October icon, Houston legend — and baseball’s biggest villain? The complicated legacy of Jose Altuve
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
HOUSTON — HERE, JOSE ALTUVE is safe. From the boos and hisses, the anger and loathing, the emotion his mere existence conjures. This man, baseball’s smallest player and yet one of its biggest stars, lives a binary existence. He is a villain in 29 stadiums. And then he comes home.
Here, in this proud and protective city, Altuve is not a hero. He is the hero, the face of the Houston Astros, the reigning World Series winners intent on becoming the first back-to-back champions in Major League Baseball this century. When Altuve steps to the plate in the bottom of the first inning tonight in the sixth game of the American League Championship Series against the Texas Rangers, the sold-out crowd at Minute Maid Park will rise and fete him — and with good reason. The Astros are one win shy of the World Series because of Altuve’s latest opus, a go-ahead three-run home run in the ninth inning of Game 5 that should burnish his legacy.
Altuve’s, though, is a legacy already written. In Houston, he can’t be touched; outside of it — fair or not — he is defined by the Astros’ actions in 2017, when they implemented a sign-stealing scheme en route to the franchise’s first World Series title. It matters not that several of his 2017 teammates say Altuve declined to use the system in which Astros employees banged on a trash can to inform hitters when an off-speed pitch was coming, nor that an analysis of regular-season games that year validated such claims.
How MLB handled the franchise’s scandal — the league validated the championship and opted not to punish the players despite commissioner Rob Manfred’s report twice referring to the scheme as “player-driven” — did Altuve no favors. He receives justice by voice box. The criticism never abates, except along the I-10 corridor from San Antonio into Louisiana and especially in Houston, where orange clothing connotes membership in a group that treats Altuve with a particular sort of veneration. Outside of it, the general public believes what it wants to believe.
Nearly four years after the breadth of the Astros’ cheating was exposed, the stain on Altuve is indelible. He lives with it — with the public perception about his involvement with the trash can bangs, with the charges that his knowledge of the system amounted to complicity no matter his level of involvement.
“I just don’t really have a lot to say about it,” Altuve told ESPN earlier this month. “I play for these guys, for my team. We have a big opportunity to win again. I want to put all my energy toward winning for my team versus getting distracted by paying attention to other things.”
Altuve’s ability to channel negative to positive reveals itself every October, when he is the undisputed king of active players. Following an atypical 2022 postseason in which he didn’t drive in a run, Altuve has whacked three home runs in these playoffs, all helping lead to wins. Among his current peers, he is the leader in almost every counting statistic: games played (101), plate appearances (466), total bases (211), hits (113), runs (86), singles (67), doubles (20) and home runs (26, three shy of Manny Ramirez’s all-time mark). The Astros’ current streak of LCS appearances stands at seven, one fewer than Atlanta’s major league record set in the 1990s. Another championship would further cement the Astros’ place as a dynasty.
Altuve is no small part in that. Since 2017, the Astros are 19-5 when Altuve goes deep in a playoff game. This is not mere correlation; he is the cause, and yet Altuve’s present accomplishments only further the vitriol toward him. The better he is today, the more it serves to remind of the past.
And so home games are Altuve’s respite, the salve on wounds that have not healed and might never. For 13 years Altuve has been a part of these fans’ lives. When October rolls around, the city coalesces around another march toward a championship, and everything is right again.
“Never gets old,” Altuve said. “As a team, a player, I enjoy every playoff game more. It’s about winning. Nothing else.”
IN THE WEEKS after the revelation of the sign-stealing scheme, Tony Adams sequestered himself in a room and went to work. A web developer and designer, Adams, born and raised about a half-hour outside Houston, culled footage of 58 Astros home games in 2017 and ran the audio through an app he created. Of the 8,274 pitches he listened to, he logged 1,143 pre-pitch noises. Some players were tipped on more than half the off-speed pitches they saw. Most of the Astros’ regulars were around 30%. Altuve was at 4.2%.
To Adams, now 57, the data did not definitively suggest that Altuve was innocent. Manfred’s report alluded to other methods of sign-stealing used by the team. But it was enough to convince Adams that on the continuum of Astros players cheating, Altuve was far from the most egregious offender.
