A QB masterclass and an epic close to Bedlam, Week 10 featured CFB’s best
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
Two games featuring four top-20 teams kicked off at roughly the same time Saturday night, and for the better part of the next three-and-a-half hours, the four quarterbacks involved put on a master class of how the game should be played.
In Tuscaloosa, Jayden Daniels was a magician, but it was Jalen Milroe who delivered the most astonishing trick, completing his transformation from benchwarmer in Week 3 to utterly dominant in Week 10.
In Los Angeles, last year’s Heisman winner worked his own magic, but it was this year’s favorite to take home that hardware who delivered the win.
0:39
USC’s flea-flicker pays off for a 41-yard TD
Caleb Williams snags the pitch from Zachariah Branch and launches a beauty to Tahj Washington for a Trojans touchdown.
Never mind that Daniels’ day was cut short by a brutal hit from Dallas Turner. Never mind that Washington’s explosiveness came at the expense of USC’s abysmal defense. Never mind that the Tide and Huskies ultimately pulled away enough to erase any chance for late drama.
Like all great magic tricks, Saturday’s performances weren’t worth dissecting to figure out how they’re done. The enjoyment comes from simply sitting back and being amazed.
Milroe’s progress has been nothing short of astounding. He lost to Texas, was benched against USF, and for most of September, Alabama‘s title hopes seemed all but extinguished thanks to an offense without an answer at QB. And on Saturday, Milroe tallied 374 yards of offense and four touchdowns in a 42-28 win over rival LSU. How was this the same player?
Years from now, psychologists will study Nick Saban’s decision to bench Milroe after that early loss. It was an act of sheer brilliance, a move that allowed Milroe to both see he need not worry about looking over his shoulder while also forcing him to embrace his role as leader, pushing his team from the bench and earning the respect of every player on the field in the process. What other coach in the country would’ve had the guts to make that move? Saban is playing chess. Everyone else is playing Connect Four.
Michael Penix Jr. wasn’t even the centerpiece of Washington‘s offensive attack Saturday against USC. He threw for 256 yards and accounted for three touchdowns, but the mere threat of Penix’s arm made life a breeze for tailback Dillon Johnson, who rushed for 256 yards and four touchdowns in the 52-42 win.
1:40
Dillon Johnson cooks USC for 256 yards and 4 TDs
Dillon Johnson runs circles around USC’s defense and scores four touchdowns to lead the Huskies to a 52-42 win.
How easy was it for Johnson? According to ESPN Stats & Information, he ran for 199 yards before first contact. We’d say it would be hard for a back to do that against 11 traffic cones, but that comparison might be giving USC’s defense too much credit.
In his loss, Daniels showed he belongs in the Heisman discussion — and perhaps should be at the forefront of it — but his late injury hurts the cause, and LSU’s third loss makes the case a long shot.
In his loss, Caleb Williams saw yet another brilliant performance undercut by Alex Grinch’s defense. Grinch has become Bizzaro Brian Ferentz, and it’s hard to envision a scenario in which he escapes a similar fate. (Though we’d give anything to see the movable force of USC’s D take on the stoppable object of Iowa‘s offense before the two ride off into the sunset.)
In all, Milroe, Penix, Williams and Daniels combined to complete 70% of their throws, tallied more than 1,300 yards and accounted for 14 touchdowns. It was like watching Michelangelo, DaVinci, Picasso and the woman who made that Tom Brady courtroom sketch all take to the canvas together.
It’s certainly possible the 2023 season will deliver another game or two that inspire such awe, but the odds are slim. Saturday’s fireworks were something special, something some fans (cough, cough … we’re looking at you, Big Ten) go decades without experiencing.
There were clear playoff implications involved here, and there were genuine questions raised about whether Alabama or Washington could weather the storm that remains on their schedules. But all of that is conversation for another day.
On Saturday, there was only the sheer exhilaration of four men doing their job just about as well as it can be done.
An epic close to Bedlam
A Heisman contender put on a show. A man named Stoops was everywhere. Both QBs threw for more than 300 yards. Mike Gundy slicked back his hair and donned a pair of sunglasses to look like a grizzled old fighter pilot called out of retirement for one last mission.
This was Bedlam: Endgame.
1:20
Oklahoma State storms the field after upsetting Oklahoma
Oklahoma State fans storm the field after upsetting Oklahoma 27-24.
There have been better, bigger showdowns in the rivalry, of course, but none that came with quite the stakes of Saturday’s final installment. Yes, both teams were ranked in the top 25 and both had conference title aspirations. And on both sides, there were genuine star turns. But what really mattered, more than the records or the rankings or the championship repercussions was this: The winner stays the winner — now, next year and for the foreseeable future.
On Saturday, Oklahoma State — long cast as the little brother — sent big brother off with a swift kick in the rear.
So of course Cowboys fans charged the field as Drake Stoops was wrangled short of the line to gain on fourth down. It was his 12th catch of the game, and it wasn’t enough. “Happy Trails to You” echoed over the sound system, and Oklahoma slinked off into a future in the SEC with a loss to the Pokes etched eternally on their souls.
And of course Alan Bowman hugged every offensive lineman he could find when Oklahoma State’s 27-24 win was secured. He was part of a QB carousel that included Garret Rangel, Gunnar Gundy and possibly a few guys Mike Gundy found asleep outside Eskimo Joe’s, but he emerged as the clear starter after an embarrassing loss to South Alabama and helped turn the Pokes’ season around.
And without question, the Heisman conversation must now include Ollie Gordon, who carried the ball 33 times for 137 yards, scoring twice. Gordon got three carries in that loss to South Alabama. Since then, he has had 120 yards or more in every game. Saturday was actually a step back for him, as he battled an injury and a ferocious Oklahoma front but willed himself down the field, carry after carry. It wasn’t pretty. It was just emphatic.
Earlier this week, Gundy lamented a time when the Bedlam rivalry was ugly and brutal on the field, when he and Brian Bosworth took turns spitting in each other’s faces — which, in fairness, was considered a formal greeting throughout much of the mid-1980s in Oklahoma.
Mike Gundy said Bedlam used to be more a rivalry, back before social media.
“It was a rivalry then. Bosworth spit in my face and I spit in his.” pic.twitter.com/aQh7VUZkQz
— The REF (@KREFsports) October 30, 2023
This time around, the trash talk was done in the media, with former Oklahoma State D-lineman Trace Ford, who transferred to Oklahoma, trashing Gundy, the Cowboys, and Oklahoma State fans, whom he said were “bandwagoners for sure.”
Well, the bandwagon is bursting at the seams now, while Oklahoma’s seems to have broken down somewhere on the side of I-40.
In Norman, they’ll talk about the frustrating penalties — including a 15-yarder on Brent Venables, who might have invented several new epithets to call the officials on what proved to be the winning touchdown drive for Oklahoma State. They’ll talk, too, about the non-call on what looked like a textbook pass interference against Stoops in the end zone on a drive that ended with a field goal. They’ll talk about the final throw, that Stoops corralled well short of a first down. They’ll talk about what might’ve been if Oklahoma hadn’t melted down in each of the past two weeks to watch championship aspirations disappear into the ether.
And then they’ll never speak of this again.
Mike Gundy said he goes home after games and drinks a Diet Coke and watches other teams with a Big Chief notebook and a crayon. When asked what his favorite flavor of Diet Coke was, he said, “Well, I love whiskey.”
— Dave Wilson (@dwil) November 5, 2023
In Stillwater, however, Saturday’s Bedlam finale is destined to become legend, a story passed from generation to generation until, at least, another installment comes to fruition. Because it doesn’t matter that Oklahoma won 91 of the 117 previous meetings. The Cowboys won this one, the last one, the one that will remain as sweet as an Ollie Gordon jump cut until the college football gods — or Oklahoma’s AD — breathes life into the rivalry once more.
Texas, Ohio State tested
Oh, what chaos might’ve been in Saturday’s early slate. Ohio State spent much of Saturday afternoon flummoxed by Rutgers‘ defense and unable to corral Kyle Monangai. Texas jumped out to a big lead, then handed Kansas State one chance after another after another.
