Tradition, discipline, brotherhood: What it’s like to play football at Army, Navy
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Heather Dinich
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Heather Dinich
Senior College Football Insider
- College football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of Indiana University
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Chris Low
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Chris Low
ESPN Senior Writer
- College football reporter
- Joined ESPN.com in 2007
- Graduate of the University of Tennessee
THE STEEP CLIMB up Stony Lonesome Road is harrowing, even for the fittest of Army’s football players. When the shuttle buses aren’t running in the winter, team members hoof it from their barracks to the Kimsey Athletic Center for offseason mat drills at 5 o’clock in the morning, typically in freezing temperatures with a layer of snow on the ground.
The last thing they see before making the final left turn is the historic “Beat Navy” house, built in 1875 and used to accommodate distinguished guests. The building, with its illuminated sign out front, is a reminder that the football mission at Army is clear. It’s why you see “BEAT NAVY” signs everywhere in and around West Point, New York, from the Food Mart Go Army convenience store in nearby Fort Montgomery to the urinals in the football complex. Yes, the urinals.
In downtown Annapolis, Maryland, the waterfront home of the U.S. Naval Academy, souvenirs with GO NAVY BEAT ARMY are in storefronts everywhere — year-round — but on campus, everything ramps up during “Army Week.” That’s when the coaching staff double-checks every door is locked. It’s when mascot security is turned up a notch. (In 2012, Navy’s goat mascot went missing and was found next to a grass median on Army Navy Drive in Crystal City near the Pentagon.) It’s when the scout team wears black stripes on their helmets to mimic Army’s players.
Because of who the players are — and the soldiers they will soon become — the Army–Navy rivalry game, which will be contested for the 125th time Saturday in Landover, Maryland, is unlike any other in the country, drawing a global audience of our nation’s armed forces past and present.
But as the college football landscape continues to rapidly shift, the lives of students at Army and Navy have become a larger outlier than ever before.
“Their entire day is filled,” Navy coach Brian Newberry said. “And it’s not just classes, it’s legitimate classes. And they’ve got things in the evening within their company and military responsibilities. They don’t get sleep like you do at another place.”
There’s also no money for name, image and likeness — the Department of Defense prohibits players from endorsing any products or having any sponsorships. The academies do not allow redshirting. There are no sweeping roster changes from the transfer portal. Anyone who transfers into the U.S. Military Academy or the Naval Academy has to start all over as a freshman academically and go through the military training and dreaded “plebe” orientation, making it highly unlikely any junior football player wants to tackle that challenge.
And yet there’s still so much to play for.
“A lot of what we talk about is serving something bigger than yourself,” Navy senior fullback Daba Fofana said. “Now, there is that aspect of you want to put food on the table for your family and all of that, but the reason you play football and the reason that you serve in the military isn’t for yourself. It’s for the love of the game, love of your country, the love for your brothers.”
“I’m glad guys at other schools are getting paid big money in NIL,” Army junior linebacker Kalib Fortner said. “They should be. But that’s not our purpose. It’s the brotherhood that’s at the center of everything we do and fight for, playing for your brother that’s right beside you in the locker room, the one who lives down the hall from you in your barracks, every cadet who’s ever come through here, and most importantly, our country.”
ESPN shadowed Fortner, Army’s leader in tackles for loss this season (8.5), and Fofana, a team captain, attending classes with the players, as well as practice and position meetings — even Bible study — to illustrate what a typical day is like for an athlete at one of the academies.
As Army and Navy prepare to play the 125th edition of “America’s Game,” they do so entrenched in their military history, adhering to strict traditions in an era of college football that has drastically changed around them.
DABA, FROM THE Mandingo tribal word meaning hard worker, is named after his paternal grandfather. His father is from the Ivory Coast, but Fofana grew up in Cumming, Georgia, where he wrestled, ran track and played football.
It’s a long way from the Yard, the nickname given to the Naval Academy that dates back to the word “dockyard” during the Revolutionary War.
Like any college, the Yard is buzzing with activity — students with backpacks crisscrossing campus to get to their next class. Unlike most other places, though, you need a valid picture ID to get past the MA (master-at-arms) at Gate 1, and don’t even think about driving on campus without a credential from the Department of Defense or a Naval Academy ID card.
Not only is it hard to get in, the midshipmen need permission to get out.
There are more than 4,400 students in the Brigade of Midshipmen, and they all live in Bancroft Hall, a sprawling dormitory complex that includes 3.8 miles of corridors and eight wings divided into 36 companies.
Fofana wakes up each morning around 7 in a tiny dorm room that’s about 100 square feet, a utilitarian space devoid of any decorations, pictures or posters. He typically leaves around 7:20 a.m. and doesn’t come back until around 9 p.m. There’s no rug on the tile floor, and each room has a shower and a sink, but the bathrooms are communal. There are two raised wooden beds that each accommodate a desk and chair underneath, with no clutter on the desktops, save for a few neatly stacked papers. On the floor sits a black mini-refrigerator, which Fofana received special permission for.
“I just have the stuff that I need in here,” he said.
Fofana learned to quickly and expertly make his bed with hospital corners every morning before leaving his room, and any extra blankets have to be folded on top. It’s one detail that will be checked during two routine inspections each semester, “alpha and bravo.” Normally, he said, study hours are “sacred,” but once every semester, all midshipmen go through a white-glove test — a 40-point inspection called bravo that includes making sure the floors are waxed and that all uniforms are hanging dark to light, left to right. Students are allowed three “hits” on the inspection, and if they fail on a fourth, they have to take it again.
There’s a laundry service that does the dry cleaning for the dress uniforms, and a cart comes around the halls once a week to collect other clothes. Everyone has to be in their company spaces by 11 each night, and sign a paper confirming it with the company deck officer.
