Connect with us

Published

on

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Just outside Denver, in the Front Range Urban Corridor, the best college football team in Colorado is flying under the radar.

At the Air Force Academy, that is usually by design. The capability is a state secret.

In this context, though, success leads to visibility. Off to the best start by a service academy in more than two decades and carrying the nation’s fourth-longest winning streak (11), No. 22 Air Force (6-0) opens its defense of the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy against Navy on Saturday (noon ET, CBS) as the top-ranked Group of 5 team in the country.

“We’ve always said if we go undefeated and win the conference, but we lose the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy and we lose against one of the service academies, it’s a wasted year,” said senior linebacker Bo Richter. “We want to go out and dominate every week, but these games [against Army and Navy] just mean so much more.”

This year, the stakes are raised. The usual ramifications exist, but with each win, the Falcons inch closer toward the possibility of claiming the Group of 5’s New Year’s Six bowl berth — an accomplishment that would stand as one of the most significant by a service academy in college football’s modern era.

If it seems as if the Falcons have come out of nowhere to their current perch, it should not. They are the only Group of 5 team to win at least 10 games in the past three full seasons (2019, 2021, 2022) and one of just seven at the FBS level. Only Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama and Michigan have better winning percentages over those seasons.

If it seems improbable, that checks out. Air Force’s elevated success in recent years has come despite a confluence of events that seemingly should have made winning more difficult.

In an era when teams reload and fill holes through the transfer portal, Air Force cannot. While other schools can attract talent with even modest name, image and likeness benefits, Air Force cadets are not eligible for the same. This year, the NCAA adopted a rule change in the name of player safety that had an outsized impact on the triple-option offenses employed only by the service academies. Even the U.S. Congress passed a law in December that, after this season, will eliminate the opportunity for service academy graduates to defer their service requirements and pursue professional sports.

Given all of that, it’s hard to make sense of Air Force’s incredible run.

“I don’t know if you can, if you just leave it unfiltered,” said coach Troy Calhoun, the former Air Force player in his 17th year as his alma mater’s head coach. “It might not make sense.”


FOR CALHOUN, GAME WEEKS against Army and Navy always present a unique dynamic.

“What resonates so strongly is you have players on both teams that are going to go serve,” he said. “You don’t get along for those three hours, but in a much bigger picture, holy cow, you just never know where you could be. All over the world, we’re really joined at the hip, and you don’t know if that’s going to be in the Middle East or if that’s in Korea or wherever that may be. That’s the reality of this game more than anything else.”

Roughly seven years ago, Calhoun went on a coach’s tour to visit troops overseas. There were multiple stops in Europe and the Middle East. At Ramstein Air Base in Germany, he was greeted by current Air Force defensive assistant Anthony Wright. At Aviano Air Base in Italy, he ran into former players who were flying F-16 fighter jets. And in Bahrain he saw an old nemesis: former Navy quarterback Ricky Dobbs, who set the NCAA record for touchdown runs by a quarterback in 2009 (27).

“We wanted to beat him so bad,” Calhoun said. “But when you go interact with the human being, your thought is, ‘I’m so glad this guy is on our side.'”

All three service academies face similar challenges. It’s hard enough, anywhere in college football, to piece together enough good players to be competitive. Adding the additional obligation of military service, plus demanding academic and physical obligations on top of football has a way of thinning out the talent pool.

“That’s hard to find,” Calhoun said. “And then you want somebody who can make a play in the open field on Saturdays, too.”

The barriers to entry have always been steep. Few high school players enter the recruiting process with a future military career in mind. The dream of an NFL career is exponentially more prevalent, and for many of those kids, the thought of signing with Air Force, Army or Navy can represent an admission that it is unlikely to come true.

In 2019, a policy change removed the requirement for service academy graduates to spend two years on active duty before they were allowed to pursue a career in professional sports. Instead, they were able to seek a waiver to defer their service and pursue professional sports immediately after graduation.

The way Calhoun saw it, the waiver system made sense. It didn’t mean anyone was getting out of their service obligation, only that in some cases it would be delayed. In theory, it allowed the academies to recruit more ambitious future leaders, which, at their cores, is what the academies are all about.

