Connect with us

Published

12 months ago

on

It’s his first first day of fall practice at Florida State. But his college career has not gone according to plan. His; those of the recruiting prognosticators who lavished him with four and five stars; any of the sport’s talking heads who foretold his ascendance. So it’s also his last first day of fall practice at Florida State. He’s the new kid. He’s the grizzled veteran. And he’s here, in Tallahassee — his third and final stop on a five-year, nationwide campus tour — for just a short spell.

He’s been in town seven months now, long enough to know Ms. Carol, though. Everyone knows Ms. Carol; Ms. Carol knows everyone. She’s been a fixture on the football team since 1985, save for a short, recent stint in academics, and she holds her post every day outside the iron gates that guard the practice complex. She’s part bouncer, part matriarch — monitoring who gains entry to practice and offering home-cooked greetings to the players and coaches she calls “honey” as they filter in for the day.

Uiagalelei: “Hi, Ms. Carol.”

Defensive lineman KJ Sampson: “How are you, Ms. Carol?”

Punter Alex Mastromanno: “Ms. Carol!”

Mike Norvell: “GOOOOOOD MORNING, MS. CAROL!”

Florida State’s head coach sprints by, and he’s swift and boisterous enough that his greeting reaches full Doppler effect. That’s what Uiagalelei first really loved about Norvell when he signed on as a Seminole in January. This energy that spills over into mania.

“How intense he is,” Uiagalelei says. “Screaming all around the facility, yelling ‘good morning,’ 24/7. It’ll be 8 o’clock at night and he’s yelling ‘good morning.'”

Ms. Carol also appreciates Norvell’s exuberance — she returns his well-wishes with just as many “o’s” in her ‘good morning’ as Norvell managed to belt out — and she appreciates Uiagalelei too.

She nods in the quarterback’s direction. “I’d really thought I’d seen it and heard it all,” she says. “You know, 25 years with Coach Bowden. Eight years with Jimbo. He is something different. It’s wonderful.”

Uiagalelei has caught on fast in Tallahassee.

His new coaches and teammates will tell you he’s something different too. So will his old teammates and coaches. Even as the noise around him these past few years swelled from adulation to aspersion to apathy, what was different about DJ Uiagalelei — the absurd things he could make a football do — was “jaw-dropping,” “nuts,” borderline Bunyanesque.

He can throw a football more than three-quarters of the way downfield with a flick of his wrist, or so says Colby Bowman, his former high school receiver: “He could do a three-step drop and then launch that thing 80, 85 yards.”

Back in his high school days at St. John Bosco in Bellflower, California, his former quarterback coach Steven Lo was catching for Uiagalelei during warmup, and Uiagalelei literally broke his hand. “The ball blew my bone apart. It felt like someone shot my hand,” Lo says. “I don’t even know if his throw was fully gassed up, but it had that much velocity. A normal human being like myself should not be catching footballs from him. You need talented receivers with real hands to catch that kind of heat.”

Florida State’s fifth-year senior, Ja’Khi Douglas, a talented receiver trained to catch said heat, corroborates: “Every pair of gloves: rip, rip, rip. Like, dang. I gotta get a new pair of gloves after every practice, because DJ rips them.”

Uiagalelei has long been tantalizing. But for the bulk of his collegiate career, the temptation of what he could be bumped up against the ceiling of what he became. For two years as a starter at Clemson: embattled, felled by a rocky fit between scheme and player for one of the preeminent programs in college football. In one season at Oregon State: rejuvenated, buoyed by a better fit and improved play, but blunted by a modest platform in Corvallis. What he hopes he finds in Tallahassee — what he and those around him think he has found here — is a blissful marriage of the best parts of what came before. The right fit on the right stage.

“I think he can go and be as good as there is,” Norvell says.

In other words, now on the stage he was once called to command, he can — maybe, finally — be as good as he once billed to be.

The story of Uiagalelei’s tenure as college quarterback has gone from mythical to cautionary to a nebulous in-between. Depending on your vantage point, he’s either in limbo or on a precipice.

“I didn’t think I would be here, at Florida State,” he says, nestled in the team’s quarterbacks’ room — as much as a man who is 6-foot-4 and weighs about 250 pounds can nestle. Over his shoulder, images of former Seminole luminaries stand guard. “I didn’t think I’d transfer twice or be at three different schools in my college career or be in college for five years. I thought it was gonna be three-and-out, straight outta Clemson, to the league.”

In the heady days of 2020, Uiagalelei walked onto Clemson’s campus as one of the top quarterback recruits in the country. He made a pair of starts for Trevor Lawrence when Lawrence was sidelined by COVID-19, then he casually engineered the largest comeback in Death Valley history against Boston College and threw for the most yards by an opponent at Notre Dame Stadium.

Mostly, he spent the first few months of his fledgling college career looking like a lock to be Lawrence’s heir apparent. As the star quarterback at Clemson. As the face of college football in the national discourse too.

