How ex-Capitals teammates reconnected over hockey’s ‘secret’ remedy
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
ON THE ICE, they were vital role players for the Washington Capitals.
Off the ice, they were simply the Chums.
Forwards Eric Fehr and Jay Beagle and defenseman Karl Alzner played together from 2008-15 during the Capitals’ “Rock the Red” era, when Washington teams had no shortage of star power, personality and playoff appearances. Beagle and Fehr were depth forwards known more for their checking than their offense. Alzner was more prominently featured as the team’s top “defensive defenseman,” logging plenty of minutes alongside star blueliner John Carlson.
The Chums did everything together on the road, from dinners to battling the tedium of long plane rides. Beagle said that while NHL players form bonds with teammates in every dressing room, these bonds felt different.
“Really looking back at it, those years with those guys were some of the best years of my life, just playing hockey and having those friendships,” he said. “It was so special.”
Only Beagle was still with the Capitals when they won the Stanley Cup in 2018. Fehr left as a free agent in 2015. Alzner did the same in 2017.
“We were super tight,” Alzner said. “Then you notice that when you stop playing together, you just don’t talk to the guys nearly as much. You miss it.”
“Life catches up to you,” Fehr said. “You just get too busy.”
So the Chums drifted, until something unexpected reunited them recently. Fehr, Beagle and Alzner are all involved with LactiGo, a topical muscle recovery and sports performance gel that they say is gaining popularity among NHL players. Fehr is on the board of directors for LactiGo, while Beagle and Alzner are active investors. Fehr is also on the board for Ethoderm, the pharmaceutical side of the company.
As rewarding as they hope this business can be, becoming teammates again has been its own reward.
“It feels like we’re still playing together,” Alzner said. “Even though we’re not talking hockey specifically, we have that same cadence that you would have if you were talking to a current teammate. Having had an opportunity to try and succeed on the ice and now having it off the ice is pretty special.”
NHL PLAYERS ARE CONSTANTLY being pitched with financial opportunities. Not all of them work out.
“There were a few of us in Washington, right at the beginning of my career, we all put some money into something and we all lost it. A good lesson, right away,” Alzner said. “Right from there, I was a little bit gun-shy about what I was going to put my money into, especially after I stopped playing. It’s so hard to figure out. You could make money. Or you could lose all of your money.”
The first one to get involved with LactiGo was Fehr. He was playing for the AHL San Diego Gulls in 2017-18 when he was pitched a product he hadn’t heard of before. Teammate Michael Liambas brought him LactiGo, which Liambas was using to revive weary legs.
“You get a bunch of these things coming your way when you’re playing pro hockey. People always bringing you stuff,” Fehr recalled. “And then I used it, and I’m like, ‘This is crazy.’ My legs were so loose, so good. I started sharing it with teammates and buddies.”
Fehr brought it to the Chums. Beagle was skeptical until he considered the source.
“You get pitched a lot of things when you’re playing. A lot of weird, random things. This was one I tried out, because it was coming from Fehr,” Beagle said. “He’s such a good guy. Like, a good human. So when he calls, you answer. And when he says something, you take it seriously, because he lives with integrity.”
Alzner was around 31 years old when Fehr pitched him and was feeling the burdens of being a veteran skater.
“My legs were starting to get … heavier,” he said. “Games were getting tougher. I hated going into practice feeling crappy, needing a couple of drills to them to come back. Going to morning skate and then it’s, ‘Surprise, my legs suck today.’ So I decided to try it out.”
Alzner was something who tried everything. Cold baths to massaging boots. He was recently reminiscing with an old teammate from Montreal about the guys using “pickle juice,” which was “literally just water with menthol in it to make their legs tingle.” Beagle recalls Alzner coming to offseason workouts with every fitness and diet fad, from low carb to no breakfasts to all manner of legal supplements.
So Alzner’s interest caught Beagle’s attention, too. If the guy who is constantly looking for the next thing settles on something, that caught Beagle’s attention.
“If you don’t know the guy, you wouldn’t really understand it,” Beagle said. “But when he gets excited about something and stays with a product for this long too, it’s a testament to how good the product must be.”
Fehr had inquired about investing in the company, but he said that founder Kevin Atkinson rebuked him. After about a year of pestering, Fehr was asked to help buy out a partner. Then he put another group together to buy out another investor, moving up to become one of LactiGo’s directors.