“It was very much a culture shock,” Fofana said of his arrival at Navy. “At the beginning of plebe summer, as soon as I walk through my door, you walk in and you start getting yelled at all of a sudden, I’m like, ‘Oh, shoot.’ And the first two weeks were a pretty hard adjustment, just because of the lifestyle and all that stuff. But after that, I ended up easing into things and figuring out a rhythm.”
After all, he’s got a PlayStation in his room. Both Army and Navy are in the EA Sports NCAA football game, but their players don’t receive any NIL money, unlike the $600 that players who have opted in at other schools receive.
“I’m just happy to be a part of the game,” Fofana said. “It’s a childhood dream of mine.”
FORTNER AND HIS twin brother Liam, a receiver at Army, grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee. They won back-to-back state championships together at Central High School, and Kalib was a three-time all-state selection. They signed their scholarship papers with Army together on Dec. 17, 2020.
Up by 6:15 every morning, Kalib Fortner’s day begins at 6:50 when cadets assemble in the quad for predawn formation. Breakfast in the mess hall is mandatory and begins at 6:55 a.m. Fortner doesn’t return to his barracks during the season until 8:30 or 9 p.m.
Fortner lives on the second floor of the Eisenhower Barracks, named after former general and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a 1915 West Point graduate. There’s very little space between the two beds in his room, which he shares with Charlie Barnett, a junior kicker. There’s a desk at the foot of his bed and two portable fans.
“The smell is nothing like it was my freshman year at Sherman Barracks, when we had to leave our windows open, but you still have to air it out sometimes,” Fortner joked.
The only real decor is a collage of pictures of Fortner’s longtime girlfriend, Morgan McSwain, just above his desk. The floor is tile, and there’s nothing on the walls, which are painted a bland off-white.
There’s no television. “Wouldn’t have time to watch it if I did have one,” he said. There’s no mini-fridge, either. Fortner uses his school-issued laptop to watch game tape and also has an iPad and may watch other games on it. There’s a sink in the room, but that’s it. The toilets and communal showers are at the end of the hallway. There aren’t any elevators in his barracks, which have six floors.
Every Monday, the cadets have mandatory main inspection. Fortner is up at 6:15, shaves, gets his uniform ready and climbs the seemingly endless flight of stairs to “The Shelf,” which overlooks the rest of the barracks in the main courtyard. Fortner is a squad leader in the First Regiment and has to inspect seven cadets in his company when they get to the top.
“Got to make sure their shoes are shined, their belts are in line, that they have their dog tags and proper haircuts,” Fortner said. “It’s a laundry list.”
AT 7:20 A.M., on a “tactical Thursday” when nearly everyone is required to dress in identical fatigues, Fofana walked through the side door of Bancroft Hall, which is essentially a food factory equipped to feed all 4,400 midshipmen in 20 minutes. By rule, he takes his hat off inside the building. A patch on the left arm of his uniform reads “DON’T TREAD ON ME,” and the pin with three gold stripes on the front of his chest indicates he’s a team captain, an honor recognized throughout the school.
“You’re at a leadership school,” longtime Navy assistant coach Ivin Jasper said. “That’s the role you’re going to be in once you leave school. It’s getting that early start on it.”
Each sports team has its own table in-season, and Fofana sat down for breakfast at table No. 42, which had a yellow FOOTBALL sign on it. He piled sausage and eggs on his plate and had a glass of orange juice. Several trays packed with pancakes were scattered around the table, with teammates grabbing food and passing it around like a supersized holiday dinner.
Fofana has a 3.69 GPA and is majoring in applied physics while pursuing a career in medicine; he hopes to be a doctor in the orthopedics field. This fall, he’s taking 16 credits and said the most difficult course is called Introduction to Aeronautics, a study of concepts such as fluid motion, airfoil and wing theory, and wind tunnels. (The students call the class “planes.”)
His class schedule on this particular Thursday began at 8:30 a.m. in Luce Hall Room 114 with Stoic Philosophy and Leadership. Fofana was one of the first students in the room.
“What do we want to know about each other today?” professor Marcus Hedahl said to start the class, asking each person in the room to share an album, song or artist they enjoy listening to.
The purpose of the class, Hedahl said, is to teach the midshipmen how to think, not what to think. It’s a leadership class that looks at diverse cultures.
As Fofana left his stoic philosophy class and made his way to Autonomy and Control Naval Weapons Systems in Rickover 1061, he joined a flood of classmates walking through a hallway adorned with posters of famous leaders, including Bill Belichick, Gregg Popovich and George Washington.
The focus of this next class is the mechanics of how weapons systems work. On the floor at the front of the room, in front of a dry-erase board, was a blue, inert (key word) 5-inch gun shell. If it’s blue, it’s a dummy weapon used for instruction.
The theme of the day was sensors, as in night cameras, smart watches and heart sensors. The students call professor Lieutenant Commander Christopher Jeffries, who is also dressed in fatigues, “sir,” and he stayed at the front of the room by a lectern as he taught, explaining to the small group that they need to know how a GPS works and not to depend on it — because sometimes it doesn’t work. He showed a video of an F-35 plane that continues flying even after the pilot has been ejected.
Before turning his attention to football in the afternoon, Fofana worked on his physics research project, where he used a confocal microscope to look at a sample DNA salt solution.
“There’s a lot of pressure, anxiety,” Newberry said of the academic demands on the players. “I want football to be an outlet for them. When they get over here, I really want it to be the best part of their day. That doesn’t mean we’re not going to do hard things. But we’re going to have fun in the process of doing those things.”
A CIVIL ENGINEERING major, Fortner is taking 16½ credit hours this semester. His five classes include Structural Analysis and Platoon Operations. He took a heavier load during last spring semester (21 credits) and made the dean’s list.
In the spring, he took a class called Survival Swim.
