Roberto Clemente Day and honoring the Pittsburgh Pirates legend
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Howard Bryant, ESPN Senior Writer
IT WAS A JOURNEY that was never intended to be a quest. Life simply turned it into one — life, plus a single motivating sentence from the most influential of voices, assisted by a dose of divinity.
One day nearly 20 years ago, Vera Clemente, widow of the legendary Roberto Clemente, entered the studio of photographer Duane Rieder before the 2006 All-Star Game, to be played at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park. The studio had once been an old firehouse — Pittsburgh’s Engine No. 25 — situated in the Lawrenceville section of the city. Built in 1896, the structure had been condemned when Rieder purchased it from the city in 1994 for the grand sum of a dollar.
Rieder had been preparing a pre-All-Star party for the Clemente family and adorned his studio with striking photos of Clemente as well as an archive of Clemente memorabilia and ephemera he had been collecting for the previous decade. He had met Vera after he had created a calendar of Clemente photos to commemorate the last All-Star Game at Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium in 1994. The following year, Rieder had assisted Vera in restoring damaged photos of the Clementes’ visit to the White House with President Nixon following the 1971 World Series, the moment that cemented Roberto Clemente nationally as what he had been known as locally for the previous 16 seasons: a transcendent great.
The photos were of particular importance to Vera, who lost her husband in one of the greatest tragedies in the history of American sports. On New Year’s Eve 1972, Clemente’s hastily loaded plane carrying relief supplies to Nicaraguan earthquake victims crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after takeoff from Puerto Rico. Financial difficulty and indignity followed: Locals began stealing valuable Clemente items from the family home in Puerto Rico, including Vera and Roberto’s wedding album.
When she entered Rieder’s studio, she saw the striking photos of Clemente on the studio walls, including “Angel Wings,” the famous shot of Clemente stretching to make a catch while the clouds behind him seem to form a pair of wings behind his shoulders.
“Duane,” Rieder recalls Vera telling him, “You should make a museum of this place.”
Rieder then presented Vera Clemente with a priceless gift he had acquired from years of “calling in favors” and kismet — a photo album of pictures from the wedding she had never seen before.
Less than 60 days later, the Clemente Museum opened, and a life’s work would transform a building once condemned.
“I’m going to give Roberto and the Big Guy upstairs a lot of credit,” Rieder says, “for the things that evolved in this building.”
THE CLEMENTE MUSEUM
THE CLEMENTE MUSEUM is a 12,000-square-foot homage to the man Pittsburgh has called “The Great One” for more than a half-century. According to Rieder, 10,000 visitors come to the museum annually. The nonprofit museum is not affiliated with the Pirates or Major League Baseball, and the money to keep it running comes from baseball die-hards, deep-pocketed Clemente die-hards — Rieder credits Eddie Vedder, the frontman for the rock band Pearl Jam, with keeping the doors open during the pandemic. Credit also, of course, belongs to the soul, spirit and sweat of the museum’s owner.
The Clemente Museum is accessible by appointment only and functions largely on the honor system — few of the 650 or so Clemente items are protected from the public by casing and so the museum trusts its patrons to not touch items or try to steal them. The converted firehouse can feel dark and foreboding with its heavy woods, a portal back into the 19th century of handlebar mustaches and horse-drawn fire carriages. Touches of the old firehouse remain — two holes in the first-floor ceiling, one still with its fire pole. The other was removed to make room for the front door.
When it is lit, the museum transforms into a shrine that feels uniquely Pittsburgh — an original baseball town since 1882. The museum is approached by fans, celebrities and big-league players as a pilgrimage and sanctuary. Manny Machado, the Padres third baseman, spends the night at the museum at least once a season. Virtually every visiting team makes a late-night stop after games, to pay tribute to The Great One, and also to relax in the basement of the speakeasy-style winery, wood-fired oven and cigar bar (named after Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli) that is the basement. Many of them take turns swinging the massive 38-ounce bat the 5-foot-11, 175-pound Clemente swung. During a recent four-game series with Washington, 34 members of the Nationals came to the museum. One of them was Darren Baker, 25, who made his big-league debut this month. He was amused to come across a 1968 photo of a 19-year-old Dusty Baker in the Marines hanging on the wall — according to legend, Dusty broke Clemente’s Marines record for pullups. Dusty, of course, is Darren’s father and a legend in his own right. Yet for every anecdote, irony and eerie coincidence that lends the impression that the space was ordained, there is three decades of sweat behind it that give the stories meaning, that make them real.
Without Rieder, a 63-year-old with the spirit of a college freshman, physically pulling the electrical wires and knocking out part of the ceiling, revealing the original Carnegie Steel beam with the No. 21 on it — signifying the 21-inch thickness of the beam — the coincidences would have remained buried, or worse, nonexistent, bulldozed by time, progress, new structures erasing old history.
“The stories come to this building because we saved it,” Rieder says.
When the firehouse closed in 1972 — largely because of age and because the new trucks were so big they could no longer fit through the wooden doors of a building built in the 19th century — Engine 25 served as a hub for EMS vehicles. By the early 1990s, the buildings were in disrepair and the city had agreed to tear down more than a dozen of the old firehouses. Engine 25 was condemned when Rieder first looked into buying it. It was, he says, a “haven for pigeon poop and rats.”
“This part of town, Lawrenceville, was a mess,” he says. “People told me I was crazy buying here. The neighborhood was in such bad shape, you were taking your life into your own hands parking on the street … and the place needed so much work. It had no running water. Estimates were running me $500,000 in renovations.”
In 1994, Rieder settled on another studio, in Polish Hill. The papers were signed. The deal had closed. Engine No. 25 faced another destiny against the wishes of angry Lawrenceville residents: It was scheduled to become a nightclub. There was no way out, until Jimmy Ferlo, the powerful city councilman of the 7th District, stepped in. “I said, ‘Jimmy, there’s no way out. We’ve closed,” Rieder recalls. “Jimmy said, ‘Do you want it, yes or no?'” In a scene that sounds like a movie, Ferlo ripped up Rieder’s closing papers on the Polish Hill spot, and the move to the firehouse was miraculously done.
The firehouse was haunted by a dark coincidence: Engine No. 25 permanently closed its doors on Dec. 31, 1972, at 9 p.m. ET; a thousand miles away and about 20 minutes later, Clemente’s plane had just taken off and began its fateful descent. Undeterred, Rieder renovated the building, piece by piece. A welder by trade who refers to himself as “severely dyslexic,” Rieder put his life into the building. Sanding the floors. Scavenging for wood and coal. Renovating the original tin panels that adorn the second-floor ceiling. Finding old pieces — like the filing cabinet from a nearby printing press. Rescuing old photos, like Angel Wings, from the trash.
Rieder met Vera Clemente the following year, and he began to archive Clemente materials. A vision of a museum was taking shape — but did not become one until Vera Clemente’s suggestion more than a decade later.
“If I wasn’t a photographer and a workaholic, this couldn’t have happened,” Rieder says. “Who could do this? Even if you had all the money in the world, could you do this? Because it wasn’t about money. And I’m not bragging when I say this kind of stuff. It was just piece by piece, putting your work into your interests.”
When the museum officially opened in 2006, Rieder had been working on the building for a dozen years. In between, he honed another craft, learning to make wine. First photography. Then wine. Then baseball. “Every Italian in Pittsburgh made their own wine,” he says. “I started making dago red. It was just a hobby at first.” Now, big-league players from Pete Alonso to Ryan Zimmerman to Josh Bell have barrels of wine in the cellar speakeasy as part of Rieder’s wine club.
