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  • Tom VanHaaren, ESPN Staff WriterJan 24, 2024, 09:39 PM ET

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    • ESPN staff writer
    • Joined ESPN in 2011
    • Graduated from Central Michigan

In his time as Michigan‘s head coach, Jim Harbaugh created media frenzies, dustups with coaches, viral moments with recruits and everything in between.

Hired in late 2014 to replace Brady Hoke as the Wolverines’ coach, Harbaugh wasted no time once in Ann Arbor to ruffle feathers by poking at coaches for breaking rules and pushing the limits on what the NCAA would allow through satellite camps across the country.

He climbed trees, had sleepovers and made cakes for recruits to try to win them over. After three Big Ten titles, three College Football Playoff appearances and having delivered his alma mater its first national title since 1997, Harbaugh accepted the head coaching job with the Los Angeles Chargers, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Since he is departing the college football world, here is a look at some of his more memorable and viral moments after joining Michigan in 2014.

Feb. 7, 2015: Harbaugh had a commitment from ESPN 300 running back Mike Weber in the 2015 class, a top prospect out of Detroit Cass Tech. Weber decommitted from the Wolverines in the middle of the fourth quarter of the team’s loss to Maryland in the 2014 season.

Harbaugh fought to get Weber back in the class, but he ultimately signed with Ohio State. Weber said at the time that running backs coach Stan Drayton was a big part of his commitment, but the Buckeyes’ running backs coach left to take the same position with the Chicago Bears the day after Weber signed his national letter of intent with Ohio State.

Harbaugh took the opportunity to tweet about the situation.

Weber stuck with Ohio State and played four seasons for the Buckeyes, before he was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the 2019 NFL draft.

March 3, 2015: Harbaugh had been known to be a fan of TV star Judge Judy, even attending a taping of her show with his father, Jack.

So, he, naturally, took to Twitter to congratulate Judge Judy on a contract extension.

He has since played cards with the judge and has publicly talked about his admiration for her and the show.

“I’m a big fan of the ‘Judge Judy’ show,” Harbaugh told reporters at the 2013 NFL combine. “And when you lie in Judge Judy’s courtroom, it’s over, your credibility is completely lost, you stand no chance of winning that case. So, I learned that from her. It’s very powerful.”

March 14, 2015: The 2016 recruiting class is when Harbaugh really started to pull out all the stops on the recruiting trail. The staff put a ton of effort and creativity into recruiting ESPN 300 defensive lineman Boss Tagaloa, from California.

That included Harbaugh recreating a “promposal” poster that Tagaloa used to ask someone to prom. Harbaugh posed for a picture with a sign of his own that read, ‘UM will be sour without you, so let’s make it sweet. MICH?’

Tagaloa, however, ended up signing with UCLA.

April 24, 2015: The satellite camp idea was born. Harbaugh’s plan was to host football camps around the country, especially in SEC states.

As one of the first big ideas that Harbaugh implemented, it ruffled the feathers of many other college coaches. Then-Alabama coach Nick Saban called them, “ridiculous.” Harbaugh was accused of creating the camps as a recruiting tool, knowing that some conferences wouldn’t allow their programs to travel more than 50 miles to attend high school camps.

Harbaugh tweeted out an invitation to any other college coach that wanted to attend Michigan’s camp.

To get around the 50-mile rule for some schools, Harbaugh included an invitation for those coaches to come as guest speakers at the camp.

Then-ACC commissioner John Swofford said at the time that his conference would be in favor of a rule that would prohibit satellite camps across the country.

“We just don’t feel like it’s a healthy part of the recruiting process in college football,” Swofford said at the time. “We may have to ultimately reconsider it if the rules continue to allow it, because we’re not going to put ourselves in a competitive disadvantage in recruiting if we were to feel like we were disadvantaged, but our primary purpose right now is to try to gain support for a national rule that prohibits it.”

The NCAA first banned satellite camps, which triggered one of Harbaugh’s first public criticisms of the NCAA, but then rescinded the ban and allowed the camps to continue.

June 4, 2015: The tour of satellite camps was announced in June and was called the Summer Swarm. It consisted of nine locations, starting in Indianapolis, traveling to Alabama, Florida, Pennsylvania, Texas, California and eventually finishing back in Michigan. At the stops, Harbaugh would often wear jerseys representing local teams.