Alzner expressed his interest in investing, and Fehr put him in touch with Atkinson. But he had to know more about how LactiGo worked.
“It wasn’t originally even about the company. It was like, ‘My team needs to use this, because we’re not good,'” he said. “I’m one of those people that just really likes to dig in and understand why things do what they do.”
When Alzner found out that his old teammate Beagle was involved with LactiGo as well, that clarified things for him.
“When Beags got involved, you know it must be legit. Let’s just say he doesn’t really invest in … anything,” Alzner said with a laugh. “Me and Beags go way back with what we always called ‘per diem management’ on the road. If we can save money somehow, we’re saving money.”
With the Chums reunited, the next step was trying to make their product a success.
The first step was creating awareness for something players liked to keep to themselves.
“Everyone who uses it doesn’t want their competitor to use it,” Beagle said. “And unless you’re an unbelievable teammate, you don’t want even your own teammates using it in training camp because you want to be better than them, right?”
“It’s one of the best-kept secrets in hockey, and that’s the struggle we have,” Alzner said. “People want it for their own benefit and don’t want anyone else to use it.”
BOSTON BRUINS DEFENSEMAN Kevin Shattenkirk said he was always “just kind of an ‘au naturel’ guy” when it came to muscle recovery.
“I had never really put any sort of ointments or anything on my legs for games,” he said.
Shattenkirk played with Alzner in Washington back in 2017. About two years later, Alzner reached out with a pitch to try out LactiGo while Shattenkirk was playing with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“I felt like there was something definitely there. Something different,” Shattenkirk said. “I thought at first maybe it was like a little bit of a placebo effect. But the more I understood the science behind it, then it all started to make sense.”
Veteran forward James van Riemsdyk became an investor in the product after using it.
“There were a few of us in Philly, but basically the whole team in Toronto was using it,” said van Riemsdyk, now a winger for the Bruins who recently passed 1,000 games played in the NHL.
When Shattenkirk was watching the U.S. men’s world juniors team celebrate its 2024 championship, he couldn’t help but notice the vibrant green-capped LactiGo cans on a table in that locker room.
“I didn’t know guys that age got tired on the ice, but it’s good to see that other people are believing in it,” he said.
When Shattenkirk signed with the Anaheim Ducks, he found teammate Vinni Lettieri was using it. That surprised him because he hadn’t known many other players that did.
Shattenkirk said he believes it’s one of the best-kept secrets among players.
“That’s not limited to hockey. It’s in all sports, really,” he said. “It’s taken a little bit of a long time for it to break through because those who’ve had it don’t really want to give it to the other guys. It’s kind of like your ace in the hole.”
Fehr said that’s been the biggest challenge in trying to market LactiGo. When an athlete believes they have an advantage, they don’t exactly want to share it.
“It’s like a secret,” he said. “We have UFC fighters using it all the time, but they don’t want the other UFC fighters to be using it too. So nobody talks about it.”
Alzner likened it to gaining inside information about an opponent as a hockey player.
“If you watch a video of somebody on a faceoff and you see his ‘tell,’ then you feel like you have an advantage. You don’t really want to let anybody know your secret,” he said. “Even on a team, you sometimes want to be better than your teammates, right? You wanna be the person that gets more ice time and all that stuff. So it’s almost like you’d almost rather not everybody use it because you want to be better than everybody else.”
But the other issue with athletes is their persnickety nature. If they add something to their routine that coincides with success, it’ll remain part of that routine. If that success turns sour, then it’s suddenly a candidate for deletion.
“That’s the problem with the hockey guys,” Fehr said. “They could put this stuff on, go out and feel the best they’ve ever felt. And if they’re a minus-3 the next game, they’ll never use it again.”
FEHR SAID THAT he and his other investors get it. They played the game and had their own idiosyncrasies. In fact, they hope that NHL experience helps build confidence for athletes that are curious about their product.
“Realizing that it’s a bunch of hockey guys behind it, that’s kind of a cool story,” Fehr said of Alzner and Beagle. “That’s the best part of this whole thing. It’s been great to stay in touch with them, but also to have a common project that we’re working on at the same time.”
They were teammates. They were Chums. And now they’ve been reunited in a way none of them had anticipated, and it feels just like old times.
Alzner said the players’ business venture has a familiar cadence for them.