That belief underpins the defense of Altuve by Astros fans like Adams. He understands the aspersions cast on the 2017 team. Like many others, though, he also sees the contempt toward Altuve as disproportionate to what the publicly available data suggests. Altuve’s refusal to separate himself from those with whom he wore a uniform — “I always say this is a team,” Altuve said in 2020, “and if we are something, we all are something” — only ingratiates him to his fans more.
“He’s the face of the franchise, and he’s so good, and he’s not going to defend himself,” Adams said. “That’s the way he is. I think he’s the ultimate teammate. I can’t imagine anybody not wanting him on the team. He’s taken all of this for the team. Never broke. Never got mad. Never wavered. It’s admirable.”
In another world, Adams’ brother likes to tell him, Altuve is the most popular player in the sport: a 5-foot-6 marvel, barely scouted and signed for just $15,000 out of Venezuela, who turned into a Hall of Fame-caliber second baseman. Since Altuve’s debut in 2011, he leads MLB with a .310 batting average and 1,819 hits, has whacked 200 home runs and stolen 293 bases, and ranks third in offensive wins above replacement behind Mike Trout and Freddie Freeman.
Because of this, his reverence in the Astros organization is unparalleled — though perhaps the same could be said about the rancor outside of it. Only three players on the Astros’ active roster remain from 2017: Altuve, third baseman Alex Bregman and right-hander Justin Verlander. As Astros players went elsewhere in free agency, the wrath concentrated toward those still around. George Springer, now with Toronto, receives the occasional sprinkling of heckles, and Carlos Correa, a Minnesota Twin, hears them slightly more frequently, but neither they nor Bregman faces anything close to the derision reserved for Altuve.
The booing of Altuve knows no bounds. Regardless of the crowd size, the score, his performance that day, he wears the aural disdain of those outside of Houston. And yet Altuve, still elite, bore the brunt and learned to play in this new paradigm.
“He does good when he gets booed,” Astros center fielder Mauricio Dubon said. “He doesn’t care. I think it’s funny. He seems to enjoy it, and [it seems like] he hits a home run every time they boo him. I really hope they boo him.”
“I hate it, because he’s a great human being,” Astros reliever Ryne Stanek said. “One of the nicest people that I’ve ever met. Humble, kind, obviously supremely talented and a very good baseball player, but a good human being. You never know walking into a clubhouse what a superstar is going to be like, especially in their prime. The crazy thing is he’s 33, and he’s got the second-most pumps in postseason history. You’ve got to be good for a long time to do that, but also you have to be on a team that gets there. And he’s a huge reason why this team gets there and has gotten there for seven years.”
That’s the rub, of course. Had Altuve’s play faded, had the Astros’ success dwindled, had there been some sort of penance for misdeeds real or imagined, perhaps that would have been karmic retribution enough — the comeuppance Manfred forwent when he traded immunity for players’ testimony during the league’s investigation. But Altuve has only thrived. Among players with at least 1,000 plate appearances since 2021, his adjusted OPS ranks 11th in baseball.
“He’s been the one that’s kept the window open,” Astros outfielder Chas McCormick said. “We’ve lost some great players when I was in the minor leagues and by the time I got up to the big leagues. But when you have Jose Altuve and you have Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez — I mean, you’re going to always be in great shape because those guys are great hitters.”
EVERY YEAR THE ASTROS make another October run, Altuve’s postseason résumé grows more impressive. Should Houston win tonight or in a potential Game 7, he will pass Yadier Molina during the World Series for the sixth-most playoff games in baseball history. Considering playoff expansion, Derek Jeter’s record of 158 postseason games is well within reach, especially if Altuve remains in Houston after the expiration of his seven-year, $163.5 million contract at the end of next season.