“You had your uniform on, your rifle, everything,” he said, “and then there was also a class called Military Movement, essentially gymnastics, but I passed them both fine.”
During his Structural Analysis class, a required course for civil engineering majors, Fortner and his brother Liam worked together drawing frames on a chalkboard (yes, an old-school black chalkboard). They erased part of the structure they were drawing and started again. “It’s deflection of beams and frames, even harder than it sounds,” Fortner said.
After his final Wednesday morning class, Fortner hustled to pre-lunch formation, where cadets gather with their companies to take accountability and make any pertinent announcements before marching into the mess hall. This week, the week of the Air Force game, cadets wore camouflage fatigues, camouflage hats and brown boots. They walked briskly and alertly, always with their heads up and prepared to salute an officer, and seeing a cadet with his or her face buried in a cellphone would be akin to seeing Bigfoot.
The campus is referred to as “post,” and is very contained. West Point covers 16,000 acres on the west bank of the Hudson River, about the size of Manhattan. “But post is pretty condensed, making it easy getting to and from classes and meeting with professors,” Fortner said. Washington Hall is the mess hall, and just out front is a statue of the first U.S. president. A helicopter landed on the lawn adjacent to the statue just after the cadets sat down at their tables for lunch. “It’s probably a general,” Fortner said.
The mess hall houses 4,000 cadets, and Fortner sat at one of the first three tables with the rest of the football team. Breakfast and lunch are mandatory for cadets. On their table was a sign that read: “Heavy, Heavy,” meaning they get a little more food in a meal served family style. The players spoon out meat, green beans and macaroni onto their plates. There are bags of rolls on two corners of the tables, and a couple of pitchers of water (no ice). Some of the players drink Hoist, an electrolyte hydration beverage approved for use by the military.
Fortner sort of picked at his lunch and didn’t eat much.
“I don’t usually eat a whole lot here. I’ll get some snacks at the football complex before practice,” he said.
The mess hall is massive, majestic and full of history. There’s a huge raised platform in the middle known as the “poop deck,” and special guests will visit periodically to address the cadets, who greet the guest by standing at attention. The same goes for any formal dinner.
Among the guests during his time at Army: former President Barack Obama, Hall of Fame basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski (a West Point graduate), multiple high-ranking generals and ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith. Even the Stanley Cup, won last season by the Florida Panthers, was raised on the poop deck in October, with team captains Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk and Aaron Ekblad whipping the corps into a frenzy. Panthers owner Vincent Viola is a West Point graduate. Barkov brought the house down when he screamed, “Beat Navy!”
“I’m not sure a day goes by when you don’t hear that, and it doesn’t matter where you are or who you run into,” Fortner said.
AT 3 P.M., Fofana grabs a seat at the end of the table in a small room for his meeting with the fullbacks and quarterbacks. He’s wearing his football pads and eating an Uncrustable while they watch film of the previous day’s practice. At the head of the table, working the video clips and running through film is first-year offensive coordinator Drew Cronic.
As the meeting broke, Cronic said, “Daba’s got it.”
“1, 2, 3, FAMILY!” the players yelled together.
There are 180 players on the Navy roster — there’s no limit to team size. Newberry said because other programs are so focused on the portal, more talented high school players are available for Navy to recruit.
“We’re being a lot more selective, and a lot more picky with who we’re taking,” Newberry said.
When practice began, it was unusually hot for a September afternoon.
At 4:10, as the Midshipmen were finishing up stretching, one player yelled, “Where else would you rather be?”
“Nowhere!” the team responded.
Fofana is listed at 5-foot-8, and that’s probably a little generous. Most of the players at the academies are noticeably smaller than the elite recruits who typically populate blue-blood football programs, but there’s a self-awareness about it that drives them.
“These guys are going to be bigger and stronger than you,” barked Jason MacDonald, who spent his first four seasons at Navy coaching the fullbacks.
“No offense, young man, but the linebacker you face will be bigger,” MacDonald told another player. “You gotta sink lower.”
Fofana is the No. 2 fullback on the depth chart, but he has received one of the highest honors a Navy athlete can get — being voted a team captain by his teammates. As a team captain along with senior linebacker Colin Ramos, Fofana also leads Navy’s leadership council, which is composed of one player for each position group.
“Be your own blocker,” MacDonald directed as Fofana ran through the spring-loaded machine with his eyes down. “Hit it, hit it, hit it! Eyes up!”
“That could be the difference between a 5-yard gain and a touchdown,” he said. “Hear me?”
“Yes sir!”
Newberry said Navy never has more than two hard days of practice in a row because “everybody can’t really handle it.”
“You have to be really conscious of all that they have on their plate, mentally and physically.”
At 7 p.m., following a long day, practice and more treatment — and ordering Chick-fil-A for dinner — Fofana headed back up the stairs in Ricketts Hall, where the pastor, Bill McKinney, was leading a discussion on faith, and his wife, Barbara, was handing out brownies and milk to about a dozen players in the room.
It’s September, and some players were wearing T-shirts that had BEAT ARMY written on their backs near the collar. As the pastor spoke, to his right on the wall behind him was a picture of Navy’s band, holding up poster letters that spelled “BEAT ARMY.”
FORTNER HAS A short window to go back to his barracks and change into his football practice shirt and shorts and maybe get in a little studying before the buses start running at 1:30 p.m. to take the players up to the Kimsey Athletic Center and practice fields adjacent to Michie Stadium.
None of the players want to miss the bus because they know how grueling that climb to the top can be. The buses don’t run when the weather is nasty in the winter, and Fortner said the summer bus schedule can be tricky too.
“I know what it’s like climbing that hill when it’s 20 degrees and a foot of snow on the ground,” he said. “I think one of the hardest days I ever had was going from there to boxing class. Demanding doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Treatment for the players begins at 1 p.m. followed by weightlifting for different groups. Fortner also had a leadership council meeting. The team meeting was at 3:20 p.m., followed by Fortner’s inside linebackers position meeting.
