Best of Week 10: Ohio State’s erratic win, Georgia survives and Pavia-Vandy dominance
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David Hale, ESPN Staff Writer
In a season littered with unlikely twists, in a sport defined of late by overwhelming change, it’s nice to know some things remain as steadfastly certain as the morning sunrise.
Well, unless you’re a Penn State fan.
On the surface, we had a top-five showdown of Big Ten powers to headline Week 10, but it hardly felt like the Penn State-Ohio State matchups of old. This is, of course, a new-look Big Ten, and Ohio State had already suffered the consequences of expansion three weeks ago in a narrow loss to Oregon, as Will Howard slid too late and the clock ran out on any comeback bid. The Buckeyes arrived in Happy Valley as a case study in modern college football economics, too, sporting a roster valued at roughly the gross domestic product of Luxembourg. Penn State, too, was billed as a new-look version of its former self, one bolstered by a more creative offense led by new coordinator and Dairy Queen enthusiast Andy Kotelnicki, who promised to avoid the same malaise that had dogged the program in so many prior top-10 matchups and offer, instead, the occasional open receiver.
And yet, what we got — an erratic, exhilarating, physical 20-13 Ohio State win — looked just like old times, for better and for worse.
Never mind that the offensive line was patched together with duct tape and popsicle sticks, like some sort of HGTV rehab project property owners can’t wait to flip. The front still won every consequential battle in the trenches, turning third-and-short into a near automatic first down again and again, devouring clock like it was Halloween candy, including an 11-play drive that began at the Buckeyes’ 1 and soaked up the final 5:13 and included two critical third-and-short conversions. The defense, meanwhile, utterly flummoxed Penn State yet again, taking away any threat of a downfield attack and stonewalling the Nittany Lions at the goal line twice, including on four straight plays from inside the 3 late in the fourth quarter.
When Penn State hired Kotelnicki this offseason, it was with the expressed purpose of scripting a new game plan for exactly this moment. Again and again under James Franklin, the Lions have come up short against the top teams in the Big Ten, including, now, a 1-10 record against Ohio State. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus is punished by the gods for tormenting guests to his kingdom, doomed to a life pushing a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down the other side, on through eternity. It would be an apt analogy for Franklin’s career at Penn State, except the Nittany Lions are always so welcoming when Ohio State or Michigan come to town. The only explanation is that this is punishment for making Vanderbilt good in the 2010s, and someone should tell Clark Lea to cool it before he ends up going 9-3 at USC for a decade straight.
For Day, this wasn’t the ultimate referendum on what has been a spectacular, though incomplete, résumé at Ohio State, but it was a needed win after the stumble at Oregon. His success is not measured by mere victories, but in how many of the tallest mountains he has scaled, and while Penn State is hardly his Everest, it wasn’t a face-plant down a flight of stairs either.
It was a game between two quarterbacks who grew up dreaming of playing on the opposite sideline — Ohio native Drew Allar for the Lions against Pennsylvania native Will Howard for the Buckeyes. Of course, all residents of Ohio and Pennsylvania ultimately hope to move to a condo in Boca Raton, but these guys at least hoped to stay close to home for college. Neither was spectacular Saturday, and each threw a critical interception — Allar’s on a wacky play at the back of the end zone and Howard’s on a brutal pick-six throw that begged for the losing-contestant jingle from “The Price is Right” to be played over any subsequent replays — but it was Howard who prevailed and, like in the Oregon game, scrambled and slid late to run out the clock. This time, a celebration followed the final ticks.
It was a game that, at least in practical terms, meant little for the Big Ten race or the College Football Playoff. Oregon and Indiana are now the league’s lone undefeated teams, but Ohio State and Penn State still seem all but certain to land a bid in the playoff. And yet, each yard Saturday felt important, each play a chapter in an epic tome about two coaches hoping to avoid another pitfall and two teams looking to prove something significant — to themselves as much as to the rest of the college football world.
Perhaps that’s the real takeaway from Ohio State’s performance Saturday. Yes, it felt in some ways like a cut-and-paste to games past, when the Buckeyes enforced their will and the Nittany Lions fought against the impending darkness; when Day proved once again why he’s Ohio State’s best chance at a national title and Franklin shoved that boulder a few more inches up the hill, knowing full well the abyss that awaited on the other side. It’s a movie we’ve seen before, but it’s always nice to rewatch the classics.
Jump to:
Five unbeatens left | Texas A&M gets trapped | Miami throttles Duke
Throwing Darts | Pavia 3-0 vs. Freeze | Georgia holds off Florida
Vibe shifts | Playoff check-in |Heisman five | Under the radar
And then there were five
Iowa State and Pitt both went down in Week 10, leaving just five remaining unbeaten teams in FBS.
The Cyclones had lived much of the season like your buddy who you leave broke at the casino only to find him at the breakfast buffet the next morning with a mile-high stack of waffles and a fistful of hundreds. On Saturday, their luck finally came to an end against Texas Tech. Rocco Becht led a touchdown drive to take a 22-17 lead with 2:11 to play, but the Red Raiders wouldn’t go away, marching 71 yards in 1:47 to pull out the 23-22 win.
Pitt enjoyed no such drama. The Panthers’ trip to SMU was an unmitigated disaster, with the ground game stifled, Eli Holstein struggling, and not a single barbecue spot in Dallas that would put French fries on a brisket sandwich. Brashard Smith was the star of the game, carrying 23 times for 161 yards and two touchdowns in the 48-25 win.
