There are some college football doozies on tap for Week 7, which once again should result in some separation in conference races (for the time being, that is) and even the race for the College Football Playoff (for the time being, that is).
Perhaps no game is bigger than No. 8 Oregon at No. 7 Washington, pitting two high-powered offenses in a Pac-12 showdown to remain undefeated. But that’s not the only marquee matchup Saturday. USC travels to Notre Dame, which is coming off a drubbing at the hands of Louisville, and Miami, fresh off its own embarrassing loss, is at North Carolina.
Our reporters preview Week 7 with a look at the which teams need the win more, offensive lines to watch and some of the week’s best quotes.
Who needs the ‘W’ more?
Miami at North Carolina (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC): Had Miami actually lined up in victory formation and beaten Georgia Tech last week, this would have been a far more difficult question to answer. But since the Hurricanes lost, this is an easy choice. Miami needs this one maybe more than any other team across the country needs a win. Coach Mario Cristobal has been at the center of a firestorm for opting to hand the ball off with the lead and 30 seconds remaining. You know what happened next: Don Chaney fumbled, and Georgia Tech scored the game-winning touchdown with one second remaining.
Cristobal and his players fielded one question after another this week about the way that game ended and how they would respond on the road against a vastly improved North Carolina team following such an emotional loss. Players were asked whether they had faith in their coaching staff for bungling the end of the game. In one clip from the sideline, center Matt Lee is seen crying and saying, “What the f— are we doing?” Lee said this week he had “unwavering faith” in Cristobal to get the job done. “When our leadership council met, it was all very positive and it’s, ‘Hey guys, move on.’ You have to have a short memory. You put in work all year for 12 games, so s— happens and you move on, and the team and every coach has done a great job of that.”
Miami is now 0-1 in ACC play, but this game presents a huge opportunity. The Hurricanes have games against all three current undefeated ACC teams left on the schedule: North Carolina, then Florida State on Nov. 11 and Louisville on Nov. 18. They can get themselves back into the ACC race with a win Saturday. But to do that, they have to find a way to push past the disappointment and not allow what happened against the Yellow Jackets to linger and ruin their season.
“Yeah, it sucks. We know we should have won,” quarterback Tyler Van Dyke said. “But we’ve got to move on from it. We’ve got a tough matchup this week, and we’ve just got to get ready for that.” — Andrea Adelson
Oregon at Washington: There is a compelling case for both teams here because they essentially are mirror images, sitting at No. 7 and No. 8 in the country, with high-powered offenses and Heisman candidates at quarterback.
However, Washington hasn’t been on a major stage yet this season, so this is a much bigger opportunity to make a national statement. Oregon had 10 million people watch it absolutely embarrass Colorado. This will be a similar chance for Washington, with “College GameDay” in town, a nationally televised game and an appealing kickoff time (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
If Washington loses, it will have chances to get back into the mix, but not until Nov. 4, when it travels to USC, the first of four games against ranked teams to end the season. Perhaps unfairly, a loss might also delegitimize Washington’s hot start for people who hadn’t been watching it until this week. That’s just how college football operates sometimes.
But again, a lot of this is equally true for Oregon. That’s all to say this is a game with massive stakes. It has the potential to be among the best games this season. — Kyle Bonagura
USC at Notre Dame(7:30 p.m. ET, NBC/Peacock): The answer is Notre Dame, which has already lost twice despite looking improved from last season. It needs to avoid a spiral under second-year coach Marcus Freeman. But let’s start with USC’s defense, which has been unable to shed the stink from 2022 despite upgrades.
The Trojans excel in the flashy categories — they’re in the top five nationally in sacks (22), tackles for loss (57) and forced fumbles (8) — but remain prone to busts, even though many have come with comfortable leads. Coach Lincoln Riley is tired of the criticism, saying Tuesday the defense isn’t being evaluated with enough context.