Then suddenly — and irretrievably — he flatlined. There was the stalled development: 10 interceptions to nine touchdown passes in 2021; an auspicious start in 2022 derailed by eight turnovers in his last six games. The sputtering offenses he spearheaded: Clemson ranked No. 93 in the FBS in pass completions of 20 yards or more in the two years Uiagalelei started. The inglorious benching(s) for Cade Klubnik, another five-star recruit waiting in the wings: First, against Syracuse in 2022; again briefly at Notre Dame; once more, and for the final time, in the ACC championship against North Carolina. That he needed a reset at all came as a shock to his system. Like something foreign had entered his body and he needed to expel it.

He explains: “High school’s great, top player in the country, five-star everything. There was no adversity until my sophomore year came around. That was the first time I actually experienced some type of adversity in anything.”

Uiagalelei is, according to everyone around him, a humble man. Someone happy to cede the spotlight and its attendant applause. Heading into his senior year at St. John Bosco, he bowed out of the Elite 11 — where high school quarterback royalty flocks to see and be seen — when his team was putting in a lackluster training camp. He wanted to stay local to help right the ship instead.

But he’s honest too. It wasn’t that football, or sports, or excelling in them, was easy. But he had always been able to make it look that way.

Back when Uiagalelei was in grade school, he played baseball too. He was about 10 years old and dominating in Little League ball when his mother, Tausha, recalls him stalking off the field, fed up with a game he didn’t think his team should’ve lost. “I’m not here to have fun anymore,” he declared. “I want to win. Put me in travel ball.” Tausha remembers thinking to herself, Oh, this guy’s different.

His private coach in those days was Dave Coggin, a former Clemson quarterback commitment and onetime MLB pitcher. Coggin would host college coaches looking to scout the Southern California baseball talent from time to time, and as a favor to Uiagalelei’s father, he let DJ, then just a middle schooler, join 40 or 50 high schoolers showing off their stuff. UCLA was in the house. Vanderbilt. Clemson. Dozens of others.

“He was up there throwing at 85, 86. It was wild,” Coggin says. “I tell ya, I had more questions from all the colleges about, ‘Who’s this kid?’ than all those other juniors and seniors.”

This, in the sport Uiagalelei ultimately decided he didn’t want to pursue. Though Coggin points out that the Dodgers took a flyer on Uiagalelei, who hasn’t played baseball since high school, in the 20th round of the 2023 MLB draft. “And I don’t think that’s the last that he’s gonna hear from a Major League team, to be honest.” Point being: Up until the moment he was not, Uiagalelei had only really known life as a sensation. As a pitcher, sure. As a quarterback, most definitely.

With this kernel of self-affirmation as his soundtrack — he could do this; he knew how to be the best player in any room, on any field — Uiagalelei entered the transfer portal and knocked on new doors.

At Oregon State, a fresh playbook felt like relief, and the vote of confidence from head coach Jonathan Smith, felt like redemption. “It’s all you want as a player,” explains Uiagalelei, who has said in the past that was something he didn’t feel he had by the end of his stint in Clemson. “Especially as a quarterback. You want the coaching staff to believe in you, trust you to be able to go out there and perform.” (Dabo Swinney, for his part, has said he considers Uiagalelei’s time at Clemson a success, and foresees yet more success for the quarterback: “I love DJ. … I’m pulling for him to do great things,” he said in 2023. “I’ll be very surprised if he doesn’t.”)

Then, on the heels of a heartening one-year showing in Corvallis — he finished No. 12 in QBR, after checking in at 97 and 52 in his two at Clemson — with the Pac-12 in a death spiral, Smith departed for Michigan State. And Uiagalelei chose to start over again too. He entered the transfer portal, and within the hour, Norvell rang Uiagalelei’s phone. Some 24 hours after that, Tony Tokarz, Florida State’s quarterbacks coach, touched down in Oregon to meet with Uiagalelei. The clamor for Uiagalelei’s services was more subdued than it was five years ago. Back then, he carpooled to high school every day with one of his football coaches, and there would be days where the two wouldn’t speak for the entirety of the hour-long commute. There was no time, in between the flurry of calls Uiagalelei fielded from college coaches intent on wooing him to their campus and, one time, serenading him for his birthday.

But then, he didn’t need to be won over. He needed a win. He was looking for a second second chance.

Uiagalelei liked the idea of joining ranks with Norvell, who has fashioned himself into something of a transfer portal savant. This April, eight of Norvell’s portal acquisitions were drafted; three were selected in the first 40 picks. He liked the way his deep balls could match with the speed at receiver that eventually joined him in Tallahassee (Alabama transfer Malik Benson; LSU transfer Jalen Brown). He liked that, when Tokarz joined him in Corvallis and they pored over five of his Oregon State game tapes, Tokarz pointed out what he liked about Uiagalelei’s game, and what he thought he could make better. He liked, he liked, he liked.

Now, the early returns seem rosy. Either by dint of personal experience in the art of starting over, or by sheer force of goodwill, Uiagalelei has, by all accounts, managed to convert this Florida State team into Uiagalelei acolytes.

For the other quarterbacks in the room, hibachi dinners in town and rounds of golf helped. So did the deep ball he launched 70, 72 yards in the air one day this spring. “That’s when I thought, ‘Yeah, he’s gonna do just fine here,'” says Luke Kromenhoek, Florida State’s freshman passer.