With those two losses, Oregon, BYU, Miami, Army and Indiana are the last remaining teams without a defeat.
Army upended Air Force 20-3 on Saturday, despite playing without QB Bryson Daily. Instead, the Black Knights relied on tailback Kanye Udoh, who carried 22 times for 158 yards and two scores. Army still has not trailed in a game this season.
Indiana entered Week 10 without playing from behind either, but Michigan State jumped out to a 10-0 lead at the end of the first quarter. But Kurtis Rourke decided to start trying in the second quarter, and things got ugly from there. Rourke finished with 263 yards passing and four touchdowns and the Hoosiers rolled to a 47-10 win. Indiana is 8-0 an is winning by an average of 33 points per game.
Week 9 ended with Texas A&M establishing itself as a frontrunner to make the SEC title game. Week 10 ended with the Aggies pancaked against a brick wall named LaNorris Sellers.
The Aggies defense got to Sellers often, but routinely bounced off the South Carolina QB like a toddler running into blimp, and the Gamecocks turned those frustrations into a chorus of big plays. South Carolina didn’t allow a sack, ran for 286 yards — including 106 from Sellers — and ran away with a 44-20 win.
Marcel Reed, who torched LSU last week with his legs, rushed for just 46 yards in the game, and the defense surrendered 530 yards to the Gamecocks — 101 more than it had allowed in a game all year.
The result left Aggies fans stunned, trying desperately to figure out how this was Jimbo Fisher’s fault, while Shane Beamer now has the Gamecocks at 5-3 and all but assured a bowl bid with FCS Wofford still on the slate.
Miami mauls Manny
With 13:51 to play in the game, Duke kicked a field goal to pull to within 1 of Miami. Eight minutes of game time later, the Canes were up 53-31, marking the second-most unpleasant thing Miami has done to Manny Diaz in the past three years.
Diaz, who coached at Miami, first as a defensive coordinator and then as head coach, from 2016-2021, made his return to South Florida with his 6-2 Duke team and, for three quarters at least, put up a good fight.
The problem? Cam Ward is a magician.
Just some more Cam Ward magic for your timeline 🪄
📺: ABC #GoCanes | #HE1SMAN pic.twitter.com/OpPUUF7iQX
— Miami Hurricanes Football (@CanesFootball) November 2, 2024
Ultimately, Ward threw for 400 yards and five touchdowns, pulled a live rabbit out of his helmet and sawed Mario Cristobal in half.
Miami’s defense continues to be a concern, however. The Canes allowed 325 yards passing to Maalik Murphy, but also picked him off three times to escape trouble. That they didn’t break out the turnover chain after each one to taunt their former coach did feel like a missed opportunity though.
Throwing Darts
For much of the season, Ole Miss had been the chief culprit in using fake injuries to gain an advantage in games, but last week, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sent a letter to schools alerting them the practice must stop immediate or there would be fines and, possibly, suspensions. And yet, not even that warning could stop Arkansas‘ defense from rolling over and playing dead on Saturday.
Jaxson Dart threw for 515 yards and six touchdowns in Ole Miss’s rollicking 63-31 win, becoming the first SEC player ever with six TDs, no picks and more than 500 passing yards, according to ESPN Research. The bulk of Dart’s production was shared with receiver Jordan Watkins, who hauled in eight catches for 254 yards and five touchdowns.
After the game, Lane Kiffin praised his team’s emphatic performance and warned Sam Pittman to avoid any airport tarmacs for a few days.
Pavia’s sweet home
Diego Pavia threw for two touchdowns as Vanderbilt upended Auburn 17-7 on Saturday, Pavia’s third win in as many years against Tigers’ head coach Hugh Freeze.
At New Mexico State in 2022, Pavia was a 23-point underdog against Freeze’s Liberty and won 49-14. In 2023, Pavia led the Aggies into Auburn, where Freeze had taken over as head coach, as a 25-point underdog and walked out with a 31-10 win. Then Saturday, Vandy was an 8.5-point underdog at Auburn and won again. Aside from Houston Nutt’s lawyers, no one has caused more damage to Freeze’s career than Pavia.
Pavia is also now 3-0 career against teams from the state of Alabama, and he became just the 13th QB in the past 20 years to pick up wins against Auburn and the Tide in the same season, joining stars like Joe Burrow, Johnny Manziel and Matthew Stafford and somehow also Mitch Mustain.
Vandy is now bowl eligible for the first time since 2018 and has won four SEC games for the first time since 2013, when James Franklin was head coach. So, at least Franklin is being mentioned in something positive today.
It’d be easy enough to come away from Saturday’s latest installment of the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party wondering what’s wrong with Georgia. Certainly the offense has sputtered at times, and Carson Beck once again threw three picks, bringing his season tally to 11. The lackluster performance against Florida follows similar games against Kentucky and Mississippi State, along with a first half against Alabama so dismal it cost the Dawgs the game.
But the most logical explanation is Georgia wanted to toy with Billy Napier.
With a little more than 4 minutes to play, Florida was tied with Georgia at 20, and Napier was poised to save his job.
The Gators were riddled with injuries, losing QB DJ Lagway with a hamstring issue, and were forced to survive with a number of backups and a few of the guys working for the moving company who were packing up Napier’s stuff in anticipation of a blowout loss. It wasn’t always pretty.