The tour spanned eight days and cost Michigan $211,948 in total, according to FOIA requests by MLive.

June 5, 2015: The Summer Swarm had already garnered attention from media and coaches, but Harbaugh wasted no time in increasing visibility by taking his shirt off while playing a pickup game at one of the camps.

He kept his signature khakis on while playing a game of shirts and skins.

“I was like a pig in slop,” Harbaugh said at the camp. “Man, you guys are in shape. You’ve got a heart for football, a face for football and I love being around you guys. That was a fun, fun day.”

June 25, 2015: Once the Swarm Tour was over, Harbaugh was back in Ann Arbor, entertaining recruits. He took tight end recruit Naseir Upshur and a few others out for ice cream, which Upshur documented on Twitter.

This was one of the more tame recruiting events, but given that Harbaugh was fresh off of his cross-country antics, it once again made news.

Aug. 12, 2015: Prior to the start of his first season as Michigan head coach, Harbaugh told reporters that after the wild tour, viral headlines and more publicity than Michigan had seen in quite some time, he and the team would be headed into submarine mode.

“We’re going into a submarine, and you won’t see us for a while,” Harbaugh said at the time. “You won’t hear from us, you won’t see us, we’ll be working. We’ll be in a bunker until we decide we’re not.”

No one from the team emerged from the submarine publicly until August 27, when a few players talked to the media. Offensive lineman Kyle Kalis was one of the first players to surface.

“It was definitely an experience,” Kalis said. “One that I’ll tell my kids about when I’m older. It’s definitely been a camp unlike any we’ve had before, and it’s going to pay dividends for us down the road.”

Nov., 2015: Harbaugh’s diet plan was revealed.

“I take a vitamin every day. It’s called a steak. I truly believe the No. 1 natural steroid is sleep, and the No. 2 natural steroid is milk, whole milk. Three would be water. Four would be steak. It goes with everything.”

Harbaugh, who once appeared in a “Got Milk” ad, later told Dan Patrick that he didn’t like having anything less than whole milk at the team’s dining hall.

“We refuse to drink the candy-ass skim milk or the 1 percent,” Harbaugh said. “We refuse. We won’t have any of that.”

In 2016, Harbaugh was photographed at an Ann Arbor steakhouse ready to enjoy both of his favorite foods.

Nov. 18, 2015: Harbaugh had done the promposal recreation for recruits and members of his staff had written letters, but they moved on to baking birthday cakes for their prospects.

Jonathan Jones was only the recipient of a birthday cake tweet, so he didn’t actually get to eat the cake. It’s the thought that counts, though, and maybe Harbaugh and his staff enjoyed some of the cake in honor of Jones and his birthday.

They did it again for defensive lineman Jordan Elliott, making a cake that was supposed to look like the state of Texas as Elliott was from Texas. It worked only briefly, as Eliott committed to Michigan, but he eventually flipped to Texas.

January 14, 2016: Following a 10-3 season, this is when Harbaugh took the recruiting tactics to another level and had a sleepover at kicker Quinn Nordin’s house. The justification was that there was no limit as to how long an in-home visit could last.

So, in Harbaugh’s mind, if he stayed the night and stayed the rest of the day, it was all still one visit.

The news that the sleepover was happening spread quickly and Nordin’s neighbors decided to troll Harbaugh with a giant sign displaying the score of that year’s Michigan-Michigan State game which the Spartans had won.

Harbaugh then went to Nordin’s high school in the morning and eventually rode in the car with him to Ann Arbor for a visit to Michigan.

January 19, 2016: Harbaugh then traveled to the West Coast to continue recruiting Tagaloa, who got the promposal re-creation. This time, Harbaugh was attending class with the defensive tackle at his high school.

January 19, 2016: He stayed in California to recruit cornerback David Long.

They were outside of Long’s house, playing catch with Long and his siblings. Before they knew it, Harbaugh was climbing a tree.

“My little sister asked if he could climb the tree,” Long said at the time. “He was just trying to fulfill her request. He ended up putting my little brother up instead, because he never actually made it up.”