And for all the single-team stars who have landed elsewhere in free agency, Altuve in another city, another uniform, doesn’t seem right. His bond with Houston runs too deep. Together, they have weathered the lows and celebrated so many highs, from his three-homer game to kick off the division series in 2017 to the home runs in the final two games of the 2017 ALCS that ousted the New York Yankees to the pennant-winning shot off Aroldis Chapman in 2019. And yet even that pantheon moment for Altuve comes with a caveat: suspicion from those who believe the unproven theory that Altuve refused to let teammates rip his shirt off because he was wearing a buzzer to electronically transmit forthcoming pitch types, which Altuve has denied.
Manfred’s report said MLB’s “investigation revealed no violation of the [league’s sign-stealing] policy by the Astros in the 2019 season or 2019 postseason,” but skepticism toward the league’s efforts at accounting for the entirety of cheating across the sport keeps the buzzer theory alive. Nothing Altuve can do will quell the theories. His jersey will forever be like the briefcase in “Pulp Fiction,” hiding something mystical and important and impossible to truly know.
Altuve learned quickly not to rage against a narrative he cannot change. He prefers to write an alternative one at-bat by at-bat, like the one he had Friday night against Rangers closer Jose Leclerc. Less than 30 minutes after Astros reliever Bryan Abreu plunked Rangers outfielder Adolis Garcia with a 99 mph fastball that prompted the benches to clear, Altuve came to bat with two runners on and the Rangers ahead 4-2. On the second pitch, Leclerc unfurled a 90 mph changeup that tumbled low and inside. Altuve took that familiar hack — his left leg striding toward the plate, his back knee bending, his bat whipping through the strike zone — and sent the ball just over the outstretched glove of Rangers left fielder Evan Carter at the outfield fence.
“No. 1, he wants to be up there,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “No. 2, he’s got a high concentration level, because that’s what it takes in big moments like that: concentration, desire and relaxation all encompassed into one. And everybody can’t do all three of those things.
“And so, I mean, this dude is one of the baddest dudes I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some greats.”
Altuve stuck his tongue out as the ball left his bat, a reflexive move that was as Jordan-like as a baseball player can get. Rangers fans, stunned at the prospect of a third straight loss at home after carrying a decided advantage following a pair of road wins to kick off the series, were too shocked to boo. All they could do was shake their heads, lament their misfortune, add themselves to the list of teams that had been Altuve’d in October. He ran the bases with pure stoicism — no bat flip, no Eurostep, not even a smile, lest he invite animus beyond the regular dosage.
“This team deserves the best version of me, and that’s being focused,” Altuve said in early October. “I think that’s something you learn through the years. Like you said, I’m 33 now. You learn, you get older, you get better at some things and you still have to learn other things.
“My team makes everything easier for me because they play hard, they love the game, they love winning.”
His team, his support system, erupted in the dugout and poured onto the field to revel with him, and 250 miles away in Houston, his city exulted, saved again by the player whose career they’d helped save by believing the story they wanted to believe. And for the 26th time in the postseason, the time of year that always seems to bring out the best in him, Jose Altuve rounded the bases toward the plate and touched home, safe.
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Mark Schlabach
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said he doesn’t have interest in other jobs.
DeBoer, who has a 19-6 cumulative record and is in his second season with the ninth-ranked Crimson Tide, had been linked to Penn State‘s coaching vacancy.
“We’re extremely happy at Alabama,” DeBoer said Thursday ahead of this weekend’s SEC championship game against No. 3 Georgia.
“We’re extremely happy here, love the challenge, love the grind, love this place. There’s never been any link, there’s never been any conversation, there’s never been any interest either way. So I’m glad we can put that to bed right now.”
The Nittany Lions’ coaching search is ongoing after they fired James Franklin on Oct. 12. Penn State, which had national title aspirations for this season, started 3-3.
Other coaches who were linked to Penn State’s search, including Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea, Louisville’s Jeff Brohm, Georgia Tech’s Brent Key and BYU’s Kalani Sitake, agreed to contract extensions with their current schools.
Meanwhile, DeBoer said starting defensive end LT Overton and reserve defensive tackle Kelby Collins won’t be available to play against Georgia in Saturday’s contest (4 p.m. ET, ABC) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
DeBoer wouldn’t specify their injuries, calling them “illnesses, medical conditions — whatever you want to call it.”