Sarah Kelsey, a part-timer at the museum with a soothing voice and gentle demeanor, did not come to the Clemente for the baseball. She is originally from Arlington, Virginia, but needing a life change seven years ago, she arrived in Western Pennsylvania. She now speaks of the region — and the Clemente — as a place of soft refuge. She met Duane Rieder for the wine, and remained for the architecture, the community, what she referred to as the magical nature of the building — the cherry floors in the basement, sloped slightly to the right because the firehouse, built in 1896, once doubled as a horse stable in the days before fire trucks and the floors needed to be sloped for drainage.
On the second floor, the light pierces the wide room as though through stained glass, accentuating the wide-plank floors, and the original woodwork. The second floor contains catnip for Clemente fanatics: the 1961 silver bat commemorating his first batting title, dented because his kids used it to hit. The museum is for Kelsey a place of peace. “It is a beautiful building,” she says. “The building feels safe. Every time I come here, I see something new, and I hear something new. It is a very uplifting place. People are moved by it. I’m happy and humbled, and lucky to be here. When people come here, they want to talk about their lives. They want to donate things — albums, cuff links. They feel the need to share.”
Three times the museum has been saved, by luck or divinity. In 2006, Rieder’s most famous photo — of the Steelers praying before a game — went viral after a television station did a story on Rieder before the Steelers-Seahawks Super Bowl. The selling of the iconic print saved Rieder from a tax accounting error that put him in arrears. “I paid off the IRS,” he says. “Sixty thousand. In cash.”
In 2009, the museum nearly burned to the ground. “It was my fault,” Rieder says. “I was doing the plumbing. I was heating up the copper pipes with a torch, and it caught on to the insulation and started burning. The power went out, and I was in total blackness. I saw a ball of fire. I could see it behind the drywall, so I punched holes in the drywall with my fist, found the piece of insulation and stamped it out. Then, I fixed the pipe and went home.”
In 2020, the pandemic nearly closed the shrine. But Eddie Vedder saved it. “He filmed a video for us, like a virtual fundraiser,” Rieder says. “He sent a guitar signed by the whole band. We auctioned everything off and raised $100,000.
“We were closed for almost two full years and the bills were piling up. He supports a hundred charities, and we were lucky to be one of them. So, thank the Lord for Eddie Vedder.”
THE LORE OF ROBERTO CLEMENTE
IN THIS TOWN, Clemente endures as perhaps no other player in any other big-league city. He is not claimed in the way of a Ruth or Williams or Mays — respected for the memories, awed by their abilities. Nearly 70 years after his major-league debut and 52 years after his death, Clemente stands closer to Henry Aaron, not just admired, but revered. The main bridge crossing the Allegheny River leading into PNC Park is the Roberto Clemente Bridge. At the foot of the bridge is the Clemente statue. At the stadium itself, there are distractions for kids, and a bar in center field for adults, and perhaps the best views in baseball, all animated by the excitement generated by rookie fireballer Paul Skenes, but it’s the Clemente images throughout that make watching a game here feel grounded. In the team shop at the stadium, Clemente jerseys are still prominently displayed. He remains the city’s conscience.
Art Rodriguez, a retired dentist who works at the museum with an almost ancestral connection to it, conducts many of the private tours. Rodriguez still owns the scorecard from his first baseball game: July 28, 1968, at Forbes Field. The Cardinals were in town. The Pirates won 7-1. Clemente, the son of a cane crop worker, went 3-for-4 with a triple and two runs scored. Rodriguez and his father, Archie, stopped scoring the Cardinals after the second inning. The Pirates kept their attention until the sixth, when Clemente struck out to end the inning. Bob Gibson didn’t pitch that day, but Rodriguez would never forget the aura of Gibson while trying for an autograph: green turtleneck, gold chain. No signature. Rodriguez was seven years old.
Rodriguez grew up in Donora, about 30 miles from Pittsburgh, birthplace of the famous Stan Musial, and Ken Griffey Jr. It was Musial that connected the Rodriguez generations to baseball, and it was work that drew the family to Pittsburgh. His grandfather on his father’s side, Manuel, came over from Oviedo, Spain, in 1917 and worked in the Western Pennsylvania zinc mills. On his mother’s side, his grandfather, Dominic, came to America from Ceto, Italy, in 1913 and worked in the coal mines. Their story was the immigrant-American story: the grandparents, one set from Spain, one from Italy, spoke some English and had no interest in sports. The next generations became American through sports, the father with Musial, the son, Clemente.
During his tours, Rodriguez does not revel in Clemente’s prodigious statistical achievements — a .317 career average, 3,000 hits, four batting titles, 12 straight Gold Glove awards — as much as he focuses tourgoers on the man and the price he paid during his times. Clemente faced the discrimination of the Black players of his era and the anti-Latin sentiment common in baseball. Reporters would quote Spanish-speaking players phonetically, as if to mimic their poor English. Clemente resented attempts to Americanize him. The museum features several editions of Clemente cards where his name is listed as “Bob Clemente” instead of “Roberto.” For years, Clemente internalized those resentments before challenging his teammates as athletes and as men.
“I really emphasize the racism he faced, and yet he was so stoic,” Rodriguez says. “He had a way of getting to people. He knew he probably should speak out. He could convey that if you were a bigot, you couldn’t be a good man, and that resonates so much to the messages of today.”
In his tours, Rodriguez senses when visitors recognize the parallels between the xenophobia Clemente faced as a player and the nation’s current divisions. Before winning over the baseball world with his play and humanitarianism, Clemente endured the rising sentiment within the sport that baseball had hired too many minorities and, despite the greatness of him and players like Mays and Aaron, the game was diminished because of integration.
“If you’re Black or an immigrant, the message is ‘You have ruined our country,’ and that is the appeal,” Rodriguez says, alluding to the rising political rhetoric over the past several years and its parallels to the Clemente years. “I guess coming from a family of Spanish and Italian immigrants, I relate to whom those comments are directed. He didn’t say it. His supporters didn’t say it. But that is the feeling. I’m blown away by it. If someone had told me that racism would be as present to the degree as it was during Clemente’s time, I wouldn’t have believed it. It’s really important for the young people to understand.”
Clemente is an indelible part of American mythology. So is baseball. So is Pittsburgh. The reverence is rooted in the rare person who died as he lived and thus is not diminished by time. The Pirates won two World Series during the Clemente years, but the Pirates and his legend are uncomplicated because the Steelers during the 1960s were not the great team they would become. Then there is Pittsburgh, the Steel City of unpretentiousness and integrity people like to believe they embody — but most often do not.
Duane’s wife, Kate, definitely does. She is a shy, funny woman with mischievous eyes who says far less than she is thinking. Where people will refer to her husband as “the mayor of Pittsburgh” for his indefatigable gregariousness and constant availability, Kate Rieder is the opposite — and often provides the governor to her husband’s limitless generosity. It is common for the Rieders to get a late-night phone call from MLB players or coaches — the Nationals manager Davey Martinez, for instance — who want to pop by the museum for cigars, a glass and soak up the aura of The Great One. “I don’t do the public thing,” she says. “It’s fine as long as I don’t have to do it.” She grew up in the South Hills area, repeating, in a small sense, part of her childhood. Her father, an old New Englander and die-hard Red Sox fan from Nashua, New Hampshire, who became synonymous with Pittsburgh, was known all over town, the legendary KDKA-TV meteorologist Bob Kudzma. Kudzma was on the air for 34 years. But unlike Duane, who is naturally extroverted, Kate Rieder remembers her father, who passed away in 2021 as a private man with a public occupation. Off-camera, she says he kept to himself and his family.
She marvels at Duane’s energy. “He always finds time to create every thing. He never stops. He helps people. He’s super thoughtful. He’s like the Energizer Bunny.”
Nick Barnicle, a film producer who shot a documentary, including of Duane’s Clemente collection and spent extensive time with them at the museum, said, “Kate is the Landau to Duane’s Springsteen. The Robin to Duane’s Howard. The Varitek to Duane’s Pedro. Without Kate, it’s just not the same.”