Army’s inside linebackers coach is Justin Weaver, who was also Fortner’s coach the year he was in the academy’s prep school in 2021. As the linebackers watched tape together, Weaver barked, “Every first-down marker is a trench, but we had sawed-off shotguns in all those trenches.”
There’s never any doubt, even in football position meetings, that you’re at a military academy.
“When y’all go out and lead soldiers and set up training, expect them to execute. Trust your training,” Weaver said as he looked around the room.
“Consistency over time is toughness. Anybody can do something once.”
Army coach Jeff Monken likes to refer to his program and his players as the “last of the hard.”
“I brought it with me from Georgia Southern,” said Monken, who coached there from 2010 to 2013 before coming to Army. “This is the last generation willing to accept the hard, and these kids at Army embody that. You hear people in all walks of life saying they’re soldiers. We are. That’s why we’re here.”
Just like the players’ academy duties, Army’s practices are regimented, intense and unrelenting. At one point Monken climbed on top of a cart and screamed, “It’s time to f—ing start practicing the way we’re supposed to. Are we going to talk about it or f—ing be about it?” The level of discipline on the Black Knights was clear in their 35-14 win over Tulane last Friday in the AAC championship game, when Army became the first FBS team in at least 20 years to have no turnovers, no penalties and no punts in a game, according to ESPN Research.
Army has an indoor practice facility but uses it only when severe weather forces its hand. The backdrop for the field, especially once the leaves begin to turn, is gorgeous. And you know you’re not at just any practice when midway through, a group of parachuters comes sailing in over the fields. And then a few minutes later, Army helicopters come roaring overhead.
As the players spread out to stretch toward the end, coaches bellowed, “Finish the day!”
The team dinner, catered by a local restaurant during the season, is served at 7:55 p.m. on the fourth floor of the football complex. The players chowed down on wings, then slowly made their way to older-looking school buses painted white, and back down the hill to their barracks.
The “Taps” bugle call is played at 11:30 p.m., when all cadets must return to their rooms. Even after a 12- to 13-hour day, Fortner finds himself up past “Taps” on some nights.
“There’s no such thing as wasting time here at West Point,” he said. “You find time to study, nights when you get back from practice, pockets during the day and sometimes in the early morning hours.
“It’s not easy here and not for everybody. People ask, ‘How do you juggle it all?’ My answer is that being on the football team here forces you not to be a procrastinator. Time is money. Time is valuable, and time is important.”
Fortner’s “lazy” day during the season is on Sunday when he might sleep in until 9. But then it’s time to get up, and he says, go “kick some ass” the rest of the week.
FORTNER DOESN’T HAVE a car. Cadets aren’t allowed to have one until the second semester of their junior year. But he has heard the stories of high-profile players around the country driving Lamborghinis.
“Is that true … Lamborghinis?” Fortner asked with an incredulous smile.
No Army players receive NIL money, although Fortner said he gets a $358 monthly stipend from the military. Much of that is used for incidental expenses such as his laundry and haircuts. There’s only one transfer player on the team, backup center Kyle Kloska, who came from Central Michigan.
“Part of what’s so cool about this place is that it hasn’t changed. It’s not going to change,” Fortner said. “We’re not here to cash checks. We’re here to serve each other on this football team and later on our country.”
The midshipmen also receive a monthly stipend, but they pay for everything they have — things like their computer equipment, laundry, haircuts and uniforms — making it basically an interest-free loan that they’re paying back over their four years. As a plebe, more is taken out. There is also an opportunity to take out a $32,000 loan when they are juniors at an interest rate somewhere around 4%, a benefit also available to cadets at Army.
“We’re a unicorn right now,” said Navy’s Newberry, whose roster does not include any fifth-year players. “We still truly are a developmental program. Everywhere else in the country, rosters are flipping over semester to semester — not year-to-year. How do you really build a culture? In relationships, trust takes time. We have that here.”
Monken said “society has a head start” on Army when it goes out to sign high school players on the recruiting trail. Like Newberry, he doesn’t operate in a world with NIL or the transfer portal.
“Kids have been told they should look out for themselves and build their own brand, and so the music and the social media and TV is about individual success, wealth and power,” Monken said. “That’s completely opposite than it is here. We are fully committed to training these young men to be servant leaders. So you bring guys like that in here, and they’re already wired that way to serve the team and to do what’s best for the team.
“We don’t promise a jersey number. We don’t promise starting time. We don’t have money to say, ‘Oh, we’ll give you this much money.’ No, it’s just to be a part of this. We sell this place and what this is and what it can do for them for their future, our culture.”
Army athletic director Mike Buddie, who pitched in the major leagues, said it’s not easy to find 17- and 18-year-olds who are willing to serve their country and give up five years of their mid-20s to do so, even if they go in as officers. Plus there’s always the specter of war.
“But for the ones that it does resonate with, once they’re here, they’re here and they’re committed,” he said. “For the most part, they’re coming here for the mission of the academy. They’re not coming here to improve their [NFL] draft status. I think we have fewer distractions. It’s a hell of a lot easier to build cohesion and chemistry.
“It makes it easier for coaches to coach and develop and hold kids accountable because these kids are held accountable from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to bed.
“It’s just part of their DNA, which I think they respond very well to coaching.”
JASPER, THE LONGTIME Navy assistant coach, said it has been a tradition of his to get dressed early and walk around the field at the Army-Navy Game.
“I love coaching in that game,” Jasper said. “It’s hard to really explain it, to be on the winning side. And the other side? You don’t even want to think how the other side is feeling. It is devastating. People don’t understand it. If you’re not in that inner circle where you understand, you don’t understand.”