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Florida botches the FG and Georgia recovers in great field position
Florida mishandles the field goal snap and Georgia recovers the ball in Florida territory.
Still, Florida kept hanging around. But this is how Georgia rolls. It toys with teams, gives them a false sense of confidence, then sneaks up behind them and pulls their underwear up over their head.
After Florida tied the game, Georgia engineered a 75-yard touchdown drive, picked off QB Aidan Warner one play later, then scored again to turn the close game into a blowout.
Week 10 vibe shifts
Each week, the college football landscape is reordered by surprising outcomes in big games. But many smaller shifts take place, too. We track them here.
Trending down: Big 12 preseason favorites
In the preseason Big 12 media poll, the top five were Utah, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Kansas and Arizona.
At least K-State looks good.
It’s been a nightmare for the rest of the group, including Arizona’s 56-12 dismantling by UCF and Oklahoma State’s 42-21 loss to Arizona State on Saturday.
Along with Kansas and Utah, those four teams are now a combined 12-22 overall and just 3-18 in Big 12 play.
Trending down: Love for Lincoln
The Lincoln Riley-USC relationship appears to be destined to end in tragedy.
Miller Moss threw three picks, and USC lost for the fifth time in its past seven games, falling to Washington 26-21 on Saturday. The Trojans are now 4-5 overall and 2-5 in Big Ten play. Worse, USC is now 5-11 in its last 16 overall after Riley opened his tenure there by winning 17 of his first 20.
The remainder of the schedule — vs. Nebraska, at UCLA and hosting Notre Dame — makes a bowl bid a possibility but far from a certainty.
Riley has already cut off practice access to the media and he has cut back on player interviews, too. His next move is to cut back on players’ screen time, have the media report all stories via Morse code and cancel Moss’s birthday party. Sure, the deposit on the clown is non-refundable, but drastic times call for drastic measures.
Trending up: Points for Iowa
Iowa trounced Wisconsin 42-10 on Saturday, crossing an unlikely threshold in the process.
Iowa has now scored 40+ points in a game 4 times in 2024.
It’s the 1st time since 2016 the Hawkeyes have scored 40+ points in 4 games in a year.
It’s also the 1st time since 2011 Iowa has scored 40+ points in 3 straight homes games.
Offensive explosion. pic.twitter.com/JTJFW05fdj
— Ben Stevens (@BenScottStevens) November 3, 2024
Iowa has now scored 277 points this year, or one-and-a-half Brian Ferentzes, if you’re keeping track at home. More troubling, the Hawkeyes are averaging just four punts per game, which may be a violation of the Geneva Convention.
It should be noted, however, that Iowa has scored 111 more points through nine games than it did last year, but it has lost one more game than it had at this point last season. So let that be a lesson to you, Florida State. Be careful wishing for too much offense.
Trending up: Oklahoma‘s offense
Here’s a fun fact: Oklahoma has averaged 36.5 points per game over its past two. Now, please don’t dig any deeper into that statistic.
The Sooners got 203 yards and three touchdowns from Jovantae Barnes, while QB Jackson Arnold threw two touchdowns and went the entire game without splitting his pants or falling asleep in the huddle. In other words, it was an incredibly good day for Oklahoma’s offense. Yes, it was against Maine, which is technically an FCS team, but there are only roughly 45 people who live in Maine, so we assume at least half its defense is just moose and bears, which can’t be easy to run against.
Trending up: Boat rowing
After an ugly 2-3 start to the season, PJ Fleck has the Golden Gophers riding high. Minnesota knocked off No. 24 Illinois — its second ranked win in four weeks — 25-17 behind 131 yards and a touchdown from tailback Darius Taylor.
Minnesota lost on a late missed kick in the opener against North Carolina and lost by 3 to Michigan in a game it allowed just 241 yards early in the year, but the Gophers have rebounded by winning four straight and now look like the clear-cut No. 5 team in the Big Ten, which is essentially the same as being the fifth-best member of Van Halen. Sure, most folks stop counting after Sammy Hagar, but nobody wants to be behind Gary Cherone.
Trending down: Nebraska‘s bowl hopes
The Huskers, once 5-1 and ranked in the top 25, have now lost three straight after falling 27-20 to lowly UCLA on Saturday.
Nebraska looked all but assured to make its first bowl game since 2016 this year, but suddenly the odds aren’t quite so good. This was the Huskers’ 36th one-possession loss since that last bowl game, seven more than any other FBS team and 13 more than the next Big Ten school.
The remaining slate — at USC, vs. Wisconsin and at Iowa — offers no easy wins, so it could be an uphill battle to snatch victory No. 6. On the plus side for Nebraska, no one there expects good things to happen to them anymore anyway.
Trending down: FSU’s bragging rights
A quick refresher on Florida State‘s season: The Noles opened No. 10 nationally, lost in Ireland to Georgia Tech, lost later to Mike Norvell’s former school, lost badly to rival Miami and lost for the first time in program history to Duke.
But at least there was still some positive history on FSU’s side Saturday, as Mack Brown and North Carolina came to town. Brown is an FSU alum, but he has never beaten his alma mater, and certainly the Seminoles would be motivated to keep that streak alive and — sorry, we’re being told Omarion Hampton just scored again.
Indeed, Hampton and the Heels romped, 35-11, handing Brown his first win against Florida State in 12 chances as a head coach dating back to 1985. Next, Florida State plans to announce that “Smokey and the Bandit II” wasn’t really that good, thus flushing yet another piece of its rich history down the drain.