The No. 1 team was on the ropes.
The No. 7 team saw its playoff hopes flickering.
And in the end, the favorites clung to victory like so many loose opossums.
thinking about the legend pic.twitter.com/UwIswipWJj
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) November 3, 2023
The committee rewarded the Buckeyes by placing them atop the first playoff rankings last week, in spite of their repeated offensive hiccups. The obvious counterargument was that Ohio State had played quality opponents and still won. On Saturday, however, Kyle McCord looked lost for long stretches, relying almost exclusively on Marvin Harrison Jr. in the red zone, and the Buckeyes finished with fewer than 400 yards of offense for the fifth time this season — something they’d done just four times total in the previous four seasons.
The committee considered Texas the second-best of the one-loss teams, providing the Longhorns with a pretty clear path to the playoff if they won out. And they had Saturday’s game against Kansas State well in hand, leading 27-7 in the final seconds of the third quarter. But Will Howard responded with three second-half TD passes, and Chris Tennant drilled a 45-yard field goal with 1 second left to send the game to overtime.
And yet, both survived, almost in spite of themselves.
Ohio State scored on a pick-six off a tipped ball and got 208 of its 328 yards from TreVeyon Henderson, including a 65-yard catch-and-run that was the dagger for Rutgers.
Texas overcame two Maalik Murphy interceptions largely because Kansas State botched two late kicks — one a PAT that would’ve given the Wildcats the lead and the other a short field goal.
And yet both remain contenders for a playoff berth because a win is a win.
Still, it’s hard not to have watched both games unfold, almost simultaneously, like college football’s version of a Jardiance commercial — confounding plot lines, sudden shifts in perspective, weirdly captivating. Was this good football? High drama? An important data point in an otherwise still mystifying season?
This is perhaps the real beauty of this season thus far. The flaws all seem so evident in the nation’s top teams — from QB concerns to marginal run games to ex-military operatives who may or may not have been wearing night vision goggles outside Ryan Day’s house earlier this year. But those flaws all seem to evaporate when the game is on the line, and chalk prevails.
The hope for Ohio State and Texas is that those battle wounds heal over, and the scars serve only as a reminder of how narrow the margins can be; that the tough wins make them stronger because every grueling, ugly victory is better than a loss.
Or perhaps the 2023 season is just saving its biggest moments for the very end, a twist buried deep into the final chapters when it’s revealed this whole song-and-dance was actually just a commercial shoot and the wardrobe people step in and — man, that Jardiance commercial is catchy.
Dabo Swinney spent 18 months selling commercial real estate before landing on Tommy Bowden’s staff at Clemson 20 years ago. He took time last week to reminisce about that time in his life, noting in the wake of Clemson’s 4-4 start and a revolt by fans — or, at least one of them in Spartanburg — that sometimes the lowest moments set the table for the greatest victories.
After Saturday’s 31-23 win over No. 15 Notre Dame, Swinney wasn’t talking about his old career. He was headlong into his new one as a financial adviser.
“If Clemson’s a stock,” Swinney shouted after the game, “you better buy all you freakin’ can buy!”
“If Clemson’s a stock, you better buy all you freakin’ can buy right now!”
Dabo was FIRED UP after taking down No. 15 Notre Dame ? pic.twitter.com/chfM7Oo66V
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 4, 2023
It was a mammoth win after a brutal two months to start the 2023 season.
The past week felt like either a turning point or an ending point for Swinney after he first ripped a caller into his radio show with “an Old Testament answer” then doubled down during his weekly media session saying he wouldn’t allow critics to “steal my joy.” Indeed, this was essentially Swinney’s “Eras Tour,” as he took fans through more than a decade of his greatest hits, from confounding analogies (“even healthy trees need pruning”) to vague threats (“you can apply for the job, and good luck to you”) to lamentations of the downfall of American culture (“our society today…”), and even sprinkled in a few grievance deep cuts along the way (“I worked my ass off every single day.”) Heck, he might have quoted “Shake It Off” a few times, too.
More than anything, however, Swinney referred back to his latest banger: It’s all about the turnovers. And Saturday proved he was right.
Clemson recovered a muffed punt and turned that into a touchdown, then saw Jeremiah Trotter Jr. return a pick-six that buried Notre Dame. With a half-dozen starters out for the game, Phil Mafah carried 36 times for 186 yards and two touchdowns, and Swinney won for the 166th time as Clemson’s head coach, moving him past Frank Howard for the most victories in program history.
For Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman, it was another brutal afternoon against his archnemesis. Hartman completed just 13 of 30 passes with two interceptions, finishing his college career with an 0-5 record against the Tigers. He’ll carry that burden the rest of his life, with only his NIL money, his Wake Forest degree, his awesome rib necklace, his amazing head of hair and his numerous ACC records to provide solace. He has our deepest sympathies.
But if the game was a brutal ending for Hartman against Clemson, it felt like a new beginning for the Tigers. Eight years ago, Clemson beat Notre Dame at home and it was the spark in a season that ended with Swinney throwing a pizza party for the entire fan base. Saturday’s win was a big one, too, and it could end with Swinney ordering a dozen pizzas to be delivered to Tyler in Spartanburg’s house at 3 a.m.
Top teams keep rolling
A quick recap of Michigan‘s week:
Jim Harbaugh insulted house plants because he was once offended by a fern wearing an Ohio State hat.
Connor Stalions resigned his post as director of covert oper– ah, graduate assistant. Yeah, that’s it.
Big Ten athletic directors pressured commissioner Tony Petitti to deliver some righteous fury as punishment for the thing for which Michigan has yet to be formally convicted.
A Michigan fan site suggested the spying allegations are all a result of a top-secret investigation by Ryan Day’s brother, who might also just have been Ryan Day wearing a top hat and sunglasses.
Michigan’s president sent a letter to Petitti asking how many Ts are supposed to be in his name and also not to jump to any conclusions about the spying.
From inside his lair hidden deep inside Mt. Rushmore, Harbaugh inched ever closer to acquiring yet another Infinity Stone.
And the Wolverines beat Purdue 41-13 because the Boilermakers are awful and definitely not because Hudson Card is actually a deep-state plant who has actually been working for the Wolverines for the past nine years.
Anyway, we hope Mr. Stalions enjoyed the New Mexico game Saturday.
Lmao New Mexico ?? pic.twitter.com/1wi6Uwjk56
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) November 5, 2023
Jordan Travis‘ 360 yards passing and two touchdowns helped secure a 24-7 Florida State win over Pitt that secured an ACC championship game berth for the Seminoles — their first since 2014. The win did come with a bit of controversy as Pitt tight end Gavin Bartholomew was flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct while on the sideline as the Panthers were driving deep into FSU territory in the third quarter, trailing by just 3. What Bartholomew said to warrant the flag remained a mystery, but we’re assuming he told the refs that putting French fries on a turkey club was a completely normal thing to do. Regardless, FSU did snap a 14-game streak of scoring at least 30 points, which, given that the committee seems to find the Seminoles interesting only if they win by 100, seems like a real red flag.
Big man Nazir Stackhouse showed off his speed on a game-clinching interception, and the tandem of Carson Beck and Ladd McConkey helped fend off a strong effort from Missouri to keep Georgia undefeated with a 30-21 win. Then the law firm of Beck and McConkey helped several people with a structured settlement get cash immediately.
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Big man intercepts Mizzou late in the 4th to give Georgia the ball back
Nazir Stackhouse intercepts Brady Cook and returns it inside Georgia territory short of a touchdown.
Oregon demolished Cal 63-19 behind a six-touchdown performance from Bo Nix. Of course, there’s no way the Ducks QB can keep up this pace moving forward … and, no, sorry we’re being told he plays USC’s defense next week. He might hang 100 on it.