“The truth is, you could lose every other game and beat Army and Air Force and people would be happy,” Newberry said. “I wouldn’t be happy, but people would be.”
Mike Viti, Army’s assistant head coach for the offense, played in the rivalry as a fullback for the Black Knights from 2004 to 2007. He says this game is “sacred” for both sides, and when he speaks, everybody connected with the Army program listens. After graduation, Viti served a deployment as a platoon leader in the Arghandab River Valley in Afghanistan and earned a bronze star and combat action badge. He lived on an outpost that was attacked virtually every day by the Taliban.
“I believe in my heart that this place is already a magnet for personalities like a Fortner and many other guys like him. They seek and respect and value the rawness of what this is,” Viti said. “They came to this place and games like Army-Navy to actually become who they want to become in life.”
A year ago, Fortner was the star of Army’s 17-11 win over Navy. He had a strip sack of Navy quarterback Tai Lavatai in the third quarter, picked up the fumble and returned it 44 yards for a touchdown. He also made a touchdown-saving tackle in the final seconds.
How did his life change after being named MVP in a win against Army’s biggest rival?
“Probably more officers coming up to me walking to class and saying my first and last name, even some instructors recognizing me on post,” Fortner said. “You hear a lot of ‘Beat Navy’ wherever you go around here, but I heard a lot of that the next week.
“People remember what you do in that game. … You’re at a place where presidents went to school, famous generals, the best of the best in our country. Yeah, it’s a football game, but you’re representing all of those people.”
Monken has seen the rivalry from both sides. He was an assistant under Paul Johnson at Navy from 2002-07, and when he arrived at Army in 2014, the Black Knights had lost the last 12 meetings. Monken wasn’t bashful about saying it was time to make it a rivalry again.
A soldier’s duty is to complete his mission.
“We hadn’t been completing our mission in this series,” Monken said.
There are “Beat Navy” signs everywhere — on stair steps, on the weights in the weight room, on the walls in team meeting rooms, the sides of trailers, in the locker room, even in the bathrooms. As the players walk onto the practice field, there’s a clock counting down the hours, minutes and seconds to the game.
Contrast that to when Monken took over at Army.
“There was a little sign about this big underneath the upper cabinets,” said Monken, holding up his hands a couple of feet apart. “That was it. Nowhere else.”
Entering Saturday’s game, Army has won six of the past eight meetings with Navy. The Midshipmen won every game in the series from 2002 to 2015 until Army upset No. 25 Navy 21-17 in 2016.
The pendulum has swung, but Monken knows any momentum in a rivalry like this one comes with a caveat.
“It’s only as good as this year,” he said.
With its AAC championship victory, the Black Knights reached the 11-win plateau for just the second time in program history. For Monken and everyone else associated with the team, while the first conference championship in the history of Army football has punctuated a season to remember, it will hardly define it.
“We take pride in holding ourselves accountable in everything we do,” Fortner said. “And in football, that means beating Navy.
“That’s how you’re judged here, and that’s the way it should be.”
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Jorge Castillo
With his New York Yankees in the thick of a 12-game gauntlet against four American League playoff contenders, manager Aaron Boone divulged his sleep strategy to manage the stress.
“Melatonin makes sure it doesn’t keep me up,” Boone said last week.
That 13-day stretch concluded Sunday with a loss to the Boston Red Sox. But the Yankees departed Fenway Park for Minnesota with a series victory, having taken the first two games against their rivals and feeling satisfied with their recent results.
The Yankees went 7-5 against the four likely playoff-bound clubs — the Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers and Red Sox — to solidify their hold on the top AL wild-card spot.
Barring an epic collapse, the next time the Yankees face a playoff-caliber team will be in the playoffs. New York has the easiest remaining schedule in the majors.
Starting with their 7-0 blowout loss to the Minnesota Twins on Monday, the Yankees’ final 13 games are against teams with losing records: three against the Twins, three against the Chicago White Sox, and seven against the Baltimore Orioles. The Yankees are 38-23 against teams under .500 this season.
Boone, theoretically, should sleep easy — which seemingly hasn’t been an issue for his second baseman.
“We’re the best team in the league,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said after the Yankees’ win over the Red Sox on Saturday. “I feel like any team that thinks they’re better than us, they should know that when we step on the field that we’re coming with relentlessness and we’re coming to step on necks. We’re not here to play around. We’re going to do the job and get the job done.”
The Yankees should have the opportunity in October to prove they are indeed the best in the AL for the second straight year. What stood out during their dozen-game postseason litmus test? Here are five things we learned.
1. A risk worth taking? Aaron Judge is “walking that tightrope” in right field.
Yankees general manager Brian Cashman confirmed the obvious before the series opener against the Red Sox: If the Yankees weren’t in the middle of a playoff race, Aaron Judge would’ve spent more time rehabbing the flexor strain in his right arm.
“Obviously, we gave him the time to heal,” Cashman said Friday, referring to Judge spending 10 days on the injured list. “And then now, obviously, you’re doing the rehab progressions essentially live in games during a pennant race. So you’re seeing the effects of that. You’re seeing a guy that’s slowly building his arm strength back and learning to trust it and then walking that tightrope of when to throw the thunderbolt and when to play it safe as he builds on his progressions.”
Judge returned to the outfield on Monday in Minnesota, starting in right field after serving as the Yankees’ designated hitter in their three games in Boston. In all, Judge has started five games in the outfield since Sept. 5 and hasn’t thrown a ball harder than 81 mph — a telling stat for someone who has a 100.5 mph assist on his résumé.
Knowing teams will test him, the Yankees devised and practiced unusual cutoff schemes during his throwing program to alleviate stress on his arm when he returned to the field. But that won’t eliminate the very real risk of Judge aggravating the injury and leaving the club without him completely.