There was a picture that circulated online showing Harbaugh climbing the tree while wearing his khaki pants.

January 20, 2016: The sleepover with Nordin was such a success that Harbaugh decided to do it again, this time with defensive end Connor Murphy.

Harbaugh had history with the Murphy family, because he recruited Connor’s older brother Trent to Stanford. Harbaugh had babysat for Connor once when he was younger, but this time he was there recruiting the younger Murphy.

Feb. 24, 2016: The satellite camps had created quite the dust up among other coaches who weren’t happy about the decision to allow the camps to continue.

“(Michigan is) obviously trying to gain a competitive advantage, and obviously that’s their right,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said at the time. “But I think the NCAA in due time will have to step in and keep it from getting out of hand.”

That comment seemed pretty tame, but Harbaugh took offense to it and tweeted back at Smart.

Not much came from the exchange, but Harbaugh wasn’t done calling out opposing coaches.

March 3, 2016: Harbaugh and his staff were getting ready for their camp at IMG Academy in Florida, when then Arkansas coach Bret Bielema said he would attend, along with Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio.

Dantonio joked with Bielema that they could meet in Florida for lunch, which caused then-Tennessee coach Butch Jones to say he, too, would meet them for lunch in Florida.

That didn’t sit well with Harbaugh, who subtweeted Jones by calling him his Rocky Top colleague.

April 2, 2016: This begins the period when Harbaugh began going on stage with rappers. That included joining Lil Dicky, who was performing in Ann Arbor, for a rendition of the National Anthem.

April 13, 2016: Just 11 days after going on stage with Lil Dicky, Harbaugh spent time with rap group Migos before their concert in Detroit.

The group asked Harbaugh to come on stage and dab with them, so they naturally had to ice him out with jewelry before he made his appearance.

Harbaugh did go on stage and was doused with water while dancing during the concert.

Harbaugh would later invite the group back to Ann Arbor.

May 31, 2016: Harbaugh is back to throwing shade at opposing coaches, this time at Saban.

At SEC meetings, Saban had talked about despising satellite camps and said college football was moving towards the wild, wild west. His comments drew the ire of Harbaugh and resulted in his tweet.

Saban later fired back at Harbaugh through reporters.

“I don’t really care what he thinks or tweets,” Saban said. “I say what I think is best for college football and the players.”

June 9, 2016: Harbaugh had built a relationship with the staff and administration at Paramus Catholic high school through recruiting Paramus players Jabrill Peppers and Rashan Gary.

The plan was for the coaches to come to Paramus Catholic for a satellite camp, but the NCAA put a temporary ban on the camps at the time. That led to Harbaugh coming to the school and giving the commencement speech for the graduating class.

The coaches were recruiting linebacker Drew Singleton and a few other players from the team, so it gave Harbaugh a chance to still show up and have a presence at the school.

July 18, 2016: Harbaugh continued appearing on the rap scene, this time with artist Bailey, in a song called, “Who’s got it better than us?” That is, of course, Harbaugh’s signature saying.

July 14, 2016: Harbaugh ended the camp tour early, because there was fear of the Zeka virus in American Samoa, where a camp was supposed to be held. He instead stayed in California and took a trip to Disneyland, where he ran into talk show host Jerry Springer.

Oct. 15, 2016: Recruiting in the San Francisco area, Harbaugh held the down marker on a chain gang at a high school game.

Nov. 12, 2016: And if we’re talking about random, Harbaugh went on a radio show and spoke about his admiration for Spongebob Squarepants.

“I love his attitude,” Harbaugh said at the time. “He attacks each day with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind! I’ve kind of modeled my behavior after him. We all should. What a great employee he is. He’s a go-getter. He’s always got a bounce to his step. He’s got pizzazz. He puts his heart and soul into making those crabby patties. I think he’s awesome.”

April 26, 2017: At this time, Harbaugh started a tradition of taking the team to meaningful places during the offseason.

In 2017, he took the team to Italy, where Harbaugh had the chance to meet the Pope. Of course, upon meeting Pope Francis, Harbaugh gave him a Michigan helmet and Jordan shoes.

If you were hoping that the pontiff would make an appearance while wearing the Jordans, it hasn’t happened yet.

