Before we get on with the autumn win-loss business that is actual college football, let’s pause for a moment — no, make that a dozen moments — and pour one out — no, let’s pour twelve out — for the artist formally known as the Pac-12 Conference.
What beverage? That’s up to you. In Southern California, now Big Ten country, perhaps you’ll select a double half-caf mocha oat milk latte … though, heads up, your new conference mates of the Midwest are going have some questions about your non-dairy creamer choices. In the Sonoran Desert, now Big 12 country, you can return your margarita’s prickly pear garnish back to the sands from whence it came before some guy in a 10-gallon hat from Lubbock replaces it with a can of Lone Star. And in the Bay Area, now … um … I don’t know … Mountain West country? ACC country? Y’all should probably make like melancholy Paul Giamatti in “Sideways” and just pour that 1961 Château Cheval Blanc into a Styrofoam soda cup at a burger joint.
But no matter where you live, what you imbibe or what school colors you wear as you dip your toes into the waves of the Pacific Coast, deep down we should all feel like poor Miles as he secretly sipped his fine wine with crinkle fries. Because even if you have no allegiance to the Pac-12 (hang on, sorry, bad choice of words there, because clearly no one has any allegiance to the Pac-12, let me start over) … because even if you have no ties to a traditional Pac-12 school, you might have some sort of allegiance to the institution of college sports. And even if your blood runneth a Crimson Tide or a Carolina Blue or any other hue that resides well east of the Rockies, the idea of the Pac-12 being vaporized should feel at the very least unsettling and the very most, sad. Super, super sad.
For nearly 108 years, the conference never seemed like it was on a countdown to its demise. Heck, even its name was a count-up, from the Pacific Coast Conference to the Big 5, Big 6, Pac-8, Pac-10 and that window back in June 2010 when it seemed inevitable it become the Pac-16, snatching Texas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech and Colorado from the Big 12. Now, after unraveling a century-plus in one Friday afternoon, it’s the Pac-4.
So, in the time we have remaining before the Pac-12 goes the way of Alderaan on July 1, 2024, let’s make like the 405 at 5 p.m. and slow down. Take a beat. And before we move forward into a world where UCLA regularly travels to Rutgers for volleyball matches, allow ourselves to glance into the rearview mirror and remember what made the conference and all its Pac-X numeric iterations cooler than UCLA alum Karch Kiraly with his wraparound shades and the bill of his ballcap popped up.
I’m talking about stuff like …
Matt Barkley vs. Andrew Luck in the LA Coliseum in 2011, as Stanford outlasted USC 56-48 in OT. The 1996 season opener that saw Jake the Snake Plummer and Arizona State running around Brock Huard and Washington to kick a field goal to set the tone for a season that ended with Sun Devils fans filling the parking lots of Pasadena with so many RVs it made the Rose Bowl look like Burning Man. How about the Pac-12’s dozen Heisman Trophy winners? How about a shoutout to Jim Plunkett and his Stanford helmet that looked way too small as he threw 1,000 passes per day in practice to convince head coach John Ralston that he wasn’t a defensive end … and then won the Heisman, a Rose Bowl and two Super Bowls. How about watching UCLA QB Mark Harmon, who went 17-5 as a starting QB in the Rose Bowl Stadium on Saturdays and has starred on nearly every other night as a primetime TV star? Does it get any more Pac-12 than that?
Speaking of the Rose Bowl and TV, sure, we all know the Rose Bowl isn’t going away. Neither is TV. That’s what’s driving this whole realignment chaos. But without the Pac-12 filling half the stadium on our New Years Day flatscreens, will it ever be the same? The Granddaddy of Them All was concocted in 1902 as the Tournament East-West football game, specifically designed to pit a Pacific Coast team versus a squad who rode a train in from an eastern time zone. Our televisions crackling to life, from black and white to color to 4K UHD, thanks to UCLA blue, USC gold, Washington purple … you name it, popping against the chroma contrast of rose bushes and a Big Ten opponent. After decades of fighting to preserve that mission, even in the face of the Bowl Alliance, BCS and College Football Playoff, now that goes away. The Apple Cup. Oregon-Oregon State. The Big Game. They could survive. But they might not. The powers that be swear that they are committed to saving the rivalry games, but lest we forget they are the same folks a week ago who said they were committed to the Pac-12.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) August 2, 2023
Godspeed to #Pac12AfterDark, the hashtag that started as a Twitter (or X or whatever) joke and became a bona fide marketing strategy. That strategy became the place where drunk East Coast college students finished off their pizzas at 2 a.m. and also the place where ranked Pac-12 teams went down like those same college students trying to climb the dorm stairs. Like 2016, when UW thought its CFP hopes had been erased by USC on the banks of Lake Washington. No. 8 Wazzu losing to unranked Cal by 34 points in 2017. Speaking of Cal and Washington, how about Marshawn Lynch and the medical cart?
But let’s also not allow ourselves to be like those who run this realignment train and obsess about only football. The Pac-12 was also the kingdom of the Wizard, John Wooden. The realm of Bill Walton, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and their Pyramid of Success that led to 10 national hoops titles, including seven in a row.