THE PROPELLER
BRIAN, THE UBER DRIVER taking me to the museum on a recent late-summer day, drives in silence for several blocks before glancing again at his phone to confirm my destination. “The Clemente Museum,” he says evenly. His tone is curiously monotone — something bothers him. Through several red lights, Brian finally reveals the mystery of his ambivalence. “The propeller is in there,” he tells me. “It’s right there. That has never sat well with me.”
To the left of the front entrance of the museum, at roughly 11 o’clock, sits a vertically rectangular plexiglass case protecting a lone, damaged gray-black propeller blade. It is one of the blades from the DC-7 that plunged Clemente fatally into the Atlantic. After the crash, the newspapers showed the photos from Puerto Rico, of the search and rescue. The most prominent one featured Pirates catcher Manny Sanguillén, the only teammate to go into the water as part of the effort, heartbroken, trudging waist-high through the surf.
In 2013, St. Louis came to Pittsburgh, and Carlos Beltrán, the star Cardinals outfielder and another in the line of great Puerto Rican players, visited the museum. Soon after, Beltran told Rieder of a find: The father of Beltran’s friend was the captain of the Coast Guard ship that pulled the plane wreckage from the sea.
“I later get a call from Carlos’s friend, an architect named Angel, who was helping Carlos design his academy,” Rieder says, staring into the case. “He says, ‘Sit down. I want to send you a picture.’ A photo of a propeller comes. It’s laying in his buddy’s garage. He says, ‘Would you ever want this?’ And I went, ‘Holy cow. Is that the propeller from the plane?'”
Rieder acquired the blade at the end of 2013, and the next year began displaying it full time in the museum. But not before dealing with the question of displaying the blade — whether its appearance in the museum was necessary or gratuitous — in an emotional meeting with Vera Clemente and her three sons, Maurice, Ricky and Roberto Jr.
“There had been an auction house in Puerto Rico selling off parts of the plane,” Rieder says. “And the family said to please take those items out of the auction. So later, the family is coming to Pittsburgh to talk about Clemente Day. They say they’re coming over. I said, ‘OK, head’s up: I have a piece I want to talk about and you guys can vote. If you say it stays, it stays. If you say it doesn’t, it goes. So they show up and I had it in the middle of the room. I had it covered with a black piece of cloth. So I pulled off the tarp, and Vera, Maurice and Ricky all said, ‘OK. I think it should be here.’ A museum should tell the truth, should tell the story. Roberto Jr. got very emotional and ran out the door.”
Rieder had his own reason why he felt it necessary to display the propeller: to dispel the myth that the plane was never recovered. “Roberto’s body was never found,” he says. “That part is true, but we do hundreds of tours and someone in the tour always makes mention that the plane was never found. All Puerto Ricans know they found the plane. They stood on the shoe for three days watching the Coast Guard pieces up on deck, and that’s where it came from.”
Vera died in 2019, and Rieder eventually reached an agreement with Roberto Jr.: When he was in town, the Museum would cover the blade, and wheel it out of sight. One day, Roberto Jr. arrived on short notice. With no time to remove the blade to a back room, Rieder scrambled to cover the propeller with a poster.
“The posters weren’t tall enough,” Rieder recalls. “He walked in and said, “I’m cool with it now. So, it took him a few years, but he agreed that it’s part of the story. They found the plane.”
RETIRE NO. 21
ON THE COUNTER at the museum, in Pirate black-and-gold, are circular stickers that read “RETIRE 21,” a plea for Major League Baseball to do for Clemente what it did for Jackie Robinson and what the National Hockey League has done for Wayne Gretzky: universally retire Clemente’s iconic No. 21.
The retirement push is a grassroots effort that has deep emotional resonance to its supporters — no player is a greater inspiration to the Latino players who now dominate the sport than Clemente, the first Latino inducted into the Hall of Fame. Major League Baseball, however, has not pledged its support, as universal retirement of a number is extremely rare. When baseball finally retired Robinson’s No. 42 during the 50th anniversary of his debut in 1997, it was not without controversy. The idea did not come from the commissioner’s office, but from National League president Len Coleman.
The league office maintains that Clemente is already appropriately honored by baseball through the Roberto Clemente Award, given annually to the player who best demonstrates community and humanitarian commitments. Still, retiring Clemente’s number is a topic that has drawn the attention of the Major League Baseball Players Association. Executive director Tony Clark tells me he supports retiring Clemente’s number, but he would prefer the players take it upon themselves: Instead of waiting to be told by the commissioner’s office that the number is retired, Clark wishes the players would collectively agree to no longer wear No. 21. That, Clark says, would be an even more powerful gesture.
THE PLACE TO BE
THE CLEMENTE MUSEUM is a go-to spot for the out of towners looking to score cool points, and for celebrities and dignitaries to pay their respects — and to visit the winery downstairs. Eddie Vedder has a table. One chair has the name “Smokey” painted on the back, because that’s the chair where Smokey Robinson sat and drank. (“I make a semi-sweet Riesling for him,” Rieder says.)
Politically this year, Pennsylvania is a battleground state, inundated with attack ads from both political parties. Virtually every analysis of the 2024 election expects Pennsylvania to be decisive, and so it is that during a recent late-summer week, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is in town on a campaign stop, and the Clemente Museum is on the short list of local businesses the VP intends to visit.
Harris doesn’t appear on the day I visit, but an old Pittsburgher does: U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. Flanked by two Secret Service agents, the 73-year-old Vilsack and his wife, Christie, tour the museum before settling in the basement for some wine and stories. Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa from 1999 to 2007, is a Pittsburgh native, from the Squirrel Hill section.
Vilsack sips his wine as the Secret Service stands quietly at a short distance. Periodically, the secretary will take another piece of the lore of the building from Rieder, some impossible connection that must be apocryphal, like the repeated story that Lou Gehrig slept in the firehouse during the 1927 Yankees-Pirates World Series. “OK, now you’re pulling my leg.” The mythology is too great to be true.
“First of all, who could ever find that out, but me, because I’m here, in a building that we saved,” Rieder says. “And now people are coming taking Clemente tours, and a woman was on a tour and she said her father was the chief that shut this place down. If I don’t get her here to get that story and ask her to bring him here, we wouldn’t know these things. We did a good thing, and it wasn’t on purpose. I was just looking for a place for my studio.”
There is Clemente. There is America. There is Pittsburgh. Across the table from Vilsack is a wine barrel with the burly outline of Bruno Sammartino, the legendary professional wrestler who settled as a teenager in Pittsburgh, in the North Oakland section. Rieder shows him a 1967 Polaroid photo of Clemente and Sammartino. At the bottom of the photo, inscribed in pen, read the words, “Bruno & Roberto.” Next to their names are their respective weights: 275-175. Vilsack nods in acknowledgement, relents to the power of the shrine, of Pittsburgh, and buys four bottles of wine to go.
“This really is a testament to a man who’s been gone 50 years,” Vilsack says. “I’ve seen things here I never expected to see.”
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Alden Gonzalez
WHEN THE LOW point arrived last year, on Sept. 15 in Atlanta, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts broke character and challenged some of his players in a meeting many of them later identified as a fulcrum in their championship run.
This year, he attempted to strike a more positive tone.
It was Sept. 6. The Dodgers had just been walked off in Baltimore, immediately after being swept in Pittsburgh, and though they were still 15 games above .500, a sense of uneasiness lingered. Their division lead was slim, consistency remained elusive and spirits were noticeably down. Roberts saw an opportunity to take stock.
“He was talking to us about the importance of what was in front of us,” Dodgers infielder Miguel Rojas said in Spanish. “At that time, there were like seven, eight weeks left because we only had three weeks left in the regular season, and he wanted all of us, collectively, to think about what we were still capable of doing, and the opportunity we still had to win another championship.”