April 28, 2017: While in Italy, Harbaugh did an impression of Maximus from the movie “Gladiator.”

And sang some opera for reporters.

Sep. 30, 2017: During a bye week, Harbaugh went to Michigan’s Water Carnival and participated in some of the platform diving. He, of course, did it in khakis.

He tried multiple times in what was determined to be a cannonball contest.

July 19, 2018: “Car and Driver” went to Ann Arbor to do a video segment with Harbaugh and a Dodge Charger. Harbaugh drove to his childhood house, and then drove the car into the Big House and did doughnuts on the turf.

July 30, 2018: In a story in Bleacher Report, Harbaugh is quoted as telling quarterback Wilton Speight to avoid chicken “because it’s a nervous bird.”

Aug. 6, 2020: During a conference call among Big Ten coaches, Harbaugh reportedly interrupted Ohio State coach Ryan Day and asked him about a photo that showed then assistant coach Al Washington coaching the linebackers during a time on the calendar when it wasn’t permitted.

Day reportedly responded by telling Harbaugh to worry about his team. After the call, Bucknuts reported that Day told his team that Michigan should hope for a mercy rule, because they’re going to, “hang 100 on them.”

Sep. 15, 2020: This is the last time that Harbaugh tweeted, perhaps ending an epic run of one of the great Twitter beefers.

Nov. 28, 2021: After Day said Ohio State was going to hang 100 points on Michigan, the Wolverines beat Ohio State 42-27. Harbaugh wasted no time in talking trash to Day when asked in his postgame press conference what he thought of Ohio State’s trash talking in recent years.

“Sometimes there are people standing on third base that think they hit a triple,” Harbaugh said at the time.”But they didn’t.”

Harbaugh eventually explained on a radio show on 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit that it was a shot at Day.

“It was definitely a counterpunch by me, to the comment that they were going to hang 100 on us, etcetera,” Harbaugh said on the radio. “Kind of like Sugar Ray Robinson.”

Jan. 20, 2022: While Harbaugh hasn’t been on social media, it doesn’t mean he hasn’t gone viral. While recruiting players at Jesuit High School in Tampa, Florida, he decided to do squats in the weight room.

Dec. 11, 2022: In-home visits with Harbaugh have already produced sleep overs and tree-climbing escapades.

In a seemingly tamer moment, Harbaugh helped wash the dishes at receiver Semaj Morgan’s house on a visit.

Feb. 22, 2023: Picture yourself driving on a road at night, when you come across a large tree blocking your way. Now imagine you look out your windshield to see Jim Harbaugh trying to move the tree in front of you.

That is exactly what happened to one driver near Ann Arbor, as Harbaugh made the news for helping a police officer move a tree out of the road. The ordeal was caught on the police camera and footage was later shared online.

Sep. 9, 2023: While serving a three-game suspension for NCAA recruiting violations, Harbaugh was back working with the referee crew.

Sep. 30, 2023: Defensive tackle Kenneth Grant intercepted a pass against Nebraska, which was quite the feat for a 6-foot-3, 339-pound lineman. After the game was over, when everyone was in the locker room, Harbaugh decided that the whole team should sing the song, “For he’s a jolly good fellow,” to Grant.

The song somehow stuck with the team and they sang it after every game this season.

Nov. 6, 2023: Pro wrestling icon Ric Flair and Harbaugh became friends when Harbaugh played for the Chicago Bears and have spent time together ever since.

Flair showed up to Ann Arbor for a visit in November and exited the building without his signature, “Woo.”

Nov. 13, 2023: Harbaugh sounded as though he was losing his voice, but insisted he wasn’t sick.

Instead, he insisted that he is the “iron wall that viruses bash against” and he’ll do “push ups and eat an apple” to get better.

Nov. 20, 2023: In one of his final odd statements as Michigan coach, Harbaugh quoted Ted Lasso.

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‘We had no choice’: Why Delaware felt the pressure to finally jump to FBS

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August 25, 2025

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'We had no choice': Why Delaware felt the pressure to finally jump to FBS

  • David HaleAug 24, 2025, 08:25 AM ET

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    • College football reporter.
    • Joined ESPN in 2012.
    • Graduate of the University of Delaware.