Overton, a senior from Milton, Georgia, was listed as out on the SEC’s first availability report Wednesday. Collins was not included.
“Just trying to get through these next couple days here and kind of see,” DeBoer said. “Obviously, Kelby’s just popped up, too. Just trying to get through this weekend and kind of see where that’s at. We’ll understand more details when that time comes.”
Overton has 33 tackles and four sacks this season. He had six tackles and a half-sack in the Tide’s 24-21 win at Georgia on Sept. 27, which ended the Bulldogs’ 33-game home winning streak.
DeBoer added that running back Jam Miller, tight end Josh Cuevas and guard Kam Dewberry remain questionable for Saturday’s game.
The Bulldogs will be without starting center Drew Bobo, who injured his left foot in last week’s 16-9 victory against Georgia Tech.
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Max Olson
LUBBOCK, Texas — In December 2021, Jacob Rodriguez felt lost.
The young quarterback had just ended his freshman season at Virginia. Coach Bronco Mendenhall had unexpectedly stepped down. Rodriguez decided to transfer but had minimal tape as a college passer and few options. He had a creeping doubt, too, that maybe it was time to give up his quarterback dreams.
Texas Tech was willing to take a chance on him under two conditions: It didn’t have a scholarship available, and it didn’t need a QB. If Rodriguez wanted to come home to Texas and play for new coach Joey McGuire, he would have to learn to play linebacker.
Rodriguez took out a student loan to pay for school. He couldn’t find an apartment when he arrived in January 2022 and moved in with his older brother at the University Pointe apartments. He slept on the floor of his brother’s bedroom, on a foam queen mattress topper folded in half for a little more cushion.
He started sixth on the linebacker depth chart. He lifted weights twice a day to bulk up and watched film to figure out a position he had never played in high school. Back then, Rodriguez wasn’t envisioning someday becoming the All-America performer he is today.
“My biggest concern was not really trying to get a scholarship,” he said. “I was just trying to make the team. I’m fighting to survive.”
Four years later, Rodriguez is the Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and the best linebacker in college football. His No. 4 Red Raiders are about to play for a Big 12 championship. Then, they’ll advance to the College Football Playoff. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe it.
The mustachioed, cowboy hat-wearing captain married to a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter pilot is enjoying a historic senior season and experiencing a new level of fame this fall as Texas Tech pushes him for Heisman Trophy consideration. No other college defender over the past 20 years has put up the stats he has with more than 100 tackles, seven forced fumbles and four interceptions.
And Rodriguez is ready for more as the Red Raiders prepare for the program’s first Big 12 title game against No. 11 BYU on Saturday (noon ET, ABC).
“Man, it’s such a great story,” McGuire said. “In the age of all this money, which is great — I mean, I’m all for it, obviously — this is one of those great stories for college football.”
Rodriguez always had his believers as a record-setting quarterback coming out of Wichita Falls, Texas, but Heisman good? No, even those who know him best say this is getting ridiculous and see it as pure proof of his determination. If Rodriguez could tell his 19-year-old self where he’d be standing today after his humble beginnings?
“That was a long time ago,” Rodriguez said with a smile. “But I’m very proud of that. I think it’s something that I’ll hang my hat on for a long time.
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than here, doing what we’re doing.”
HIS CHILDHOOD DREAM was to become the starting quarterback of the Minnesota Vikings.
“Oh yeah, you betcha,” his brother Joshua Rodriguez said with a chuckle.
Jacob Rodriguez was born in Hastings, Minnesota, the youngest of five siblings in a family that competed in everything, from croquet to UNO to holiday pancake decorating. Joe and Ann Rodriguez signed up Jacob and his twin brothers Joshua and Jeremiah for wrestling at a young age because “we were breaking everything,” Joshua said.
Jacob got started at age 3 and won two youth state championships by the time he was 7, pinning every opponent he faced during his second title run.
“That’s one reason why he’s so good at tackling: all those single-leg and double-leg takedowns,” Joshua said.