“This is a much-improved unit, there is no question about it,” Riley told reporters. “This is a unit that, when you talk about the top-end potential, has a chance to really grow and get better fast. … There’s a lot of good things happening on this defense, man.”
Back to Notre Dame. The Irish are fighting through a brutal stretch against opponents that entered their game undefeated — Ohio State, Duke, Louisville and USC. Quarterback Sam Hartman had not thrown an interception during six games at Notre Dame before getting picked three times against Louisville. Hartman’s accuracy has dropped in the past two games, and Notre Dame’s deficiencies at wide receiver are starting to show up again.
Freeman stressed the need to establish a run game with Audric Estime, who had just 20 yards on 10 carries against Louisville.
“If we have to simplify, we have to do it,” Freeman said. “That’s the biggest thing when you talk about the difference between two weeks ago till now. It’s like, ‘OK, we’re making mistakes [identifying] in the run game, and why aren’t we blocking this guy?’ We have to simplify to make sure there is crystal clarity on what we need to do.” — Adam Rittenberg
Florida at South Carolina: It’s difficult to see the loser of this game going on to have a successful season, a season that was pivotal for both teams — albeit for different reasons. Billy Napier, in his second season at Florida, needed to show marked improvement after the Gators suffered through a 6-7 campaign a year ago. Florida (4-2, 2-1) was pummeled two weeks ago at Kentucky and has played poorly away from home since Napier arrived. The Gators are 1-7 when they’ve ventured outside the Swamp, and after the trip to Williams-Brice Stadium, they still have to play Georgia in Jacksonville and LSU and Missouri on the road before closing the season at home against No. 4 Florida State.
For Shane Beamer and South Carolina, there was a ton of momentum surrounding the program after the Gamecocks won eight games a year ago and beat Tennessee and Clemson to end the regular season, creating lofty expectations in Year 3 for Beamer Ball. But much like a year ago, the Gamecocks (2-3, 1-2) need a strong close to the season after losing to three top-25 teams in their first five games.
Florida routed South Carolina 38-6 last season, but the Gamecocks bounced back to play their best football of the season and win their next two over Tennessee and Clemson. They’re going to need a similar resurgence to finish with their third straight winning record under Beamer, and that starts Saturday at home against the Gators. — Chris Low
Wyoming at Air Force: Week 7 brings us a couple of enormous matchups in the race for the Group of 5’s New Year’s Six bowl bid. Tulane and Memphis are each 4-1 and 1-0 in AAC play; the winner of Saturday’s game in the Liberty Bowl could tell us who the American front-runner is, and generally “one-loss AAC champion” is a good thing to be.
At the moment, however, Air Force might be at the front of the line. Troy Calhoun’s Falcons are 5-0 and already 3-0 in Mountain West play. They have been held under 39 points only once, and they’re allowing just 12.2 points per game.
On Saturday, however, they face by far their best opponent, a 5-1 Wyoming team that boasts wins over Texas Tech and Fresno State and a loss only at Texas. The Cowboys technically need this one more because they’ve already suffered a blemish, but this one’s huge either way. This weekend will bring quite a bit of clarity to the New Year’s Six race. — Bill Connelly
Whose offensive line makes the difference?