NEWARK, Del. — Russ Crook has a shirt he likes to wear to Delaware football road games. He’s a lifelong fan and the current president of the Blue Hen Touchdown Club, but he knows the jokes, so he picked up the shirt a few years back when he saw it at the historic National 5 & 10 store on Main Street. It’s gray with a map of the state across the chest and the ubiquitous punchline delivered succinctly: “Dela-where?”

Yes, the state is small, though Rhode Island gets the acclaim that comes with being the country’s smallest. In popular culture, Delaware often translates as something of a non-place — cue the “Wayne’s World” GIF — and it’s widely appreciated by outsiders as little more than a 28-mile stretch of I-95 between Maryland and Pennsylvania that hardly warrants mentioning.

It’s a harmless enough stereotype, but Cook is hopeful this football season can start to change some perceptions. After all, in 2025, Delaware — the football program — hits the big time. Or, Conference USA, at least.

“Delaware’s a small state, but the university has 24,000 students,” Crook said. “Many big-time schools are smaller than we are. There’s no reason we can’t do this.”

When the Blue Hens kick off against Delaware State on Aug. 28, they will be, for the first time, an FBS football team, joining Missouri State as first-year members of Conference USA — the 135th and 136th FBS programs.

Longtime Hens fans might not have believed the move was possible even a few years ago, as much for the school’s ethos as the state’s stature. The university’s leadership had spent decades holding firm in the belief that the Hens were best positioned as a big fish in the relatively small ponds of Division II and, later, FCS.

And yet, just as the rest of the college sports world is reeling from an onslaught of change — revenue sharing, the transfer portal, NIL and conference realignment — Delaware decided it was time to join the party.

“Us and Delaware are probably making this move at one of the more difficult times to make the move in history,” said Missouri State AD Patrick Ransdell.

All of which begs the question: Why now?

Many of Delaware’s historic rivals — UMass, App State, Georgia Southern, Old Dominion, James Madison — had already made the leap to FBS, and the Hens’ previous conference, the Colonial, was reeling. Economic conditions at the FCS level made life challenging for administration. The NCAA was making moves to curb future transitions from FCS to FBS, and the school felt its window to make a move was closing.

“We had no choice,” Crook said.

And so, ready or not, the Hens are about to embark on a new era — a chance to prove themselves at a higher level and, perhaps, provide Delaware with a reputation that’s more than a punchline.

“We talk about doing things for the 302 all the time,” interim athletic director Jordan Skolnick said, referencing the area code that serves the entirety of the state. “We want everyone in the state of Delaware to feel the pride in us being successful, and we want people to realize how incredible this place is. It’s not just a place you drive through on 95.”

BACK WHEN MIKE Brey was coaching Delaware’s men’s basketball team to back-to-back tournament appearances in the 1990s, he would often swing by the football offices to talk shop with the Hens’ legendary football coach Tubby Raymond, who won 300 games utilizing a three-back offensive formation dubbed the wing-T. Brey recalls pestering him once about the new spread schemes being run at conference rival New Hampshire by a young coordinator named Chip Kelly. Raymond was a beloved figure at Delaware, and he had helped mentor Brey as a head coach, but he was notoriously old-school.

Raymond huffed, dismissing the tempo offense as “grass basketball,” all style and finesse without the fundamental elements of the game he had coached for decades. The mindset was often pervasive at UD.

“It was in the bricks there,” said Brey, who went on to a 23-year stint coaching at Notre Dame. “Tubby had his kingdom, and nobody was telling him what to do. It was, ‘Leave us alone. We’re good. We’ve got the wing-T.'”

Brey’s contract in those days technically referred to him as a member of the physical education department, and he and his staff had to teach classes during the offseason on basketball skills. Despite Raymond’s retirement in 2001 and an FCS national title in 2003, not much changed. By 2016, when Skolnick arrived to work in the athletic department, a number of coaches were still considered part-time employees, and several programs had to source their own equipment.

But change was brewing.

Old rivals such as App State, Georgia Southern and JMU had left FCS without missing a beat. Delaware had often punched above its weight and churned out genuine stars such as Rich Gannon and Joe Flacco, but the chasm between the haves and have-nots in football was growing. It was clear the Hens needed to invest, though the goal then was to take advantage of the power vacuum among east coast FCS schools.