No matter how many times we’ve assumed they’ve hit rock bottom, these Noles just keep digging. You really have to admire their determination.
Taking the temperature of the top 12
On Tuesday, we get our first College Football Playoff rankings. To prep you for this big event, let’s take a deep dive into the biggest questions facing the committee as it meets in its secret lair behind Greg Sankey’s pool house this week.
Is Oregon the clear-cut No. 1?
At this point, it seems tough to argue. Oregon is simply demoralizing opponents, as it did to Michigan on Saturday, 38-17. Of course, Michigan has been demoralized plenty lately. The Wolverines QB carousel continued against the Ducks, with Davis Warren and Alex Orji subbing in and out, and neither finding much of a rhythm. This comes a week after former starter Jack Tuttle medically retired and several other members of the depth chart started a commune in Nicaragua in hopes of living off the grid.
The only real competition for the top spot might come from Georgia, whose lone loss came to Alabama in a game in which the Dawgs also erased a 28-point deficit. Still, the lackluster performance against Florida in Week 10 didn’t provide much evidence the committee should overlook Oregon, even if Georgia’s supposed struggles are really all part of Kirby Smart’s diabolical plan to convince his team no one believes in them, thus motivating them to crush everyone in sight once the playoff starts. In fairness, his last scheme to sink most of eastern Georgia into the ocean so he can have beachfront property in Athens was mostly lifted from “Superman,” and it didn’t work for Lex Luthor either.
Should Boise State be a top-four seed?
The new 12-team playoff awards opening-round byes for the top four conference champions, and at this point, it might be fair to ask if Boise State could eclipse the winner of the Big 12.
The Broncos’ lone loss came by 3 points to No. 1 Oregon in a game that came down to a go-ahead field goal as time expired. Boise State features, arguably, the best player in the country in Ashton Jeanty, and it demolished San Diego State, 56-24, on Friday in spite of a relatively lackluster performance from the star back. Boise State also has solid (if unranked) wins against Washington State (6-1) and UNLV (5-2).
Of course, the more appealing option might be for Boise State to finish somewhere in the No. 5 through 8 range because nothing would ring in this new era of the 12-team playoff better than playing the first game on the blue turf.
What do we make of the SEC?
Every team in the league has at least one conference loss now. Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M and Ole Miss all have multiple losses. Georgia has scuffled regularly, Tennessee has flirted with disaster in multiple games as it struggles to find a consistent passing game, and Texas has been startlingly bereft of Arch Manning snaps of late.
Saturday’s slate only reinforced the concerns. The Aggies still are searching for an offensive identity. Kentucky benched starting QB Brock Vandagriff, who now will return to his full-time job as a roadie for Ted Nugent, but still were within striking distance until late in the forth quarter against the up-and-down Vols. Georgia may be the best team in the country, but it only plays like it for about six minutes per game, and Ole Miss is ridiculously explosive but also entirely erratic.
In other words, the SEC is basically just the old Pac-12, only without the shame or consequences.
So, is the SEC still a four-bid league? It’s getting tougher to see four championship-caliber teams here, but that’s the joy of a 12-team playoff. Half of those teams probably never had a shot at winning it all anyway.
Is the ACC a two-bid league?
Miami has taken care of business so far this season, in spite of a secondary that’s mostly involved asking politely for receivers not to catch the football. With games at Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and at Syracuse remaining, the Canes still look like an obvious playoff team, barring a remarkable collapse, which would almost certainly be overturned by ACC officials anyway.
But could the ACC be in line for a second playoff team, too?
Clemson looked the part after roughing up six straight bad teams — none ranked in the top 70 of ESPN’s FPI — but Louisville put a wrinkle in those plans Saturday. The Tigers sleepwalked through the first three quarters, and the Cardinals romped to a 33-21 win.
1:00
Isaac Brown celebrates Louisville TD with ‘Night Night’ celly
Isaac Brown does the “Night Night” celebration in front of the Clemson crowd after his 45-yard run pads Louisville’s lead.
Dabo Swinney, ever the optimist, followed the loss by wanting to focus on the positives, such as the fact that none of his players were mauled by sharks, and he has some takeout from Smoking Pig in the fridge when he gets home.
SMU now looks like the clear-cut No. 2 in the league after demolishing previously undefeated Pitt. The Mustangs lone loss came by three against undefeated BYU in a game when they had the ball inside the Cougars’ 30 six times and managed just nine points. They’ll face Boston College, visit Virginia and host Cal before the season ends, with an inside track on an ACC title game appearance.
So, would Miami and SMU both be in if they win out? Could a 10-2 Clemson be in the mix, too?
Sankey would like to counter this notion by doubling over in laughter before dismissively asking, “Oh, were you serious about that?”
Where does the Big 12 fit in?
Iowa State’s loss leaves BYU as the frontrunner, but the rest of the league is a mess of possibilities. The Cyclones and Colorado are each 4-1 in conference, though the tie-breaker rule that prioritizes Instagram likes would seem to favor the Buffaloes. Kansas State and Texas Tech are both 4-2 in conference play, and four other teams still have two or fewer league losses, setting up a potential for chaos and — should one of those less-than-ideal teams manage to win the Big 12 title game — possibly knock the league out of a top four seed.