ACC: Duke coach Mike Elko has done a terrific job in transforming the offensive line to a position of strength since his arrival in Durham. This season, the group got even stronger with the additions of transfers Jake Hornibrook (Stanford) and Scott Elliott (Harvard), two veterans with starting experience at their previous schools. The projected starting lineup for their game Saturday against NC State has a combined 162 starts. Duke has allowed only four sacks on the season and ranks in the Top 25 in the country in rushing offense. But this unit will definitely face a test against the Wolfpack, who have 21 sacks this season and have allowed less than 100 yards rushing per game. If QB Riley Leonard (ankle) is unable to play, that could affect what Duke does on the ground — especially if NC State tries to load the box to make Henry Belin IV make some plays. — Adelson
Big Ten: Michigan’s offensive line has won the Joe Moore Award for best offensive line unit the past two seasons. Offensive coordinator and line coach Sherrone Moore had to replace a few players from last season, but the staff went to the transfer portal to fill those needs immediately. Rimington Award winner Olu Oluwatimi left for the NFL, so the coaches brought in Drake Nugent from Stanford, who has started at center this season. They also added tackle Myles Hinton and guard LaDarius Henderson. Michigan’s line has been an important part of the offensive success and has once again been dominating defenses up front. Michigan quarterbacks have been sacked just three times, and the Wolverines’ running backs are averaging 2.36 yards before contact on runs. Running back Blake Corum has an FBS-leading 10 touchdowns, and while Corum has executed those runs, he also has an excellent offensive line to thank for creating holes and blocking up front. — Tom VanHaaren
Big 12: Last season, Texas Tech averaged 3.9 yards per carry and was 111th nationally in sacks allowed at 3.15 per game. The Red Raiders brought in transfer center Rusty Staats, who started 45 games at Western Kentucky, and reshuffled the entire offensive line in the process. This season, they’re averaging 179 rushing yards per game, 4.9 yards per carry, and running back Tahj Brooks is the first Tech player with four straight 100-yard games in the past 20 years. Kansas State, meanwhile, ranks fourth nationally in run defense, allowing just 2.99 yards per carry and 93.4 yards per game. The Wildcats have given up just three rushing scores all season. How the Texas Tech line holds up will go a long way toward its survival in the conference race. — Dave Wilson
Pac-12:Bo Nix may be the headliner in Eugene as he tries to continue a Heisman-level start to the season, but the work of the Ducks’ offensive line so far cannot be overstated. The unit has allowed only three sacks of Nix all season and only 20 tackles for loss. Washington’s offensive line has protected Michael Penix Jr. in similar fashion, which has allowed him to get off to an equally, if not more, impressive start than Nix. Both offensive lines may be the key to Saturday’s matchup; whoever gives their respective quarterback more time against staunch defensive lines could be the team that emerges with a crucial win. — Paolo Uggetti
SEC: Another year, another solid Georgia offensive line. And this time the Bulldogs are doing it without Warren McClendon and Broderick Jones, who left during the offseason for the NFL. And they’re doing it without starting right tackle Amarius Mims, who has missed the past few weeks after undergoing tightrope surgery to repair a sprained ankle. But the numbers say Dylan Fairchild, Earnest Greene, Tate Ratledge, Xavier Truss and Sedrick Van Pran are doing just fine. Ratledge hasn’t given up a pressure all season. All told, Georgia ranks fourth in the FBS in pressure percentage (20.5%) and sixth in yards before contact (2,069). — Alex Scarborough
Notable quotes
Mario Cristobal: If you’ve been paying attention, you might have heard the Miami coach’s mea culpa regarding the Canes’ agonizing loss to Georgia Tech.
“I made the wrong call. I take full ownership in not taking a knee and giving them the opportunity to have a couple extra plays and preventing us from sealing the win.”
Mark Stoops: Kentucky’s coach made a pitch to fans for donations to fund his team during a weekly radio show, using Georgia, which had just beaten the Wildcats 51-13, as the primary example.
“I can promise you — Georgia, they bought some pretty good players. You’re allowed to these days, and we could use some help. That’s what they look like, you know what I mean, when you have 85 of ’em. I encourage anybody that’s disgruntled to pony up some more.”
BOSTON — The Red Sox activated All-Star third baseman Alex Bregman from the 10-day injured list before Friday’s game against Tampa Bay.
Bregman, who has been sidelined since May 24 with a right quad strain, returned to his customary spot in the field and was slotted in the No. 2 spot of Boston’s lineup for the second of a four-game series against the Rays. He sustained the injury when he rounded first base and felt his quad tighten up.
A two-time World Series winner who spent the first nine seasons of his big league career with the Houston Astros, Bregman signed a $120 million, three-year contract in February. At the time of the injury, he was hitting .299 with 11 homers and 35 RBI. Those numbers led to him being named to the American League’s All-Star team for the third time since breaking into the majors with the Astros in 2016.