Later that night, Yoshinobu Yamamoto got within an out of no-hitting the Baltimore Orioles, then he surrendered a home run to Jackson Holliday and watched the bullpen implode after his exit, allowing three additional runs in what became the Dodgers’ most demoralizing loss of the season. The next morning, though, music blared inside Camden Yards’ visiting clubhouse. Players were upbeat, vibes were positive.
The Dodgers won behind an effective Clayton Kershaw later that afternoon, then reeled off 16 wins over their next 21 games — including back-to-back emphatic victories over the Cincinnati Reds in the first round of the playoffs.
It took a day, but Roberts’ message had seemingly landed.
“We needed some positivity,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said, “to remove all of the negativity that we were feeling in that moment.”
As they approach a highly anticipated National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, the Dodgers once again look like one of the deepest, most fearsome teams in the sport.
But the journey there was arduous.
A Dodgers team many outsiders pegged as a candidate to break the regular-season-wins record of 116 ultimately won only 93, its fewest total in seven years. Defending a championship, a task no team has successfully pulled off in a quarter-century, has proven to be a lot more difficult than many Dodger players anticipated. But they’ve maintained a belief that their best selves would arrive when it mattered most. And whether it’s a product of health, focus, or because the right message hit them at the right time, they believe it’s here now.
“We’re coming together at the right time,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said amid a champagne-soaked celebration Wednesday night, “and that’s all that really matters.”
BUSTER POSEY’S San Francisco Giants became the most dominant team in the first half of the 2010s, during which they captured three championships. They won every other year — on even years, famously — but could not pull off the repeat the Dodgers are chasing. To this day, Posey, now the Giants’ president of baseball operations, can’t pinpoint why.
“I wish I could,” Posey said, “because if I knew what that one thing was, I would’ve tried to correct it the second, third time through.”
Major League Baseball has not had a repeat champion since the New York Yankees won their third consecutive title in 2000, a 24-year drought that stands as the longest ever among the four major North American professional sports, according to ESPN Research. In that span, the NBA had a team win back-to-back championships on four different occasions. The NHL? Three. The NFL, whose playoff rounds all consist of one game? Two.
MLB’s drought has occurred in its wild-card era, which began in 1995 and has expanded since.
“The baseball playoffs are really difficult,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “You obviously have to be really good. You also have to have some really good fortune. The number of rounds and the fact that the very best team in the league wins around 60% of their games, the very worst team wins around 40% — now you take the upper-echelon in the playoffs, and the way baseball games can play out, good fortune is a real part of determining the outcomes.”
The Dodgers, now 11 wins shy of a second consecutive title, will hope for some of that good fortune this month. They’ve already encountered some of the pitfalls that come with winning a championship, including the one Posey experienced most vividly: the toll of playing deep into October.
“That month of postseason baseball — it’s more like two or three months of regular-season baseball, just because of the intensity of it,” Posey said.
The Dodgers played through Oct. 30 last year — and then they began this season March 18, nine days before almost everybody else, 5,500 miles away in Tokyo.
“At the time, you don’t see it,” Hernández said, “but when the next season starts, that’s when you start feeling your body not responding the way it should be. And it’s because you don’t get as much time to get ready, to prepare for next season. This one has been so hard, I got to be honest, because — we win last year, and we don’t even have the little extra time that everybody gets because we have to go to Japan. So, you have to push yourself to get ready a month early so you can be ready for those games. Those are games that count for the season. So, working hard when your body is not even close to 100%, I think that’s the reason. I think that’s why you see, after a team wins, next year you see a lot of players getting hurt.”
The Dodgers had the second-most amount of money from player salaries on the injured list this season, behind only the Yankees, the team they defeated in the World Series, according to Spotrac. The Dodgers sent an NL-leading 29 players to the IL, a list that included Freddie Freeman, who underwent offseason surgery on the injured ankle he played through last October, and several other members of their starting lineup — Will Smith, Max Muncy, Tommy Edman and Hernández.
The bullpen that carried the Dodgers through last fall might have paid the heaviest price. Several of those who played a prominent role last October — Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips — either struggled, were hurt or did not pitch. It might not have been the sole reason for the bullpen’s struggles — a combined 4.94 ERA from free agent signees Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates played just as big a role — but it certainly didn’t help.
“I don’t know if there’s any carryover thing,” Treinen said Sept. 16 after suffering his third consecutive loss. “I don’t believe in that. We just have a job, and it’s been weird.”
IN FEBRUARY, ROJAS made headlines by saying that the 2025 Dodgers could challenge the wins record and added they might win 120 games at full health. An 8-0 start — after an offseason in which the front office added Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim, Scott and Yates to what was arguably the sport’s best roster already — only ratcheted up the expectations.
The Dodgers managed a 53-32 record through the end of June — but then, they went 10-14 in July, dropped seven of their first 12 games in August and saw a seven-game lead in the National League West turn into a one-game deficit.
From July 1 to Aug. 14, the Dodgers’ offense ranked 20th in OPS and 24th in runs per game. The rotation began to round into form, but the bullpen sported the majors’ highest walk rate and put up a 1.43 WHIP in that stretch, fifth highest.
The Dodgers swept the San Diego Padres at home in mid-August, regaining some control of the division, but then Los Angeles split a series against the last-place Colorado Rockies and lost one in San Diego. The Dodgers swept the Reds, then lost two of three to the Arizona Diamondbacks, dropped three in a row to the Pirates and suffered those back-to-back walk-off losses to the Orioles.
Consistency eluded the Dodgers at a time when it felt as if every opponent was aiming for them.
Before rejoining the Dodgers ahead of the 2023 season, Rojas spent eight years with the Miami Marlins, who were continually out of the playoff race in September and found extra motivation when facing the best teams down the stretch. Those matchups functioned as their World Series.
“I think that’s the problem for those teams after winning a World Series — you’re going to have a target on your back,” Rojas said. “And it’s going to take a lot of effort for your main guys to step up every single day. And then, at the end of the regular season, you’re going to be kind of exhausted from the battle of every single day. And I think that’s why when teams get to the playoffs, they probably fall short.”
Travis d’Arnaud, now a catcher for the Los Angeles Angels, felt the same way while playing for the defending-champion Atlanta Braves in 2022. There was “a little bit more emotion” in games that otherwise didn’t mean much, he said. Teams seemed to bunt more frequently, play their infield in early and consistently line up their best relievers. Often, they’d face a starting pitcher who typically threw in the low-90s but suddenly started firing mid- to upper-90s fastballs.
“It’s just a different intensity,” said A.J. Pierzynski, the catcher for the Chicago White Sox teams that won it all in 2005 and failed to repeat in 2006. “It’s hard to quantify unless you’re playing in the games, but there’s a different intensity if you’re playing.”
BEFORE A SEASON-ENDING sweep of the Seattle Mariners, the 2025 Dodgers were dangerously close to finishing with the fewest full-season wins total of any team Friedman has overseen in these past 11 years. Friedman acknowledged that recently but added a caveat: “I’d also say that going into October, I think it’ll be the most talented team.”
It’s a belief that has fueled the Dodgers.
With Snell and Glasnow healthy, Yamamoto dialing up what was already an NL Cy Young-caliber season and Shohei Ohtani fully stretched out, the Dodgers went into the playoffs believing their rotation could carry them the way their bullpen did a year earlier. Their confidence was validated immediately. Snell allowed two baserunners through the first six innings of Game 1 of the wild-card round Tuesday night, and Yamamoto went 6⅔ innings without allowing an earned run 24 hours later.
“For us, it’s going to be our starting pitching,” Muncy said. “They’re going to set the tone.”