When the family moved to Wichita Falls in 2010, the boys were eager to start playing tackle football. The twins would play linebacker at Rider High School. Jacob, a four-sport athlete, played varsity as a sophomore and went on to break school records with more than 10,000 career total yards and 106 touchdowns.
“He was the guy, the talk of the town,” Rider teammate Jed Castles said. “He was signing autographs when we went out to restaurants.”
Rider coach Marc Bindel occasionally let his star quarterback play safety, but Rodriguez was a QB first and foremost with a playing style that evoked Tim Tebow comparisons.
“We always called him Captain America,” Bindel said.
Rodriguez was an ESPN 300 recruit, but recruiters were split on his college projection: Should he play offense or defense? Then-Kansas State offensive coordinator Collin Klein gave him his first FBS offer in 2019 and saw his potential as an athletic quarterback.
But others saw something else. In a game against Canyon Randall during his junior year, Rodriguez made a fourth-and-1 play on defense they still talk about to this day. He burst through the line, grabbed the running back by his legs, lifted him in the air and slammed him on his back for the stop.
Bindel had a coach on his staff send the clip to then-Texas Tech defensive coordinator Keith Patterson. The next day, the Red Raiders offered Rodriguez a scholarship as a linebacker. Baylor would end up doing the same after McGuire became its outside linebackers coach in 2020. Rodriguez ultimately received more offers for defense than offense.
But Mendenhall and his Virginia coaches made Rodriguez a priority — and convinced him he could be their next Taysom Hill. His plans to fly out for a spring break official visit were canceled by COVID-19. Rodriguez still committed and enrolled without ever visiting campus.
“I think we all knew his best chance to make it big was going to be on defense,” Bindel said, “but in his heart, he wanted to play quarterback. And why would you not want to try to play quarterback in college?”
Virginia had an established starter in Brennan Armstrong, who broke single-season school records in 2021. But the Cavaliers also had a way to get Rodriguez on the field as a freshman. He agreed to back up Keytaon Thompson at their FBP (football player) position, a hybrid role in Robert Anae’s offense that could entail pretty much anything.
Rodriguez wore No. 98 and Thompson, a former quarterback at Mississippi State, wore No. 99. They lined up at slot receiver, outside receiver, tight end, running back or behind center. They would motion all over the field before the snap and throw blocks, run routes or take handoffs. It was intentional chaos, aimed at confusing opposing defenses.
“It was pure creativity,” Thompson said. “A lot of the stuff [Anae] came up with, I don’t even think he knew it would work. If it looked good, we’d go with it.”
It was an awful lot of running, so much so that Rodriguez said he went from 215 pounds to 185 during the season. He played 169 snaps but only four at quarterback. The rookie didn’t expect to become a Swiss Army knife on offense, but he embraced it.
“I was having a blast,” Rodriguez said. “I was just happy to be on the field.”
All these years later, Rodriguez believes he would’ve finished his college career at Virginia if Mendenhall hadn’t surprised everyone by resigning that December after a 6-6 season. Thompson called it a “totally unexpected curveball.”
“I loved it there and loved the people there,” Rodriguez said. “But I kind of went there to play for him.”
He made the 1,300-mile trek home to Wichita Falls, unsure what his future might hold. And his phone wasn’t ringing.
“There wasn’t a whole lot of buzz,” Bindel said.
TEXAS TECH ASSOCIATE head coach Kenny Perry excitedly called Bindel the morning after Red Raiders’ first spring practice in 2022.
“Jacob Rodriguez is a bad motherf—er,” Perry told him.
The high school coach’s reply?
“Yep, and he’s playing for free right now…”
After leaving Virginia, Rodriguez had asked a few people to reach out to McGuire on his behalf in the hopes he could join the Red Raiders. Two Rider teammates, Castles and E’Maurion “Dooda” Banks, played for Texas Tech. One of his former youth coaches, Dudley McAfee, is a Tech grad and knew McGuire well. All three vouched for Rodriguez to the new head coach.
“Dooda was like, ‘Coach, if we can get this guy on our team, we need to get him,'” McGuire said.
McGuire vowed he would put Rodriguez on scholarship as soon as one became available. These were the early days of NIL before collectives helped take care of walk-ons. Tech could provide him two meals a day, but he would need to take out a student loan to cover his classes and books.