However, last year a congressional bill reversed the 2019 decision, reestablishing the two-year service requirement, although it did retain the waiver option for players through the current senior class.

“We’re waiting to see [what happens], and, candidly, I think that would be a mistake for our country [to reinstitute the two-year waiting period],” Calhoun said. “If they were to go play in the NFL, it’s the rarest of the rare, but if you went for two or three years, you’re still going to serve a good number of years on active duty or in the reserves.

“Why would we deter that? Why would we want to take somebody that’s maybe looking at Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Rice and the academies? We want that person. If they have those intangibles, the drive, the unity, the ability to build teamwork. We want them.”

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receivers coach Chad Hall was a standout running back and receiver at Air Force 2005-2007, and for the two years after graduation, he described himself as “the most boring 22-to-24-year-old you’ve ever met.”

That’s what it took to keep his NFL dream alive. Hall worked in aircraft maintenance after graduation.

“All I would do is wake up at 4 a.m., go to work, finish work, go train, go to sleep, wake up, do it all over again,” Hall said. “I didn’t take any leave during those two years just in case I had the opportunity to get into an [NFL] camp, I could take leave.”

When the opportunity arrived, he was ready. After Hall attended a pro day in Salt Lake City in March 2010, the Philadelphia Eagles signed him a few days later.

“For those next, really, two months, I flew to Philly on Sunday night, had practice Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Flew back Thursday on the 1:30 flight, landed in Salt Lake City, went straight to work,” Hall said. “Worked a half-day Thursday, got up, worked Friday, Saturday, Sunday until my flight and then flew back. I had leave saved up where I was able to take some days off, and my [Air Force] leadership was working with me.”

He went on to spend parts of five seasons in the NFL with the Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs and Jaguars.

For several current Air Force seniors, the possibility of making an immediate attempt at an NFL career while the rules still permit it is intriguing.

“I think I’m going to do it,” said Richter, who leads the team with 7.5 tackles for loss and will graduate as part of the winningest class in school history. “I know Trey Taylor, our safety is definitely going to try to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised if John Eldridge, our running back does it. There’s a lot of guys that are going to try to make that opportunity for themselves.”

Before Austin Cutting (2019) and Jordan Jackson (2022), it had been 20 years since an Air Force player was selected in the NFL draft. No one has been selected earlier than the sixth round.


AFTER LEADING THE nation in rushing yards the past three seasons, Air Force again ranks No. 1. The Falcons’ average (334.2) is nearly 60 yards more than Liberty‘s (274.6), the nation’s No. 2 rushing offense.

This comes despite an NCAA rule that was adopted in the offseason that prevents blocking below the waist when outside the tackle box, something Calhoun felt targeted the service academies.

“I mean, it had to be. Let’s be real here,” Calhoun said. “I am a full believer in player safety, and I don’t think this was a player safety item. I think part of it was there’s a style of play that you didn’t want to encounter. … The service academy part of it, I think that was a factor.”

Army coach Jeff Monken was so spooked by the perceived impact the rule change would have on the triple-option flexbone offense that he instituted wholesale changes in the offseason to include more snaps from the shotgun and more passing. After averaging 8.2 pass attempts per game over the past five seasons, the Black Knights are throwing the ball 16.2 times per game this year.

For the Falcons, there has been no noticeable difference. Only once in the past 20 years have they averaged more yards per carry (2011), and they’ve never averaged fewer penalties per game (2.67) in that same span than this year.

Part of the offense’s success this season is a credit to the emergence of first-year starting quarterback Zac Larrier, the former Mountain West Conference 200-meter track champion, who is second on the team with 473 yards rushing. However, the Falcons will be without Larrier, a senior, against Navy — and for the foreseeable future — after he injured a knee in the 34-27 win against Wyoming on Saturday.

Larrier was replaced in the fourth quarter against the Cowboys by senior Jensen Jones, who proceeded to lose fumbles on back-to-back snaps before later icing the game with a 14-yard run.