Louisville took a big step toward an appearance in the ACC title game with a dominant 34-3 win over Virginia Tech. The Cardinals’ D was tremendous, holding the Hokies to just 140 total yards — 2.7 yards per play — and 2-of-12 on third- and fourth-down tries. Meanwhile, Wisconsin transfer Isaac Guerendo rushed 11 times for 146 yards and three touchdowns in the win. Louisville is now 5-1 in ACC play, putting it a game up on six different teams with two league losses. It owns head-to-head wins over five of them. Louisville can clinch next week with a win over Virginia and a North Carolina loss to Duke.
Heisman Five
Trying to sort out the Heisman race before November has usually been a fool’s errand, but we’ve reached November and this year’s race remains arguably as chaotic as any in recent memory. There are at least seven or eight players with genuine cases, and Saturday’s games only bolstered those cases across the board. So, who do we have? Please burn these after reading. We don’t want to be accountable for this when we change our mind later.
1. Ohio State WR Marvin Harrison Jr.
Saturday’s game wasn’t Harrison’s most prolific. He had just 25 yards receiving against an impressive Rutgers secondary. But two of his catches went for touchdowns, which were absolutely critical for a Buckeyes offense that looked flummoxed at times.
2. Oklahoma State RB Ollie Gordon II
After three straight games topping 250 yards of offense, Bedlam was bound to be a step back for Gordon, who ran for only 137 yards and two touchdowns. We’re choosing to overlook this embarrassing performance because he has bragging rights in the state for the rest of his life.
3. Florida State QB Jordan Travis
Travis racked up 360 yards through the air and accounted for two touchdowns against Pitt, despite FSU missing both of its top two receivers, Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman. Instead, Travis found 5-foot-9 Ja’Khi Douglas, who had just 36 yards on the season entering play, six times for 115 yards. It was more offense than the city of Pittsburgh had seen all fall.
4. Washington QB Michael Penix Jr.
Since his win over Oregon, Penix’s passing numbers have been a tad pedestrian: 64% completions, six TDs, four interceptions. And yet, he has made plays when he needed to, helping keep the Huskies undefeated, and defenses have clearly adjusted, opening holes for a Washington ground game that has rushed for nearly 600 yards and nine touchdowns in that span.
5. LSU QB Jayden Daniels
Here’s hoping he’s healthy enough to get back on the field next week against Florida, in part because we want to see his Heisman case live on and in part because we want to see what happens if Florida has to beat Florida State in Week 13 to get bowl eligible.
Aggies’ road woes continue
For much of Saturday, Texas A&M seemed destined to pull off a shocker against No. 10 Ole Miss.
The Rebels were on the precipice of a 17-0 lead midway through the second quarter when Jacoby Mathews returned a blocked field goal try 75 yards for a touchdown. Ole Miss still was up 14 midway through the third quarter when the Aggies went on a run behind Max Johnson, who threw one TD pass to brother Jake and ran for another. But Quinshon Judkins‘ 1-yard run with 1:40 to go proved the difference, and the Rebels won 38-35.
The loss adds more fuel under Jimbo Fisher’s increasingly hot seat. Setting aside the COVID-impacted 2020 season, he’s now 22-23 against Power 5 foes since taking over at A&M in 2018, including a disastrous 3-15 mark on the road.
So, if you’re in the College Station area and looking to save on a Christmas tree, now would be the time to start doing a few laps past Fisher’s house.
Battling for bowls
South Carolina finished 4-of-16 on third and fourth down, committed 10 penalties (for 100 yards), and managed just 89 yards on 38 rushes Saturday, trailing Jacksonville State by seven late in the third quarter, but finished the game on a 17-0 run — the last 10 of which came after Jacksonville State turnovers — to win the battle of the Gamecocks 38-28.
Spencer Rattler‘s 399 passing yards and four takeaways by the defense proved the difference in a win that narrowly keeps South Carolina’s bowl hopes alive and kept coach Shane Beamer from either injuring another foot kicking a Gatorade cooler or perhaps busting through the locker room wall like the Kool-Aid man.
The win snaps a four-game losing streak for the Gamecocks, and South Carolina now has home games against Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Clemson — and needs to win out to get bowl eligible.
Meanwhile, Nebraska had a chance to secure win No. 6 against woeful Michigan State on Saturday, but the Huskers couldn’t get any offense going in a 20-17 loss to the Spartans.
Florida, too, whiffed on a chance to get bowl eligible. The Gators fell behind Arkansas 14-0, fought back to tie at the end of the first quarter, then traded scores for the rest of the way — swinging from all-out surrender gator to Trevor Etienne‘s brilliance. Ultimately, Arkansas booted a 49-yard field goal to send the game to overtime, and KJ Jefferson‘s TD pass then clinched the 39-36 Hogs win.
Surrender Gator. pic.twitter.com/aJaSQuQmbX
— ??️♈️? (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 4, 2023
And somewhere, Dan Enos is firing up his burner account to send some incredibly pointed emails to new Arkansas playcaller Kenny Guiton.
In Week Zero, New Mexico State lost at home by 11 to UMass. In some countries, that is punishable by up to three years in prison. But credit to the Aggies, who have rebounded beautifully to win seven of their next eight games, including Saturday’s 13-7 victory over Middle Tennessee. New Mexico State’s D has held seven straight opponents to 24 points or fewer, and the Aggies’ ground game has been terrific, racking up 182 yards against the Blue Raiders. They’ve now topped 170 yards rushing in 13 straight games, the longest active streak in the country. More importantly, because the Aggies will play 13 regular-season games this season, they needed Saturday’s seventh victory to assure bowl eligibility.
West Virginia was picked to finish last in the Big 12, which riled up the locals about as much as anything since the Whiskey Rebellion of 1791 and, we should add, also seems like a serious overestimation of how good Cincinnati would be. Regardless, CJ Donaldson and Jahiem White both topped 100 yards on the ground as West Virginia ran for 336 in a 37-7 route of BYU that ensures a far better finish than last place in conference play and a bowl bid.
Iowa wins, paint dries
Iowa announced offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz would depart at year’s end, which means we have only a few more weeks left to enjoy — is that the right word? — a performance like the Hawkeyes gave us Saturday against Northwestern.
The over/under for the game was 32.5, and there was never a chance the game would hit that total. The biggest drama was wondering just how low the score would be. In fact, here are Iowa officials digging through rock bottom looking for the Hawkeyes’ passing game.
— no context college football (@nocontextcfb) November 4, 2023
Iowa held the ball for nearly 20 minutes in the first half, and it still had just 89 yards. NASA scientists are still trying to figure out how that’s possible.
Northwestern, meanwhile, largely played offense like a newborn deer taking its first steps.
Neither team averaged better than 5 yards per pass. Neither threw for more than 100 yards. Neither topped 170 yards of total offense. Both required wellness checks after the third quarter to make sure everyone was still conscious.
Northwestern’s first eight drives ended with punts before a huge breakthrough midway through the fourth quarter when the Wildcats turned the ball over on downs. It was thrilling. Then things got really interesting. After an Iowa punt — usually an optimal play call for the Hawkeyes — Northwestern drove a whopping 22 yards for a touchdown, tying the game at 7 with just 1:50 to play.
Fans around the world were terrified that the game would go to overtime, where the two teams would then play indefinitely until either someone scored again or the sun burned itself out and the world ended. Apocalypse was +240 in the Las Vegas live odds.
But miraculously, Deacon Hill completed two passes — a new Iowa record for a single drive — and the Hawkeyes drilled a 52-yard field goal with 14 seconds remaining to win 10-7.
Iowa is now 7-2 and poised to make the Big Ten title game despite warnings from the FDA that consuming Hawkeyes offense can cause delusions, nausea and night terrors.
An ugly loss, a wild win
The last winless team in the FBS finally got a W.
One of the final remaining undefeated teams took a loss in horrifying fashion.
It was as if Sam Houston and Air Force swapped personnel in some sort of “Freaky Friday” situation in Week 10, with one team getting its first taste of victory and the other fumbling away a rivalry game and a shot at a New Year’s Six bowl.