“It was kind of one of those deals where, well, I got to go somewhere,” Rodriguez said.
More importantly, Rodriguez had to accept his future was on defense. Texas Tech already had three starter-caliber quarterbacks in future second-round pick Tyler Shough, Behren Morton and Donovan Smith.
Bindel has no doubt Rodriguez could’ve made it as a tough dual-threat QB such as Georgia Tech‘s Haynes King had he found the right opportunity. Rodriguez doesn’t fault other coaches for missing on him during his month in the portal, especially given his role with the Cavaliers.
“I really didn’t have any quarterback film,” he said. “I just had a whole bunch of other stuff.”
Ann Rodriguez suspects if he hadn’t gone to Virginia to play quarterback, he would’ve regretted never trying. He had received plenty of advice that linebacker was his best path to the NFL. It still wasn’t easy to give up his childhood dream.
“There were a lot of tears shed and a real thought process about it,” his mother said. “It took a lot of him really looking inward and deciding, ‘You know what? I’m going to do whatever it takes.'”
It was Joshua’s idea for Jacob to move in and save money. The brothers lived in a four-bedroom apartment with three random roommates they initially didn’t know. The bedroom was certainly tight quarters — the brothers had to share a bathroom and closet — and Jacob would sleep near the foot of Joshua’s bed. Eventually, they squeezed in a twin-sized mattress for him.
“To be honest, I wouldn’t even know if those guys would be able to say, ‘Yeah, I lived with Jacob Rodriguez,'” Joshua said. “He was never there. He’d go to workouts at 5 a.m. and was gone before they woke up. He’d come back at 9 p.m. after classes and film.”
Rodriguez said he’d go in for the 8 a.m. lifting session and come back at 2 p.m. for another while working to get back to 220 pounds for spring practice. His offensive knowledge helped, but learning to play his new position was a completely different challenge. Former Texas Tech inside linebackers coach Josh Bookbinder said Rodriguez had all the right traits coming out of high school to be a great linebacker — he just hadn’t played the position.
The hardest part early on was the physicality of Texas Tech practices. Quarterbacks never get touched in these settings. Rodriguez had to get the hang of hitting and getting hit day after day. “I’m like, ‘Dude, how can I sustain this?'” he said. If he were to queue up his 2022 practice film today, Rodriguez expects it would probably look “awful.” He barely had a clue.
“The one thing he showed really early was his effort was nonnegotiable,” Bookbinder said. “He may not have known exactly what he was doing at linebacker, but he was running his ass to the ball.”
Texas Tech coaches loved the potential they saw in the spring of 2022. When McGuire called Rodriguez into his office before August preseason camp, the linebacker genuinely didn’t know why. The head coach asked him to call his parents and let them know he was on scholarship.
“There was a lot to learn, but Jacob is a football dude,” McGuire said. “He was raw, but he picked up stuff so fast because he’s really intelligent. Football makes sense to him.”
All the little details — his footwork, hand use, the angles he took in tackling, how he struck ball carriers — came with reps and time as he graduated from playing on instincts to processing and better understanding formations, sets and situations. After playing backup snaps as a sophomore, Rodriguez’s development accelerated throughout his second offseason in Lubbock to earning a starting job entering 2023, but a foot injury sustained in the season opener sidelined him for most of the season.
“It’s like you had all the ingredients on the counter,” said Bookbinder, who’s now coaching at TCU. “You just had to mix them up and let it cook for a little bit.”
The Jacob Rodriguez who returned in 2024 was finally ready to put it all together with an All-Big 12 season, finishing second among all Power 4 defenders with 127 tackles. And the one who returned for his senior year in 2025?
“He’s the best player in college football,” Perry said.
SESI VAILAHI TOOK the handoff and ran up the middle. Rodriguez met the Oklahoma State running back in the hole and stood him up. But this wasn’t your typical tackle for loss.
Vailahi staggered backward, attempting to break free. Except the veteran linebacker wasn’t going for a takedown. No, he was thinking theft. Rodriguez ripped the football right out of Vailahi’s grip and ran the other way for a 69-yard touchdown.