Bregman missed 43 games with the quad strain. Earlier this week, he told reporters that he was trending in a direction where he didn’t believe he would require a minor league rehab assignment. With three games left before the All-Star break, the Red Sox agreed the time was right to reinstate a player to a team that entered Friday in possession of one of the AL’s three wild-card berths.
“He’s going to do his part,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said before Friday’s game. “Obviously, the timing, we’ll see where he’s at, but he’s been working hard on the swing … visualizing and watching video.”
JIM ABBOTT IS sitting at his kitchen table, with his old friend Tim Mead. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, they were partners in an extraordinary exercise — and now, for the first time in decades, they are looking at a stack of letters and photographs from that period of their lives.
The letters are mostly handwritten, by children, from all over the United States and Canada, and beyond.
“Dear Mr. Abbott …”
“I have one hand too. … I don’t know any one with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy.”
“I am a seventh grader with a leg that is turned inwards. How do you feel about your arm? I would also like to know how you handle your problem? I would like to know, if you don’t mind, what have you been called?”
“I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed. … I want to become a doctor and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”
For 40 years, Mead worked in communications for the California Angels, eventually becoming vice president of media relations. His position in this department became a job like no other after the Angels drafted Abbott out of the University of Michigan in 1988.
There was a deluge of media requests. Reporters from around the world descended on Anaheim, most hoping to get one-on-one time with the young left-handed pitcher with the scorching fastball. Every Abbott start was a major event — “like the World Series,” Angels scout Bob Fontaine Jr. remembers. Abbott, with his impressive amateur résumé (he won the James E. Sullivan Award for the nation’s best amateur athlete in 1997 and an Olympic gold medal in 1988) and his boyish good looks, had star power.
That spring, he had become only the 16th player to go straight from the draft to the majors without appearing in a single minor league game. And then there was the factor that made him unique. His limb difference, although no one called it that back then. Abbott was born without a right hand, yet had developed into one of the most promising pitchers of his generation. He would go on to play in the majors for ten years, including a stint in the mid ’90s with the Yankees highlighted by a no-hitter in 1993.
Abbott, and Mead, too, knew the media would swarm. That was no surprise. There had been swarms in college, and at the Olympics, wherever and whenever Abbott pitched. Who could resist such an inspirational story? But what they hadn’t anticipated were the letters.
The steady stream of letters. Thousands of letters. So many from kids who, like Abbott, were different. Letters from their parents and grandparents. The kids hoping to connect with someone who reminded them of themselves, the first celebrity they knew of who could understand and appreciate what it was like to be them, someone who had experienced the bullying and the feelings of otherness. The parents and grandparents searching for hope and direction.
“I know you don’t consider yourself limited in what you can do … but you are still an inspiration to my wife and I as parents. Your success helps us when talking to Andy at those times when he’s a little frustrated. I’m able to point to you and assure him there’s no limit to what he can accomplish.”
In his six seasons with the Angels, Abbott was assisted by Mead in the process of organizing his responses to the letters, mailing them, and arranging face-to-face meetings with the families who had written to him. There were scores of such meetings. It was practically a full-time job for both of them.
“Thinking back on these meetings with families — and that’s the way I’d put it, it’s families, not just kids — there was every challenge imaginable,” Abbott, now 57, says. “Some accidents. Some birth defects. Some mental challenges that aren’t always visible to people when you first come across somebody. … They saw something in playing baseball with one hand that related to their own experience. I think the families coming to the ballparks were looking for hopefulness. I think they were looking for what it had been that my parents had told me, what it had been that my coaches had told me. … [With the kids] it was an interaction. It was catch. It was smiling. It was an autograph. It was a picture. With the parents, it ran deeper. With the parents, it was what had your parents said to you? What coaches made a difference? What can we expect? Most of all, I think, what can we expect?”