But an offense that has been without Smith, currently nursing a hairline fracture in his right hand, has also been clicking for a while. The Dodgers trailed only the Phillies in slugging percentage over the last three weeks of the regular season. In the Dodgers’ first two playoff games, 10 players combined to produce 28 hits. Six of them came from Mookie Betts, who began the season with an illness that caused him to lose close to 20 pounds and held a .670 OPS — 24 points below the league average — as recently as Aug. 6. Since then, he’s slashing .326/.384/.529.
His trajectory has resembled that of his team.
“We had a lot of struggles, really all year,” Betts said. “But I think we all view that as just a test to see how we would respond. And so now we’re starting to use those tests that we went through earlier to respond now and be ready now. And anything that comes our way, it can’t be worse than what we’ve already gone through.”
The Dodgers still don’t know if their bullpen will be good enough to take them through October — though Sasaki’s ninth inning Wednesday night, when he flummoxed the Reds with triple-digit fastballs and devastating splitters, certainly provided some hope — but they believe in their collective ability to navigate it.
They believe this roster is better and deeper than the championship-winning one from last fall. And, as Rojas said, they believe they “know how to flip the switch when it matters most.”
“It’s been a long year,” Muncy said. “At this point, seven months ago, we were on the other side of the world. We’ve been through a lot this year, and to end up in the spot we’re in right now — we’re in a great spot. We’re in the postseason. That’s all that matters. That’s what we’ve been saying all year. Anything can happen once you’re in October.”
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Bill Connelly
It feels like we know less about the college football landscape now than we did a month ago. Virginia is ranked, and Clemson very much isn’t. Ole Miss, Oklahoma and Texas A&M are unbeaten and ranked in the AP top six, and Texas, Alabama, Georgia and LSU are not. If you knew nothing about college football history and dove into this crazy world only this season, you would believe that Indiana, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt are three of the most elite programs in the country.
It’s into this murky world that we wade for Week 6. Last week boasted serious headliners that clarified the Big Ten’s hierarchy (Oregon over Penn State) and very much blurred the SEC’s (Bama over Georgia, Ole Miss over LSU). Week 6 doesn’t feature the same marquee matchups, but we still get Miami-Florida State, plus many games that are far bigger and better than we expected — Bama against unbeaten Vandy, Virginia against unbeaten Louisville, Texas Tech against unbeaten Houston, and Iowa State against a scorching Cincinnati.
Welcome to October. It’s hard to see where this season is taking us, but that makes the journey awfully fun. Here’s everything you need to follow in a surprising, mysterious Week 6.
All times Eastern.
Revenge time in Tuscaloosa?
No. 16 Vanderbilt at No. 10 Alabama (3:30 p.m., ABC)
Part of succeeding a legend is that we notice anytime you don’t live up to the legend’s standards. Granted, Kalen DeBoer has proven adept at continuing Nick Saban’s relative success against Kirby Smart’s Georgia, but DeBoer’s track record otherwise has some holes. He has already lost four games to unranked teams, as many as Saban lost in 17 years. Not great.
Saban was particularly good at putting upstarts in their place — think of Michigan State and Washington in the College Football Playoff. Or Missouri in the SEC championship game. Or Mississippi State every time the Bulldogs thought they were good. He was also good at revenge. His Crimson Tide bopped Tim Tebow’s Florida in 2009 and beat LSU by three TDs when they got a second shot at the Tigers in the 2011 BCS Championship Game. They lost to Auburn four times but won the following year by an average of 25 points.
You might remember what happened the last time Alabama played Vanderbilt.
0:52
Vanderbilt fans storm field after historic win over Alabama
Vanderbilt hangs on for its first-ever win over a No. 1 ranked team in a thrilling 40-35 victory over Alabama.
Vandy has to go to Tuscaloosa this time, which sets up a revenge opportunity. But the Commodores are much better this time. They’re 11th in SP+, and they’re scoring 49 points per game. Diego Pavia is third nationally in Total QBR (and maybe the second-best power conference quarterback to date), completing 75% of his passes and averaging nearly 7 yards per non-sack carry. Backs Sedrick Alexander and Makhilyn Young are averaging 6.9 yards per carry, tight end Eli Stowers is catching everything and receiver Junior Sherrill has scored on five of his 17 receptions.
The Commodores are combining ruthless efficiency with above-average explosiveness.
Because Vandy has so thoroughly taken care of business through five games, Pavia hasn’t had to do as much — he had taken contact 108 times through five games last year (and battled wear-and-tear issues later in the season), but he’s at only 65 hits this year. If he needs to run more in the bigger games, he can probably handle it.
The Commodores’ defense isn’t amazing, but it’s also better than it was last season. Vandy plays decent run defense with great big-play prevention against the pass; safety CJ Heard is excellent, and linebackers Bryan Longwell and Khordae Sydnor swarm well.
Alabama remains an unfinished picture. The Crimson Tide’s defense looked downright unprepared in Week 1 against Florida State, but it has allowed only 11.7 points per game since. The Crimson Tide don’t create nearly enough negative plays, but they don’t give up big plays either, and safety Bray Hubbard keys a frustrating zone defense.
The offense has been the star of the show. Ty Simpson looked disheveled against Florida State, but he has been brilliant since, and the Tide are up to sixth in points per drive despite a below-average run game. They couldn’t quite close out Georgia after a brilliant first half, but Simpson is incredibly sharp, and the offensive line has shored up a lot of its Week 1 breakdowns.
After what happened in 2024, this game is symbolically huge. But it’s also just part of a huge stretch for both teams. Alabama just took down Georgia, but five of the Tide’s next six opponents rank 17th or better in SP+. At absolute worst, they’ll need to win four of six to keep their CFP hopes alive. Meanwhile, five of Vandy’s past seven opponents are also 17th or better. Without an obvious quality win yet, they’ll probably need to win five of seven. Now would be an apt time for Bama to throw its weight around and remind everyone who’s supposed to be the boss. But based solely on 2025 to date, the Commodores might yet be the Tide’s equal.
Current line: Bama -10.5 | SP+ projection: Bama by 2.5 | FPI projection: Bama by 6.9
A high-stakes doubleheader in the ACC
Virginia’s upset of Florida State last week damaged the hype value of one ACC matchup but heightened another. FSU hosts unbeaten Miami on Saturday evening in desperate need of a turnaround win, but the winner of the afternoon’s Virginia-Louisville game — a matchup of the teams with the second- (Louisville) and fourth-best (Virginia) ACC title odds, per SP+ — will be positioned wonderfully, too.
No. 3 Miami at No. 18 Florida State (7:30 p.m., ABC)
In some ways, you could say that Florida State was flying a little too high. The Seminoles had been nearly perfect in 2024, manhandling Alabama and humiliating two buy-game opponents (East Texas A&M and Kent State), and they were due a bad break or two. The defense hadn’t faced a tough and efficient run game like Virginia’s (including Alabama’s), and the offense had faced barely a down of adversity. Regression ran its course in Charlottesville last Friday night, when FSU lost an early fumble, gave up an acrobatic red zone interception and saw a juggling overtime touchdown catch go incomplete by millimeters. Stuff happens.
Even in the playoff era, though, a “stuff happens” loss can wipe out your margin for error. Thanks to early-season collapses from Clemson and Florida, Miami is the last SP+ top-40 opponent on FSU’s schedule, meaning this is likely the Seminoles’ last chance at another high-visibility win.
On paper, this one’s awfully even. Miami has its own solid, physical run game like Virginia’s, one with a bit better blocking but fewer yards after contact. The Hurricanes also have Carson Beck and a passing attack that rules third downs. It’s lacking explosiveness — Beck is averaging just 11.9 yards per completion — and therefore doesn’t generate loads of easy points. But it’s an efficient attack, and FSU’s defense has allowed a few more third-and-long conversions than is preferable.