Literally took it away and took it to the house.
Best defender in the country.
📺 @ESPNU | https://t.co/G56N3v07Kv https://t.co/SKua435dYH pic.twitter.com/1FGuLyRaEt
— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) October 25, 2025
He has been filling up the Heisman highlight reel week after week. Like the two Kansas State fumbles he punched out. The one-handed interception at Utah. The pick he deflected to himself against BYU, or the screen pass he jumped in front of against UCF.
“Every time you look up, he’s at the ball,” Morton said. “The way he can cause and flip momentum in a game, there’s not another player in the country who can do that.”
Rodriguez has created seven turnovers by himself. His FBS-leading seven forced fumbles are more than 53 teams have all season, including Georgia, Ole Miss and Notre Dame, and he’s four away from breaking Khalil Mack’s FBS career record of 16.
McGuire has plenty of respect for Indiana‘s Fernando Mendoza, Vanderbilt‘s Diego Pavia and Ohio State‘s Julian Sayin, the trio of quarterbacks currently leading the Heisman race with one week to go. But he’s not going to relent in campaigning for Rodriguez.
“The thing for me is there’s nobody at the quarterback position that is having a year that we haven’t seen before,” McGuire said. “He’s having a year at the linebacker position that we haven’t seen.”
For comparison: Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o finished with 113 tackles and seven interceptions but zero forced fumbles during his Heisman runner-up season in 2012. Te’o was the unquestioned top player on the No. 1 team in the country.
Rodriguez points to Texas Tech pass rusher David Bailey, their projected first-round pick with 12.5 sacks, as the best player they’ve got. His answers in news conferences offer praise toward teammates and coaches. But among his peers, there’s no question.
“This is a talented football team,” Morton said, “and it’s led by Jacob.”
McGuire shook up Texas Tech’s defense after an 8-5 finish in 2024. He brought in defensive coordinator Shiel Wood from Houston, splurged in the portal with a rebuilt defensive line that cost more than $7 million and inked arguably the top transfer class in the country.
Rodriguez considered going pro at the end of last season and went through senior day ceremonies before the home finale. But he put his trust in McGuire and watched as his coach and general manager James Blanchard assembled the kind of roster that could finally compete for a Big 12 championship.
“You could tell as soon as we put pads on for spring ball: Hey, we’re going to be a special group,” Rodriguez said. “I’ve never had this much fun playing football ever.”
Texas Tech’s determined efforts to make Rodriguez a Heisman finalist took a creative turn two weeks ago. Ahead of its home finale against UCF, McGuire texted Joe Rodriguez to break the news: Offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich was working on a Wildcat package to utilize Jacob at quarterback.
“I said, ‘Coach, that’s so freaking awesome,'” his dad said. “I’ve been pushing that for four years. I told him, ‘Be careful, because you’re going to let that beast out.'”
Joe did not warn his wife that this was in the works. Jacob’s wife, Emma, was the one who told her inside Jones AT&T Stadium, a few plays before the moment arrived in the first quarter. She asked her to try to stay calm. Texas Tech running back Cameron Dickey said he got goosebumps when he overheard Leftwich ask, “Is J-Rod ready?”
“He goes out there,” Ann said, “and we both immediately started crying.”
The home crowd got so loud that Rodriguez worried he might mess up the snap cadence. But his offensive line paved a wide-open lane for an easy 2-yard score. He got to go in and do it again Saturday at West Virginia.
Linebacker Jacob Rodriguez with his FIRST CAREER OFFENSIVE TD for @TexasTechFB ‼️
And he hit the Heisman as his celebration 👀 pic.twitter.com/zzOWSXR1Qr
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 15, 2025
“Just like old times, man,” said Thompson, his former Virginia teammate.
It was all so cathartic for those who know Rodriguez best, who watched how relentlessly he worked to turn into the linebacker he is today and know what he gave up getting here. The dream had to change along the way, but he wouldn’t change a thing now.
“We couldn’t have dreamt this up,” Ann Rodriguez said.
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