“It wasn’t asking for autographs,” Mead says of all those letters. “They weren’t asking for pictures. They were asking for his time. He and I had to have a conversation because this was going to be unique. You know, you could set up another player to come down and sign 15 autographs for this group or whatever. But it was people, parents, that had kids, maybe babies, just newborn babies, almost looking for an assurance that this is going to turn out all right, you know. ‘What did your parents do? How did your parents handle this?'”
One of the letters Abbott received came from an 8-year-old girl in Windsor, Ontario.
She wrote, “Dear Jim, My name is Tracey Holgate. I am age 8. I have one hand too. My grandpa gave me a picture of you today. I saw you on TV. I don’t know anyone with one hand. How do you feel about having one hand? Sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I feel okay about it. Most of the time I feel happy. I hope to see you play in Detroit and maybe meet you. Could you please send me a picture of you in uniform? Could you write back please? Here is a picture of me. Love, Tracey.”
Holgate’s letter is one of those that has remained preserved in a folder — and now Abbott is reading it again, at his kitchen table, half a lifetime after receiving it. Time has not diminished the power of the letter, and Abbott is wiping away tears.
Today, Holgate is 44 and goes by her married name, Dupuis. She is married with four children of her own. She is a teacher. When she thinks about the meaning of Jim Abbott in her life, it is about much more than the letter he wrote back to her. Or the autographed picture he sent her. It was Abbott, all those years ago, who made it possible for Tracey to dream.
“There was such a camaraderie there,” she says, “an ability to connect with somebody so far away doing something totally different than my 8-year-old self was doing, but he really allowed me to just feel that connection, to feel that I’m not alone, there’s other people that have differences and have overcome them and been successful and we all have our own crosses, we all have our own things that we’re carrying and it’s important to continue to focus on the gifts that we have, the beauty of it.
“I think sometimes differences, disabilities, all those things can be a gift in a package we would never have wanted, because they allow us to be people that have an empathetic heart, an understanding heart, and to see the pain in the people around us.”
Now, years after Abbott’s career ended, he continues to inspire.
Among those he influenced, there are professional athletes, such as Shaquem Griffin, who in 2018 became the first NFL player with one hand. Griffin, now 29, played three seasons at linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks.
Growing up in Florida, he would watch videos of Abbott pitching and fielding, over and over, on YouTube.
“The only person I really looked up to was Jim Abbott at the time,” Griffin says, “which is crazy, because I didn’t know anybody else to look up to. I didn’t know anybody else who was kind of like me. And it’s funny, because when I was really little, I used to be like, ‘Why me? Why this happen to me?’ And I used to be in my room thinking about that. And I used to think to myself, ‘I wonder if Jim Abbott had that same thought.'”
Carson Pickett was born on Sept. 15, 1993 — 11 days after Abbott’s no-hitter. Missing most of her left arm below the elbow, she became, in 2022, the first player with a limb difference to appear for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.
She, too, says that Abbott made things that others told her were impossible seem attainable.
“I knew I wanted to be a professional soccer player,” says Pickett, who is currently playing for the NWSL’s Orlando Pride. “To be able to see him compete at the highest level it gave me hope, and I think that that kind of helped me throughout my journey. … I think ‘pioneer’ would be the best word for him.”
Longtime professional MMA fighter Nick Newell is 39, old enough to have seen Abbott pitch for the Yankees. In fact, when Newell was a child he met Abbott twice, first at a fan event at the Jacob Javits Center in Manhattan and then on a game day at Yankee Stadium. Newell was one of those kids with a limb difference — like Griffin and Pickett, due to amniotic band syndrome — who idolized Abbott.
“And I didn’t really understand the gravity of what he was doing,” Newell says now, “but for me, I saw someone out there on TV that looked like I did. And I was the only other person I knew that had one hand. And I saw this guy out here playing baseball and it was good to see somebody that looked like me, and I saw him in front of the world.