With how well Notre Dame’s offense has played since, Miami’s Week 1 defensive performance against the Fighting Irish (24 points and 5.4 yards per play allowed) looks awfully impressive. But FSU’s offense has quite a bit to offer, even with the misfires against Virginia. The Seminoles rank first in points per drive and second in yards per play. Virginia hemmed in quarterback Tommy Castellanos and forced him to throw instead of making plays on the perimeter — it’s the key to keeping a lid on a Castellanos attack — but FSU still scored 35 points in regulation and averaged 6.4 yards per play. The ceiling is high even if teams defend the Noles correctly. Gavin Sawchuk and Ousmane Kromah average a combined 5.8 yards per carry with a 59% success rate, and Duce Robinson and Micahi Danzy have combined for 24 catches and 514 yards. And this is still one of the best Net YAC teams in the country.
Considering Miami took down Florida in part due to physical running, whoever generates more success in this regard could have a huge advantage.
With tackle Rueben Bain Jr. at full force and getting help from disruptors such as linebacker Mohamed Toure and nickel back Keionte Scott, Miami’s defense might be even better than Bama’s. It will land some shots, but if FSU can hold Beck and the Canes to 24 or fewer points, you have to like the Seminoles’ chances.
Current line: Miami -4.5 | SP+ projection: Miami by 2.1 | FPI projection: Miami by 3.9
No. 24 Virginia at Louisville (3:30 p.m., ESPN2)
What’s Virginia’s reward for winning a big game against an explosive Florida State offense? A big game against an explosive Louisville offense! Granted, Cardinals quarterback Miller Moss is more of an efficiency player, but wideout Chris Bell has big-play potential, and if or when the Louisville running back corps is healthy, look out. Isaac Brown and Duke Watson have battled injury, and they’ve combined for only 56 carries this year, but Brown is averaging 8.1 yards per carry (6.1 after contact!), and Watson averaged 8.9 in 2024.
Brown and Watson should be as close to full speed Saturday as they’ve been all year, and that’s good because Louisville has played against two SP+ top-50 defenses and averaged just 4.8 yards per play against them. The defense has improved a bit after slippage in recent years, thanks mostly to a pass rush led by star transfers Clev Lubin and Wesley Bailey, but for the Cardinals to live up to growing expectations, the run game will need to shift into gear.
Virginia, meanwhile, has already exceeded expectations. Obliterated them. Blown them to smithereens.
The transfer portal provides miracles for some teams each year and disaster for others, and it smiled on the Cavaliers with the potent additions of quarterback Chandler Morris, running back J’Mari Taylor, receivers Cam Ross and Jahmal Edrine and about 10 new rotation defenders, including star edge rushers Mitchell Melton and Daniel Rickert and nickel back Ja’son Prevard. The defense allows too many big plays and has allowed touchdowns on 80% of opponents’ red zone trips (125th nationally), and that was costly in a Week 2 loss to NC State. But the Hoos rule third downs on offense and defense, and that will take you pretty far. UVA has won more than eight games in a season just once in 17 years, but SP+ says there’s a 57% chance of at least a 9-3 finish. What a world.
Current line: Louisville -6.5 | SP+ projection: Louisville by 9.2 | FPI projection: Louisville by 1.4
This week in the Big 12
Five weeks into the 2024 season, we thought we had a decent read on the Big 12. BYU and Iowa State were still unbeaten, and Kansas State and Utah were 4-1 and looking good. Per SP+, those four teams had about a two-in-three chance of winning the conference. Arizona was 3-1 and hoping to make a run. 3-2 Oklahoma State and 3-1 Arizona State had equal long shot odds.
But the conference had all sorts of surprises in store. Utah lost seven games in a row, and Kansas State lost three of four down the stretch. Arizona and OSU went a combined 1-14 the rest of the way, while Arizona State transformed into a top-10 caliber team in November and won the conference title.
We probably don’t know anything about this conference race yet, in other words, no matter how much it feels like we do. Texas Tech has looked spectacular in its first four games, and Iowa State, BYU, Utah and Arizona State are all positioned pretty well. But Week 6 sends the top two favorites on the road against upstarts and offers a few teams with early losses a chance to get right and stay in the race. We have some plot-twist opportunities for a conference that loves nothing more than delivering them.
No. 11 Texas Tech at Houston (7 p.m., ESPN)
Texas Tech has been genuinely awesome this season, walloping three bad teams as an elite team should and then physically manhandling Utah in Salt Lake City two weeks ago. They’ve been awesome at pretty much everything — they’re fifth in yards per play on offense and defense — and aside from a predilection for penalties and some injury-prone tendencies for quarterback Behren Morton, we don’t really know their weaknesses yet.
Houston’s a little bit easier to figure out. Defense: good. Offense: not so much. The Cougars are ninth in yards per play allowed and are very much in the best quadrant of this chart.
Willie Fritz lost defensive coordinator Shiel Wood to Tech, but the UH defense has been even better with replacement Austin Armstrong. But the Conner Weigman-led offense remains a work in progress. The Coogs go three-and-out nearly 39% of the time (124th), and that will probably be their downfall in this one. But if the defense sets up some easy scoring opportunities, this one quickly moves into “upset watch” territory.
Current line: Tech -10.5 (down from -12.5 on Sunday) | SP+ projection: Tech by 13.9 | FPI projection: Tech by 7.0
No. 14 Iowa State at Cincinnati (noon, ESPN2)
If you combined Cincinnati’s offense with Houston’s defense, you’d have a potential top-10 team. Last Saturday’s 37-34 win at Kansas inserted the Bearcats into the Big 12 title conversation. We’ll see if the Bearcats have the defensive chops to remain a factor — their run defense is strong thanks in part to star tackle Dontay Corleone (who’s as questionable this week), but they’re 136th, last nationally, in completion rate allowed. But quarterback Brendan Sorsby is on a roll, and Cincy ranks first nationally in rushing success rate. Track meets could work out well for the Bearcats.
Iowa State is not a track meet team. The Cyclones have allowed more than 16 points just once in five games, but they’ve also topped 24 only twice. ISU runs a lot on first down but doesn’t get very far, so quarterback Rocco Becht has to convert a lot of third downs. He usually pulls it off, though, either with deep shots to Brett Eskildsen and Chase Sowell or passes to any of four tight ends.
The ISU defense is strong once again. The Cyclones rarely invade the backfield, but Domonique Orange occupies space up front (he’s listed as probable this week), and they tackle well, prevent big plays and pounce on mistakes. Sorsby hasn’t made many mistakes lately, though.
Current line: Cincy -1.5 | SP+ projection: ISU by 3.2 | FPI projection: ISU by 0.3
Kansas State at Baylor (noon, ESPN+)
Kansas State suffered a three-week funk after losing to Iowa State in Dublin, Ireland, but quarterback Avery Johnson just enjoyed, by far, his best game of the season, and RB Dylan Edwards is finally healthy. The Wildcats still have only one conference loss, but their next four games — at Baylor, TCU, at Kansas, Texas Tech — will require a sustained A-game. Sawyer Robertson and the prolific Bears also have one conference loss and could easily stay in the conversation with a strong performance.
Current line: Baylor -6.5 | SP+ projection: Baylor by 3.4 | FPI projection: Baylor by 2.6
Kansas at UCF (7:30 p.m., ESPN2)
UCF makes a lot of big plays but can’t keep a quarterback healthy and missed a solid upset opportunity with a poor performance at Kansas State last week. With last week’s defeat to Cincinnati, meanwhile, Kansas has dropped eight of its past nine one-score finishes since late 2023. Iowa State weathered a similar streak recently before flipping that script, and if KU does the same, it’s not too late to get into the race. It’s now or never, though.