Ultimately, there’s a simple enough solution here: The committee should enforce the “2023 Florida State doctrine” and simply give Colorado the ACC’s spot in the playoff regardless, because TV ratings are what keeps the committee’s meeting room stocked with Cuban cigars, French champagne and all the Mountain Dew Baja Blast Jim Grobe can drink.
Will there be any surprises?
We’ve been pretty certain what the playoff will look like all along: Five conference champs, at least five wild cards from the SEC and Big Ten, Notre Dame snags its bid, and one more wild card comes from either the ACC or Big 12.
But, what if Washington State gets into the mix? The Cougars are 7-1 and will be favored in each of their last four. Could they sneak into the top 12 if they keep winning? Or how about Army? The Black Knights get Notre Dame in three weeks in a game that could send shockwaves through the playoff. And then there’s Kentucky. The Wildcats are just 3-6, but with all six Ls coming in SEC play, no one has more quality losses, which we know the committee loves.
Heisman five
The favorites held serve in the Heisman race this week, and it’s increasingly looking like a four-man race, but we’d nevertheless like to offer some Heisman love to Duke offensive lineman Micah Sahakian for providing us with the best chyron of the season.
— Sickos Committee (@SickosCommittee) November 2, 2024
Believe it or not, Saturday’s win over Duke was Ward’s first time this season with at least 400 yards passing and four touchdowns. He had 400 yards twice before, and this was his fourth time with at least four touchdown passes, but they had never overlapped in the same game. This was basically Ward’s KFC Double Down game, where the big plays are both the bread and the meat.
2. Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty
On Friday, San Diego State’s defensive scheme basically amounted to putting eight players, a set of road flairs and a few of those inflatable waving-arm guys in the box to stop Jeanty at any cost. Turns out, the cost was QB Maddux Madsen throwing for 307 yards and four touchdowns in a 56-24 win. Oh, and Jeanty still had 149 yards rushing (plus 31 receiving) and two touchdowns.
3. Colorado WR/CB Travis Hunter
Colorado was off in Week 10, which begs the question of why anyone even bothered to watch games. Still, Hunter remains the most dynamic player in the country, playing 858 snaps already this year despite missing the better part of two games and having to constantly fend off DJ Khaled on the sideline constantly pushing for them to leave the game early and hit up White Castle.
4. Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel
Gabriel threw for a touchdown and ran for another in Oregon’s 38-17 win over Michigan, but honestly, it’s really not even fun to watch the Ducks demolish opponents anymore. Gabriel and tailback Jordan James should have to tie their legs together before each snap like some sort of potato sack race just to make Oregon’s games more interesting.
5. Spot reserved for Army QB Bryson Daily
Daily missed Army’s 20-3 win over Air Force with an undisclosed injury. Or perhaps he was on a top-secret mission to infiltrate a top military target, or battling Hugo Drax’s henchmen on an international space station before they wipe out humanity. Either way, we hope he’s back soon.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Louisiana-Monroe‘s hot start has come to a screeching halt, with the Warhawks dropping back-to-back games, including Saturday’s 28-23 defeat at the hands of Marshall.
Perhaps the symbolic low point for ULM came just ahead of a fourth-and-1 play with 11:43 to go in the third, when offensive lineman Drew Hutchinson offhandedly suggested that Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poet’s Department” was meandering and self-indulgent, to which O-line coach Cameron Blankenship strongly disagreed.
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ULM assistant coach has meltdown in face of own player
Check out ULM’s assistant coach Cameron Blankenship going absolutely ballistic in the face of his own player, offensive lineman Drew Hutchinson.
In fairness, you really shouldn’t mess with Swifties.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Baylor rallied from down 7 in the fourth quarter, blew a 7-point lead with less than 2 minutes to play, then beat TCU 37-34 on a 33-yard field goal as time expired.
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Baylor kicks game-winning FG as time expires to upend TCU
Baylor wins as time expires behind a game-winning field goal to top TCU in Big 12 action.
The win came 10 years after Baylor also beat TCU by 3 in a game that ultimately kept both teams out of the inaugural College Football Playoff, opening the door for Ohio State to win it all in 2014.
The stakes were a bit lower for this one, but the Bears are now in need of just one win in their past three — at West Virginia, at Houston, home to Kansas — to earn a bowl bid and possibly save Dave Aranda’s job.
For TCU, however, the loss is yet another bit of frustrating in a season chock full of it, and it’s the second loss of the year on a field goal inside of a minute to play. It’s also TCU’s sixth one-possession loss since going to the national title game in 2022. Regression to the mean is not pleasant.
Outfielder Jurickson Profar and the Atlanta Braves agreed on a three-year, $42 million contract Thursday, uniting the veteran coming off a career year with a team that has struggled in recent years to find a suitable left fielder.
Profar, 31, was a revelation for the San Diego Padres last year, hitting .280/.380/.459 with a career-high 24 home runs and 85 RBIs. Once the top prospect in all of baseball, Profar made his first All-Star team and won a Silver Slugger — all on a one-year, $1 million deal.
He cashed in with the Braves, who outbid a number of teams interested in Profar’s on-base skills as well as his energy that invigorated Padres supporters and infuriated rival fan bases.
Profar will join center fielder Michael Harris II and right fielder Ronald Acuña Jr., the former National League MVP coming off a torn left ACL just three years after tearing the ligament in his right knee. Without Acuña for most of last season, the Braves’ offense suffered a deep regression from 2023, when they set a single-season team record with a .501 slugging percentage.
