Harbaugh vs. Big Ten? Texas vs. Big 12? Welcome to a delightfully awkward Championship Week
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
There’s nothing quite as unsettling as that moment when you bump into an ex.
At the grocery store. The airport. Wherever. Especially if your breakup was dramatic. A soap opera-worthy split that involved name calling and shouts of “I wish we’d never met!” and wound up with lawyers involved. A schism so sensational that people still gossip about it every time you enter a room. What was it that Cady Heron said in “Mean Girls”? “Have you walked up to people and realized they were just talking about you? Have you ever had it happen 60 times in a row?”
Well, what if it happened 80,000 times in a row? What if that uncomfortable encounter with your former loved one, that person whom you so publicly skewered then immediately returned the favor, was nationally televised? With a trophy as a backdrop?
Welcome to college football’s Championship Weekend 2023, the apex of awkwardness. The final, unavoidable culmination at the end of a season when everyone has, for the most part, been able to ignore the pigskin-covered elephant in the room.
Not anymore.
Starting Friday night in Las Vegas, there will be 24 consecutive hours of conference championships won, College Football Playoff berths earned and more uncomfortable handshakes than a Roy family reunion on “Succession.”
Let’s start right there, in the world’s largest Roomba, located adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip. Allegiant Stadium is where Oregon and Washington will fight for the final Pac-12 championship. No matter where the conference goes from here, it will never be the same, as this will most definitely be the last night of the league as we’ve always known it, anchored by the big box schools of Los Angeles, Arizona and the Pacific Northwest.
The loser of that game will immediately start preparing for its next phase of life as a member of the Big Ten. The winner will more than likely get to work on a CFP semifinal matchup.
But first, that champ will have to stand on stage and receive its trophy from the man whom it has openly blamed for its decision to bolt because of its lack of confidence in his inability to ink a lucrative media rights deal: commissioner George Kliavkoff. Meanwhile, Oregon and Washington are also both currently on the other side of a lingering lawsuit to determine control and the cash of the Pac-12 as it moves forward, sitting across the table from archrivals Oregon State and Washington State, while those remaining “2Pac” schools are working with Kliavkoff to figure who and where they might play next season.
This will all make posing for those trophy photos feel like taking your Christmas card photo right after everyone in the family just had a huge fight over what sweaters you should wear.
Awwwwkward.
Now let’s take it 1,200 miles east, to Jerry World in Arlington, Texas. AT&T Stadium is where Texas is favored to defeat Oklahoma State in Saturday’s Big 12 title game. This will also be the Longhorns’ final contest under their conference’s banner, as they will depart next summer, along with fellow current conference headliner Oklahoma, for the SEC. It was their 2021 decision to move deeper south that ignited this current era of conference realignment. It’s all been a Texas-sized multiyear countdown, marching through this season with all sorts of four-letter fare-thee-wells, from an endless sea of Horns Down gestures to Oklahoma State’s Bedlam Bye-Bye win over the Sooners one month ago.
It all peaked — or cratered, depending upon your point of view — last weekend, as Texas crushed Texas Tech in its Big 12 regular-season swan song. That’s when the image and voice of commissioner Brett Yormark appeared on the big screen at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, a clip from his preseason speech to the Red Raider Club kickoff luncheon when he charged Tech to “take care of business” when it came to keeping Texas out of the Big 12 title game.
That sound bite, met with boos and boot scootin’, was followed by a gigantic “SEE Y’ALL IN ARLINGTON” graphic.
The Texas video board is playing the hits for Brett Yormark in their last Big 12 home game. pic.twitter.com/DWjMs7mThY
— Dave Wilson (@dwil) November 25, 2023
If Texas beats Oklahoma State — and the Horns are currently a 15.5-point favorite — then tradition states that Yormark will be the man to hand Texas its fourth and final Big 12 championship trophy.
Cue that emoji of the smiley face showing all its teeth, pressed together like it’s trying to crush a walnut after a root canal.
OK, now let’s travel even further east, to the Queen City of Charlotte, North Carolina. That’s where fourth-ranked Florida State is also favored, albeit by only 2.5 points, over upstart No. 14 Louisville in the ACC championship game at Bank of America Stadium. Now this feud you might have forgotten about, lost amid the much higher profile throwdowns we’ve already mentioned. But it was just last summer, like a scant few months ago, that the folks down in Tallahassee began raising a flame-tipped spear of a stink about their membership in the #goacc, a league that was undoubtedly losing ground to its Power 5 cohorts when it came to all the deck reshuffling and money recounting.