For his new group of receivers, a four-day trip back to Uiagalelei’s hometown in California did the trick. As did the back-foot toss he threw to Douglas this fall camp that was this much out of bounds, right where only Douglas, and not the defender draped over him, could catch it. “Man, that dude is special,” Douglas says.

For his quarterback coach, it was spying Uiagalelei in the meeting room with the film projector on, no meetings on the docket or teammates in sight. Tokarz had been on the road recruiting for days and thought the solo study session was a one-off. Then the next day, he spotted Uiagalelei again. The day after that one too. There was also the ball he threw to Kentron Poitier in spring ball that Tokarz says had all the makings of a “Sunday-type throw.” “All the coaches are kinda looking at each other through the side of their eye, saying, ‘Did you just see that?'”

In other words, Uiagalelei has flashed enough in his time with the Seminoles to allow them to dream about what might be possible. Him too.

“A lotta guys probably would’ve quit or tried to find something else to do in life,” says Beaux Collins, who played with Uiagalelei in his Clemson days and stood on the sideline with him as crowds chanted for the backup. “But he’s still chasing that dream that he has.”

The joke among St. John Bosco coaches was that Uiagalelei, all of 16 years old at the time, looked like a parent who just dropped his kid off at the middle school next door. He had a goatee and he made defensive lineman look dainty (the first time Paul Diaz, Bosco’s defensive line coach, saw Uiagalelei in person, he assumed he was a lineman).

As he wends his way toward practice, past Ms. Carol, through the iron gate, surrounded by a gaggle of younger quarterbacks who, once again, look like they could be his kids, Uiagalelei still has the Mature Adult thing going for him.

He lives in a house 20 minutes outside of campus with his fiancée, Ava Pritchard. His college exploits, to date, have mostly consisted of befriending his neighbor, Mark, “an older gentleman.” (“Like a dad,” Uiagalelei clarifies. “He’s not old. Just older than me.”) When he and Pritchard settled on Tallahassee as their next stop, this house and this neighborhood appealed to them precisely because it was removed from school, from football, from commotion.

“I’m an older guy,” Uiagalelei shrugs. “I didn’t want to live near a bunch of college kids.”

He could point you to some landmarks on campus. He’s even given drive-by tours to visiting family but confesses he has yet to walk around Florida State like a true student. This place is, in the best of scenarios, the launching pad to somewhere new, something bigger. And still, this place is also where he’s looked and felt most like the DJ Uiagalelei he used to be.

“They let him go be DJ,” Tausha says. “He’s like high school DJ,” she goes on. When football was shiny and exciting and unsullied. “There he is. That’s DJ. There he is. We knew he was in there.”

Pritchard confirms as much. Uiagalelei met his future fiancée two university stops ago, on a campus bus at Clemson. He’d only been in South Carolina for a week or so and he was lost. He spotted Pritchard, complimented her shoes (black Yeezys, she recalls), then asked her how to get to class. They went on a date a few days later, and they’ve been together since, from one coast to another.

“You can just tell in his voice,” she says. “It’s just different here.”

Uiagalelei thinks it’s different here. Everyone around him does too. They figure it has to be, for what Uiagalelei has in mind. “This is NFL or bust,” says Terry Bullock, who coached him at Bosco and knew him long before that.

And if it is different here — if Florida State makes him different; if this really is the right partner with the right platform — that work starts in earnest now. For him, and for his 10th-ranked Seminoles, Georgia Tech and the 2024 season are one day away.

Back on the field, as practice gets in full swing, Uiagalelei takes a snap, launches. Norvell likes what he sees, and he (surprise!) positively bellows his approval.

“That’s the angle we need! GOOOOOOD THROW!”

Perhaps Norvell will like what he’ll see next week too, and the weeks and months after that. Maybe Uiagalelei will too.

He takes another snap. The speakers blare a Logic song overhead, and it’s a fitting soundtrack for this chapter in Tallahassee, Uiagalelei’s coda.

I got a lot on my mind.

Got a lot of work ahead of me.

There is not much time left, but there is much left for Uiagalelei to do. He is not here to have fun anymore. His season, and his second second chance, awaits.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Sports

Can loading up on relievers at the deadline win you a World Series? We found out

Published

3 hours ago

on

August 6, 2025

By

Can loading up on relievers at the deadline win you a World Series? We found out

  • David SchoenfieldAug 6, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

    Close

    • Covers MLB for ESPN.com
    • Former deputy editor of Page 2
    • Been with ESPN.com since 1995

Relief pitchers tend to be a need for teams around MLB’s trade deadline as contenders gear up to make an October run — and 2025 was no different. The New York Yankees added a trio of relievers in David Bednar from the Pittsburgh Pirates, Camilo Doval from the San Francisco Giants and Jake Bird from the Colorado Rockies to help a bullpen that had posted a 4.89 ERA over the previous two months.

The three relievers debuted last Friday — and delivered a disaster of “Cutthroat Island” proportions against the Miami Marlins. The Yankees were up 6-0 early and then 9-4 heading into the bottom of the seventh inning — in which the Marlins scored six runs — and New York eventually lost 13-12. The newcomers combined to allow nine runs, with Doval blowing the save when he allowed three runs in the bottom of the ninth (with the help of an error from Jose Caballero, also a trade deadline acquisition).