The switch-hitting Profar can slot almost anywhere in the lineup, though he figures to begin the season toward the top as Acuña continues to rehab his knee. Beyond Harris and Acuña, Atlanta’s lineup includes All-Star third baseman Austin Riley, second baseman Ozzie Albies and first baseman Matt Olson. Profar will receive $12 million this year and $15 million in 2026 and 2027.
Atlanta is typically one of the most aggressive teams in baseball, striking early in free agency and with trades. After trading slugger Jorge Soler in late October, the Braves dabbled in minor league deals and watched as starter Max Fried went to the New York Yankees, starter Charlie Morton went to the Baltimore Orioles and reliever A.J. Minter went to the New York Mets.
Profar is Atlanta’s first real addition this winter after sneaking into the postseason at 89-73 and promptly getting swept by San Diego. He has spent all 11 years of his major league career in the West divisions, debuting at 19 with the Texas Rangers. Profar never fulfilled his potential there and went to Oakland in 2019 before settling with the Padres, where he became a full-time outfielder. Over 1,119 games in his career, Profar has hit .245/.331/.395 with 111 home runs and 444 RBIs in 4,291 plate appearances.
Sports
Are the Dodgers ruining baseball? Inside the Roki Sasaki signing — and a spending spree that has rocked MLB
SIX YEARS AGO, when the world knew next to nothing of a gangly 17-year-old pitcher in Japan, a Los Angeles Dodgers evaluator sat in the stands at his high school games with a video camera to capture the splendor. Roki Sasaki’s fastball regularly reached 100 mph, his right arm a whirling force of nature. The Dodgers were smitten. Sasaki could eventually be the best pitcher in the world, team officials told one another. And when the time came for his inevitable move to Major League Baseball, they wanted to ensure he felt as strongly about them as they did him.
In the time since, the Dodgers have conquered baseball in nearly every fashion imaginable. Armed with immense wealth from their owners and buoyed by the largest local television contract in the game, the Dodgers have spared no expense in trying to win. Their major league payroll consistently ranks at the top of the game, yes, but other line items are best-in-class, too, from their technology infrastructure to their coaching staff’s compensation to the quality of the food they serve their minor league players.
When this winter arrived and Sasaki, now 23, declared his intentions to come to MLB, the Dodgers didn’t need a sales pitch because the allure for players is obvious: If you covet winning, come join a burgeoning dynasty. Since being sold to the Guggenheim Baseball Management group in 2012 following the disastrous ownership of Frank McCourt that led the team to file for bankruptcy, the Dodgers have remade themselves into conquerors: of the National League West (11 titles in 12 years), their October demons (two World Series championships in five years), and the Japanese baseball market (the signings of Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto for more than $1 billion guaranteed).
Every front office pined for the latest Japanese ace this offseason. Eight teams were granted an audience with Sasaki. Three became finalists. The Dodgers were one. The San Diego Padres, Los Angeles’ chief rival in the NL West and another team whose early scouting of Sasaki won favor, were the second. The third came down to the Toronto Blue Jays, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs and New York Yankees — four other teams whose years of work in Japan and history with Japanese players spoke to an understanding of Sasaki and his desires. The rapport built with Toronto’s international scouting apparatus won the Blue Jays the third finalist slot.
Toronto impressed Sasaki with its answer to a burning question: Why had his sizzling fastball lost velocity in 2024? The explanation from Frank Herrmann, a Blue Jays baseball operations staffer who had pitched in the big leagues and was Sasaki’s teammate with the Chiba Lotte Marines, and Sam Greene, the Blue Jays’ assistant pitching coach, blended a discussion of data, mechanics and feel that boosted their pursuit. Sasaki spent multiple days in Toronto, and as he departed, the Blue Jays were confident that whatever advantages the Dodgers might have, they were surmountable.
The visit to San Diego left the Padres similarly assured. Star third baseman Manny Machado held a gathering at his house, where a Japanese chef cooked familiar cuisine. Jackson Merrill, the Padres’ 21-year-old center fielder expected to blossom into a superstar in coming seasons, attended, as did Ethan Salas, the 18-year-old catcher seen as a linchpin in future seasons. And San Diego had an ace in the hole: Yu Darvish, the progenitor of modern Japanese pitching, whom Sasaki regards as a mentor with peerless knowledge.
The successful meetings put that much more pressure on the Dodgers, who hosted Sasaki Jan. 14 at minority owner Peter Guber’s Bel Air home and summoned an array of players, all locked up to long-term deals: superstars Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, catcher Will Smith, and super-utility man Tommy Edman. Ohtani, knowing Sasaki loves dogs, brought his Dutch kooikerhondje, Decoy, to the presentation.
With the international signing period opening Jan. 15 and the window for Sasaki to sign closing Jan. 23, the decision zone arrived and forced action. All three teams lined up trades to acquire more international bonus money to help their pursuit. San Diego was eliminated first. Toronto, attempting to demonstrate its willingness to go above and beyond for Sasaki, struck a deal with Cleveland to take on $11.75 million remaining on center fielder Myles Straw‘s contract along with an additional $2 million in international money even before Sasaki had made his decision.
