-Mobile Park, displaying Polaroid pictures of grown men donning the award handed out after every win: a pair of gold-plated testicles hanging from a chain and inscribed with a trident, appropriately called the “Nuts of the Game.” Thirty-eight pictures hung on that board this week. Only five of them featured Raleigh, who has taken on the responsibility of handing it out.

“He never gives the nuts to himself,” Crawford said. “He’s always looking out for someone else. It’s never about him. In reality, it should be.”

Raleigh will head into the final weekend, a home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with a realistic chance of breaking the AL home-run record of 62 set by Aaron Judge in 2022, and just as big a chance of beating him out for this year’s MVP Award. That the switch-hitting Raleigh, famously known as “The Big Dumper” for his prominent posterior, has achieved these offensive numbers — a .954 OPS, 60 home runs and 125 RBIs — while starting 118 games at catcher is akin to “asking Josh Allen to play middle linebacker on top of being the quarterback of the Buffalo Bills,” Hollander said.

The Mariners have played a major league-leading 14 games that lasted at least 11 innings this season, which only means longer nights for their best player. Their staff is composed of pitchers who throw a lot of sinkers and splitters, pitches that are often thrown in the dirt, which also means more blocking. Raleigh has made 4,385 block attempts this season, more than all but five other players. He has squatted to receive 8,715 pitches, fourth-most in the majors, over 1,063 innings, third-most. He has also absorbed countless foul tips, made countless pitch calls and spent countless hours dedicated to the task of getting opposing hitters out, all while hitting like few others.

“As a catcher, you come off the field at the end of the night being both physically and mentally exhausted,” Wilson said. “To be able to do that night in and night out and produce like he has offensively — it’s never been done like this before. We can honestly say that.”

Raleigh has produced 12 more home runs than the previous record for a primary catcher, set by Salvador Perez in 2021. Not long after clearing Perez, he passed Mickey Mantle for the most home runs by a switch-hitter (54 in 1961) and Griffey for the most home runs in Mariners history (56 in 1997 and ’98). He did it while coming off a Platinum Glove season, during a year in which he has made his right-handed swing every bit as lethal as his left-handed one. But in Seattle, there’s an appeal to Raleigh that stretches beyond production.

“He feels like one of them, and the way he interacts is insanely humble,” Dipoto said. “And when you talk to him, it’s not an act. It’s who he is.”

Raleigh started the scoring on Wednesday night with a first-inning home run, his 59th. Seven innings later — on the first pitch of his last at-bat, with 42,883 fans once again serenading him with MVP chants — he finished it with his 60th, tying a major league record with his 11th multi-homer game this season.

“Sixty,” Raleigh said later that night. “I don’t know what to say. I didn’t know if I was gonna hit 60 in my life.”

Earlier this spring, ahead of putting pen to paper on a $105 million extension, Raleigh met with the Mariners’ principal decision-makers to express his desire to win with this group and hoped to learn that they shared his ambition. What followed was the best offensive season a catcher has ever produced, at the center of a baseball team that, depending on what happens over this next month, could be the greatest this city has ever experienced.

“To do it in this fashion has been crazy and exciting and fun and everything that I hoped and dreamed it would be,” said Raleigh, who snapped the Mariners’ playoff drought with a walk-off homer three years earlier. “This is a great, great, great moment for this organization and city. We know we still have more work to do; we’re really excited to have that opportunity.”

CLEVELAND — Unlike most things associated with baseball, a collective, early sigh from a dugout can’t be measured, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen for the Detroit Tigers on Thursday.

Detroit halted an eight-game losing streak behind two home runs in the first inning of a 4-2 victory against the Cleveland Guardians, including a leadoff blast by Jahmai Jones.

“To get the energy going and get that spark right off the bat was huge,” Jones said after the Tigers forged another tie with the Guardians atop the American League Central. “Everyone understands how important these last few games are.”

They’re especially important for the Tigers, who are attempting to avoid a historic fade from the postseason after seemingly having the division locked up weeks ago. Their skid has been matched by a Guardians hot streak, allowing the teams to pass each other in the standings Wednesday only to have the Tigers reengage the Guardians on Thursday.

“Everyone needs to see a little bit of positivity in the game,” Tigers manager AJ Hinch said. “We are human. We feed off a ton of things, including the good things. Of course everyone takes a collective breath.”

Two batters after Jones homered, Wenceel Perez did the same, giving a cushion to opener Troy Melton before he took the mound.

“That’s the ideal start when you’re on the road,” Melton said.

If Melton wasn’t hyped after being told he’d start just the evening before, the early lead provided some energy. He came out throwing gas, hitting 97 and 98 mph on the radar gun in the first inning as Cleveland went down in order.

“A little but more adrenaline with the game being more important,” Melton said.

He lasted 3⅔ innings before handing the ball to the first of five relievers who combined to give up just a single run the rest of the night. Detroit, meanwhile, tacked on runs in the second and fourth innings to secure a win that was badly needed.

To this point, the right process wasn’t enough; the right execution was. It’s been lacking for the Tigers of late, leading to a blown double-digit lead in the division. That included two blown leads in each of the first two games of this series, both losses.

But Thursday felt different.

“It’s hard to win,” Tigers left fielder Riley Greene said. “You show up every day not knowing what’s going to happen.”

The Tigers have been proving that to be true over and over again this month, but they still have a chance to right the ship before the days run out on them. They need help to win the division — Cleveland owns the tiebreaker — but they control their own destiny in the AL wild-card race. Their magic number is 4.

“It hasn’t been going the way we want it to go for a little while now, so it kind of felt like a weight lifted off our shoulders, like we’re back on track,” Melton said. “It was good to put a win together.”

The Tigers head to Boston, where the Red Sox have a one-game lead for the AL’s second wild card. The Guardians will host Texas, which has lost nine of 10. Meanwhile, both Detroit and Cleveland are one game ahead of Houston, which ended a five-game slide of its own, for the final AL wild-card spot.

“We want to win as many games as we can, and we know if we win as many games as we can, we’ll be just fine,” Hinch said. “Tonight was a good example of what we can bring to the table every night.”

Except they haven’t been. It’s been one bad moment after another, and with a trip to raucous Fenway Park for the final series, the Tigers will need to lock in.

“Even though they count the same, they don’t feel the same because of where we’re at,” Hinch said with a smile.

So perhaps the mojo has returned to the team that dominated the American League for the first half of the season.

One good win can do that.