“He was out there like me and he was just living his life and I think that I owe a lot of my attitude and the success that I have to Jim just going out there and being the example of, ‘Hey, you can do this. Who’s to say you can’t be a professional athlete?’ He’s out there throwing no-hitters against the best baseball players in the world. So, as I got older, ‘Why can’t I wrestle? Why can’t I fight? Why can’t I do this?’ And then it wasn’t until the internet that I heard people tell me I can’t do these things. But by then I had already been doing those things.”
Griffin.
Pickett.
Newell.
Just three of the countless kids who were inspired by Jim Abbott.
When asked if it ever felt like too much, being a role model and a hero, all the letters and face-to-face meetings, Abbott says no — but it wasn’t always easy.
“I had incredible people who helped me send the letters,” he says. “I got a lot more credit sometimes than I deserved for these interactions, to be honest with you. And that happened on every team, particularly with my friend Tim Mead. There was a nice balance to it. There really was. There was a heaviness to it. There’s no denying. There were times I didn’t want to go [to the meetings]. I didn’t want to walk out there. I didn’t want to separate from my teammates. I didn’t want to get up from the card game. I didn’t want to put my book down. I liked where I was at. I was in my environment. I was where I always wanted to be. In a big league clubhouse surrounded by big league teammates. In a big league stadium. And those reminders of being different, I slowly came to realize were never going to go away.”
But being different was the thing that made Abbott more than merely a baseball star. For many people, he has been more than a role model, more than an idol. He is the embodiment of hope and belonging.
“I think more people need to realize and understand the gift of a difference,” Dupuis says. “I think we have to just not box everybody in and allow everybody’s innate light to shine, and for whatever reasons we’ve been created to be here, [let] that light shine in a way that it touches everybody else. Because I think that’s what Jim did. He allowed his light to permeate and that light, in turn, lit all these little children’s lights all over the world, so you have this boom of brightness that’s happening and that’s uncontrollable, that’s beautiful.”
NEW YORK — Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong is projected to receive the largest amount from this season’s $50 million pre-arbitration bonus pool based on his regular-season statistics.
Crow-Armstrong is on track to get $1,091,102, according to WAR calculations through July 8 that Major League Baseball sent to teams, players and agents in a memo Friday that was obtained by The Associated Press.
He earned $342,128 from the pool in 2024.
“I was aware of it after last year, but I have no clue of the numbers,” he said Friday. “I haven’t looked at it one time.”
Crow-Armstrong, Skenes, Wood, Carroll, Brown, De La Cruz and Greene have been picked for Tuesday’s All-Star Game.
A total of 100 players will receive the payments, established as part of the 2022 collective bargaining agreement and aimed to get more money to players without sufficient service time for salary arbitration eligibility. The cutoff for 2025 was 2 years, 132 days of major league service.
Players who signed as foreign professionals are excluded.
Most young players have salaries just above this year’s major league minimum of $760,000. Crow-Armstrong has a $771,000 salary this year, Skenes $875,000, Wood $764,400 and Brown $807,400.
Carroll is in the third season of a $111 million, eight-year contract.
As part of the labor agreement, a management-union committee was established that determined the WAR formula used to allocate the bonuses after awards. (A player may receive only one award bonus per year, the highest one he is eligible for.) The agreement calls for an interim report to be distributed the week before the All-Star Game.
Distribution for awards was $9.85 million last year, down from $11.25 million in 2022 and $9.25 million in 2023.
A player earns $2.5 million for winning an MVP or Cy Young award, $1.75 million for finishing second, $1.5 million for third, $1 million for fourth or fifth or for making the All-MLB first team. A player can get $750,000 for winning Rookie of the Year, $500,000 for second or for making the All-MLB second team, $350,000 for third in the rookie race, $250,000 for fourth or $150,000 for fifth.
Kansas City shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. topped last year’s pre-arbitration bonus pool at $3,077,595, and Skenes was second at $2,152,057 despite not making his big league debut until May 11. Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson was third at $2,007,178.