“I think a lot of people wondered if we’d missed the window,” Skolnick said. “But at that time, the goal was to win as many FCS national championships as we can and resource our teams to be able to compete.”

Delaware football did compete, earning a spot in the FCS playoffs in four of the past six seasons, but another national title eluded the program, and by 2022, with rival James Madison moving up to the Sun Belt, then-AD Chrissi Rawak began to test the waters of a jump to FBS.

The school partnered with consultants who studied the economics of a move, both for the athletic department, which stood to see a $3 to $4 million increase in annual revenue, and for the state, which could enjoy a 50% uptick in economic impact from football alone. Meanwhile, Delaware looked at each FCS school that had made the leap up to FBS in the past 10 years to see how the Hens might stack up. What did Skolnick say the school found? Programs that had already been investing, had a solid recruiting footprint and were committed to football had success.

“We started to check a lot of boxes,” Skolnick said.

There were concerns, of course. The landscape of college football was roiling, and the expense of running a successful program seemed to grow by the day. But the opportunity to generate more revenue was obvious.

In the playoff era, 10 schools have made the leap from FCS to FBS, and nearly all have tasted some level of success. Overall, the group has posted a .548 winning percentage at the FBS level, and seven of the 10 have had seasons with double-digit wins. James Madison, who went from an FCS championship to the Sun Belt in 2022, is 28-9 at the FBS level and enters the 2025 season with legitimate playoff aspirations.

That success, however, is the result of a decades-in-the-making plan, said former JMU athletic director Jeff Bourne. The Dukes kicked the tires on an FBS move as early as 2012 but held steady as the program grew its infrastructure and, when the time came to make a move in 2022, it was ready.

“Before we made that decision, we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could support it financially,” Bourne said. “You had to have the fan base and donor base grow, have our facilities in a place so we could recruit. Looking at it from a broad perspective, it made our move not only prudent but ultimately helped us be successful.”

Off the field, the move has proved equally fortuitous. In JMU’s final year at the FCS level, the athletic department had 4,600 total donors, according to the school. For the 2025 fiscal year, JMU had nearly 11,000. The Dukes have sold out season tickets for three straight years, and high-profile games, including two bowl appearances, have been a boon for admissions.

So, when Conference USA approached Delaware with a formal invitation to join in November 2023, the choice seemed obvious.

“It was pretty clear that, as a flagship institution in our state, we wanted to be aligned with schools that look like us,” Skolnick said. “We want to align our athletic aspirations with our academic ones. Academically we’re one of the best public institutions in the country. Athletically, we’ve had all these incredible moments of success — but they’re moments. They’re spread out. So we felt like this was an opportunity to bring all of it together in a way that will show people — the best way to give people a lens into how special Delaware is, is for our athletic teams to be really successful and create more visibility.”

Brey remembers reading the news of Delaware’s decision to make the jump, and he couldn’t help but think back to his conversations with Raymond nearly 30 years ago. This had been a long time coming, he thought, and yet it still seemed hard to believe.

“I was shocked,” Brey said. “Little old Delaware is finally going for it.”

THERE ARE AMPLE lessons Delaware and Missouri State administrators have learned in the past few months as they’ve worked to ramp up staffing and budgets and add scholarship players for the transition. But if there’s one piece of advice Skolnick would share with other schools considering a similar process, it’s this: Find a time machine.

Delaware announced its intention to jump to FBS in November 2023. Just weeks earlier, the NCAA, in an effort to stem the tide of FCS departures, made changes to the requirements for moving up that, among other things, increased the cost of doing so from $5,000 to $5 million, and Delaware would be the first team to pay it.

That was not a budget line the Blue Hens had accounted for, meaning the school had to raise funds to cover that cost on a tight timeline.

“We had six months to do it,” Skolnick said. “Fortunately, we had people who were really excited about this transition.”

Ransdell took over as AD at Missouri State in August of 2024, just months after the Bears announced their plans to move to Conference USA, and he inherited a budget that wasn’t remotely ready for FBS competition.