In what might be the most embarrassing Air Force effort since “Iron Eagle 3,” the Falcons lost 23-3 to Army in a game in which the Falcons couldn’t get out of their own way. Air Force had 12 possessions in the game. Two ended with interceptions, four in fumbles, two in failed fourth-down tries, two in punts and one in a missed field goal. After the game, they also left the keys to an F-15 Eagle at the Dippin’ Dots concession stand.
For Sam Houston, however, Saturday offered a small bit of bliss after an utterly demoralizing season. The Bearkats — the “K” is for “kan’t win” — came in 0-8, having lost four of their past five games by a TD or less. In fact, they lost three weeks ago after an FIU field goal with 5 seconds left sent the game to overtime, and last week on a field goal by UTEP with 1 second to play.
So what happened Saturday?
Sam Houston fell behind FCS Kennesaw State 21-7 at the half but fought its way back to tie with 3:49 to play. Three plays later, Da’Marcus Crosby picked off a pass, setting up a nine-play drive that ended with — you guessed it — a field goal as time expired.
0:15
Colby Sessums kicks 35-yard made field goal vs. Kennesaw State
Colby Sessums kicks 35-yard made field goal vs. Kennesaw State
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Sam Houston is now the first team in at least the past 20 years to play in three straight games in which there was a tying or winning field goal in the final 5 seconds.
The win was the first for Sam Houston since moving up to the FBS level, meaning its official membership card (which comes with 10% off any fines for field storming) and complimentary FBS windbreaker will arrive in the mail in the next four to six weeks.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Memphis moved to 7-2 on the season and 4-1 in ACC play with a win over South Florida in a game in which the two teams combined for 109 points — or, as it’s called in the Big Ten, a nice month.
Seth Hennigan and Byrum Brown combined for 706 passing yards and nine touchdowns through the air, but neither produced the game’s biggest pass play.
0:42
Tevin Carter connects for 85-yard TD pass
Tevin Carter connects for 85-yard TD pass
That honor belongs to Memphis backup QB Tevin Carter, who hit Roc Taylor (which seems like the name of a character in the old “Mike Tyson’s Punch Out” game), who sprinted down the sideline for an 85-yard touchdown.
To sum up:
Iowa threw 15 passes Saturday and had 65 yards.
Northwestern threw 19 passes and had 81 yards.
Carter had 85 on one throw.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Illinois looked cooked when it got the ball back, down 5 points to Minnesota, with 2:47 to play and its QB injured on the sideline.
Then Jake Paddock came out of the phone booth wearing a Superman outfit. (Metaphorically. It’s hard to avoid the pass rush when wearing a cape.)
Paddock completed all three of his throws on a six-play, 84-yard drive, including a 46-yard TD pass to Isaiah Williams to go up 27-26.
Illinois is 4-5 on the season with wins by 2, 6, 3 and 1.
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Max Olson
When you’re a veteran college quarterback transferring to your fourth school in six years, you know what to expect if you check the internet comments.
He’s still around? Geez.
Isn’t he like 30 years old?
He needs to move on with his life. He isn’t going to the league.
It’s time to hit LinkedIn and get a job.
And yet, despite the haters, we’ve reached a peak moment for journeyman quarterbacks across college football. Freshmen who began college in 2020 during the COVID pandemic were granted an extra year of eligibility by the NCAA. Now they’re still hanging around as sixth-year seniors. Nearly 40 quarterbacks from the 2020 class came back this year for one more season at the FBS level.
They’re 23- and 24-year-old grizzled veterans who feel even older inside their locker rooms. They have college degrees. Their partying days are done. They’re training and preparing like pros, trying to squeeze every last drop out of their college days.
College football today is in many ways unrecognizable compared to when they were high schoolers. The explosion of NIL and the transfer portal, big-name coach firings, conference realignment, the expanded College Football Playoff, the pandemic, collectives, agents, revenue sharing — you name it, these quarterbacks went through it.
“Not a lot of people have experienced this type of roller-coaster ride in college football,” SMU quarterback Tyler Van Dyke said.
The days of QBs bouncing from school to school for starting jobs aren’t going away. In this new era of unlimited transfers, 85% of top-50 quarterback recruits from 2018 to 2021 have transferred and more than 40% have switched schools multiple times. But we are nearing the end of the road for a historic fraternity of super seniors granted additional eligibility because of the pandemic.
This is the story of four journeyman quarterbacks — Chandler Morris, Robby Ashford, Drew Pyne and Van Dyke — still chasing glory in Year 6.
Jump to:
Chandler Morris | Robby Ashford
Drew Pyne | Tyler Van Dyke
Chandler Morris: Oklahoma | TCU | North Texas | Virginia
Chandler Morris was ready to retire from football. After four years of setbacks, he’d had enough.
“Football just wasn’t loving me back,” Morris said. “It’s kind of hard to love something if it’s not loving you back.”
He started fighting those thoughts two years ago at TCU. Midway through his first full season as a starter, Morris hurt his left knee and was sidelined for four games. Young backup Josh Hoover stepped in to replace him. Morris got healthy but never got his starting job back, and he couldn’t understand why.
By then, though, little had gone according to plan. Morris had initially committed to play for his father, Chad Morris, at Arkansas. Five months later, Arkansas fired his dad. The younger Morris responded to that gut punch by signing with Oklahoma. He arrived in Norman in the summer of 2020, amid the COVID outbreak, knowing nothing would seem normal.
There wasn’t much bonding time with his freshman class. Gathering outside the football facility was discouraged. Players were taking online courses in their dorms, masking up, testing for COVID daily and trying to get through a college football season played in empty stadiums.
“I don’t know if I was very happy there,” Morris said. “But I don’t know if there was a happy freshman anywhere in the country that year.”
After a season behind Spencer Rattler and with Caleb Williams on the way, Morris had a sense Oklahoma wasn’t the right fit. He transferred home to TCU to play for Gary Patterson. Eight games into the 2021 season, Patterson’s successful 21-year tenure ended abruptly when he was fired on Halloween. The next day, Morris learned he’d make his first career start.
The Horned Frogs had nothing to lose against No. 12-ranked rival Baylor, and that’s exactly how Morris played. He lit up one of the Big 12’s best defenses with 461 passing yards, 70 rushing yards and 3 touchdowns in a shocking 30-28 upset.
“I was probably too young for that success,” Morris said. “I probably thought I had arrived. I went out there and just dominated them. I was kind of like an overnight success.”
Morris was no less dominant the following August in his preseason competition with senior Max Duggan. TCU coaches still swear to this day it wasn’t a close call. Morris earned the right to be QB1 as the Frogs kicked off the Sonny Dykes era. But he didn’t make it through the season opener, exiting with an MCL sprain in his left knee after a Colorado defender landed on his leg.
“Max took it over,” Morris said, “and the rest was history.”
A few weeks later, when Duggan led a 55-24 blowout win over Oklahoma, Morris went home and cried. He knew he’d missed his chance. TCU went on a surprising 13-1 run to the CFP national championship game, with Duggan finishing runner-up for the Heisman Trophy. Morris enjoyed going on that wild ride, but it wasn’t easy to set personal feelings aside. He badly wanted to be out there playing.
Everything finally seemed aligned for Morris entering 2023. The Horned Frogs got off to a nightmare start with a home loss to Colorado they never saw coming, but Morris settled in from there and was playing well until another MCL sprain shut him down. Dykes and his coaches went with Hoover to finish a rough 5-7 season. Morris felt he was being pushed out the door.
Chad Morris knew how frustrated and hurt his son was — and how seriously he was contemplating retirement — but urged him to give it one more shot. North Texas offered a fresh start. Chandler finished his degree at TCU in the spring of 2024, taking four classes as a regular student and staying away from football. He needed the time off to reset.
“I learned not to put my identity into football,” Morris said. “I think it’s easier said than done when that’s all you do. I had my identity wrapped up in that, and once it got stripped away from me, I was in a low place.”