The Yankees weren’t the only team to load up on relievers. The New York Mets traded for Ryan Helsley, Tyler Rogers and Gregory Soto. The Detroit Tigers acquired Kyle Finnegan, Rafael Montero and Paul Sewald. The Chicago Cubs picked up Andrew Kittredge, Taylor Rogers and swingman Michael Soroka. And, of course, there were the blockbuster deals for two of the best closers in the game with the Philadelphia Phillies acquiring Jhoan Duran (as well as signing free agent David Robertson) and the San Diego Padres trading for Mason Miller.

The question then: How much does loading up on relievers at the deadline help? Relievers, after all, can be extremely volatile. They might pitch just 20 innings the rest of the regular season, and it only takes a couple of bad outings in high-leverage moments — see Bird’s initial results with the Yankees — to nullify a bunch of good outings.

These moves are not just about getting to the postseason, but also winning once you’re there, as bullpens are used more often in the playoffs than in the regular season. Over the past four postseasons, relievers accounted for 50% of all innings. Last year, it was nearly 52%, compared with 41.2% in the regular season. The Los Angeles Dodgers, with an injury-riddled rotation last year, relied heavily on their bullpen, the relievers accounting for 58% of the team’s playoff innings en route to a World Series title. And every team would love to replicate what the Houston Astros did in winning the World Series in 2022 when their bullpen dominated the postseason with a 0.83 ERA.

We went back to 2018 to see how teams that loaded up on relievers, as the Yankees and Mets did, or added an elite closer, as the Phillies and Padres did, have performed. Have such moves paid off? Let’s find out.

2024 Padres

Added: Tanner Scott, Jason Adam, Bryan Hoeing

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.07 | After July 31: 3.19
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 59-51 (.537) | After July 31: 34-18 (.654)

The Padres acquired Scott, the player every club wanted, plus Adam, maybe the second-best reliever to change teams. They had already started to surge, winning nine of 10 games through July 31, and then 10 of 12 immediately after the deadline, going from a crowded wild-card race to comfortably leading the pack with a much-improved bullpen the rest of the season. Though the Dodgers still won the NL West, the teams met in the NLDS, and the Padres took the series lead only to get shut out in the final two games, making it clear that a great bullpen won’t matter if you can’t score runs.

2024 Mets

Added: Phil Maton, Ryne Stanek, Huascar Brazoban

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.05 | After July 31: 3.99
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 57-51 (.528) | After July 31: 32-22 (.593)

Like the Padres, the Mets played better the final two months after the deadline — although it wasn’t really because of the bullpen additions. Maton was the only one of the three to make an impact, posting a 2.51 ERA in 31 appearances. He hit the wall in the postseason, however, and though the Mets reached the NL Championship Series, the bullpen had a 5.56 ERA in the playoffs, including 6.75 in the NLCS.

Additions: Aroldis Chapman, Chris Stratton

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.83 | After July 31: 4.67
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 60-46 (.566) | After July 31: 26-23 (.531)

There isn’t really a team that qualifies as “loading up” on relievers in 2023, but let’s use the Rangers to illustrate a point. They had a bad bullpen through July (27th in the majors in ERA) and a bad bullpen after July (23rd). Their closer for most of the year had been Will Smith, but Jose Leclerc was closing by October. Chapman had six holds in the playoffs, but the reliever who closed out the World Series was Josh Sborz, who had a 5.50 ERA in the regular season. He got hot at the right time, however, and allowed just one run in 12 postseason innings. Certainly, getting more good relievers improves your odds of success, but any bullpen can get hot for a month.

2022 Padres

Addition: Josh Hader

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 3.94 | After July 31: 3.47
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 57-46 (.554) | After July 31: 31-27 (.534)

The Padres acquired Hader and Juan Soto at the deadline, but they weren’t any better the rest of the way (actually, considering the deadline that year was Aug. 2, the Padres were just 31-30 with both Hader and Soto). Hader had a 7.31 ERA in 19 appearances with the Padres, blowing two of his nine save chances and losing another game. They beat the Mets and Dodgers in the playoffs to reach the NLCS but lost to the Phillies in five games. The Padres led 3-2 in the eighth inning of Game 5 when Bryce Harper hit the series-winning two-run home run — off Robert Suarez. Hader pitched only one inning in the series.

2021 Astros

Additions: Kendall Graveman, Phil Maton, Yimi Garcia, Rafael Montero

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.08 | After July 31: 3.89
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 64-41 (.610) | After July 31: 31-26 (.544)

Graveman was the big acquisition, as he had an 0.82 ERA with the Seattle Mariners. He wasn’t as good with Houston (3.13 ERA), although he had a strong postseason with two runs in 11 innings as the Astros reached the World Series (losing to the Braves in six games). The offense was the main reason for the World Series loss, twice getting shut out — in part due to a mediocre Atlanta bullpen getting hot at the right time, similar to the Rangers two years later.