“It’s same way an NHL season feels. We’re battling so hard to try and get this thing to where we want it to go,” he said. “Like in a season, there are ups and downs. One week is awesome. Then you go a week waiting for the next thing to happen. We went through the same thing as teammates, in a different way.”
Fehr said the dynamic between the three former Capitals is the same as when they were playing.
“Beags is a quiet guy, always thinking. Alzner is always making new connections and contacts, because he’s an outgoing guy. I kind of do as much work as I can and then delegate to the people in their strong areas,” he said. “It’s been a nice dynamic, and one you’d probably have seen on the ice.”
Alzner said the project has allowed the trio to learn things about each other they hadn’t known as players.
“It’s been fun to see how our brains work outside of the rink now,” he said. “I think a lot of guys go through all these different business ventures with teammates, they don’t necessarily work out and then things peter out between them. But this has been such an exciting ride so far. It’s pretty special to do this with them.”
PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers celebrate the star of each victory this season by presenting him with a replica Bernie Parent goalie mask. The white mask with the Flyers logo on each side of the temples looks much like the one Parent wore as a cover boy in the 1970s on Time magazine when the Flyers truly meant something — beyond the Philly sports scene, and even the NHL — and he served as the cloaked face of the Broad Street Bullies.
The Flyers pulled out the mask Saturday night before their game against New Jersey and let it rest on top of one of the goalie nets. One more final tribute for Parent, the Hall of Fame goalie who was honored by the franchise this weekend two months after he died at age 80.
“Forever our No. 1,” said Lou Nolan, the Flyers’ public address announcer since 1972.
With that, the spotlight shone on Parent’s retired No. 1 banner that hangs in the rafters, just a row ahead of the two oversized Stanley Cup championship banners — the only ones in franchise history — that catch the eye in Flyers orange and might not even exist at all if not for the affable goalie from Montreal.
Parent anchored the net for the Flyers when the Bullies reigned under owner Ed Snider as one of the marquee teams in sports. Parent won Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers captured the Stanley Cup in ’74 and ’75, the first NHL expansion team to win the championship.
Ahead of the game Saturday against New Jersey, a photo of a smiling Parent flashing his two Stanley Cup rings on the outside arena videoboard loomed large over the 9-foot bronze statue for Snider, the Flyers’ founder who died in 2016.
“‘We’ve got two Stanley Cups because of Bernie,” Hall of Famer Bobby Clarke said at a celebration of life event in front of thousands of Flyers fans.
Flyers fans poured out this weekend to remember Parent over a two-day celebration that started with Friday’s service and extended into Saturday’s tribute game. Flyers fans in droves wore No. 1 Parent jerseys during the game — and what would the goalie think even as, yes, his beloved Flyers scored three goals in 26 seconds against beleaguered Jake Allen — and they roared for every highlight from Parent’s glory years.
The loudest cheers were saved for the Stanley Cup highlights.
The Flyers beat the Boston Bruins in six games to win the Stanley Cup in 1974 and beat Buffalo in 1975. Parent had shutouts in the clinchers each season.
On the flight home from Buffalo, the Flyers plopped the Stanley Cup in the middle of the aisle. For close to 90 minutes, they couldn’t take their eyes off hockey’s ultimate prize.
“We were able to just sit back, look at the Stanley Cup and just savor it,” Parent said in 2010. “It was just a special time.”
With Parent the unstoppable force in net, “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent,” became a popular bumper sticker in Philadelphia that would stick on him as a lifelong slogan — and popular autograph inscription request — through retirement and his many years as a team ambassador.
Parent also served as an ambassador for the Ed Snider Youth Hockey and Education program; a youth hockey program created in 2005 for under-resourced youth in Philadelphia.
The program announced Saturday it would honor Parent’s legacy with the Bernie Parent Goalie Development Program, aimed to prepare young people for success both on and off the ice. Flyers Charities presented a $50,000 donation which was matched by Snider’s children.
Parent, team captain Bobby Clarke and Dave “The Hammer” Schultz all became stars for the Flyers under Snider in an era when the team was known for its rugged style of play that earned the Bullies nickname. They embraced their moniker as the roughest team in the NHL and pounded their way into the hearts of Flyers fans. More than 2 million fans packed Philadelphia streets for each of their championship parades.