North Texas coach Eric Morris (no relation) watched his QB get his swagger back last season. Chandler credits his coaches for fully tailoring the Mean Green offense to his strengths and preferences. “They poured so much confidence into me,” he said. Morris went in thinking 2024 would be his final college season. Then he put up 4,016 total yards, seventh most in FBS, and had $1 million offers coming in from Power 4 programs.
If Morris was going to move back up for his sixth year, he wanted to be around good people. He trusted Virginia coach Tony Elliott, who had worked with his dad at Clemson. He knew Virginia was loading up on transfers and going all-in for 2025. Once he got on campus and saw the personnel, he knew the team could compete.
“You can’t ask for much more than an opportunity to come to a place like this and try to get ’em back on the map,” he said.
Nothing about the Cavaliers’ 8-1 start and rise to No. 12 in the AP poll, their highest ranking since 2004, has surprised their QB. Their double-overtime triumph over then-No. 8 Florida State got everyone’s attention, and they’ve survived two more overtime thrillers since. When asked if this team is giving him 2022 TCU vibes, Morris didn’t hesitate.
“I really do compare it to that year, just based off our locker room and how close and how hungry we are,” Morris said. “They’ve lost quite a bit of games over the years. They’re ready to be done with that.”
Even on a seven-game win streak, nothing comes easy. Morris has battled a shoulder injury for most of the season. Elliott says he’s been a “warrior” throughout. After everything Morris has gone through, good luck convincing him to miss a single snap of this ACC title chase.
“I wouldn’t pick to be in college football for six years,” Morris said, “but here I am.”
Robby Ashford: Oregon | Auburn | South Carolina | Wake Forest
For Wake Forest quarterback Robby Ashford, the trials of the past six years have felt beyond his control.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m trash, because I’ve been to four Power 4 schools,” Ashford joked. “I can’t be that bad. It’s just been situations I couldn’t handle. I went through a lot of things I couldn’t really do anything about.”
He was committed to Ole Miss back in 2019, the same year Elijah Moore pretended to urinate in the end zone during the Egg Bowl. Rebels coach Matt Luke was in Hoover, Alabama, visiting Ashford when he got the call and realized he was getting fired.
Ashford had little time to pick his next school and moved across the country to play both football and baseball at Oregon. If the 2020 MLB draft hadn’t been cut from 40 rounds down to five due to COVID, the former top-200 draft prospect might have picked pro baseball out of high school.
After two seasons as a backup QB in Eugene, Ashford was eager to play. But then Mario Cristobal left for Miami, Dan Lanning took over and his new offensive coordinator Kenny Dillingham brought in Bo Nix. Ashford hit the portal and went home to Auburn. He found a coach who believed in him in Bryan Harsin, and he became a starter three games into the 2022 season.
During his first start against Missouri, Ashford seriously injured his throwing shoulder: second-degree AC joint sprain, bruised rotator cuff, sprained trap muscle. He played hurt for nine games, not saying a word about it publicly until the season ended.
“I was getting four shots a game in my shoulder and neck to be able to play,” he said. “I wasn’t going to tell anybody so teams wouldn’t hammer my shoulder. The only people who really know are with you every day. They can’t go out there and tell everybody, ‘Bro, y’all don’t understand, Robby is hurt. He’s playing with a messed-up shoulder.’ But that gave everybody a perception about me.”
After a four-game slide, Auburn fired Harsin. The backlash Ashford experienced during that 5-7 season was unlike anything he anticipated. He knew all about the passion in the SEC, but nothing prepares a 20-year-old for an inbox full of racial slurs and death threats after losses. Ashford said it wasn’t just direct messages on social media; he’d get texts from unknown numbers too.
“You try not to look at it, but sometimes it pops up while you’re scrolling,” he said. “It’s like you can’t get away from it, even when you’re not trying to search for it. That’s part of it that comes with being a Black quarterback.”
Ashford didn’t want to show his face on campus. He knows he played too timid, too nervous about making matters worse.
“It gets to the point where you almost have to start worrying about your personal safety,” he admitted. His father, Robert, encouraged him to keep his head up and keep trusting it would work out.
Ashford gave up baseball in the spring of 2023, a sacrifice he was willing to make to prove to new Auburn coach Hugh Freeze he was focused on leading the Tigers. He felt great about his performance in spring practice and was the spring game offensive MVP. Weeks later, Freeze landed transfer QB Payton Thorne from Michigan State.
“I got backdoored,” Ashford said. “I got my job taken without losing it. If I would’ve known I was going to lose my job without playing bad, I would’ve played baseball. You live and learn.”
Ashford hadn’t graduated and couldn’t leave. He backed up Thorne for a season before moving on and was glad to get out.
“It felt like a toxic environment,” Ashford said.
He moved on to South Carolina, believing it was important to stay in the SEC, but lost an offseason competition to LaNorris Sellers. Ashford remembers his first time meeting the redshirt freshman who wore glasses even with his helmet on.
“I was like, ‘You’re the kid that’s, like, really good?'” Ashford recalls with a laugh. “It just don’t seem like it when you meet him. Then he gets on that field and, yeah, you’re the kid that’s really good.”
Ashford mentored and pushed Sellers as he became a breakout star for the Gamecocks. He wasn’t thrilled about his backup role but had nothing but love for Sellers, whom he considers a little brother. With one season left, Ashford reentered the portal seeking an opportunity.
Wake Forest had a new coaching staff and needed a veteran starter. Ashford suspects he might be the lowest-paid QB1 in the Power 4, but he doesn’t care. He just wanted to play.
Ashford is right where he wanted to be, but it’s been a tough year. His father passed away suddenly at the age of 53 in April. He’s still working through the grief, and it hit him hard 15 minutes before his first Wake Forest start.
“He’d been there for me through the ups and downs,” Robby said. “I was hoping he got to see this year.”
Robby continues to tough it out without him. He’s trying to lead this 5-3 team despite an injured thumb on his throwing hand. Ashford and backup Deshawn Purdie pulled off a 13-12 upset of SMU in Week 9, but they had few answers for Florida State’s defense in a 42-7 loss Saturday.
Ashford hasn’t stopped believing, even in Year 6, that his best football is still ahead of him.
“There’s been a lot of days where it’s like, man, why is this going on?” he said. “But it’s kind of brought me a great sense of hope, just to know I can keep going. I’ve gotta keep going.”
Drew Pyne: Notre Dame | Arizona State | Missouri | Bowling Green
Drew Pyne’s legendary Connecticut high school football coach, Lou Marinelli, had a saying that stuck with the quarterback: Football is just like life, but sped up.
For Pyne, the college football journey began incredibly early. He received scholarship offers as an eighth grader back in 2016, thanks to a highlight tape of his mom’s Pop Warner footage cut together on iMovie. Pyne threw at an Alabama camp and suddenly had an offer from Nick Saban.
“I kinda stopped being a kid in eighth grade after that,” Pyne said.
The kid who grew up quickly in a Catholic family committed to his dream school, Notre Dame, as a high school sophomore. Ian Book took Pyne under his wing during Pyne’s freshman year in 2020 as the Fighting Irish rolled through a bizarre season in the ACC to the College Football Playoff and a Rose Bowl semifinal played in Texas.
Pyne went in for two snaps against No. 1 Alabama and saw eight future NFL draft picks on the other side of the ball. He couldn’t wait to lead the Irish back to that big stage.
After another year of waiting behind Jack Coan, Pyne felt ready. Tyler Buchner won the starting job entering 2022 but suffered a shoulder injury. In the first quarter of his first start in South Bend, Pyne accidentally went viral. The NBC broadcast captured offensive coordinator Tommy Rees cursing out his QB from the coaches’ box after three poor drives. Welcome to the big leagues.
Pyne’s run as the starting quarterback of the Fighting Irish, the goal he’d chased his whole life, lasted just 10 games. A four-loss season in Year 1 under Marcus Freeman wasn’t the goal for a team with preseason top-five expectations. But Pyne did go 8-2 as a starter with victories over Clemson, North Carolina, Syracuse and BYU.