Why take the chance? The Yankees want both Judge and Giancarlo Stanton in the lineup as much as possible and, at this point in his career, the 35-year-old Stanton is not a suitable everyday option in the outfield. That became clear again in Boston on Sunday when, after getting Saturday off, Stanton started in left field and misplayed a ball off the Green Monster, leading to a leadoff triple for Jarren Duran that ignited a six-run first inning.
At the same time, Stanton is enjoying a resurgent season at the plate and is a proven playoff performer capable of carrying the team at times. It’s a compromise the Yankees are willing to make to optimize their offensive potential. It’s been worth the gamble so far, with Judge belting five home runs over the past seven games. And if all goes as planned, the Yankees, according to Cashman, expect Judge to unleash throws more regularly come October.
“Yeah,” Cashman said. “Like anything else, I think you’re seeing a player that is slowly but surely getting back to normalcy. But he’s being smart and careful about it at the same time.”
2. Anthony Volpe‘s time as the everyday starting shortstop is over — for now.
Anthony Volpe’s standing as the Yankees’ everyday starting shortstop, after another inconsistent offensive season and a surprising defensive regression, is seemingly over — at least for 2025.
Volpe didn’t play in five straight games through Sunday, with the Yankees citing a cortisone shot for his injured left shoulder as the reason for the prolonged absence. But he also didn’t play Monday despite Boone saying he was a “full player” cleared to play without any limitations. Instead, Jose Caballero started his sixth straight game at shortstop — further indication that Boone will rotate the two players.
“Yeah, I think so,” Boone said. “Obviously, [Caballero’s] playing really well and does a lot of really good things, but there’s a lot of value on the days he’s on the bench too. What he brings kind of as a weapon and versatility he provides. …We’ll just see. Obviously we’re at that time of the year where I’m going to do what I think’s best for us each and every day.”
The Yankees acquired Caballero from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline for his defensive versatility, speed on the basepaths and as an upgrade over Oswald Peraza as the team’s backup shortstop. That night, Cashman said Caballero was not a threat to take Volpe’s job.
But Volpe continued to struggle and Caballero has surpassed expectations in New York. The 26-year-old utilityman is batting .270 with three home runs and an .848 OPS in 32 games with the Yankees, though he’s made some mistakes in the field and on the bases. Still, Volpe’s partially torn labrum in his left shoulder — and his .170 batting average and .571 OPS in 65 games since June 23 — has prompted the Yankees to reassess shortstop with the postseason looming.
“We’re in day-to-day mode,” Boone said last Wednesday, the day Volpe was given the cortisone shot. “We’re playing for a lot right now and I have a decision to make every day with the lineup.
“My hope is that he can kind of get it going here to a point where he is that guy. Because I think when we’re at our best, he’s out there impacting us on both sides of the ball and frees up Cabby to play a different role too. But, that said, I’ll make the decision day by day.”
3. David Bednar is the Yankees’ closer. The rest of the bullpen roles? Up for grabs.
Here’s what we know about the Yankees’ bullpen hierarchy: Bednar has emerged from the pack as the closer. The rest is very much fluid. Ask any reliever and he’ll say he prefers a steady role, but New York’s relief corps, after allowing 18 earned runs in consecutive dismal showings against the Tigers last week, has recently found a groove.
The Yankees bullpen allowed 18 runs in two blowout losses to the Tigers. Then, over the last four games of the stretch, the Yankees’ bullpen surrendered four earned runs across 12⅔ innings. The output included three scoreless innings on Sunday from Camilo Doval, Mark Leiter Jr. and Paul Blackburn to keep the Yankees within striking distance after Boston’s six-run first inning — a performance Boone took as an encouraging sign.
“For those guys to kind of pick up the slack, hopefully, it continues to allow us to create some depth down there,” Boone said.
Then, on Monday, Luke Weaver, Boone’s most trusted option on the bridge to Bednar, recorded one out and was charged with five runs, accentuating the group’s perplexing results in recent weeks. Since Aug. 1, the day after the trade deadline, the Yankees bullpen’s 5.56 ERA ranks 29th in the majors. Its -1.06 Win Probability Added is 24th.
On paper, the Yankees’ bullpen should be better. Weaver, Doval and Devin Williams have all been successful closers at the major league level. Add Fernando Cruz‘s strikeout ability, Tim Hill‘s consistency and Ryan Yarbrough‘s versatility, and the Yankees seemingly have a championship-level group. It’s about finally putting it together consistently.
“They’re all capable, and they’re all throwing the ball well,” Boone said on Sunday. “We’ve just had hiccups along the way.”
4. The rotation, right now, is elite.
Most teams’ starting rotations would crumble if they lost pitchers as good as Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt, especially if they didn’t turn to external replacements. But the Yankees held steady, refusing to pay exorbitant prices to bring in established starters at the trade deadline, and yet their rotation is thriving.
Since Aug. 9, the day of Luis Gil‘s second start in his return from a lat injury, the Yankees lead the majors with a 2.92 ERA — more than a half-run better than the second-ranked Texas Rangers (3.44). Max Fried has bounced back from his midseason slide — for the few still counting wins, his 17 victories lead the majors — and Carlos Rodon has remained consistently reliable. The well-compensated left-handers give the Yankees one of the best one-two punches in the majors.
But Gil’s recent dominance and rookie Cam Schlittler‘s emergence provide the Yankees with the required depth for the stretch run and October.
Gil was at his best on Friday, tossing six effectively wild no-hit innings in Boston. The reigning AL Rookie of the Year has a 1.89 ERA across seven outings since giving up five runs over 3⅓ innings in his season debut on Aug. 3. The 24-year-old Schlittler, meanwhile, has a 3.05 ERA in 11 starts this season behind a fastball that touches triple digits. The two right-handers should slot in as the Yankees’ Nos. 3 and 4 starters, respectively, in October.