“I wouldn’t say [losing Larrier] really impacts us a lot,” center Thor Paglialong said. “Zac, Jensen, Ben [Brittain], they’ve all been taking reps, so we’re confident with whoever we put back there.”

It helps that the Air Force defense ranks No. 9 nationally in scoring (14.7 PPG), and although that number is impacted by the fewer possessions in game dictated by Air Force’s offensive approach, the Falcons still rank No. 9 among Group of 5 schools in points allowed per drive (1.6).

Only Oregon and LSU average more points per drive in the FBS than the Falcons (3.84), who are one of just four teams to score touchdowns on at least 50% of their offensive drives this season.

Without the option to add players through the transfer portal, Air Force — the same goes for Army and Navy — has become even more of an outlier. Perhaps that’s a strength. It would partially help explain how Air Force is winning in the face of disadvantages.

“Coach Calhoun said this a couple weeks ago, but we don’t get ready-made guys,” Richter said. “We develop talent here. That’s so true. You see coaches ID a guy they want and say, ‘That’s the guy who is going to be the future of this position.’ Then you see them pour into these guys and see them blossom.”

At 6-0, there’s a temptation for Air Force to look ahead. Going to the Peach Bowl to play, say, Alabama carries a lot more intrigue than the Mountain West’s best bowl bid to play a midtier Pac-12 team in Los Angeles at the end of the year.

Recently, Richter overheard a teammate talking about how they could go undefeated. He shut it down quickly.

“It’s cool that we’re 6-0, but no one is going to remember that Air Force was 6-0 halfway through the season if you lose three games and go 10-3,” Richter said. “Nobody would care.”

At least that’s the case in these Rocky Mountains parts.

Continue Reading

Sports

Buffs coach: Stars ‘should be going 1-2’ in draft

Published

on

By

Buffs coach: Stars 'should be going 1-2' in draft

BOULDER, Colo. — For the horde of NFL talent evaluators and some bleachers full of fans, Colorado coach Deion Sanders said Friday that they all got to see the top two players available in this year’s NFL draft.

Quarterback Shedeur Sanders and Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter were among the 16 Colorado players who took part in the school’s showcase event for scouts, coaches and personnel executives from every NFL team. And Deion Sanders said the two marquee players confirmed what he has known for a long time.

“It’s tremendous,” Sanders said. “… They should be going 1-2 [in the draft], that’s the way I feel about it. They are the two best players in this draft. … The surest bets in this draft are those two young men, and I didn’t stutter or stammer when I said that.”

Neither Shedeur Sanders nor Hunter took part in most of the position drills or physical testing, but Sanders had a throwing session for just under an hour and Hunter was one of the wide receivers who participated. Neither player worked out at the scouting combine earlier this year, so it was the first time Sanders had thrown in such a setting since the end of the season. He showed some full seven-step drops and play-action from the shotgun and under center.

“I think I did pretty good, to my expectations,” said Sanders, who set the career FBS accuracy mark in his two years at Colorado (71.8%) to go with his 4,134 passing yards and 37 touchdowns last season. “I know I did the best in college football right now, for sure.”

Asked after the throwing session whether he believed he was the best quarterback in the draft, Sanders said: “I feel like I’m the No. 1 quarterback, and that’s what I know. But at the end of the day, I’m not stuck on that because it’s about the situation, so whatever situation, whatever franchise believes in me, I’m excited to go. … I’m comfortable in any situation.”

Players Hunter, who did not speak to the media after the workout, and Sanders met with the Cleveland Browns contingent, including team co-owner Jimmy Haslam, on Thursday night in Boulder.

“They got me really full,” Sanders said. “I definitely needed to go to the sauna after that. … It was a good vibe.”

Said Deion Sanders said: “[I] spoke to the owner, truly delightful. He was engaging. … I think one of those guys is going to be there [at No. 2].”

Hunter, the No. 1 player on Mel Kiper Jr.’s Big Board, did not do any defensive drills Friday, but he ran a full assortment of routes.

Colorado safety Shilo Sanders, Shedeur’s brother, offered plenty of encouragement, shouting commentary and clapping after each throw, including “not a lot of quarterbacks can make that throw” after one deep completion.