Most of the living members from the Cup teams attended the game Saturday and Clarke choked back tears at the memorial as he listed other Flyers from the Stanley Cup teams who have since died. Barry Ashbee. Ed Van Impe. Bill Flett. Ross Lonsberry. Rick MacLeish
“And now, God bless Bernie, because he’s going to join them,” Clarke said. “And the rest of us, until we go join them, we will talk together forever.”
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mackenzie Blackwood made 35 saves to lead the Colorado Avalanche to a 3-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday night.
Brent Burns scored early, and Nathan MacKinnon and Jack Drury added empty-net goals for the Avalanche. Colorado has won eight straight, their longest winning streak since taking nine in a row March 4-24, 2024.
The Avalanche hold the best record in the league and are five points up from the second-place Carolina Hurricanes.
Juuse Saros made 23 saves for the Predators, losers of seven of eight. Saturday was the first game back in North America for the Predators after playing a pair of Global Series games last week against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Stockholm, Sweden. The Predators have been shutout in consecutive games.
The shutout was the first of the season and 15th of Blackwood’s career.
Burns scored the game’s first goal just 15 seconds after the opening faceoff.
After a battle in the right corner, the puck came to Burns above the right circle, where he beat Saros with a wrist shot on the first shot of the game.
The game remained 1-0 until MacKinnon scored an empty-net goal was 1:35 remaining in the third with Saros pulled for an extra attacker. Drury added another empty-netter with 51 seconds left.
MacKinnon has three goals in his last two games.
Colorado defenseman Cale Makar failed to record a point in a road game for the first time this season.
The Predators outshot the Avalanche 16-6 in the first, but couldn’t get one past Blackwood.
Saturday was just the fifth time this season that an opponent has outshot the Avalanche. Colorado is 5-0-0 in those games.
Blackwood stopped Nashville’s Michael McCarron with 5:47 remaining in the third on a backhand from the low slot to keep the Predators off the board.
Predators captain Roman Josi returned to the lineup Saturday after missing 12 games with an upper-body injury.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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David Hale
Amid a year in which chaos has been a near constant, preseason expectations have been turned on their heads and James Franklin has gone from No. 2 in the country at Penn State to splitting the dock fees on a pontoon boat with Bud Foster at Virginia Tech inside of six weeks, we had every right to expect Week 13 might deliver some twists and turns we didn’t see coming.
Instead, what we got Saturday was the status quo.
We might’ve hoped Missouri, with Beau Pribula back at quarterback, might’ve upended Oklahoma‘s playoff dreams.
We might’ve believed USC could deliver a dagger to an Oregon team that had largely gone unchallenged all season.
We might’ve dreamed that the Notre Dame–Miami debate could’ve been settled by an upset from Syracuse or the Hokies.
With less than 3 minutes to play in Salt Lake City, we might’ve at least expected to see one upset of Kansas State over Utah, one small fracture in the committee’s playoff rankings, one small shift in the big picture.
Heck, the least we could’ve asked for was a decision on Lane Kiffin’s future, and even that was punted for a week so that the Ole Miss coach can make his announcement at the Egg Bowl by feigning peeing like a dog on the hat of whichever team he plans to coach next year.
None of it happened.
Oklahoma’s defense smothered another SEC opponent, picking off Pribula twice and holding Ahmad Hardy to just 57 yards on the ground in a 17-6 win. The Sooners’ offense may be less than inspiring, but Brent Venables has put together a defense that rivals anything he mustered during his storied career at Clemson, a unit whose impact on the SEC is rivaled only by Jimmy Sexton.
Oregon’s strength entering Saturday appeared to be its dominant defense, too, but instead it was Kenyon Sadiq and Noah Whittington stealing the show on offense and Malik Benson breaking USC on special teams with an 85-yard punt return for a score. On the heels of Oklahoma’s win, seeing Lincoln Riley suffer such a dismal outcome, too, was almost too much beauty for Sooners fans to stand.
In any other year, Saturday’s road trip to Virginia Tech would’ve served as the perfect opportunity for Miami to slip on a banana peel and slide its way into the Sun Bowl, but not this time. Carson Beck threw for 320 yards and four touchdowns. Malachi Toney had 12 catches. The defense racked up five sacks. Miami won 34-17. The win was good enough that, for just a few moments, allowed the Canes to climb into the same tier as Notre Dame for the committee to compare the two teams directly — just in time for Notre Dame to win 70-7 and remind everyone that the Irish are actually way better. The committee immediately put Miami back into the “evaluate after we gorge ourselves on room service chicken fingers and need a nap” section of the playoff discussions.