“We had to change some things, do some more investing,” he said. “We weren’t really prepared to be an FBS program with the budget I inherited.”

In other words, the buzzword at both schools is the same as it is everywhere in 2025: revenue.

But if budgets have to be stretched with a move up to FBS, there are benefits, too.

Ransdell said Missouri State has sold more season tickets than any year since 2016, buoyed by a home game against SMU on Sept. 13.

Delaware had faced hurdles selling tickets in recent years, thanks in part to a slate of games against opponents its fans hardly recognized. That has changed already, with ample buzz around future home dates with old rivals UConn, Temple and Coastal Carolina. Crook said membership in the booster club is up 10-15% after years of steady declines. This season, Delaware travels to Colorado, and Crook said a caravan of Blue Hens fans will tag along.

On the recruiting trail, Delaware coach Ryan Carty said the conversations are completely different than they were a year ago, and the Hens have been able to add a host of new talent. The Hens’ roster includes 14 transfers from Power 4 programs this year, including Delaware native Noah Matthews, who arrived from Kentucky.

When Matthews was being recruited out of Woodbridge High School, about an hour’s drive down Route 1 through the middle of the state, he never heard from Delaware. It’s not that his home-state school didn’t want him. It’s that, no one on staff believed the Hens had a shot to land a guy with offers in the SEC.

Four years later though, Matthews is back home, and there’s nowhere he would rather be.

“I wanted to come back and show people, this is what Delaware does,” Matthews said. “We can play big-time football, too. After this year, they’ll know exactly who we are.”

For all the hurdles to get their respective programs in a place to compete at the FBS level, the costs are worth it, Ransdell said.

Need proof? Look no further than Sacramento State, a school that has all but begged for an invitation from the Pac-12 or Mountain West, even dangling a supposedly flush NIL fund with more than $35 million raised. And yet, no doors have been opened for the Hornets.

Still, the old guard around Delaware might not be so easily swayed.

Brey has kept a beach house in Delaware since his time coaching in the state, returning the past couple of years to serve as a guest bartender at the popular beach bar The Starboard to raise money for the Blue Hens’ NIL fund. This summer, he was strolling the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, chatting with the locals and getting a feel for how fans felt about this new era of Delaware football.

Most were excited, he said, but one — a longtime season-ticket holder — had a different perspective.

“On the first day of fall camp,” the fan told him, “we always knew we could play for a national championship in [FCS]. That’s not possible anymore.”

In other words, Delaware sold its championship aspirations for an admittedly more financially prudent place near the bottom of FBS. And who’s to say FBS football even remains viable as power players in the SEC and Big Ten move ever closer to creating “super leagues?”

“There very well could be a super league,” Bourne said. “There are signs that could happen. But I think when you look at it from the standpoint of your peer group, it’s to be competitive with them. There’s probably going to be a day where there’s a shake-up and you have some existing [power conference] schools that end up being more aligned with [Group of 6] than they are with the upper tier.”

Brey recalls his old friend Bob Hannah, the former Delaware baseball coach who had long been a progressive among the school’s traditionalists, wondering if the Hens might have been a fit in the ACC, had the school just pursued athletics growth in the 1970s and 1980s. The irony, Brey said, is these days, with even power conferences struggling to keep pace with the rapid change and financial strains of modern college sports, that doesn’t seem like such a long shot.

For Skolnick, that’s a worry for another day. Getting Delaware ready for its chance to shine on some of the sport’s biggest stages in 2025 is the priority. Delaware — the school and the state — hasn’t had many of these moments, and it’s an opportunity the Hens don’t want to miss.

“We’ve got to be ready for what we’re moving into, but everyone in college athletics is dealing with change,” Skolnick said. “That part is comforting. It’s more of an opportunity for us to do it our way. We’re too great of a historical and successful and traditional team to not be part of the conversation.”

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Raleigh hits 48th, 49th HRs to set catcher record

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11 hours ago

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August 25, 2025

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Raleigh hits 48th, 49th HRs to set catcher record

  • ESPN News Services

Aug 24, 2025, 04:35 PM ET

SEATTLE — Mariners slugger Cal Raleigh hit his major league-leading 48th and 49th home runs in Sunday’s 11-4 win over the Athletics, setting a single-season record for catchers and passing Salvador Perez‘s total with the Kansas City Royals in 2021.