“I’m real proud of my time there,” Pyne said. “I still root for Notre Dame and Coach Freeman, who was great to me. I’m still best friends with a lot of those guys. It’s a great place. I loved it there.”
So why leave? By the end of the season, it was clear Freeman and Rees wanted a transfer QB to push or replace Pyne and Buchner. Pyne was one semester away from graduating and hoped to become a captain in 2023, but he was informed there’d be a competition. He sensed the odds were stacked against him and exited before the bowl game to hunt for his next home.
Pyne transferred to Arizona State. And then Missouri. And now Bowling Green. He didn’t expect this many twists and turns.
“Going in, I never wanted to transfer or do any of that,” Pyne said. “But that’s just the way the tide flows in today’s game. I love football and I want to play football. That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done.”
At Arizona State, he teamed up with Dillingham to try to lead a revival. A pulled hamstring during a preseason scrimmage was the first setback. Pyne came back several weeks early — refusing to miss a rematch with Caleb Williams after losing to USC in his Notre Dame finale — with the help of daily sessions in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.
“All I wanted to do was to play Caleb again and try to beat him,” Pyne said. “So I said screw it, I don’t care if my leg falls off, I’m going to play in that USC game.”
And how’d that go?
“I popped my left groin, separated my AC joint, got a pinched nerve in my neck and got sacked eight times — but we took ’em to the fourth quarter,” he said. “Let me tell you, the next morning was pretty tough.”
Pyne’s season was over. He’d wake up at 4:30 a.m. each day to go in for physical therapy. He’d get down on himself as doubt crept in. And he didn’t know what to do next.
He returned to Notre Dame, reenrolling for the spring to take the final classes needed for his degree. Pyne worked out with a local trainer and hoped someone would take a chance on him.
Missouri brought in Pyne to back up senior Brady Cook. He had to relieve an injured Cook against Alabama and threw three interceptions in a 34-0 loss. What stuck with him, though, was the way Luther Burden III and fellow teammates kept encouraging him. “They know I try as hard as I can,” Pyne said. “Those guys had my back.”
He rewarded their faith the following week against Oklahoma, guiding a 75-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter to tie it up. Less than a minute later, Missouri defensive end Zion Young scooped up a fumble and scored to stun the Sooners.
“I was on the bench saying a prayer,” Pyne said. “I go, ‘God, I feel like things don’t go my way all the time. Can you please let something go my way?’ And then, boom, I look up and Zion’s running in for the touchdown.”
After one of the proudest nights of his life, Pyne wanted to chase that feeling in 2025. He joined Bowling Green because he was sold on new coach Eddie George and the culture he’s building. Pyne knows a thing or two about winning over a new team by now, but this group embraced its 24-year-old captain.
When Pyne made his fifth trip to the Manning Passing Academy this summer, Archie Manning named him captain of the college QBs. After all, he’d roomed with Brock Purdy in his first year.
“Now I’m the old head,” he said.
Pyne is going through more trying times this season. He just returned to action Saturday in a loss to Buffalo after missing three games with a leg injury. The Falcons are 3-6 and trying to get back on track to chasing bowl eligibility in November.
Believe it or not, thanks to the Arizona State injury, Pyne has one more season of eligibility in 2026 if he wants it. He hasn’t decided, saying his life could go in a million directions after this year. At the moment, he’s just grateful for what he found at Bowling Green.
“It’s really all you could ask for, especially for a guy like me at the tail end of my career, being a starter, a leader and a captain,” Pyne said. “It’s like playing Road to Glory, but in real life.”
Tyler Van Dyke: Miami | Wisconsin | SMU
Entering the 2022 season, some were calling Tyler Van Dyke, the reigning ACC Rookie of the Year, a first-round NFL draft talent alongside Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud.
“It was a lot of praise, but I believed it,” Van Dyke said, “I thought I was that good. And I know I’m that good when I’m healthy and playing my best.”
Young and Stroud are now third-year NFL starters. Van Dyke is still fighting to get back on their level. He’s off the national radar for now, a backup at SMU recovering from a significant leg injury and preparing for one more chance.
Van Dyke reunited with Rhett Lashlee, the coach who gave him so much confidence as a redshirt freshman subbing for injured starter D’Eriq King at Miami. Now King is his position coach. They went on a good run together in 2021, but it wasn’t enough to save Manny Diaz’s job. New coach Mario Cristobal offered effusive praise for the quarterback he inherited, comparing Van Dyke to Justin Herbert and declaring there wasn’t a better QB in the country.
But at the end of 2022, Van Dyke wasn’t ready for the NFL. He got a wake-up call four games in when Cristobal benched him during an ugly loss to Middle Tennessee. “Everything’s not rainbows and butterflies like 2021,” Van Dyke said. In the moment, he felt like the fan base was flipping on him from love to hate.
Van Dyke started meeting with a sports psychologist to talk it out and clear his head. He threw for 496 yards in his next start, a close loss to Drake Maye and North Carolina, and felt back on track after a road win at Virginia Tech. Then he suffered a third-degree AC joint sprain in his throwing shoulder, forcing him to sit out most of the final five games. After a disappointing 5-7 season, Van Dyke considered leaving Miami.
In the spring of 2023, Alabama tried to persuade Van Dyke to transfer. And he was listening.
“To be honest, I was pretty much all-in on going there,” Van Dyke said.
The Crimson Tide had lost Young to the NFL and were unsure of what they had in Jalen Milroe. Van Dyke said Rees, then the OC at Alabama, tried to recruit him to Notre Dame to replace Pyne. Now he was circling back. For Van Dyke, it wasn’t a financial decision. The NIL money back then was nothing like it is today. This was about his future. A great year at Alabama could get him back to first-round status.
But he didn’t transfer. Cristobal found out about the Alabama talks and convinced him to stay. Van Dyke doesn’t know how that leaked out, but he was in a tough spot and ultimately preferred to stick with his team.
“I felt good about it at the end of the day,” Van Dyke said. “I didn’t want to move. I had a lot of friends on that team. I was the leader of the team. Everybody loved me and I loved the team. I wanted to stay at Miami.”
The Hurricanes started 4-0 in 2023 before a baffling loss to Georgia Tech, eschewing victory formation to close out a win and fumbling away the game. Van Dyke got hurt the following week against North Carolina, a bruise on his knee that spread to his quad. He tried to play through the rare leg ailment, called a Morel-Lavallée lesion, but wasn’t close to his best and finished with 14 turnovers. It was clearly time to move on.
The weekly unpredictability of those last two Miami seasons wore him out. The Canes would win and feel like contenders. They’d lose and, to Van Dyke, it felt like the end of the world. He says he has a lot of respect for Cristobal, but the situation deteriorated over time.
“It ended up not working out for both of us,” Van Dyke said.
Miami replaced him with a future No. 1 pick in Cam Ward. For Van Dyke, it stung to see all the effusive praise for Ward’s leadership last year come with unsubtle digs at the previous QB.
“Leadership is easy when everything’s going well,” he said. “It’s easy to blame someone, it’s easy to put that scapegoat on someone, when things go wrong. It was a tough year. I felt like that was a narrative on me that was so unnecessary and ridiculous. Even some coaches who recruited me in the portal were questioning my leadership.
“I remember Cristobal, when the Alabama situation came up, saying to me: ‘You mean more than you know to this team. You’re the guy. Everybody looks up to you.’ He said that to my face. After that, for all them to question my leadership? That one hurt a little bit.”
Van Dyke was relieved to have a dozen offers in the portal, and he called Lashlee for advice. Wisconsin felt like the right fit for 2024, a Big Ten program where he could win and revive his draft stock. Three games in, Van Dyke got to face Alabama.
He tried scrambling on a third down to extend the Badgers’ opening drive. His right foot got stuck in turf as a defender slammed him down along the sideline. Had he known officials threw a flag for defensive holding, Van Dyke would’ve walked out of bounds. Instead, he fought for extra yards and it cost him the season.