5. The Martian has landed — on the bench.
For most of the summer, Boone, with three outfielders for the two spots alongside Judge in right field, rotated through Cody Bellinger, Trent Grisham and Jasson Dominguez. Come September, however, Dominguez became the odd man out.
With Bellinger entrenched in the lineup protecting Judge, and Grisham enjoying a career season that has earned him an everyday role in center field as the team’s leadoff hitter, the former top prospect has started just two games in September.
“It’s his maiden voyage, and I don’t think anybody had the expectation that Grish was going to come in and do what he’s done this year,” Cashman said. “So I think going into it, the plan was to give [Dominguez] a runway to deal with some growing pains, and every month, in theory, he’d settle in and establish himself as an everyday guy at this level.
“But Grish was like, ‘Hey, don’t forget about me because I can do some things.’ And so essentially Grish has taken the opportunity to push himself into it and take it and has had a phenomenal season.”
Dominguez, 22, has shown flashes of his potential. Overall, he is slashing .257/.331/.389 with 10 home runs, 21 steals and 113 strikeouts in 117 games. But the switch-hitter has struggled batting right-handed against left-handed pitchers — he owns a .569 OPS in 104 plate appearances against southpaws — and has graded out as one of the worst defensive outfielders in the majors with minus-9 outs above average.
The Yankees’ lack of trust in Dominguez’s defensive skills showed on Saturday. After Dominguez entered the game as a pinch runner in the eighth inning — and was subsequently retired when he was hit by a ground ball as he ran to second base — Boone chose to bring Austin Slater off the bench to play left field in a three-run game.
“I think Jasson’s done a lot of really good things this year,” Boone said. “And I think he has shown the promise of the kind of player he can be. The hitting ability that he has, the speed that he has, the power that he has. He hasn’t taken off in the home run department yet, which I think will come with time. I think as he gets more and more reps, too, right-handed eventually I think will catch up with his left side. I think he’s shown improvements in the outfield, although he’s got a ways to go out there.
“I think, from a teammate and attitude standpoint, he’s been excellent. He is ready to go every day. I think he understands where we’re at in the season, and understands that a number of guys, in Grish and Belli, have earned the opportunity to be out there every single day — especially at this point in the season.”
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Bradford Doolittle
Despite a bumpier-than-expected path, the Los Angeles Dodgers might still repeat as World Series champions, becoming the first team to do so since the New York Yankees of the late 1990s. If that comes to pass, few would be surprised. At the same time, based on what we’ve seen since Opening Day, few would be surprised, also, if they fall.
Thus the Dodgers’ season can’t yet be labeled a success or a failure. If the Dodgers win another title, that’s an obvious success. Failure is a little harder to define, but consider that L.A. is one of five teams on pace to finish more than 10 games under their preseason baseline forecast. They’re also leading the tough National League West. Success or failure?
The answer is complicated. Baseball is the most quantifiable and projectable of the major sports, and forecasts are invaluable in setting our expectations for what might happen, and how to react to what actually comes to pass. Yet baseball is also paradoxically and wonderfully unpredictable.
Teams and pundits alike enter the season with a good idea of what each club’s strengths and weaknesses are, yet those observations tend to fly out the window when confronted by the reality of an actual season.
Using preseason expectations as our guide, we’re going to identify the biggest success — and failure — for all 30 teams. Plan and project all you want. In the end, the fates will have their way.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Biggest success: Geraldo Perdomo
Most of the good news for Arizona this season has been on the position player side, led by a career year for Perdomo. After signing a four-year extension that doesn’t kick in until next year, the 25-year-old went out and put up the best season by a shortstop in franchise history. Already a defensive standout, Perdomo entered this season with 14 career home runs. This year, he has 19 and is on pace to drive in 100 runs. He also might get to 100 runs scored and 30 steals. It has been an MVP-level showing.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Arizona entered the season with an on-paper rotation that looked loaded — Corbin Burnes, Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt. That quintet has gone 47-39 with a 4.37 ERA. Burnes went down for the season in June. Kelly was traded. And the other three all have ERA+ figures well below league average. The Arizona bullpen has been even worse, but the roster and the payroll were built on a foundation of elite starting pitching that has not held up.
Biggest success: Nick Kurtz
That Kurtz is good isn’t a surprise. That he’s this good this fast is stunning and exhilarating. After an aggressive promotion in late April, Kurtz didn’t hit his first homer until his 17th big league game. He then went deep 19 times over 49 games with a 1.078 OPS and that was only the lead-up to his 6-for-6, four-homer outburst on July 25 in which he tied the MLB record for 19 total bases in a game. In his age-22 season, Kurtz is on track to become the eighth rookie with an OPS over 1.000 (minimum 400 plate appearances) and of the eight, only Ted Williams and Albert Pujols had a younger baseball age. The A’s have found their cornerstone player.
Biggest failure: Luis Severino
The A’s made a rare splurge in last winter’s free agent market, inking Severino to a three-year, $67 million deal. Year 1 has been disappointing. Severino has gone 6-11 with a 4.82 ERA and an 87 ERA+ while posting the lowest strikeout rate (17.6%) of his career. His struggles in Sacramento have been epic: Severino is 1-9 with a 6.51 ERA over 14 starts at Sutter Health Park.
Biggest success: Hurston Waldrep
Successes have been few and far between for the Braves, but Waldrep’s trajectory seems to be one of them. The sample remains small, but Waldrep went 4-0 with a 1.33 ERA over his first seven starts in 2025 before being roughed up by Houston. He looks like a keeper, if the Braves can keep him healthy.
Biggest failure: The entire season?