Raleigh’s record-breaking home run also marked his ninth multi-home run game of the season, passing Mickey Mantle (eight for the 1961 New York Yankees) for most multi-home run games by a switch-hitter in a season in major league history. The overall record is 11 multi-home run games in a season.

The switch-hitting Raleigh, batting from the right side, homered off Athletics left-handed starter Jacob Lopez in the first inning to make it 2-0 and tie Perez. Raleigh got a fastball down the middle from Lopez and sent it an estimated 448 feet, according to Statcast. It was measured as the longest home run of Raleigh’s career as a right-handed hitter.

In the second inning, Raleigh drilled a changeup from Lopez 412 feet. The longballs were Nos. 39 and 40 on the season for Raleigh while catching this year. He has nine while serving as a designated hitter.

Raleigh went 3-for-5 with 4 RBIs in the win.

Perez hit 15 home runs as a DH in 2021, and 33 at catcher.

Only four other players in big league history have hit at least 40 homers in a season while primarily playing catcher: Johnny Bench (twice), Roy Campanella, Todd Hundley and Mike Piazza (twice). Bench, Campanella and Piazza are Hall of Famers.

Raleigh launched 27 homers in 2022, then 30 in 2023 and 34 last season.

A first-time All-Star at age 28, Raleigh burst onto the national scene when he won the All-Star Home Run Derby in July. He became the first switch-hitter and first catcher to win the title. He is the second Mariners player to take the crown, after three-time winner Ken Griffey Jr.

Raleigh’s homers gave him 106 RBIs on the season. He is the first catcher with consecutive seasons of 100 RBIs since Piazza (1996-2000), and the first American League backstop to accomplish the feat since Thurman Munson (1975-77).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Yanks bench Volpe for series finale vs. Red Sox

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11 hours ago

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August 25, 2025

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Yanks bench Volpe for series finale vs. Red Sox

  • Associated Press

Aug 24, 2025, 07:15 PM ET

NEW YORK — Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe was benched Sunday night for the finale of a critical four-game series against the rival Boston Red Sox.

Volpe is mired in a 1-for-28 slump and leads the majors with 17 errors. New York started recently acquired utlityman Jose Caballero at shortstop as the team tries to prevent a four-game sweep.

Volpe is hitting .208 with 18 homers and 65 RBIs in 128 games this season. He has started 125 at shortstop and was not in the starting lineup for only the fifth time all year.

“Just scuffling a little bit offensively here over the last 10 days, (and) having Caballero,” manager Aaron Boone explained. “Cabby gives you that real utility presence that can go play anywhere.”

Volpe did not start for the second time in eight days. After going 0-for-9 in the first two games at St. Louis, he sat out the series finale last Sunday.

He went hitless in 10 at-bats over the first three games against the Red Sox. During a 12-1 loss Saturday, he had a sacrifice bunt and committed a throwing error on a grounder by David Hamilton during Boston’s seventh-run ninth inning.

Volpe, 24, batted .249 through his first 69 games. But since June 14, he is hitting .153 — and some Yankees fans have been clamoring for the team to sit him down.

Volpe won a Gold Glove as a rookie in 2023 and hit .209 with 21 homers and 60 RBIs. He batted .243 with 12 homers last season when New York won its first American League pennant since 2009.

In the postseason, Volpe batted .286, including a grand slam in Game 4 of the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“I think he handles it quite well,” Boone said about Volpe’s struggles. “I don’t think he’s overly affected by those things. Just a young player that works his tail off and is super competitive and is trying to find that next level in his game offensively. I think he’s mentally very tough and totally wired to handle all of the things that go with being a big leaguer in this city and being a young big leaguer that’s got a lot of expectations on him.”

Acquired from Tampa Bay at the July 31 trade deadline, the speedy Caballero was hitting .320 in 14 games with the Yankees and .235 overall entering Sunday’s game. Besides shortstop, Caballero has started at second base, third base and right field.

New York began the night six games behind first-place Toronto in the AL East and 1 1/2 back of second-place Boston. The Yankees, Red Sox and Mariners are tightly bunched in a race for the three AL wild cards.

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