Additions: Adam Cimber, Trevor Richards, Brad Hand, Joakim Soria

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.01 | After July 31: 4.21
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 53-48 (.525) | After July 31: 38-23 (.623)

The Blue Jays played much better after the deadline, but Cimber was the only impact acquisition, posting a 1.69 ERA in 39 appearances. Hand went 0-2 with a 7.27 ERA in 11 games and was put on waivers, and Soria pitched in just 10 games, allowing seven runs in eight innings. Though the Blue Jays won 12 out of 13 to begin September, they ended up missing the playoffs by one win — going 3-9 in extra-inning games along the way.

Additions: Shane Greene, Mark Melancon, Chris Martin

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.14 | After July 31: 4.26
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 64-45 (.587) | After July 31: 33-22 (.600)

The Braves picked up three pretty good relievers here. Greene had 1.18 ERA with the Tigers and was an All-Star. Melancon had a 3.50 ERA with the Giants, and Martin had a 3.08 ERA with the Rangers (those were solid ERAs in 2019 — the year of the juiced ball). Greene saw his ERA climb to over 4.00 with the Braves, while Melancon took over as the closer and went 11-for-11 in save chances. The Braves lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in five games in the NLDS, with Melancon allowing four runs in the ninth inning to lose Game 1 and Greene blowing a lead in the eighth inning of Game 4 (with starter Julio Teheran getting the loss in the 10th inning).

2019 Cubs

Additions: Craig Kimbrel, Derek Holland, David Phelps, Brad Wieck

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 4.17 | After July 31: 3.65
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 57-50 (.533) | After July 31: 27-28 (.491)

Kimbrel was a late free agent signing, but we’ll include him as he made his season debut in late June. He wasn’t good, going 0-4 with a 6.53 ERA, and the Cubs collapsed late in September with a nine-game losing streak and missed the playoffs. That was mostly due to the offense, but Kimbrel lost two games down the stretch while Phelps and Wieck each lost one.

Additions: Daniel Hudson, Fernando Rodney, Hunter Strickland, Roenis Elias

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 5.96 | After July 31: 5.11

Team W-L record: Through July 31: 57-51 (.528) | After July 31: 36-18 (.667)

This barely qualifies as loading up, as Strickland and Elias were low-impact acquisitions while Rodney was signed as a free agent after the A’s released him. Indeed, in retrospect, it’s hard to believe the Nationals didn’t do more to fortify a bullpen that had the worst ERA in the majors as of July 31 and wasn’t much better the rest of the way. It didn’t matter though. Hudson pitched great (3-0, 1.44 ERA, six saves) and was the only reliable reliever along with Sean Doolittle, but manager Dave Martinez used starters Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer and Patrick Corbin at various times in relief in the postseason, and the Nationals won the World Series — with Hudson closing it out.

2018 Astros

Additions: Roberto Osuna, Ryan Pressly

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 3.18 | After July 31: 2.77
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 68-41 (.624) | After July 31: 35-18 (.660)

The Astros had the third-best bullpen ERA at the trade deadline but made two deals anyway. Osuna was a controversial acquisition because he was just finishing a 75-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy. Ken Giles and Hector Rondon shared closer duties, but Giles (who went to Toronto in the Osuna deal) had struggled the previous postseason and Rondon was a little shaky. Osuna became the closer, and Pressly posted an 0.77 ERA the rest of the way. The Astros won 103 games but lost to the 108-win Red Sox in the ALCS.

Additions: Brad Ziegler, Jake Diekman, Matt Andriese

Bullpen ERA: Through July 31: 3.03 | After July 31: 4.63
Team W-L record: Through July 31: 60-49 (.550) | After July 31: 22-31 (.415)

The Diamondbacks led the NL West by a half-game over the Dodgers and Rockies on July 31 — thanks in part to owning the second-best bullpen ERA in the majors. Leading the way were Andrew Chafin (1.67 ERA), T.J. McFarland (1.72), Yoshihisa Hirano (2.33), Archie Bradley (3.02) and closer Brad Boxberger (3.49, 25 saves). Perhaps sensing this group was over its head, the Diamondbacks added help — but the bullpen collapsed anyway. Ziegler, Diekman and Andriese went 1-5 with a 6.55 ERA, while the others all saw their ERAs rise. Arizona finished 82-80 and missed the playoffs.

So, are there any takeaways?

Bottom line: Bullpens are forever unpredictable, which means anything can happen over the next two months for the teams that hoped to make upgrades. Bullpens are even more unpredictable in October, when the limited number of games and extra days off means any pen can get hot — see Atlanta in 2021 and Texas in 2023 — and even great relievers can have a couple of bad games that might cost a team a playoff series. And if your offense doesn’t score runs, your top relievers won’t get to close out leads anyway.

It’s all about improving your odds, adding depth and giving your manager more options (and not wearing down your best relievers down the stretch).