BYU had no trouble dispatching Cincinnati, the SEC’s powers dominated lower-level opposition and Ohio State sent a sternly worded letter to the conference asking that the Buckeyes not have to get out of bed before 2 p.m. for the likes of Rutgers in the future. It was all easy.
If any of the top playoff contenders offered real drama, it was Utah. Kansas State’s run game was relentless, chalking up 472 yards and five scores. The two teams traded scores early with five lead changes and three ties through three quarters of action. But a Utah fumble midway through the fourth set up a K State score and a 47-37 Wildcats lead with 7 minutes to go. But the Utes refused to roll over, scoring twice in the final 2:47, and pulling away with a 51-47 win.
The come-from-behind victory could be more than just a necessary step in protecting Utah’s playoff hopes. Utah fans wondered if perhaps Saturday would be Kyle Whittingham’s final game at Rice-Eccles Stadium, knowing his exit as the Utes head coach was always destined to be a low-key affair, something akin to the end of “Good Will Hunting,” with Morgan Scalley knocking on Whittingham’s door one morning to find he’s no longer there and only a note explaining the departure: “I have to go see about a … used Ford F-350.”
And yet, for all the chaos avoided in Week 13, one final Saturday remains before any of our playoff calculus should be written in ink.
Oklahoma is well-positioned, but a date with LSU looms. The Tigers have fired a coach, stumbled from the rankings, taken out a second mortgage on Death Valley to try to lure Kiffin to Baton Rouge. Could LSU deliver one more dose of drama in 2025?
Oregon appeared to punch its playoff ticket with Saturday’s win over USC, and yet a trip to Washington still looms. This is not the 2023 Huskies, but a trip to Seattle is still hardly an easy win. It’s only fitting that the remnants of the Pac-12 can still offer some late-season drama, as if Larry Scott is still looking to cost the conference money, even from his new post as, we’re guessing, somewhere in the New York Jets front office.
Miami’s playoff hopes might come down to the whims of the committee or, just as likely, the fourth-quarter clock management of Mario Cristobal. The Canes have a date with Pitt in Week 14, and if you flip to page 306 of this year’s Farmer’s Almanac, you’ll see that a late-season loss to the Panthers after blowing a 14-point lead has been the likeliest outcome for the Hurricanes the whole time.
Utah and BYU, too, have playoff life even if they’re long shots.
No, Saturday didn’t upset the status quo, but the question as we head toward the finish line is whether Week 13’s action was a chance for the biggest winners to load the fireworks before the inevitable celebration or if they were simply getting all the deck chairs precisely situated before hitting the iceberg.
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Under the radar | Vibesman five
Week 13 vibe check
Each week, college football’s top teams battle to shape the course of the season. But beyond the headliners, dozens of smaller matchups prove to be just as consequential. We track those here.
Trending down: ACC certainty
Georgia Tech entered Saturday as the only ACC team with any real clarity: Win and the Yellow Jackets would clinch a spot in the conference title game.
Of course, nothing in the ACC is that simple.
Pitt jumped to a 28-0 lead, thwarted one Georgia Tech comeback with a 100-yard interception return for a score and then ended the Jackets’ hopes with a 56-yard Ja’Kyrian Turner touchdown run with 2:41 to go to seal a 42-28 win.
The ACC now has three teams tied atop the standings at 6-1 — Virginia, Pitt and SMU — followed by Georgia Tech at 6-2 and Miami and Duke at 5-2. It sets up the possibility of a six-way tie at 6-2 with the conference championship then being decided by a series of tie breakers that almost certainly will involve Pat Narduzzi losing a rock, paper, scissors match because he assumed rock was invincible and Cristobal edging out Tony Elliott in a staring contest by wearing a pair of fake glasses with a funny nose and mustache attached.
Trending down: Florida‘s optimism
Tennessee throttled the Gators 31-11 on Saturday, holding Florida to just 261 yards of offense and effectively setting the cruise control for the second half while Josh Heupel rewatched the first four seasons of “Stranger Things” to get prepped for new episodes.
Worse yet, as Florida floundered its way through another loss, AD Scott Stricklin looked up into the stands, where Lane Kiffin stood solemnly, his arm outstretched, offering a long pause to build the drama before offering a thumbs down. Florida will now turn to its next best option to coach the team in 2026: three toddlers wearing a trench coat and pretending to be a grown man.