Van Dyke didn’t just tear the ACL in his right knee and his meniscus. He also damaged cartilage at the bottom of his femur, which required three allograft plugs. The injuries meant a more than 12-month recovery timeline. He spent two long months on crutches watching the Badgers stumble to 5-7, wondering if he’d ever play another snap.
Van Dyke went back in the portal. Lashlee and King offered what he needed most: a place to rehabilitate with the people he trusts most. Lashlee didn’t bring him to Dallas to be SMU’s starter or backup for 2025. He was giving his former QB an opportunity to recover with full support and no pressure.
“Some guys on the team when they first met me, they were like, ‘Oh my god, you were at Miami. You were good at Miami,'” Van Dyke says with a chuckle. “I’d say, ‘Yeah…'”
It’s an odd experience, taking a backseat when you’ve been a starter for four years. Van Dyke is suiting up for games and is close to being cleared, but he’s there to support starter Kevin Jennings. He’s offering tips in film sessions and charting plays during games as he ponders getting into coaching after he’s done playing.
Van Dyke is working toward his big comeback and returning for a seventh year in 2026. He’s determined to start again, whether that’s at SMU or elsewhere, but he’s happy where he is these days. He’ll turn 25 in March. He’s getting married next summer. That’s all he knows for now.
“In the past, I would always look at my future like if I don’t do this, this and this, it’s not going to work out for me,” Van Dyke said. “Now I’m taking it one day at a time.”
The book on his career isn’t closed yet. The veteran passer grins when he considers what people will say about his journey extending into Year 7.
“It’s going to surprise a lot of people that I’m still in college,” Van Dyke. “But everyone has a different story to tell.”
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Tim Kurkjian
We are borrowing, with permission, from brilliant writer Steve Rushin, the lede from his game story in Sports Illustrated from the 1991 World Series between the Twins and Braves. The truth is inelastic when it comes to the 88th World Series. It is impossible to stretch. It isn’t necessary to appraise the nine days just past from some distant horizon of historical perspective. Let us call this World Series what it is, now, while its seven games still ring in our ears: the greatest that was ever played.
With apologies to 1991, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays just finished the greatest World Series. Not because all the games were great — some weren’t. All were flawed, but all were marvelously fun, interesting and entertaining. It was the greatest World Series because of its compelling storylines, some of which were impossible to believe: an 18-inning game, a historic pitching performance by a 22-year-old, the first pinch-hit grand slam in World Series history, the first World Series game to begin with back-to-back home runs, the first game-ending, 7-4 double play in World Series history. It featured a bizarre, three-pitch opera from a pitcher who hadn’t worked in relief in seven years, the final major league game for the greatest pitcher of this era and a Game 7 for the ages, for all ages, a masterpiece featuring an unforgettable, ironman pitching performance that we might never see again.
The Blue Jays, who finished last in the American League East in 2024, were in the World Series for the first time since repeating as world champions in 1992 and 1993. The Dodgers were trying to become the first team to repeat as world champions since the New York Yankees from 1998 to 2000. In Game 7, Toronto started Max Scherzer, 41, the oldest pitcher to start a Game 7, the man who also started the last Game 7 — in 2019 for the Washington Nationals. The Dodgers started the most remarkable player in the history of baseball, Shohei Ohtani, who was working on three days’ rest. Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr., so dominant in this postseason, called it “the biggest day of my life in baseball.”
Game 7 was epic, one of only six Game 7s of the World Series to go extra innings. The Dodgers fell behind 3-0 but won 5-4 in 11 breathtaking innings, in part because Dodgers manager Dave Roberts used all four of his aces, Ohtani, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and the World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Yamamoto threw 96 pitches the day before in winning Game 6, then miraculously pitched the final 2⅔ innings of Game 7, throwing 34 pitches, to become the fourth pitcher to win Game 6 and Game 7 of the World Series. It was one of the greatest pitching performances in World Series history.
“He is one of the greatest pitchers on the planet,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “What he did tonight was amazing.”
It was Smith’s home run off Shane Bieber in the 11th inning that provided the winning run, and made it six years in a row that a player named Will Smith has been a part of a World Series-winning team. And yet Smith’s game-winning homer wasn’t the biggest homer of the night for the Dodgers. Second baseman and No. 9 hitter Miguel Rojas, who helped win Game 6 with four terrific defensive plays, stunningly homered with one out in the ninth inning off Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman to tie the score, Rojas’ first extra-base hit of the postseason. Rojas joined Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski in 1960 as the only players in World Series history to hit a game-winning or game-tying home run in the ninth inning of a Game 7.
It was a devastating loss for the Blue Jays, who played so exceptionally well in the first five games. They scored the most runs (105) in a single postseason of any team in history, but when they needed to get a big hit, they didn’t: In Game 6, they went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position; in Game 7, they went 3-for-17. Don’t blame infielder Ernie Clement, whose 30 hits were the most hits ever by any player in one postseason. In the ninth inning, he was robbed of a World Series-winning hit when center fielder Andy Pages, a defensive replacement, made a spectacular leaping catch in left-center field with two outs and the bases loaded. An inning later, Clement, a brilliant defensive infielder who uses a Mizuno glove that he bought from an elderly Japanese woman on eBay, put his arm around Blue Jays dugout reporter Hazel Mae when he noticed that her head was down in disappointment when the Blue Jays didn’t win in the ninth.
“Are you OK?” Clement asked her. “You’re going to be OK. Don’t worry. We’re going to be OK, too. Don’t worry.”
This series was full of worry. The only way to try to make sense of these stressful seven games is to view them chronologically. In Game 1, the Blue Jays started Trey Yesavage, who made his major league debut Sept. 15. Yesavage pitched four innings in an 11-4 victory in Game 1, which featured Bo Bichette‘s first game since Sept. 6 — he singled in his first at-bat on a 3-0 pitch. Bichette, Toronto’s primary shortstop, played second base for the first time in his major league career, marking the first time since 1931 that an infielder started a World Series game at a position he had never played in the big leagues.
The game was broken open in the sixth on a pinch-hit grand slam — a first in World Series history — by Addison Barger, who slept the night before on a pullout couch in the hotel room of teammate Davis Schneider. “I woke up on my friend’s couch the morning of the game, and after the game, the Hall of Fame asked me for my spikes,” Barger said.
The aptly named Barger, one of several Toronto players who became folk heroes in October, was asked why he swings so hard on every pitch.
“I was the smallest kid on our team — I was 4-foot-10 as a freshman, I was 5-feet, 90 pounds as a sophomore,” he said. “My dad had me play up. I was a small 13-year-old playing against 18-year-olds. My only hope was to swing as hard as I could.”
Game 2 featured the remarkable Yamamoto, who, among other preparations for his constant chase of the perfect pitch, throws a javelin before games and does an insane stretching routine that is painful just to watch. He silenced the relentless Blue Jays lineup on four hits to become the first pitcher since Curt Schilling in 2001 to throw back-to-back complete games in one postseason. “He is hard to hit because he has elite command, his delivery is deceptive, everything comes out of the same arm slot and he is short [5-foot-10],” said Blue Jays infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “With Justin Verlander [who is tall and has a high release point], you can see his fastball coming out of the sky. With [Yamamoto], you can’t see it because he is short.”
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw said, “If I could do it over again, I would throw a javelin in between starts.”
Kershaw, the greatest pitcher of his generation, pitched in Game 3. He was one of 19 pitchers, 10 of them Dodgers (a record number for a World Series game), to work the 18-inning game, which lasted 6 hours, 39 minutes and included 609 pitches. It is tied (in innings) for the longest World Series game, matching 2018’s Game 3 between the Boston Red Sox and Dodgers, also at Dodger Stadium. In 2018, Max Muncy won the game with a walk-off homer in the 18th. Freddie Freeman won this one — becoming the first player in major league history to hit two walk-off home runs in the World Series.