There was an Aug. 15 deadline that came and went while Florida State hired a PR firm to work on its very loud “We hate it here” message and a private equity firm to see if it could come up with the $120 million to break free of Tobacco Road. University president Richard McCullough told ESPN, “I’m not that optimistic that we’ll be able to stay,” as his Seminoles colleagues said they should get a bigger slice of the football TV money pie chart because, well, the rest of the league wasn’t in their league when it comes to gridiron greatness. An angry fellow ACC member said, “It’s so great being in meetings with a school who just spent all summer telling everyone that the rest of us aren’t worthy to be in the same room with them.”
The main focus of FSU’s ire was commissioner Jim Phillips — the same man who will hand the Noles their trophy should they clinch their 16th ACC title on Saturday night.
Someone dial up one of those gifs of Britney Spears looking around like “How awkward is this?”
And finally, let’s take it up to Indianapolis for Michigan vs. Iowa. Do we even need to go over this one? Because it is still so going on. A maize-and-blue mess of such immediacy that it has seemingly dominated the headlines since Halloween. Jim Harbaugh, coach of the Wolverines, will return from punishment purgatory just in time to lead his team to perhaps its third consecutive Big Ten championship and third straight CFP appearance. He has been absent from the sidelines because of a sign-stealing scandal allegedly devised by a since-departed employee.
Harbaugh’s three-game suspension was not handed down by the NCAA but rather the conference office, a decision fueled in no small part by the B1G cries of foul from the other league members. There was legal wrangling, marking the first time anyone can recall that a football team in the midst of winning a conference was also in the midst of suing that conference. Ultimately, the suit was dropped. But the Jim Halpert expression of “Is this really happening right now?” remains.
Speaking of faces, the faces of the Michigan vs. Big Ten fight have always been Harbaugh, naturally, and commissioner Tony Petitti, who has been on the job for all of six months. Now, if ESPN Analytics is to be believed, there is a 92.6% chance Petitti and Harbaugh will be standing shoulder to shoulder on the field of Lucas Oil Stadium on Saturday evening, one greeted with cheers and the other with middle fingers by the fans of the newly crowned “Victors” of the conference. We’ll let you guess which is which.
In the meantime, the rest of us, from the other six conferences (including the quietly drama-free SEC) to our collective couches and recliners, can sit back and watch the football awkwardness unfurl like an angry complaint email accidentally sent to the person you’re angrily complaining about. The same couches and recliners we were in last week, watching our drunk uncles wake up on Black Friday and look over their coffee at the silent faces of everyone in the family, thinking, “Oh damn, what did I say last night when we were watching the Egg Bowl?”
That will be us all this weekend, eyes instinctively shifting left and right as if seeking an escape route and lips and teeth pulled back like we’re suffering brain freeze, so thankful we aren’t on those four stages in those four cities, handing over giant trophies and well-wishes to our would-be and soon-to-be exes.
Awwwwkward.
It’s 2025 MLB All-Star Home Run Derby day in Atlanta!
Some of the most dynamic home run hitters in baseball will be taking aim at the Truist Park stands on Monday (8 p.m. ET on ESPN) in one of the most anticipated events of the summer.
While the prospect of a back-to-back champion is out of the picture — 2024 winner Teoscar Hernandez is not a part of this year’s field — a number of exciting stars will be taking the field, including Atlanta’s own Matt Olson, who replaced Ronald Acuna Jr. just three days before the event. Will Olson make a run in front of his home crowd? Will Cal Raleigh show off the power that led to 38 home runs in the first half? Or will one of the younger participants take the title?
We have your one-stop shop for everything Derby related, from predictions to live updates once we get underway to analysis and takeaways at the night’s end.
MLB Home Run Derby field
Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners (38 home runs in 2025)
James Wood, Washington Nationals (24)
Junior Caminero, Tampa Bay Rays (23)
Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins (21)
Brent Rooker, Athletics (20)
Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves (17)
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees (17)
Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh Pirates (16)
Live updates
Who is going to win the Derby and who will be the runner-up?