The highly attended event — by NFL representatives as well as fans packing small bleachers — had a festive atmosphere. Deion Sanders named it the “We Ain’t Hard 2 Find Showcase,” complete with a large lighted “The Showcase” sign next to the drills.

Hunter, who has said he wants to play offense and defense in the NFL, won the Chuck Bednarik (top defensive player) and Fred Biletnikoff (top receiver) awards in addition to the Heisman. He said whether he will primarily be a wide receiver or a cornerback in the NFL depends “on the team that picks me.”

On Friday, Deion Sanders said “ain’t nobody like Travis.”

Hunter had 96 catches for 1,258 yards and 15 touchdowns as a receiver last season to go with 35 tackles, 11 pass breakups and 4 interceptions at cornerback. In the Buffaloes’ regular-season finale against Oklahoma State, he became the only FBS player in the past 25 years with three scrimmage touchdowns on offense and an interception in the same game, according to ESPN Research.

He played 1,380 total snaps in Colorado’s 12 regular-season games: 670 on offense, 686 on defense and 24 on special teams. He played 1,007 total snaps in 2023.

Shilo Sanders, who hoped to show teams more speed than expected, ran a 4.52 40-yard dash after he measured in at 5-foot-11⅞, 196 pounds. He did not participate in the jumps or bench press that opened the workout, citing a right shoulder injury.

With all NFL eyes on the Colorado campus to see Shedeur Sanders throw, one player who made the most of it was wide receiver Will Sheppard. Sheppard, who measured 6-2¼, 196 pounds, ran the 40 in 4.56 and 4.54 to go with a 40½-inch vertical jump and a 10-foot-11 broad jump.

Continue Reading

Sports

O’s Henderson off IL; will make ’25 debut vs. KC

Published

on

By

O's Henderson off IL; will make '25 debut vs. KC

Baltimore Orioles All-Star shortstop Gunnar Henderson was activated from the 10-day injured list and will make his season debut Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.

Henderson has been sidelined with a right intercostal strain and missed the first seven games of the big league campaign.

The 23-year-old Henderson will lead off and play shortstop against the host Royals.

Henderson was injured during a spring training game Feb. 27. He was fourth in American League MVP voting last season when he batted .281 and racked up career bests of 37 homers and 92 RBIs.

Henderson completed a five-game rehab stint at Triple-A Norfolk on Wednesday. He batted .263 (5-for-19) with two homers and four RBIs and played four games at shortstop and one as the designated hitter. He did commit three errors.

“I think everybody’s looking forward to having Gunnar back on the team,” Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde said Thursday. “The rehab went really, really well. I talked to him a couple days ago, he feels great swinging the bat. The timing came, especially the last few days. He just had to get out there and get some reps defensively and get some games in, and it all went well.”

Baltimore optioned outfielder Dylan Carlson to Triple-A Norfolk to open up a roster spot. The 26-year-old was 0-for-4 with a run and RBI in two games this season.

Continue Reading

Sports

Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

Published

on

By

Life after OMG: Can 2025 Mets replicate their 2024 vibes?

When New York Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns attempted to assemble the best possible roster for the 2025 season this winter, the top priority was signing outfielder Juan Soto. Next was the need to replenish the starting rotation and bolster the bullpen. Then, days before pitchers and catchers reported for spring training, the lineup received one final significant reinforcement when first baseman Pete Alonso re-signed.

Acquiring a player with a singing career on the side didn’t make the cut.

“No, that is not on the list,” Stearns said with a smile.

Stearns’ decision not to re-sign Jose Iglesias, the infielder behind the mic for the viral 2024 Mets anthem “OMG,” was attributed to creating more roster flexibility. But it also hammered home a reality: The scrappy 2024 Mets, authors of a magical summer in Queens, are a thing of the past. The 2025 Mets, who will report to Citi Field for their home opener Friday, have much of the same core but also some prominent new faces — and the new, outsized expectations that come with falling two wins short of the World Series, then signing Soto to the richest contract in professional sports history.