Soon thereafter, he did — and it wasn’t the Blue Jays. What so many in baseball saw as a fait accompli — to the point MLB did a preemptive investigation into whether Sasaki had any sort of prearranged deal (and determined he didn’t) — played out. While some teams in meetings asked if Sasaki wanted to be Kevin Durant or Michael Jordan — to join a superteam or help build one — the allure of the Dodgers was impossible to ignore. All of their games are broadcast on national TV in Japan. The stores at Nippon Professional Baseball stadiums that include racks of Dodgers gear will now feature jerseys with his name on them. The Dodgers’ plan when they signed Ohtani — “One of our goals is for baseball fans in Japan to convert to Dodger Blue,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said — had borne fruit.
In executing that vision, the team has set off alarms inside the sport. The Dodgers’ signing of Sasaki for $6.5 million — a sum artificially deflated by MLB’s rules on international amateurs that offers Los Angeles hundreds of millions of dollars in surplus value — left front offices and fans alike gobsmacked. Watching the Dodgers pick off free agent after free agent with heavily deferred deals has built a wave of frustration. Seeing them land one of the most valuable contracts in the game — the sort typically reserved for the worst teams via the draft — reinforced something that has become increasingly clear.
The Dodgers are no longer just a team chasing championships. They are a stress test for the game itself.
THE ANGER — from disillusioned fans, from dispirited front offices, from owners made to look as if they don’t care — is very real. And it’s growing to the point that people at the highest levels of Major League Baseball acknowledge it concerns them. Most worrisome is the rhetoric that fans are done with the game. That what L.A. is doing is unfair. That the financial imbalance ruins the sport.
A villain around which people can rally is tolerable; an unbeatable monolith is not. An exemplar for how teams can operate is instructive; an extinguishing of hope is not. With every transaction pushing the Dodgers further from the former and more toward the latter, MLB faces growing cynicism that has reignited calls for a salary cap — and made collective bargaining discussions set to start a year from now, before the current basic agreement expires following the 2026 season, that much more fraught with peril.
Over the past 13 months, the Dodgers have morphed from a large-market, big-money jewel franchise that spent exceptional sums of money and didn’t have much to show for it into a referendum on the state of MLB in 2025. Because baseball is the last of the major North American professional sports leagues without a salary cap or floor, the difference between the Dodgers — who carry a payroll in the $375 million range — and the next-highest team, the Philadelphia Phillies, is nearly $70 million. That’s to say nothing of the gap between the Dodgers and the 30th-ranked Miami Marlins: around $300 million. The $120 million or so the Dodgers are in line to pay in luxury tax penalties on top of their payroll is more than the projected Opening Day payroll of 10 teams.
In the past 411 days, the Dodgers have:
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Signed Ohtani to a 10-year, $700 million contract, with $680 million deferred
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Traded for right-hander Tyler Glasnow and signed him to a five-year, $136.5 million contract extension
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Signed right-hander Yamamoto to a 12-year, $325 million contract
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Signed Smith to a 10-year, $140 million contract extension, with $50 million deferred
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Signed two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell to a five-year, $182 million contract, with $66 million deferred
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Signed Edman, acquired at the 2024 trade deadline, to a five-year, $74 million contract extension, with $25 million deferred
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Signed outfielder Michael Conforto to a one-year, $17 million contract
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Signed reliever Blake Treinen to a two-year, $22 million contract
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Signed outfielder Teoscar Hernández to a pair of deals totaling $89.5 million over four years, with $32 million deferred
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Signed Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim to a three-year, $12.5 million contract
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Signed Sasaki
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Signed closer Tanner Scott to a four-year, $72 million contract, with $21 million deferred
In total, they have guaranteed $1.778 billion — nearly half of it ($874 million) deferred. For a team that already had Betts and Freeman under contract — a team that over its six previous full seasons won at least 100 games five times — to turn over more than half its roster and add nearly a dozen impact players registered as baseball gluttony.
A day after Sasaki’s signing, Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts told 670 AM in Chicago that “it’s really hard to compete” with the Dodgers. Ricketts bought the Cubs for $845 million in 2009. They are worth around $5 billion now, according to a person who values professional sports franchises. The Cubs, according to Forbes, have the third-highest revenue in MLB, behind the Yankees and Dodgers. They are the epitome of a big-market, high-earning franchise. Ricketts said the Cubs attempt to break even every year. Forbes estimates they have earned more than $585 million before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization over the past decade in addition to the more than $4 billion appreciation of the team.
At the time, the Cubs were attempting to sign Scott, among the most coveted relievers this winter. The next day, with a final offer of four years and $66 million — $6 million shy of where the Dodgers landed — they lost. The $18 million-a-year salary Scott received fell in line with those of other elite closers.
This is not a chicken-and-egg situation. Teams like the Cubs and Boston Red Sox — should-be powerhouses — earn reputations quickly among players by not spending. When franchises show they care about winning, players take note. The flocking of talented players to the Dodgers is not a function of a willingness to overpay. The vast majority of the long-term deals handed out by the Dodgers are market price or club-friendly. Betts’, Freeman’s, Smith’s. Ohtani’s deal — with $68 million of his annual $70 million salary deferred for a decade — was proposed by him to the Dodgers as well as to the other teams that pursued him: Toronto, San Francisco and the Los Angeles Angels.
While the Dodgers are among the rare teams that can carry three $300 million-plus deals (and four other nine-figure pacts on top of that) without bleeding money, they also thrive in the middle market. They took advantage of Ricketts’ unwillingness to push — he has limited the Cubs’ budget this winter, even after trading for Kyle Tucker — and won the bidding for Scott. Any team could have pursued Hernández, whose deal this winter was at market value. Every team passed on signing Snell to a long-term deal in the 2023-24 offseason. Edman was widely available at the trade deadline.