Jeff Passan: Raleigh. His swing is perfect for the Derby: He leads MLB this season in both pull percentage and fly ball percentage, so it’s not as if he needs to recalibrate it to succeed. He has also become a prolific hitter from the right side this season — 16 home runs in 102 at-bats — and his ability to switch between right- and left-handed pitching offers a potential advantage. No switch-hitter (or catcher for that matter) has won a Home Run Derby. The Big Dumper is primed to be the first, beating Buxton in the finals.
Alden Gonzalez: Cruz. He might be wildly inconsistent at this point in his career, but he is perfect for the Derby — young enough to possess the stamina required for a taxing event that could become exhausting in the Atlanta heat; left-handed, in a ballpark where the ball carries out better to right field; and, most importantly, capable of hitting balls at incomprehensible velocities. Raleigh will put on a good show from both sides of the plate but will come in second.
Buster Olney: Olson. He is effectively pinch-hitting for Acuna, and because he received word in the past 72 hours of his participation, he hasn’t had the practice rounds that the other competitors have been going through. But he’s the only person in this group who has done the Derby before, which means he has experienced the accelerated pace, adrenaline and push of the crowd.
His pitcher, Eddie Perez, knows something about performing in a full stadium in Atlanta. And, as Olson acknowledged in a conversation Sunday, the park generally favors left-handed hitters because of the larger distances that right-handed hitters must cover in left field.
Jesse Rogers: Olson. Home-field advantage will mean something this year as hitting in 90-plus degree heat and humidity will be an extra challenge in Atlanta. Olson understands that and can pace himself accordingly. Plus, he was a late addition. He has got nothing to lose. He’ll outlast the young bucks in the field. And I’m not putting Raleigh any lower than second — his first half screams that he’ll be in the finals against Olson.
Jorge Castillo: Wood. His mammoth power isn’t disputed — he can jack baseballs to all fields. But the slight defect in his power package is that he doesn’t hit the ball in the air nearly as often as a typical slugger. Wood ranks 126th out of 155 qualified hitters across the majors in fly ball percentage. And he still has swatted 24 home runs this season. So, in an event where he’s going to do everything he can to lift baseballs, hitting fly balls won’t be an issue, and Wood is going to show off that gigantic power en route to a victory over Cruz in the finals.
Who will hit the longest home run of the night — and how far?
Passan: Cruz hits the ball harder than anyone in baseball history. He’s the choice here, at 493 feet.
Gonzalez: If you exclude the Coors Field version, there have been just six Statcast-era Derby home runs that have traveled 497-plus feet. They were compiled by two men: Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. James Wood — all 6-foot-7, 234 pounds of him — will become the third.
Olney: James Wood has the easy Stanton- and Judge-type power, and he will clear the Chophouse with the longest homer. Let’s say 497 feet.
Rogers: Hopefully he doesn’t injure himself doing it, but Buxton will break out his massive strength and crush a ball at least 505 feet. I don’t see him advancing far in the event, but for one swing, he’ll own the night.
Castillo: Cruz hits baseballs hard and far. He’ll crush a few bombs, and one will reach an even 500 feet.
Who is the one slugger fans will know much better after the Derby?
Passan: Buxton capped his first half with a cycle on Saturday, and he’ll carry that into the Derby, where he will remind the world why he was baseball’s No. 1 prospect in 2015. Buxton’s talent has never been in question, just his health. And with his body feeling right, he has the opportunity to put on a show fans won’t soon forget.
Olney: Caminero isn’t a big name and wasn’t a high-end prospect like Wood was earlier in his career. Just 3½ years ago, Caminero was dealt to the Rays by the Cleveland Guardians in a relatively minor November trade for pitcher Tobias Myers. But since then, he has refined his ability to cover inside pitches and is blossoming this year into a player with ridiculous power. He won’t win the Derby, but he’ll open some eyes.
What’s the one moment we’ll all be talking about long after this Derby ends?
Gonzalez: The incredible distances and velocities that will be reached, particularly by Wood, Cruz, Caminero, Raleigh and Buxton. The hot, humid weather at Truist Park will only aid the mind-blowing power that will be on display Monday night.
Rogers: The exhaustion on the hitter’s faces, swinging for home run after home run in the heat and humidity of Hot-lanta!
Castillo: Cruz’s 500-foot blast and a bunch of other lasers he hits in the first two rounds before running out of gas in the finals.
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