The Padres already had the lowest bullpen ERA in the majors this season before adding Miller and seem like a club that could pull off a 2022 Astros-like run to a World Series title (a team that had the best bullpen in the regular season). The Mets added a strong group of setup men in front of ace closer Edwin Diaz, turning a potential weakness into what looks like a strength. The Tigers’ pen ranks 19th in ERA and 28th in strikeout rate. We’ll see if their additions can make an impact. The Phillies might finally have the lights-out closer they’ve needed in Duran, and maybe he can close out playoff games, which Craig Kimbrel and Jeff Hoffman failed to do the past two postseasons. The Milwaukee Brewers didn’t make any significant additions and rank just in the middle of the pack in bullpen ERA, but their high-leverage relievers — Trevor Megill, Abner Uribe, Nick Mears, Aaron Ashby — have been excellent. We’ll see if that’s enough.

And the Yankees? The bullpen looks good on paper — and, hey, it could get hot at the right time in the playoffs. If the Yankees even get in.

Continue Reading

Sports

Garrett Nussmeier’s final season at LSU is a family affair

Published

5 hours ago

on

August 6, 2025

By

Garrett Nussmeier's final season at LSU is a family affair

  • Andrea AdelsonAug 6, 2025, 07:15 AM ET

    Close

    • ACC reporter.
    • Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
    • Graduate of the University of Florida.

BATON ROUGE, La. — Doug Nussmeier rarely gets days like this one anymore, hanging around a college football field, watching his sons Garrett and Colton soft toss the ball to each other. Garrett has been at LSU, trying to lead the Tigers on a title run. Colton has been in Texas, where he has developed into an ESPN Junior 300 prospect as one of the top quarterbacks in the country, with offers from LSU, Alabama, Florida, Georgia and many others.

Doug has been in the NFL as an assistant coach, living apart from his family the past two years so Colton could finish out his high school career.

But on this day in June, they are all together at the LSU elite summer camp. Doug Nussmeier smiles big. He decided to leave the Philadelphia Eagles and take the offensive coordinator job with the Saints earlier this year. Now, all he needs to do to visit his older son is hop in his car and drive for an hour or so.

The family calls this a “full circle moment.”

Doug started his NFL career as a quarterback with the Saints in New Orleans. He met his wife, Christi, in New Orleans. He won a Super Bowl in the Superdome. Christi, a Louisiana native, instilled a love for her home state in her kids, a love that not only led Garrett to LSU but kept him there for five years. Now here they are, Doug, Garrett and Colton, all back in Louisiana on a swampy hot summer day.

Doug stands off to the side, watching, not coaching. Though he played quarterback, he never put pressure on his sons to play the position. But they wanted to be just like him. His No. 13 jersey and all.

“He was my idol growing up,” Garrett says. “He’s the most influential person in my career.”

Through backyard drills and days spent breaking down tape, through 12 moves to follow Doug on his coaching journey, Garrett soaked up knowledge, learned how to deal with change as a constant, spent time on different campuses, in different stadiums — every moment leading to the one he faces now in his fifth and final season with the Tigers. His mother inspired his love for LSU and his dad inspired his obsession with the quarterback position.

They both led him here, to the biggest year of his life.

CHRISTI NUSSMEIER WOULD have been perfectly happy if her sons hadn’t become quarterbacks. But looking back, it does seem like they were always on the path to running an offense. When Christi says her sons were born with a football in their hands, she means it almost literally. After Garrett was born in 2002, she chose a Sports Illustrated-themed birth announcement. In the photo, Garrett snuggles a football.

Garrett’s earliest football memories start at age 6, when he asked his dad to throw with him in their backyard in Seattle. The warmup Doug showed him is the one Garrett still uses before every practice and game, focusing on flexibility first before moving into segments that isolate different parts of the throwing motion.

At every college stop they made, Garrett observed the quarterbacks: Drew Stanton at Michigan State, Jake Locker at Washington, A.J. McCarron at Alabama. Garrett saw the way each player led his team not only in games but at practices. He watched the way they interacted with their teammates. He sometimes sat in the room with them to break down tape.

“I was subconsciously just learning things without actually knowing what I was learning,” Garrett says. “As I got older, I started to realize, ‘Hey, OK, that’s what they were doing.'”

From there, Garrett steadily improved and kept his eyes focused on getting a college scholarship, then eventually playing in the NFL. Garrett was smaller for a quarterback at 6-foot-1, and his parents had no idea where he might end up. But they encouraged him to keep pushing forward, and Doug provided feedback whenever Garrett asked.

“I was hoping that as he started to grow into his middle school years, maybe he’ll be good enough to be a starter on his high school team. And then if he’s that, well, then maybe that opens the door for him to have the opportunity to play at a small school or someplace,” Doug says.

Doug had taken an assistant coaching job with the Cowboys in 2018, so the Nussmeiers moved to the Dallas area, where Garrett would play high school football. Christi remembers one moment early in Garrett’s high school career that changed everything.

“Garrett made some moves, and I just remember my face going, ‘Oh my gosh,’ and I looked at Doug. We both looked at each other,” Christi says. “We knew Garrett was talented, and we knew he was special, but I asked Doug, ‘That’s not normal, is it?’ And Doug said, ‘No.'”

Adds Doug: “He wasn’t the biggest guy, but all of a sudden, some schools started coming to see him.”