Current line: Kansas -4.5 | SP+ projection: Kansas by 1.2 | FPI projection: Kansas by 1.5
A CFP eliminator of sorts
Boise State at No. 21 Notre Dame (3:30 p.m., NBC)
Last week was great and terrible for Notre Dame. On one hand, the Fighting Irish looked spectacular in making Arkansas quit in a 56-13 road blowout. The offense is improving rapidly, and CJ Carr is quickly becoming one of the nation’s best quarterbacks. Meanwhile, despite injuries to star corner Leonard Moore and tackle Donovan Hinish, among others, the defense finally showed some life after a poor start to 2025. Notre Dame is the projected favorite in every remaining game.
On the other hand, the Irish’s potential CFP résumé, should they win out and get to 10-2, took a hit. USC’s loss to Illinois hurt their potential for a top-10 win, and four other upcoming opponents all lost. It will be difficult for the Irish to stand out in a pile of two-loss teams, even if they deliver blowouts.
The blowouts must continue regardless. And we’ll see how that goes against a Boise State team that has shifted nicely into gear. The running back trio of Sire Gaines, Dylan Riley and Malik Sherrod combined for 190 yards from scrimmage last week against Appalachian State, while Maddux Madsen threw for 321 yards and four touchdowns. The pass rush, led by Jayden Virgin-Morgan and Braxton Fely, delivered five sacks. The Mountain West has a growing number of potential contenders this season — UNLV, Fresno State, perhaps New Mexico or San Diego State — but the Broncos still lead the pack.
Under Marcus Freeman, Notre Dame has been either ridiculously rude or ridiculously accommodating to aspirational Group of 5 opponents. The Irish fell 26-21 to Marshall in 2022 and, famously, 16-14 to Northern Illinois last year, but they also pummeled excellent Army and Navy teams last fall. Boise State has looked like Boise State since the demoralizing Week 1 dud against South Florida, and an upset here would push the Broncos back to the top of the pile in the Group of 5. Both of these teams have big-play capabilities, plus defenses that have been a little too willing to give up a chunk play or two. Let’s see if BSU can keep up with an increasingly ruthless Notre Dame attack.
Current line: Irish -20.5 (up from -17.5) | SP+ projection: Irish by 13.5 | FPI projection: Irish by 18.8
Week 6 chaos superfecta
We’re once again using this space to will chaos into existence, looking at four carefully curated games with pretty big point spreads and mashing them together into a much more upset-friendly number. Houston’s overtime win over Oregon State cost us a fourth win in five tries — how could you do that to us, Coogs? — but 3-for-5 is still pretty good.
Going 4-for-6 is even better, though. SP+ tells us there’s only a 55% chance that Nebraska (81% win probability against Michigan State), Illinois (85% over Purdue), Michigan (88% over Wisconsin) and Ohio State (90% over Minnesota) all win. It’s time to take down a Big Ten favorite.
Week 6 playlist
Here are some more games you should pay attention to if you want to get the absolute most out of the weekend, from both information and entertainment perspectives.
Friday evening
West Virginia at No. 23 BYU (10:30 p.m., ESPN). I’m sticking this one in the Playlist instead of the Big 12 section above because of the larger point spread. BYU overcame a poor performance to remain unbeaten against Colorado, and the Cougars could probably withstand another iffy game this weekend. But it feels like a race to get quarterback Bear Bachmeier — 48th in Total QBR, 51st in yards per dropback — ready for an epic run of high-stakes Big 12 games on the horizon.
Current line: BYU -18.5 | SP+ projection: BYU by 22.4 | FPI projection: BYU by 23.5
New Mexico at San José State (10 p.m., FS1). I’m not sure anyone in college football is having more fun than New Mexico.
You Know The Vibes™️#GoLobos pic.twitter.com/Ix1Nx8lPxZ
— New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) September 27, 2025
The Lobos frustrated Michigan, stomped UCLA and beat rival New Mexico State for the Chile Roaster trophy. Now, with trips to San José and Boise in the next two weeks, we find out if this is a fun bowl push or a fun Mountain West title push.
Current line: SJSU -2.5 | SP+ projection: UNM by 1.0 | FPI projection: UNM by 0.9
Early Saturday
Clemson at North Carolina (noon, ESPN). One of the most noteworthy ACC games in the preseason — Dabo Swinney’s top-five Clemson versus Bill Belichick’s North Carolina! — still packs intrigue, but it’s mostly negative. Clemson has lost to all three of its power-conference opponents, and UNC has lost to two by a combined 82-23. Clemson likely has too much talent for the Heels, but, well, that hasn’t stopped the Tigers from playing like they have thus far.
Current line: Clemson -14.5 | SP+ projection: Clemson by 7.7 | FPI projection: Clemson by 8.3
No. 22 Illinois at Purdue (noon, BTN). Illinois responded well to its humiliation at Indiana two weeks ago, beating USC in a nailbiter in Champaign. Now comes a different kind of test. Purdue has a spry passing game and an aggressive (if spectacularly dysfunctional) defense, and if the Illini are caught looking ahead to next week’s Ohio State game, the Boilermakers could land some punches.
Current line: Illinois -9.5 | SP+ projection: Illinois by 16.7 | FPI projection: Illinois by 7.0
Kentucky at No. 12 Georgia (noon, ABC). Kentucky nearly beat Georgia last season before the wheels totally fell off in Lexington, but four games into 2025, the Wildcats still haven’t put the wheels back on. This is a get-right opportunity for Kirby Smart’s surprisingly mediocre (by their standards) Dawgs before Ole Miss visits in two weeks.
Current line: UGA -20.5 | SP+ projection: UGA by 17.4 | FPI projection: UGA by 17.0
Wisconsin at No. 20 Michigan (noon, Fox). Michigan is a week away from a huge trip to USC, but the Wolverines must first handle a Wisconsin team that has just continued to fall into further depths. Badgers quarterback Billy Edwards Jr. should finally be near full strength, which can’t hurt, but they have just been lifeless this year.
Current line: Michigan -17.5 | SP+ projection: Michigan by 18.8 | FPI projection: Michigan by 15.8
Air Force at Navy (noon, CBS). Air Force might have found its next awesome option quarterback in sophomore Liam Szarka. Unfortunately, the Falcons’ defense has allowed at least 44 points against all three of its FBS opponents. Will that matter or will this become the typical battle of attrition that service-academy rivalry games frequently become?
Current line: Navy -12.5 | SP+ projection: Navy by 18.7 | FPI projection: Navy by 13.2
Saturday afternoon
No. 9 Texas at Florida (3:30 p.m., ESPN). I wouldn’t have guessed this one would be relegated to the Playlist, but here we are. Florida’s defense is excellent and could absolutely frustrate Arch Manning & Co., but the Gators have scored 33 points in three games against FBS opponents, and Texas has the best defense in the country, per SP+. It’s hard to think of anything else mattering beyond that.
Current line: Texas -6.5 | SP+ projection: Texas by 9.9 | FPI projection: Texas by 7.8
Washington at Maryland (3:30 p.m., BTN). On Christmas Day in 1982, Washington’s Tim Cowan outdueled Maryland’s Boomer Esiason, throwing for 369 yards and three touchdowns — including the game winner with six seconds left — as the Huskies won a 21-20 Aloha Bowl thriller. I just listed the entire football history between these two new conference mates.
Current line: UW -6.5 | SP+ projection: Maryland by 1.6 | FPI projection: UW by 0.5
Michigan State at Nebraska (4 p.m., FS1). Michigan State’s Aidan Chiles and Nebraska’s Dylan Raiola have made nice strides this season, but only Raiola is getting help from his defense. Can Chiles, receiver Omari Kelly and the Spartans’ offense suck the Huskers into a track meet or is the NU pass defense — first nationally in yards per dropback — too much?
Current line: Nebraska -11.5 | SP+ projection: Nebraska by 13.7 | FPI projection: Nebraska by 13.1
No. 7 Penn State at UCLA (3:30 p.m., CBS). Penn State should get back on track after last week’s frustrating loss to Oregon, but I’m highlighting this game primarily to point out that, per SP+, UCLA is a projected underdog of at least 16 points in every remaining game and has a 61% chance of finishing 0-12. It was easy to see this season perhaps not going well, but wow.