Trending up: Style points
With just two games left against struggling ACC teams and a crowd of two-loss teams pushing for the final few playoff spots, Notre Dame knew Saturday’s contest against Syracuse would be about more than just winning. This one needed to look good.
So, by halftime, Jeremiyah Love was holding the charred corpse of Otto the Orange above his head and yelling, “Are you not entertained?”
The Irish led 49-0 at the half, picked off Syracuse QB Joseph Filardi three times and Love ran for 171 yards and three touchdowns in a 70-7 win.
Afterward, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman said he was disappointed the defensive game plan of recording enough sacks that the Orange circumnavigated the globe in reverse, thus finishing with negative points, didn’t come to fruition, but was encouraged by news that Stanford had increased the life insurance on its tree mascot before next week’s season finale.
Trending up: Suffering for the Seminoles
It was Friedrich Nietzsche who posited that all life was suffering, and though he came up with that idea a full 81 years before Mike Norvell was born, it’s safe to say Florida State‘s past two years are pretty much what he had in mind.
To recap: FSU’s Heisman candidate QB got hurt in a meaningless game against an FCS foe in November 2023. As a result, the Noles were snubbed from the College Football Playoff despite a 13-0 record. Norvell was a top candidate for the vacant Alabama job but instead returned to FSU with a huge new contract. The Noles limped into the next season, astonishingly went 2-10, overhauled the coaching staff, beat Alabama to open this season, lost four in a row, including one to Stanford, rebounded and then, on Friday, offered perhaps the single greatest example of the incredibly thin line between comedy and tragedy as the world has ever seen in the final four minutes of a 21-11 loss to NC State.
Only teams to have out-gained their opponents by 40 yards or more in all or all but one game this year:
No. 2 Indiana
No. 5 Texas Tech
No. 6 Ole Miss
No. 7 Oregon
Florida State (5-6)— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 22, 2025
The Noles D stuffed the Wolfpack on fourth down with 3:53 to play. NC State punted. The punt bounced off an FSU player’s helmet, rebounded backward and landed in the arms of the Pack’s punter near the original line of scrimmage.
The Noles D held again, forced another punt and this time FSU’s Squirrel White fumbled the catch, giving the ball to NC State again.
The Noles D held yet again, but NC State opted to go for it on fourth-and-6 and found the end zone from 12 yards out.
FSU still had a chance but shanked a short field goal — its second of the game — and, by the end, all that was missing was the PA system at Carter Finley Stadium playing “Yakety Sax” on repeat and Novell being knocked unconscious after trying to exit the field through a tunnel a roadrunner had painted on a brick wall.
Of course, Neitzche also argued, in his “four great errors” that all free will was an illusion, so it’s fair to say this isn’t Norvell’s fault but rather the inevitable result of a chaotic universe. On the other hand, another of his “four errors” was “Don’t sign DJ Uiagalelei and Tommy Castellanos in back-to-back seasons,” so perhaps there’s ample blame to go around.
Trending up: Heavy trophies
Justin Lamson threw for 175 yards, ran for 80 and accounted for two touchdowns as No. 3 Montana State knocked off archrival and second-ranked Montana 31-28 to capture the Big Sky championship and win the Great Divide Trophy.
Montana scored on a 52-yard run with 6:59 to play, pulling to within three, but the Grizzlies never saw the ball again. Montana State engineered a 14-play, 72-yard drive, converting a fourth-and-1 and a third-and-4 along the way, to bleed the last 7 minutes off the clock and secure the win.
The Bobcats have now won the Brawl of the Wild in seven of the past nine matchups, which means prime bragging rights for Montana State fans over that family of bears who live down the block.
Trending down: SEC strength of schedules
It’s Week 13, which means it’s time for half the SEC to welcome in its regular host of hapless cannon fodder: The Little Sisters of the Poor, the Washington Generals, an adult flag football rec league team and, of course, Florida.
It’s tradition in the SEC to prep for rivalry week with one game after another against vastly overmatched foes, so on Saturday we saw Georgia demolish Charlotte, Texas A&M stomp Samford and Alabama trounce Eastern Illinois. Even Auburn got in on the action, walloping Mercer 62-17 in a game that even Hugh Freeze probably could’ve won.