Every MLB club, even those with the lowest revenues, can compete for that sort of talent. So many operate with unbending devotion to their computer models, though, that the simple act of spending has become an even greater advantage for the Dodgers. With a history of teams on limited budgets annually performing among the best in the game, those franchises could fare even better stretching themselves financially and investing in winning, at the very least proportionally to those who devote a higher percentage of revenue to payroll. The Dodgers’ willingness to spend in grand sums and success with it should motivate other teams to keep up, not preclude them from doing so.
THREE DECADES AFTER the longest work stoppage in MLB history, the inequity baked into the game’s financial system remains. MLB’s pursuit of a salary cap in 1994 led to the cancellation of the World Series that year. The rekindling of a cap conversation has already begun — particularly by owners peeved by the Dodgers’ spending and the sheer size of Juan Soto‘s 15-year, $765 million, no-deferred-money deal with the New York Mets. Proposing a cap in next year’s CBA negotiations would be tantamount to a declaration of war by MLB — and already those owners are prepared for commissioner Rob Manfred to lock the players out Dec. 1, 2026.
It’s clear, by now, that the punitive elements the most recent collective bargaining agreement put in place — the luxury tax, the qualifying offer system, draft-pick punishment — are anti-spending measures that just don’t apply to some. The Mets have spent exceptional amounts of money and been OK. The Dodgers clearly see money as a competitive advantage they’re willing to flaunt. There is room to incentivize other teams to spend without having to institute a cap and a floor.
For now, though, this is the game. These are the rules. Players overwhelmingly supported the collective bargaining agreement that governs baseball. Owners voted unanimously in favor of it.
The Dodgers are the symptom, not the cause.
Players will point out that a cap is not a panacea. Without one, baseball has found parity on par with or better than capped leagues. In the past quarter-century, the team with the largest payroll in baseball has won the World Series just four times. Over the past 15 years, it’s just twice. No team has captured back-to-back championships since the Yankees won three straight 1998-2000. MLB’s postseason this year featured teams from Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore and San Diego. Perhaps most important: The randomness of baseball’s postseason typically serves as an equalizer, keeping even the most talented teams from their most dynastic aspirations.
As the Dodgers exceed the base luxury tax threshold of $241 million by more than 50%, it’s worth remembering that baseball has seen financial disparity like this before. There’s little solace to take in that this year, though, because the team the Dodgers have put together is genuinely great, extraordinarily deep, and prepared to weather injury, ineffectiveness and the other vagaries that would torpedo opponents’ seasons.
For all of the Dodgers’ advantages, it’s worth acknowledging the most overblown element of their approach. The deep misunderstanding of deferred money has painted it as a tool to avoid paying salaries for long periods of time and lessen a team’s luxury tax payroll. Neither of these is true.
Within two years of agreeing to a contract with deferred money, teams must place cash to cover future payments in an account and show statements annually to the league, according to the collective bargaining agreement. Deferrals are regarded by MLB the same way any business in any industry would: accounting for the time value of money. A dollar tomorrow is not worth as much as a dollar today. And a dollar 10 years down the road is worth much less than it is today. While Ohtani’s contract will ultimately pay him $70 million a year, its present-day worth is closer to the $46 million he counts against the luxury tax. This is not a loophole. It’s math. So is the fact that what they pay under luxury tax accounting — which uses the average annual value of a contract — exceeds the cash they’ll spend on payroll this year. The reality: They’re paying more in luxury tax this year.
An actual loophole does exist in the California tax system, incentivizing players who don’t live in the state to defer money and secure large signing bonuses, both of which allow them to skirt state taxes. This is nothing new for professional athletes across sports. Teams in Texas and Florida have been using a lack of state taxes to their advantage for decades. It’s not a particularly significant advantage — except for Ohtani, who California lawmakers said could avoid around $90 million in state taxes as they pursue legislation to fix the law.
What’s undeniable — and undeniably frustrating to fans and owners alike — is that despite the inflated dollar figure, Ohtani’s contract is the team-friendliest free agent deal in baseball history. Between his production and the revenue he helps the Dodgers generate, he is worth well over $100 million annually, not $46 million. And once the Dodgers were able to secure his services for the next decade, the franchise could still turn around and spend more than a billion dollars however it saw fit, perfectly content to pay the luxury tax.
Under McCourt’s ownership, the Dodgers were directionless underachievers. They became a fury-inducing juggernaut when they sought to maximize themselves, and that is the ultimate endgame of the stress test: Have they mastered this system to the point that it must be overhauled?
As the 2025 season unfolds and attempts to answer that question, they will wear the boos and the chirping and all of the nastiness in opposing ballparks. But this is not their fight. It is the commissioner’s and the owners’ and the union’s. Those stakeholders need to find an answer that isn’t just kicking the can down the road for five years but actually, actively changing baseball’s economic structure so players continue to make what they’re worth and fans see a tolerably fair system.
The greatest drug of sports fandom is belief, and right now, belief in baseball is waning. October has always been the great equalizer, a time when hot teams regularly beat more talented teams. If that happens to the Dodgers in 2025, the schadenfreude will be strong enough to part the Red Sea. Should the Dodgers become repeat champions, though, the chorus will grow louder and the distrust deeper. The stress test has arrived, and for all of the game’s resiliency, baseball’s future depends on its ability to navigate a situation of its own making.
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