But there’s a question surrounding this year’s team that you can’t put a price tag on: Can these Mets rekindle the magic — the vibes, the memes, the feel-good underdog story — that seemed to come out of nowhere to help carry them to Game 6 of the National League Championship Series last season?

“Last year the culture was created,” Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor said. “It’s a matter of continuing it.”

For all the success Stearns has engineered — his small-market Milwaukee Brewers teams reached the postseason five times in eight seasons after he became the youngest general manager in history in 2015 — the 40-year-old Harvard grad, like the rest of his front office peers knows there’s no precise recipe for clubhouse chemistry. There is no culture projection system. No Vibes Above Replacement.

“Culture is very important,” Stearns said last weekend in the visiting dugout at Daikin Park before his club completed an opening-weekend series against the Houston Astros. “Culture is also very difficult to predict.”

Still, it seems the Mets’ 2024 season will be all but impossible to recreate.

There was Grimace, the purple McDonald’s blob who spontaneously became the franchise’s unofficial mascot after throwing out a first pitch in June. “OMG,” performed under Iglesias’ stage name, Candelita, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Latin Digital Songs chart, before a remix featuring Pitbull was released in October. Citi Field became a karaoke bar whenever Lindor stepped into the batter’s box with The Temptations’ “My Girl” as his walk-up song. Alonso unveiled a lucky pumpkin in October. They were gimmicks that might have felt forced if they hadn’t felt so right.

“I don’t know if what we did last year could be replicated because it was such a chaos-filled group,” Mets reliever Ryne Stanek said. “I don’t know if that’s replicable because there’s just too many things going on. I don’t know if that’s a sustainable model. But I think the expectation of winning is really important. I think establishing what we did last year and coming into this year where people are like, ‘Oh, no, that’s what we’re expecting to do,’ makes it different. It’s always a different vibe whenever you feel like you’re the hunter versus being the hunted.”

For the first two months last season, the Mets were terrible hunters. Lindor was relentlessly booed at Citi Field during another slow start. The bullpen got crushed. The losses piled up. The Mets began the season 0-5 and sunk to rock bottom on May 29 when reliever Jorge Lopez threw his glove into the stands during a 10-3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers that dropped the team to 22-33.

That night, the Mets held a players-only meeting. From there, perhaps coincidentally, everything changed. The Mets won the next day, and 67 of their final 107 games.

This year, to avoid an early malaise and to better incorporate new faces like Soto and Opening Day starter Clay Holmes, players made it a point to hold meetings during spring training to lay a strong foundation.

“At the end of the day, we know who we are and that’s the beauty of our club,” Alonso said. “Not just who we are talent-wise, but who each individual is as a man and a personality. For us, our major, major strength is our collective identity as a unit.”

Organizationally, the Mets are attempting a dual-track makeover: Becoming perennial World Series contenders while not taking themselves too seriously.

The commemorative purple Grimace seat installed at Citi Field in September — Section 302, Row 6, Seat 12 in right field — remains there as part of a two-year contract. Last week, the franchise announced it will feature a New York-city themed “Five Borough” race at every home game — with a different mascot competing to represent each borough. For a third straight season, USA Today readers voted Citi Field — home of the rainbow cookie egg roll, among many other innovative treats — as having the best ballpark food in baseball.

In the clubhouse, their identity is evolving.

“I’m very much in the camp that you can’t force things,” Mets starter Sean Manaea said. “I mean, you can, but you don’t really end up with good results. And if you wait for things to happen organically, then sometimes it can take too long. So, there’s like a nudging of sorts. It’s like, ‘Let’s kind of come up with something, but not force it.’ So there’s a fine balance there and you just got to wait and see what happens.”

Stearns believes it starts with what the Mets can control: bringing positive energy every day and fostering a family atmosphere. It’s hard to quantify, but vibes undoubtedly helped fuel the Mets’ 2024 success. It’ll be a tough act to follow.

“It’s fluid,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “I like where guys are at as far as the team chemistry goes and things like that and the connections and the relationships. But it’ll continue to take some time. And winning helps, clearly.”

Continue Reading

Trending