Across town, Rod Dedeaux was running the same kind of roughshod over college baseball as USC won 11 College World Series titles with rosters that included Tom Seaver, Dave Kingman and Fred Lynn. The Pac-12 owns 29 CWS titles in all, shared by seven different schools. Think about the 1980s alone, when Stanford and Arizona State and USC would do battle on ballfields for conference titles trotting out the likes of Mike Mussina, Barry Bonds and Randy Johnson. And where would the Women’s College World Series be without the Pac-12? Without UCLA and Arizona, the West Coast crucibles where the modern game was forged?
Lisa Fernandez on the mound. Tiger Woods on the tee box. Kerri Walsh Jennings stalking the net. Cheryl Miller. Some guy named Jackie Robinson manning second base.
Roll your eyes at the whole Conference of Champions thing, but the fact of the matter is that the Pac-12 has teamed up to win 553 nattys across all NCAA sports, 254 more than the next conference. And it owns more precious metals than the U.S. Treasury. You might not think you’ve ever rooted for a Pac-12 athlete, but if you love America, you certainly have cheered for one West Coast college kid at least once every four years. The conference has produced nearly 1,500 Olympians. They won 108 medals at the 2020 Tokyo Games alone.
Will those same schools enjoy the same level of success once they are scattered and covered across the conferences of the United States like a Waffle House special? Maybe. Will the athletes of those schools still lead the parade into the stadiums of every Olympics opening ceremonies going forward? Perhaps. Someone from USC will no doubt win another Heisman Trophy. Teams that once played in the Rose bowl as a member of the Pac-12 will most certainly return to Pasadena as a representative of the Big 12 or Big Ten.
But it won’t be the same. One day it will feel normal. Not to all of us, certainly not to those who still wear title rings earned as a member of the Conference of Champions. But adapting to new normals has become collegiate athletics’, well, new normal. However, one of the biggest slices of that new normal pie chart should always carry the label “stuff that we miss.”
So, please, take the next year to soak up that Pac-12 sunshine one more time before it is sliced up and shipped off to every corner of the college conference map, stuffed in equipment bags and loaded onto airplanes at LAX and PHX bound for baseball games in College Park and swim meets in Fort Worth.
And someone call my man Gary Tyrrell, aka the Stanford band member who was run over by Cal Bear Kevin Moen at the end of The Play in 1982. Tell him to start warming up. I’ve never heard “Taps” played on a trombone, and certainly not a bent trombone. But that also feels kind of apropos for this moment, doesn’t it? Especially if it is played after dark.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.
Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.
Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).
The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.
Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.
Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.
Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.
Missouri quarterback Drew Pyne has entered the portal as a graduate transfer, sources told ESPN on Tuesday.
Pyne is looking to move to his fourth school after stints at Notre Dame, Arizona State and Missouri. He’ll be a sixth-year senior this fall.
Pyne joined Missouri last year as a backup for senior starter Brady Cook. He earned one start, leading the Tigers to a 30-23 comeback win over Oklahoma while Cook was sidelined by ankle and wrist injuries.
Missouri brought in former Penn State quarterback Beau Pribulavia the transfer portal this offseason. He’ll compete with redshirt junior Sam Horn and true freshman Matt Zollers, the No. 86 overall recruit in the 2025 ESPN 300, for the opportunity to start this season.
Pyne, a former ESPN 300 recruit, began his career at Notre Dame and started 10 games for the Fighting Irish in 2022. He threw for 2,021 yards on 65% passing and scored 24 total touchdowns with six interceptions while winning eight of his starts.
After the Irish brought in grad transfer quarterback Sam Hartman, Pyne transferred to Arizona State but appeared in just two games with the Sun Devils before an injury forced him to sit out the rest of the season.
Pyne played 211 snaps over six appearances for the Tigers last season and threw for 391 yards on 60% passing with three touchdowns and three interceptions.
The NCAA’s spring transfer window opens April 16, but graduate transfers are permitted to put their name in the portal at any time. More than 160 FBS scholarship quarterbacks have already transferred this offseason.
There are slow starts, there are slumps, and then there is whatever Rafael Devers is going through.
The 28-year-old three-time All-Star for the Boston Red Sox has been one of baseball’s best hitters since 2019, posting three 30-homer seasons, three 100-RBI seasons and a whole bunch of doubles.
His first five games of 2025 have been a nightmare. It’s the early-season equivalent of dealing Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Johnny Pesky holding the ball. Bucky Dent. The ball rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs. Aaron Boone. Just to name a few Red Sox references. Here’s how those games unfolded for Devers:
Game 1: 0-for-4, three strikeouts Game 2: 0-for-4, four strikeouts Game 3: 0-for-4, three strikeouts, walk, RBI Game 4: 0-for-4, two strikeouts, walk Game 5: 0-for-3, three strikeouts, two walks
He became the first player to strike out 12 times in a team’s first four games. And, yes, with 15 strikeouts through five games he shattered the old record of 13, shared by Pat Burrell in 2001 and Byron Buxton in 2017. Going back to the end of 2024, when Devers fanned 11 times over his final four games, he became the fourth player with multiple strikeouts in nine straight games — and one of those was a pitcher (the other two were a rookie named Aaron Judge in 2016 and Michael A. Taylor in 2021).
