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Inspirational thought of the week:

I can’t see the future but I know it’s coming fast
It’s not that hard to wind up knee deep in the past
It’s come a lot of Mondays
Since the phone booth that first night
Through years and miles and tears and smiles
I want to get it right
From the bottom of my heart
Off the coast of Carolina
After one or two false starts
I believe we found our stride

— “The Coast of Carolina,” Jimmy Buffett

Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located at the base of the garbage chute where Pat McAfee throws away all of the sleeves that he cuts off his shirts, we entered Week 1 with our eyes focused on the horizon ahead and our hands firmly wrapped around the ship’s wheel as the wind of actual football filled our sails and pushed into the season. With fins to the left, fins to the right, because yes, it’s been quite a summer with rent-a-cars and westbound trains, and … OK, full disclosure, we don’t listen to a lot of Jimmy Buffett in our HQ. We’re more of a hopeful marching band and drumline descending into a sad country breakup song kind of office.

But Saturday morning, as I took the stage to co-host “Marty & McGee” from Nashville, Tennessee, built squarely in the center of Lower Broadway, a man in a parrot-covered shirt was asleep on the sidewalk outside Buffett’s Margaritaville. He suddenly jumped up, ran over to the railing and said, “McGee, Jimmy is dead, and I don’t feel so good myself. The last time I saw him was here in Nashville, and that same weekend, I watched Vanderbilt lose by a hundred points to South Carolina. Jimmy loved South Carolina. Not the team. The state. It’s sad.” And he went back to sleep.

At the time, I laughed it off. Then, as I thought about it more, I was sad too. Jimmy Buffett was indeed gone. And he did indeed love South Carolina. He wrote songs about South Carolina. He sailed off the coast of South Carolina. He had played so many sellouts all over South Carolina. Later that night, in Charlotte, North Carolina, I watched South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler spend the evening running for his life as the Gamecocks lost to UNC 31-17. During a second-half timeout, the PA system started blasting “Margaritaville” as the packed stadium sang along.

Another man in a beachy button-down shirt, much more sober than the first — at least at that point in the evening — tapped his baseball cap with a Gamecocks logo and said, “They’re playing the wrong song.” He pointed to Rattler, on the bench as his beleaguered O-line awkwardly sat next to him, silent and embarrassed. “They should be playing, ‘Nobody Speaks to the Captain No More.'”

With apologies to the Oldest Surfer on the Beach, the Son of a Son of a Sailor and Steve Harvey, here’s the 2023 Week 1 Bottom 10.

1. Arkansaw State Fightin’ Butches (0-1)

After allowing Oklahoma to squeak by 73-0, Red Wolves coach Butch Jones said, “I thought they out-athleted us.” He’s not wrong. His team also was outscored, outrushed, outpassed and out-ed as the runaway early favorite to take home the Bottom 10 title.

2. #Kentergy (0-1)

The Golden Flashes opened their season by going down to UCF. Like, literally. They lost 56-6 and had the 35-point spread covered faster than my brother-in-law slathering Country Crock and strawberry jelly on a homemade biscuit. Now they go to Arkansaw Not Arkansaw State, where they are a 38-point underdog and where head hog Sam Pittman (a longtime friend of the Bottom 10, so he knows I say this in jest) probably just ate one of those same biscuits. Or six.

3. North by Northworstern (0-1)

You know when Northwestern put this 2023 schedule together, they thought, “Are you kidding? We get In-A-Rut-gers Week 1 and then Dook Week 3?” Well, they just got Sonny-at-the-toll-booth’ed in New Jersey, 24-7, while Duke did the same to Clemson, 28-7.

4. No-Braska (0-1)

Those same conversations were likely happening in Lincoln, where the Cornhuskers saw season-opening trips to Minnesota and Colorado and thought, “Hey, this isn’t bad. We nearly beat the Gophers last year, and the Buffaloes are the defending Bottom 10 champions!” Then the Cornhuskers blew a second-half lead and lost to Minnesota, just like last year, and the Buffs are led by Deion Sanders, who spent Week 1 being anointed as the greatest coach in the history of football.

5. The Palm(in the face)etto State

There are three FBS schools in the state of South Carolina — Coastal Carolina, South Carolina and Clemson — and they all lost over the weekend. There are six FCS schools in the state of South Carolina. They went 2-4, but one of those wins was by Charleston Southern over North Greenville, one of the Palmetto State’s seven Division II schools — which went 3-4 over the weekend, including in a head-to-head matchup. So your final record for the Sandlapper schools was 5-11, with two of those wins coming head-to-head, capped by Clemson’s orange crush of a loss at Duke. I immediately texted my best friend from high school, now a highly decorated high school history teacher in Lexington, South Carolina, to make sure the following tweet (or X or whatever we’re calling it) was OK. He hung up on me. He’s a South Carolina alum. #toosoon

6. San No-sé State (0-2)

Much is being made of the fact that the ragtag fugitive fleet known as the Pac-12, soon to be the 2Pac, has yet to lose a game. It hasn’t hurt that two of the league’s best teams have played San José State, with USC and Caleb Williams winning the Trojan-Spartan War 56-28 and Oregon State rolling 42-17. The magically and creepily accurate FPI tells us the Spartans should be 1-4 entering mid-October when they visit …

7. Whew Mexico (0-1)

The No-Bos opened the season with a brutal yet financially worthwhile trip to College Station, Texas, where they surrendered so many points and yards that they asked new A&M offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino if they could borrow his neck brace for their trip back to Albuquerque. After hosting Tennessee Tech in Week 2, the No-Bos remain at University Stadium to welcome in …

8. Whew Mexico State (1-1)

The Other Aggies shocked the Week 0 world when they were run over by the preseason top/bottom-ranked UMess Minutemen like they were the Redcoats retreating on the road back to Boston. Sure, the Other Aggies rebounded with a 58-21 win over the FCS Western Illinois Leathernecks. But now they make a pilgrimage to Jamey Chadwell’s Liberty before heading up Interstate 25 to visit the No-Bos — one week before traveling to current 0-2 Huh-Why-Yuh.

9. My Hammy of Ohio (0-1)

Despite losing 38-3 to the Hurricanes in the Battle of My-Hammys, the RedHawks are a touchdown favorite this weekend as — speaking of UMass — they make the trip east to face …

10. UMess (1-1)

Yes, our old friends from the Revolutionary War reenactment camp started the year 1-0, but they followed their triumph on Lexington Green with a Bunker Hill-like effort on The Plains, blindsided 59-14 by Hugh Freeze and Auburn. After a pair of #MACtion dates with My Hammy of Ohio and Eastern not Western Michigan, UMass closes out September with visits from Whew Mexico and … yes … wait for it … this is awesome … full circle moment … Arkansaw State! Week 0 glory be damned; all Bottom 10 roads still run through Massachusetts. And like a salt and brine mix on the Mass Turnpike, it’s going to rust out the undercarriage of the 2023 college football season.

Waiting List: Huh-Why-Yuh, LS-Who, Flori-duh, No-vada, Central Not Western or Eastern Michigan, Muddled Tennessee State, TC-Who Just Played For The Natty And Then Lost To The Bottom 10 Champs?

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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.

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Sources: QB Pyne leaves Mizzou, seeks 4th team

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Sources: QB Pyne leaves Mizzou, seeks 4th team

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 Pribula via 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.

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What’s going on with Rafael Devers? Putting his historic strikeout streak into context

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What's going on with Rafael Devers? Putting his historic strikeout streak into context

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

Along the way, Devers became the first player to strike out 10 times in a team’s first three games of a season — and that’s not all.

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.

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