“If Freddie didn’t end with a homer, I would have,” Muncy said, laughing, the next day. “So amazing. A first baseman leads off the 18th with a walk-off homer on a 3-2 pitch. Same as I did [in 2018].”
Muncy agreed that if he had hit another 18th-inning, walk-off homer seven years later, “your head would have exploded.”
And yet, Freeman wasn’t the biggest star of the game. Ohtani had nine plate appearances and reached base nine times: No one in World Series history had reached seven times in one game. Only four others in major league history had reached base nine times in a game, regular or postseason. Ohtani hit two doubles and two home runs in his first four at-bats — the second player with four extra-base hits in a World Series game — and walked his final five plate appearances, four of them intentionally, another World Series record. Until that game, only Albert Pujols in 2011 had been walked intentionally with the bases empty in a World Series game. And Ohtani did it three times, including twice in a three-inning span.
“I mean, really, 9-for-9? Are you kidding me?” Freeman said in amazement. “Only Shohei could do that.”
And yet Ohtani wasn’t the best story of the game, either. Will Klein, who had thrown 22 innings in his major league career, pitched the final four scoreless innings to get the victory.
“I looked around in the 14th inning and realized I was the only one left in the pen,” he said.
Klein spent the first three rounds of the playoffs in the Get Hot Camp in Arizona, where Dodger players train just in case they need to be added to the roster because of an injury. He threw a simulated game at Dodger Stadium before the World Series and threw strikes. “[The Dodgers] called me and told me to go to Toronto,” Klein said. “I didn’t think there was any chance I’d be activated; I thought I was just a taxi squad guy. Then, they told me that I was going to be activated for the World Series. I thought . . . sweet!”
Klein threw 72 pitches, twice as many as he had thrown in a major league game, in Game 3.
“I got hundreds and hundreds of text messages after the game, some from people I didn’t know,” Klein said. Sandy Koufax, the legendary Dodger pitcher, came into the clubhouse after the game to congratulate him.
“I didn’t know what to say, I could barely speak,” Klein said. “I mean. . .he is Sandy Koufax!”
Game 4 featured — again — the greatness of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. In the third inning, he gave the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead with a two-run homer off Ohtani, a marvelous at-bat for the growth of the game. It was two of the biggest stars in baseball — one from the Dominican Republic, but born in Canada, the other from Japan — going head-to-head on the biggest stage in baseball. Guerrero won this confrontation, as he won most matchups in the postseason: He hit .397 with 8 home runs, 15 RBIs and only 7 strikeouts, astounding in this strikeout era. And now, the world knows that Guerrero, 26, isn’t some lumbering, unathletic first baseman. He has a great instinct for the game. He has won a Gold Glove at first base, he is a finalist for another this year and he made two great defensive plays in Game 7. He also is a well-above-average runner.
“Sometime in July, I went to Vladdy with a bar chart that I put together about great players and their running speed, and the way they run the bases,” Blue Jays manager John Schneider said. “The graph had [Aaron] Judge, [Manny] Machado and Vladdy. I asked him, ‘Who is the fastest of these three?’ He didn’t know. I said, ‘Vladdy, you are.”’
Guerrero’s homer off Ohtani gave the Blue Jays the lead for good, but they tacked on four runs in the seventh to seal the win. The biggest hit was provided by Clement, who personifies the gritty Blue Jays. He was released by the A’s in 2022 after going 1-for-18. He made a swing change in 2023, and that has resulted in him becoming a quality every-day player in the major leagues.
“Ernie shoots 65 in golf,” Davis Schneider said. “He’s one of those guys who is good at everything. Hockey. pingpong. Everything.”
Davis Schneider, who was nearly released three times in the minor leagues, also personifies the gutsy Blue Jays. “All the guys on this team took a different path to get here,” he said. “It’s one reason we are here.”
Schneider, hitting leadoff in Game 5 due to the intercostal injury to DH George Springer, led off the game with a homer off Snell, who had allowed one homer in his previous 50 innings. Guerrero followed with another homer, marking the first time in history that the first two hitters homered in a World Series game.
That was plenty for Yesavage, who was making his eighth major league start, five in the postseason, to join Joe Black (1952) as the only pitchers in history to start more games in the postseason than they had in their regular-season careers. Yesavage was unhittable for seven innings. He became the first rookie to strike out 12 in a World Series game. He became the first pitcher to strike out 12 and not walk a batter in a Series game. He joined Koufax as the only pitchers with 10 strikeouts in the first five innings of a World Series game.
“I never met him until he got here [Sept. 15]. I might have met him in spring training, but if I did, I don’t remember,” Davis Schneider said. “Now, he’s doing amazing things. He is such a modest dude walking around the clubhouse. He has made the best hitters in the world look like they’ve never swung a bat before.”
Game 6 was a classic — not on the Game 6 level of Buckner in 1986, Puckett in 1991, Freese in 2011, Fisk in 1975 or Carter in 1993, but its finish was jarring. Yamamoto started. One Blue Jay said before the game, “We know he is on a 1,000-pitch count tonight.” Instead, Yamamoto was taken out after six innings and 96 pitches with a 3-1 lead. Roki Sasaki had a shaky eighth inning, then hit Alejandro Kirk to start the ninth. Barger followed with a ringing line drive to left-center field. The ball impossibly lodged between the padding on the outfield wall and the warning track. Dodgers center fielder Justin Dean, cued by left fielder Enrique Hernandez, threw up his hands in hopes the umpires would rule it an automatic two bases, which they did.
“I have never seen a ball get lodged in there,” John Schneider said.
“I’ve tried to wedge a ball in there,” Davis Schneider said. “And I couldn’t do it.”
“I walk every stadium before every series to see what might come up,” Dodgers third-base coach Dino Ebel said. “I walked that outfield area, and I said, ‘This is clean. Nothing can get stuck in there.’ Then, it did.”
It was a bad break for the Blue Jays, who might have scored a run on that play, and Barger might have made it to third with no outs if the ball had caromed instead of plugged. In came Glasnow, who was supposed to start Game 7, but instead was summoned for his first relief appearance since 2018. He got Clement to pop out to first base on the first pitch. Two pitches later, Andres Gimenez hit a soft liner to left.
“I thought, ‘Please don’t drop, please don’t drop,”’ Glasnow said.
Hernandez, a natural infielder, charged the ball like an infielder, caught it in the air on the run and made a quick throw to Rojas, who made a terrific catch. Barger was doubled off second base, one of the biggest baserunning mistakes in World Series history: It is the only postseason game to end on a 7-4 double play. Thanks to Hernandez and Rojas, Glasnow got three outs on three pitches for his first career save.
“The [defensive metric] card had me playing shallow on that play, but I then moved in seven feet,” Hernandez. “If he hits it over my head, I will live with the consequences. I was not going to let a ball land in front of me. I trust my instincts over a computer any day.”
“It was a bad read by me,” Barger said.
The bad read set up one of the greatest Game 7s in World Series history, one that cemented the Dodgers’ dynasty. They won their third World Series in this decade and became the first team since the Yankees in 1953-58 to win three World Series and have a winning percentage of .630 in a six-year span. The Blue Jays did something equally important in this postseason: They showed the world how the game can be played, with elite defense, putting balls in play, treating every at-bat like a fistfight, valuing the hit, not just the home run, and taking the game to the opponent. They also showed that character, chemistry and camaraderie in the clubhouse, and on the field, are greatly valued.
“I just played a season with my 30 best friends,” Clement said after losing Game 7. “I just finished crying for about an hour. This is the closest team I have ever been on. I just love coming to work with these guys.”
There has never been a bad read by my friend Steve Rushin, from whom I borrowed the lede to his epic story from the epic 1991 World Series. He had watched this postseason from afar, and like so many people across the country, across the globe, he marveled at Ohtani, Yamamoto, Yesavage, Glasnow, Vladdy, Ernie, and all the other stars, storylines and sensational plays that produced the greatest World Series ever.
He texted me before Game 7.
Speaking for all baseball fans, it read: “What a time to be alive.”
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