This is all necessary because, as everyone knows, life in the SEC is a grind, with every other game of the season a brutal, physical affair that slowly chops away at the league’s best squads like a thousand paper cuts.
And sure, Gunner Stockton and Ty Simpson combined to throw three picks and zero touchdowns in their wins. It’s only reasonable given that they played half the game holding a tall glass of iced tea and listening to a podcast about woodworking. The important thing is, when it was all over, they had fully recovered from the season’s long, arduous journey through the SEC and emerged with a spring in their step, a pat on the back and a note from the playoff selection committee that read: “We loved your game control. XOXO.”
Trending up: Sun Devils’ resurgence
Kenny Dillingham turned Jordan Travis into a Heisman contender, salvaged Bo Nix’s career and made Sam Leavitt a star. But that was nothing compared to his latest trick: Jeff Sims is a good QB right now.
Sims threw for 206 yards and two touchdowns as Arizona State demolished Colorado 42-17.
The Sun Devils are 3-1 with Sims as the starter, matching the most wins Georgia Tech managed in any of three seasons with Sims at the helm.
The real star of the show, however, was Arizona State tailback Raleek Brown, who carried 22 times for 255 yards and, after the game, Deion Sanders reluctantly decided Brown’s jersey should be retired at Colorado, too.
Trending up: Andrew Luck’s cavalry
Dearest mother —
I bring good tidings from the battlefield. We have vanquished the hated enemy from Berkeley. Though our front lines sustained many casualties, our defensive battalions proved strong. Our men charged from the rear, thrice apprehending the enemy’s payload and delivering it to safe harbor. In addition, a young soldier called Micah Ford proved his valor, marching 150 yards into enemy territory. His bravery shall be rewarded with an officer’s commission at war’s end. Now, I must bid you farewell. While we celebrate this victory with much revelry and ale, my heart remains heavy with the awareness that an even greater enemy — men from across the sea in that emerald isle of St. Patrick — await. We must be prepared for an even greater battle to come.
Please, give my love to father and the children.
Sincerely,
Andrew Luck, captain, Stanford infantry
Trending up: ‘Seinfeld’ references
Washington didn’t gain statehood until 53 years after James Madison died, but that didn’t stop Washington State from trying to end James Madison‘s quest for the playoff Saturday.
The Cougars led 20-17 midway through the fourth quarter before Dukes’ tailback Wayne Knight took a handoff and ran like he was smuggling stolen dinosaur DNA off an island, scampering 58 yards for a go-ahead score.
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Wayne Knight scores 58-yard rushing touchdown
Wayne Knight scores 58-yard rushing touchdown
Knight finished with 126 yards on 15 carries, all while besting Kramer in an hourslong game of Risk, delivering a critical 24-20 win for the Dukes, who move to 10-1 on the season and remain in prime position to swipe the automatic playoff bid from the Group of 5.
It is, of course, Knight’s greatest contribution to an important sporting event since he assisted Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny in defeating a group of aliens in a game of pickup basketball in 1996.
Trending down: Ivy League dominance
Josh Pitsenberger ran for 143 yards and three scores, Dante Reno tossed three touchdowns and Yale upended Harvard 45-28 on Saturday to claim a share of the Ivy League championship.
When it was over, Yale’s fans stormed the field. Well, they didn’t so much storm it as have their concierge make a reservation and preordered the soufflé, which, of course, takes two hours to make, then had Jeeves bring the Mercedes around to properly escort them onto the field. The point is, they were excited.
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Yale fans storm field after team clinches Ivy League FCS Playoff bid
Yale defeats Harvard 45-28 and fans celebrate the team getting the Ivy League’s first-ever automatic bid to the FCS playoffs.
It was a stunning defeat for Harvard, which had entered the game 9-0 and eager for some redemption after losing its past three to Yale. Afterward, the Crimson downplayed the loss by noting that a Harvard man would never be so crass as to run the ball 49 times. So much manual labor is fine for someone at Dartmouth or Brown.
Under-the-radar play of the week
The Victory Bell belongs with Duke, and Bill Belichick won’t be bowling in his first season in North Carolina after the Blue Devils escaped a trip to Chapel Hill with a 32-25 win.
While Duke controlled the first half, UNC stormed back with two long touchdown drives to take a 25-24 lead late in the fourth quarter. The Heels’ D then stuffed Duke on a third-down try, appearing to set up a field goal attempt for the lead. But Manny Diaz had a trick up his sleeve.