Current line: PSU -25.5 | SP+ projection: PSU by 32.5 | FPI projection: PSU by 20.2
Kent State at No. 5 Oklahoma (4 p.m., SECN). OK, yes, OU will win by a lot. But with John Mateer out because of injury, we’ll get a look at how backup Michael Hawkins Jr. runs the Ben Arbuckle offense and what kind of chance the Sooners might have against Texas next week.
Current line: OU -45.5 | SP+ projection: OU by 48.0 | FPI projection: OU by 46.3
Saturday evening
Mississippi State at No. 6 Texas A&M (7:30 p.m., SECN). Texas A&M nearly suffered a “stuff happens” loss last week, dominating Auburn statistically but winning by only 6, but the Aggies remain unbeaten and are projected favorites in the next three games. This one’s interesting, though. A&M makes and allows big plays, while Mississippi State, having already played in two down-to-the-wire finishes with more to come, makes and allows few.
Current line: A&M -14.5 | SP+ projection: A&M by 4.9 | FPI projection: A&M by 9.0
Minnesota at No. 1 Ohio State (7:30 p.m., NBC). Ohio State faced one of the best offensive teams in the country (to date) last week at Washington and brushed the Huskies aside with relative ease. Now, the Buckeyes face one of the most reliably solid defenses in the country. Minnesota tackles well and generates loads of negative plays, which will provide Julian Sayin & Co. with a different type of test. I’m guessing they’ll ace this one too.
Current line: OSU -23.5 | SP+ projection: OSU by 20.7 | FPI projection: OSU by 23.1
Colorado at TCU (7:30 p.m., Fox). As with BYU, TCU is a Big 12 contender facing a theoretically easier challenge this year. Granted, all three of Colorado’s losses were by one score, and the Buffaloes could score an upset or two down the stretch (especially with more stable QB play). But TCU should control the line of scrimmage in this one and move to 4-1.
Current line: TCU -13.5 (down from -15.5) | SP+ projection: TCU by 12.4 | FPI projection: TCU by 9.0
UNLV at Wyoming (7 p.m., CBSSN). UNLV is unbeaten and has scored at least 30 points in every game; the Rebels’ defense, however, is dreadful, especially against the run. Wyoming backs Samuel Harris and Sam Scott are both strong yards-after-contact players, and the Cowboys might have a shot at making this one awkward for an ambitious conference rival.
Current line: UNLV -3.5 (down from -5.5) | SP+ projection: UNLV by 4.9 | FPI projection: UNLV by 6.6
Late Saturday
Duke at California (10:30 p.m., ESPN). Washington-Maryland feels like the most geographically ridiculous conference game of the week, but this one isn’t much better. It’s a pretty big one, though, with the teams a combined 3-0 in ACC play. Duke’s offense (31st in points per drive) facing Cal’s defense (29th) could be appointment viewing. Cal’s offense (86th) against Duke’s defense (99th), not so much.
Current line: Duke -2.5 | SP+ projection: Duke by 6.1 | FPI projection: Duke by 2.9
Nevada at Fresno State (10:30 p.m., CBSSN). Since a poor Week 0 performance against Kansas, Fresno State is unbeaten. Plus, the Bulldogs are projected underdogs in only one remaining game, meaning they’re Mountain West contenders until proven otherwise. Nevada doesn’t have much to offer, but the Wolf Pack have a randomly explosive run game with backs Herschel Turner and Caleb Ramseur.
Current line: Fresno -13.5 | SP+ projection: Fresno by 18.9 | FPI projection: Fresno by 14.7
Smaller-school showcase
Let’s once again save a shout-out for the glorious lower levels of the sport. Here are three games you should track.
FCS: Yale at No. 8 Lehigh (noon, ESPN+). We’re looking at a ferocious Ivy League race among Harvard (fourth in FCS SP+), Yale (10th) and Dartmouth (18th) — one that has FCS playoff implications because the Ivy is sending a team now. But first, Yale gets a huge nonconference showdown with a Lehigh team that has won 11 of its past 12 games thanks, in part, to backs Luke Yoder and Jaden Green (combined: 207.2 rushing yards per game) and a ferocious and diverse pass rush.
SP+ projection: Lehigh by 1.8.
Division III: No. 5 Wisconsin-La Crosse at No. 10 Wisconsin-Whitewater (2 p.m., local streaming). It’s the first weekend of one of college football’s most exciting conference races: the WIAC, which has four of the top 11 teams in Division III, based on SP+. Two of them meet Saturday. Whitewater has dominated this series through most of the 2000s, but La Crosse, led by prolific quarterback Kyle Haas, has won the past two games.
SP+ projection: UWW by 6.4.
Division II: No. 9 UT Permian Basin at No. 5 Angelo State (7 p.m., FloCollege). Angelo State is unbeaten and averaging 39 points per game this season behind backs Cameron Dischler and Jayden Jones and a relentless, deep run game. UTPB? Also unbeaten and averaging 38.8 points per game thanks to quarterback Kanon Gibson and a prolific passing game. Track meet: likely.
SP+ projection: Angelo State by 7.6.
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Greg Wyshynski
The Anaheim Ducks have locked up defenseman Jackson LaCombe, a key part of their rebuilding team, on an eight-year contract extension, the team announced Thursday.
The deal carries a $9 million average annual value, a source told ESPN on Thursday, the same AAV as the deal defenseman Luke Hughes signed with the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday, although that was on a seven-year term.
LaCombe’s contract is the largest ever given out by the Ducks and will begin in the 2026-27 season and end in 2033-34. He has one year left on a two-year bridge deal ($925,000 AAV) that he signed in 2024.
Anaheim general manager Pat Verbeek said extending LaCombe was “a priority” for the team and that the young defenseman has “all of the tools to be an anchor on our back end for many years to come.”
“Both sides were looking at long-term deals, so I think it came together pretty quickly,” Verbeek said after the Ducks’ practice in Irvine, California. “What we’re all trying to gauge the landscape of where salaries are going [with the future NHL salary cap], so I feel really comfortable with the contract and the character of Jackson LaCombe. And the player, and I still think there’s lots of upside and growth in his game. I think the best is still to come from Jackson.”
LaCombe, 24, was selected No. 39 in the 2019 NHL draft. He has 60 points in 148 NHL games, with a career-best 14 goals and 29 assists in 75 games last season for the Ducks as he formed an effective pairing with bruising veteran defenseman Radko Gudas.
LaCombe said it was an “easy decision” to go long term in Anaheim.
“I love it here,” LaCombe said. “I love being here. I love playing here. I love all my teammates here, too, so for me it was an easy decision. … It’s easy to live here. You could say the weather [is a positive] and the place is so nice, but just the group we have has been great for me. Everybody has been so welcoming for the last two years, so I’m grateful for that and I’m just excited to be here for a long time.”
A Minnesota alum, LaCombe was invited to the U.S. men’s Olympic orientation camp, putting him in contention for a spot on the 2026 men’s hockey team that will contend for gold in Italy. LaCombe helped the U.S. win gold at the 2025 world championships — the Americans’ first gold at the event in 92 years.
LaCombe is the first player to re-sign in the Ducks’ large class of restricted free agents coming up next summer. He was slated to be an RFA alongside center Leo Carlsson, left wing Cutter Gauthier and defensemen Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov.
“Jackson is the first domino to fall, and we’re working on other stuff as well,” Verbeek said.
Overall, LaCombe is the second big signing for Verbeek in the past week. The Ducks and restricted free agent center Mason McTavish agreed to a six-year, $42 million extension Saturday, ending a contentious negotiation that kept him out of training camp.
Anaheim is seeking its first playoff berth since 2018.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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