With Devers struggling, the Red Sox have likewise stumbled out of the gate, going 1-4 after some lofty preseason expectations, including an 8-5 loss to the Baltimore Orioles in the home opener Monday. To be fair, it’s not all on Devers: Jarren Duran, Devers and Alex Bregman, the top three hitters in the lineup, are a combined 11-for-62 (.177) with no home runs.
But there is one question weighing heaviest on the minds of Red Sox Nation right now: What is really going on with Devers?
It’s easy to say his head simply isn’t in the right space. Devers made headlines early in spring training after the Red Sox signed Bregman, saying he didn’t want to move to DH and that “third base is my position.” He pointed out that when he signed his $331 million extension in January of 2023, the front office promised he would be the team’s third baseman.
That, however, was when a different regime was in charge. Bregman, a Gold Glove winner in 2024, is the better defensive third baseman, so it makes sense to play him there and move Devers — except many players don’t like to DH. Some analysts even build in a “DH penalty,” assuming a player will hit worse there than when he plays the field. While Devers eventually relented and said he’d do whatever will help the team, it was a rocky situation for a few weeks.
But maybe it’s something else. While Devers avoided surgery this offseason, he spent it trying to rebuild strength in both shoulders after dealing with soreness and inflammation throughout 2024. He didn’t play the field in spring training and had just 15 plate appearances. So maybe he is still rusty — or the shoulder(s) are bothering him.
Indeed, Statcast metrics show his average bat speed has dropped from 72.5 mph in 2024 to 70.3 mph so far in 2025 (and those are down from 73.4 mph in 2023). His “fast-swing rate” has dropped from 34.2% in 2023 to 27.9% to 12.2%. Obviously, we’re talking an extremely small sample size for this season, but it’s clear Devers isn’t generating the bat speed we’re used to seeing from him.
That, however, doesn’t explain the complete inability to make contact. Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters after the series in Texas that Devers had made alterations with his foot placement — but was having trouble catching up to fastballs. Following Monday’s game, Devers told reporters (via his interpreter) that, “Obviously this is not a position that I’ve done in the past. So I need to get used to it. But I feel good, I feel good.”
Which leads to this question: Does this historic bad start mean anything? Since the DH began in 1973, three DHs began the season with a longer hitless streak than Devers’ 0-for-19 mark, so let’s dig into how the rest of their seasons played out:
Don Baylor with the 1982 Angels (0-for-20). Baylor ended up with a pretty typical season for him: .263/.329/.424, 24 home runs.
Evan Gattis of the 2015 Astros (0-for-23). Gattis hit .246 with 27 home runs — not as good as he hit in 2014 or 2016, but in line with his career numbers.
Curtis Terry with the Rangers in 2021 (0-for-20). Terry was a rookie who ended up playing just 13 games in the majors.
Expanding beyond just the DH position, I searched Baseball-Reference for players in the wild-card era (since 1995) who started a season hitless in at least 20 plate appearances through five games. That gave us a list of … just seven players, including Evan Carter (0-for-22) and Anthony Rendon (0-for-20) last season. Both ended up with injury-plagued seasons. The list also includes Hall of Famer Craig Biggio, who was 0-for-24 for the Houston Astros in 1995. He was fine: He hit .302/.406/.483 that season, made the All-Star team and finished 10th in the MVP voting. J.D. Drew started 0-for-25 through five games with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2005; he hit .286/.412/.520, although an injury limited him to 72 games.
But none of those hitters struck out nearly as often as Devers has.
So let’s focus on the strikeouts and expand our search to most strikeouts through the 15 first games of a season. Given his already astronomical total, Devers is likely to rank high on such a list even if he starts making more contact. Seventeen players struck out at least 25 times through 15 games, topped by Yoan Moncada and Miguel Sano with 29, both in 2018. Not surprisingly, all these seasons have come since 2006 and 12 since 2018.
How did that group fare?
They were actually OK, averaging a .767 OPS and 20 home runs. The best of the group was Matt Olson in 2023, who struck out 25 times in 15 games, but was also hitting well with a .317/.423/.650 line. He went on to hit 53 home runs. The next best season belongs to Giancarlo Stanton in 2018, his first with the Yankees. He finished with 38 home runs and an .852 OPS — but that was a big drop from his MVP season in 2017, when he mashed 59 home runs. His strikeout rate increased from 23.6% in 2017 to 29.9% — and he’s never been as good.
Indeed, that’s the worrisome thing for Devers: Of the 16 players who played the season before (Trevor Story was a rookie in 2016 when he struck out 25 times in 15 games, albeit with eight home runs), 13 had a higher OPS the previous season, many significantly so.
As Cora argued Monday, it’s a small sample size. “You know, this happens in July or August, we’d not even be talking about it,” he said.
That doesn’t really sound quite forthright. A slump, even a five-game slump, with this many strikeouts would absolutely be a topic of discussion. Still, that’s all the Red Sox and Devers have to go on right now: It’s just a few games, nothing one big game won’t fix. They just hope it comes soon.