DUKE PULLS OFF THE FAKE FIELD GOAL 🤯 @DukeFOOTBALL pic.twitter.com/syr9FoOdue
— ACC Network (@accnetwork) November 22, 2025
Duke’s fake field goal caught UNC sleeping like a man in the fourth hour of watching his girlfriend’s adult cheerleading competition, and kicker Todd Pelino bolted 26 yards to the 1, setting up an easy touchdown that proved to be the difference.
Under-the-radar game of the week
With 1:07 to play and the score tied at 34, Kennesaw State‘s Amari Odom completed back-to-back passes — the first a 40-yard dagger down the middle of the field and the latter a 14-yard touchdown to go up 41-34.
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Chase Belcher puts Kennesaw State ahead with 27 seconds left
Amari Odom finds Chase Belcher in the back of the end zone to put the Owls ahead late in the 4th.
That gave the ball back to Missouri State with just 27 seconds to play, but the Bears weren’t going down without a fight. Consecutive completions moved the ball to near midfield before Jacob Clark looked deep in search of the tying touchdown. Instead, Alexander Ford picked off the pass and sealed the win for the Owls.
Odom finished with 387 yards passing and five touchdowns, as the Owls moved to 8-3 on the season and 6-1 in Conference USA. With a win next week at Liberty, Kennesaw State will lock up a spot in the conference championship game after going 2-10 a year ago.
Vibesman five
This was not a fun week for the Heisman Trophy discussion. Georgia and Alabama played cupcakes. Indiana was off. Ohio State played Rutgers, which is somewhere between playing a cupcake and having off. So, rather than rehash last week’s list, let’s give flowers to the players who’ve been tons of fun this year without having much of a shot at the hardware.
1. Texas QB Arch Manning
Manning threw for 389 yards and accounted for five touchdowns, and as long as we ignore the first eight weeks of the season, he would have a real shot at the actual Heisman. Alas, the Heisman voters aren’t like the College Football Playoff committee. They can’t just choose to ignore certain outcomes they don’t like. And so, we’re forced to simply appreciate Manning’s greatness in the context of his slow start. In truth, it’s not his fault. He clearly got a sizable portion of his QB DNA from Uncle Eli, whose career was built upon playing mediocre ball until late in the season and then somehow winning two Super Bowls anyway.
2. Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia
Pavia has a real shot at an invite to the Heisman ceremony, and even if he doesn’t win the actual award, he’s well-positioned for a lifetime achievement trophy of some sort after a dazzling 26-year career. And, if nothing else, Saturday’s 45-17 blowout of Kentucky in which Pavia threw for 484 yards and five touchdowns allowed us to witness Pavia’s best argument for winning the Heisman.
Wait for Pavia’s Heisman pose 🔥🏆 pic.twitter.com/F3RMrd81D9
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 22, 2025
3. North Texas QB Drew Mestemaker
Mestemaker wasn’t even the starting QB on his high school team, spending the entirety of his career at Vandegrift High (Texas) waiting for the starter to get hurt so he could come in, throw a Hail Mary to win the big game after the coach quits at halftime, then point to his dad and yell, “I don’t want … your life!” Instead, he walked on at UNT, started last year’s bowl game, and in 2025 blossomed into a star. On Saturday, he threw for 469 yards and accounted for four touchdowns in a 56-24 win over Rice, then calmly explained to his dad that, no, he’s not interested in following him into the insurance business, but he respects all his father’s life choices and appreciates all the sacrifices he has made for the family.
4. Louisiana governor Jeff Landry
Believe it or not, Brian Kelly wasn’t officially informed he was fired until this week, as the school deals with a lawsuit with the former coach over his contract buyout. How much of this is Landry’s fault? It’s hard to say, but his involvement has clearly complicated things, and it’s just so nice to finally see a coaching change result in utter chaos without somehow involving Phil Fulmer.
5. Hawai’i kicker Kansei Matsuzawa
Matsuzawa connected on a 45-yard field goal in Hawaii’s 38-10 loss to UNLV on Friday, making him a perfect 23-for-23 this season. It’s pretty impressive given that Matsuzawa taught himself to kick by watching videos on YouTube. All of this begs the question: Why can Matsuzawa learn to kick by using social media, but somehow every time Dabo Swinney types in “What is the transfer portal” on Bing, people laugh and say he’s out of touch?
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