Ole Miss was the first to invite him to a football camp, then LSU invited him to campus, too. LSU held a special place in his heart. Garrett was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where Christi grew up.

Christi was determined to give her three children — including daughter, Ashlynn, also an LSU student — a place they could call home, considering all the moving they did. They may have changed addresses every few years, but they would always return to Lake Charles for the holidays and summers. Christi cooked specialties from home and played zydeco music. When people asked the kids where they were from, they would answer, “Louisiana.”

“Lake Charles was the only place that was constant my life,” Garrett says. “When you only live somewhere at the longest three years, you’re just spinning around, and so Louisiana was just always my home. When I came on my first visit here, I just knew this is where I want to be.”

Garrett loved then-coach Ed Orgeron, but he really wanted to play for then-offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger. He committed in 2020 as a junior. Ensminger announced his retirement later that year, but Garrett signed in 2021 anyway, as an ESPN 300 prospect and one of the top quarterbacks in the nation.

Garrett played in four games and ultimately redshirted, but midway through that freshman season, LSU announced Orgeron would not return for 2022. For months, Garrett felt uncertainty about his future and the future of the program.

Enter Brian Kelly.

ON JAN. 7, 2013, Garrett Nussmeier and Brian Kelly shared a football field for the first time. Doug was the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Alabama when the Crimson Tide played Kelly and Notre Dame in the BCS national championship game in South Florida.

Garrett, who was 10 at the time, remembers falling asleep at halftime with Alabama up 28-0. But he also remembers heading down to the field after the 42-14 victory, throwing confetti and holding the championship trophy. During a quarterback meeting their first year together, Garrett decided to have some fun. He turned to Kelly and asked, “Remember that national championship?” They had a good laugh.

But the transition to playing under Kelly wasn’t so easy.

Nussmeier thought that after his first year at LSU, he was going to be the guy at quarterback. But Kelly went into the transfer portal and brought in Jayden Daniels, who ultimately won the starting job in 2022.

“Things were a little rocky at first,” Garrett Nussmeier admits. “But as time has gone on, my relationship with Coach Kelly has just grown.”

Nussmeier had opportunities to leave through the transfer portal, especially after serving as the backup to Daniels in 2022 and 2023. But he knew what it was like to leave a place, having done it so much growing up. He knew how hard it was to start over, make new friends, go through proving himself all over again.

He watched his dad preach patience throughout his own coaching career. Maybe more than anything, Garrett felt an unwavering loyalty to the state of Louisiana and desperately wanted to bring a championship to the place he calls home.

“I just didn’t feel like my time here was done,” Nussmeier says.

“He came in built for an old-school mentality of ‘I’m going to stick it out. I’m going to work my tail off and get that opportunity,'” Kelly says. “He saw some things that we were doing in developing Jayden and getting him to be a better version of himself. He grew up loving LSU. If you add all of those things up, it wasn’t about just throwing some money at him. It had to be more than that. He is a guy that loves transformational relationships instead of transactional.”

Garrett finally got his opportunity to start last season, opening with a 300-yard passing day in a last-second loss to USC. LSU rolled to a 6-1 start, but the next three games proved to be the most humbling stretch of his career. The Tigers dropped all three — to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida — as Nussmeier struggled to play consistently and avoid mistakes. In those three losses, he threw for five combined touchdowns and five interceptions, lost two fumbles and took 11 sacks, including a whopping seven against the Gators.

“There was a part of me that was doing too much and trying to be perfect instead of just playing football,” Nussmeier says. “There was a lot of overthinking, a lot of trying to make things happen when I didn’t need to. That was one of the biggest learning moments for me in my career.”

Indeed, both Kelly and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan say Nussmeier had to go through those moments to learn and grow. Kelly called the losses a “low point” in decision-making and managing the game.

“A lot of playing quarterback is developing some calluses, and he was able to develop some calluses, and he knows what the fire feels like,” Sloan says.

At 6-4, with a once promising season on the verge of disaster, LSU hosted Vanderbilt at home in late November. “That was a big moment for me,” Nussmeier says.

Before the game, he took a deep breath and told himself to forget about being perfect. LSU won its final three games, including a 44-31 victory over Baylor in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl. Nussmeier threw for 313 yards with three touchdowns and an interception, a game Kelly described as his best of the season.

“He didn’t take the big play as being the only play,” Kelly says. “He started to figure out that zero was OK. Once he felt that zero is OK, and I don’t have to make a play each and every down, the offense played very well.”

Doug would watch nearly every game alone in a hotel room as he prepared his own game plans for the Eagles. Sometimes he would watch on TV, sometimes on an iPad. He made sure never to overstep or question the coaching Nussmeier was getting from Kelly and Sloan.

“They have a plan, and they are working diligently to improve the things that need to be improved and strengthen the things that need to be strengthened,” Doug says.

LSU ended the season 9-4. Nussmeier had already announced he would be back for a fifth and final season. He asked his dad to handle his NIL negotiations.

WHEN BAUER SHARP came to LSU on his official visit, he went to dinner with Nussmeier and linebacker Whit Weeks. Nussmeier, Sharp says, was instrumental in helping him decide to transfer from Oklahoma to LSU.

Indeed, Nussmeier took an active role in helping LSU revamp its roster through the portal, understanding that both he and the program had championship aspirations for 2025. In addition to Sharp, LSU signed two top five wide receivers (Barion Brown and Nic Anderson) and revamped a defense that has struggled at times.

The presence of a veteran quarterback, going into his second year as a starter, proved to be a huge selling point, too.

“With him being in the offense for four years, that played a huge part in it, and just to see what type of leadership he had, and to connect with him, that was so inviting,” Sharp says. “It was so encouraging. I loved what I saw.”

Nussmeier is the rare quarterback who has stayed put. Of the Top 20 quarterbacks who signed in 2021, 14 ended up transferring. Seven are playing their fifth seasons in 2025. Of those seven, only Nussmeier and Behren Morton at Texas Tech are still playing for the teams with which they originally signed. To Garrett, the decision to play one more year was not complicated.

“When you look at the statistics of quarterbacks getting drafted high, a lot of them were fifth years,” Garrett says. “That experience matters for my position. So I think there’s a lot of value in staying.”

Kelly points to stats, too, and the way his quarterbacks play better in their final season as his starter. Daniels is the perfect example. In Year 1 under Kelly, Daniels threw for 2,913 yards and 17 touchdowns. In Year 2, Daniels threw for 3,812 yards and 40 touchdowns, en route to winning the Heisman Trophy.

“I really believe experience at that position is the most important thing,” Kelly says. “Wherever I’ve been, your last year is your best year, so the expectations are that the same will occur for Garrett.”

Indeed, early Heisman odds have Nussmeier second, right behind Texas quarterback Arch Manning. Nussmeier also is ranked as one of the top quarterback prospects for the NFL draft next season. (ESPN’s Matt Miller has him going No. 11 .)

“I definitely think he’s capable of winning a Heisman, but that trophy is based off a season,” Sloan says. “He has the talent, and we have the people around him. I just know this. He’s who we would want to be a quarterback at LSU. If we got to draft, we’d pick Garrett Nussmeier.”

Nussmeier worked this offseason to put himself in position to win a title, dropping a few pounds, adding muscle mass and working with private speed coaches in Dallas. Sloan says Nussmeier is in the best shape of his life, and that will allow him to help more in the run game. Managing the pocket, speeding up the process at the line of scrimmage and his footwork also have been a huge point of emphasis this offseason.

“When his feet are on time, and staying what I call tight and he’s not having big movements, he’s extremely accurate, and especially more and more accurate down the field,” Sloan says.

He also took more ownership of the team.

“He’s a whole different person, the way he carries himself, the way he speaks to others,” running back Caden Durham said. “We see his energy in the morning, 7 o’clock for workouts. Everybody is like, ‘We’re going to go as hard as you and even harder,’ just because he’s the leader. He’s the head honcho. This offense runs through him. So let’s go.”

Nothing about what is ahead will come as a shock. Walking into SEC stadiums with his dad prepared him for big crowds, big moments. Memories often trickle back. The first time taking the field at Baton Rouge in 2020, closing his eyes, remembering what it felt like to be inside a roaring, sold-out Death Valley. When he walked onto the field at Auburn in 2022, he turned to Sloan and Daniels, pointed to the sideline near the away team tunnel and said, “That’s where I was crying when the Kick Six happened,” remembering back to the 2013 Iron Bowl when his dad was an Alabama assistant.

The Nussmeiers call all of these moments “God winks,” each one intertwined, interconnected, preparing Garrett for the moment he has waited on since he first threw a football in the backyard with his dad.

Now with Doug just a drive away in Louisiana, the place Garrett loves more than anything, they are closer than they have been since they lived under one roof in Dallas. Christi will be able to make her way to LSU and Saints home games. Ashlynn will be there. Colton may make a trip or two depending on his schedule.

There is, of course, one way for this full circle moment to be complete: hoisting a championship trophy.

“I’ve always wanted this pressure. I’ve always wanted this expectation. I’ve always wanted people to talk about me the way that they are and have this expectation,” Nussmeier said. “It’s definitely a dream come true.

“But it’s not finished yet.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Gurriel makes history with HR off 103.9 mph pitch

Published

11 hours ago

on

August 6, 2025

By

Gurriel makes history with HR off 103.9 mph pitch

  • ESPN News Services

Aug 6, 2025, 01:21 AM ET

PHOENIX — San Diego Padres reliever Mason Miller was bringing the heat on Tuesday night.

Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. returned the favor.

Gurriel crushed a 103.9 mph fastball from Miller into the left-field seats for a two-run homer in the eighth inning, tying the game at 5-all. It was the hardest hit pitch for a homer since MLB started pitch tracking in 2008.

It was part of a two-homer night for Gurriel. The veteran also hit a two-run shot in the first inning.

The hard-throwing Miller was acquired from the Athletics at last week’s trade deadline. He routinely throws over 100 mph and hit 104.2 mph with his hardest pitch on Tuesday night.

Luis Arráez hit a go-ahead single in the 11th inning and the Padres tacked on four more runs to beat the Diamondbacks 10-5.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Trending