The Braves are on pace to miss their forecast by 24 games, a plummet so severe that it’s hard to blame it on any one thing. Injuries have played a part, but other teams are headed to the postseason with plenty of those — the Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Brewers among those with worse health metrics than the Braves. The collapse on the pitching side has been more acute than on offense, but no one is without culpability. Perhaps worst of all, the Braves have baseball’s second-worst organizational record. Things haven’t been any better in the minors.
Biggest success: Trevor Rogers
The Orioles have underperformed across the board, so it could be that we’re damning Rogers with faint praise here, but he has been a genuine revelation. Rogers began the season in the minors and wasn’t that great there, going 0-3 with a 5.51 ERA in eight starts. In the majors? The former Marlin is 8-2 with a 1.43 ERA over 16 starts with solid peripherals. Go figure. Going into what Baltimore hopes will be a bounce-back 2026 season, the Orioles’ rotation needs a lot more success stories like this.
Biggest failure: Adley Rutschman
You hate to pick on one player when the Orioles have disappointed in so many areas, but Rutschman is an avatar for a number of shortcomings. He has underperformed: Baltimore entered the season with the third-best WAR projection at the catcher position but instead rank 25th. He has been injured: According to an injury impact metric based on data from Baseball Prospectus, the Orioles rank 29th in baseball. After two straight disappointing seasons for Rutschman, and considering the arrival of elite prospect Samuel Basallo, the future of the Orioles at catcher looks a lot different than it did a couple of years ago.
Biggest success: Pitching acquisitions
You really can’t choose between Cy Young candidate Garrett Crochet or reliever-of-the-year candidate Aroldis Chapman, neither of whom was with Boston at this time last year. Crochet has blossomed with the Red Sox, matching the dominance he showed per-inning with Chicago with the workload of a true ace. Chapman, at 37, is on pace to record a career-best ERA (1.26) and his second-best bWAR (3.3, just shy of his 3.4 in 2012).
Biggest failure: In-season roster work
The Red Sox have received great production from their rookie class, headlined by Roman Anthony and Carlos Narvaez. But a team in position to challenge for the American League East title ranks 29th in my in-season acquisition index, a metric that looks at the quality and quantity of the production from players signed or traded for during the season. Boston has dealt with a lot of injuries (27th in injury impact) but has been too passive about compensating for them.
Biggest success: The offense
Things have slowed over the second half, but the Cubs’ attack has been one of baseball’s most productive and exciting over the course of the season. Chicago leads the majors in secondary average (patience and power), isolated power and team-level power-speed number. The production has come from up and down the lineup, giving the Cubs one of their deepest offenses in years.
Biggest failure: The bullpen
The Cubs’ rotation has picked up the pace over the second half, which has helped pick up the slack from the regressing hitters. But as October nears, the Cubs still lack clarity in the bullpen. With Daniel Palencia out, the relievers still lack a clear end-of-game hammer. Since the All-Star break, the Cubs’ relief ERA (4.40) is middle of the pack. For the most part, Craig Counsell has pieced things together, but the lack of impact acquisitions during the season, with the exception of Andrew Kittredge, might undermine the Cubs once the postseason arrives.
Biggest success: The rookies
According to my rookie contribution metric — basically adding up the consensus WAR figures for first-year players — the White Sox (11.61 rookie WAR) have four more wins than any other team. In Kyle Teel, Colson Montgomery, Chase Meidroth, Mike Vasil, Shane Smith, Edgar Quero and Wikelman Gonzalez, Chicago has graduated some bona fide building blocks to the majors. With a decent finish, the White Sox can avoid another 100-loss season. That might seem like a low bar for excitement, but when you’re coming off a 121-loss debacle, that’s a huge improvement.
Biggest failure: Luis Robert Jr.
The season began with reports of Roberts’ revamped approach at the plate, but 2025 proved to be another step back for one of the game’s most talented players. Robert did improve his strike-zone indicators, but it didn’t pay off at the bottom line, as his OPS+ dropped two more points off his career-low of 86 in 2024. And it looks as if he’ll end the season where he has spent far too much time during his career: on the injured list. Whether you view Robert as a White Sox building block or the team’s last-best chance to generate impactful return in the trade market, none of this is good.
Biggest success: The rotation
The Reds’ pitching, in general, has kept the team on the fringe of the playoff chase all season, but the starters, in particular, have been rock solid. According to my AXE metric used in the Awards Watch series, six of the top nine Reds performers this season have been starting pitchers, led by Andrew Abbott, Nick Lodolo and Hunter Greene. Only three teams have compiled more quality starts.
Biggest failure: The flagging offense
Cincinnati’s hitters are on track to finish around their preseason forecast of 660 park-neutral runs scored. But at the midway point of the season, the Reds were on pace to finish at 693, and during the span of the regression, a trade deadline passed. Miguel Andujar has helped, when he has played, but it hasn’t been enough. The Reds rank 19th or worse at five of the nine positions by OPS, and that’s with the baked in boost of Great American Ballpark.
Biggest success: The stretch-run rotation
After years of forging a reputation as a starting pitcher factory, the Guardians’ actual performance in that area over the past couple of years hasn’t lived up to it. Until recently, that is. After ranking 18th with a 4.17 rotation ERA through Aug. 25, Cleveland is second with a 2.78 mark since. The Guardians have hung in the playoff race with a 14-5 record during that span, despite ranking 22nd with only 4.16 runs scored per game.
Biggest failure: The offense
Take your pick, really. Whatever the offensive metric, the Guardians stink in it. They’re 29th or worse in each of the slash columns, last in BABIP and 24th in isolated power. They rank 29th in OPS at catcher and shortstop, and 30th in center field and right field. There is only so much Jose Ramirez can do.
Biggest success: Attendance
The Rockies are in the pack, drawing 29,676 fans per game, down just 1,211 over last season. They are outdrawing the first-place Detroit Tigers. The world is a very strange place sometimes.
Biggest failure: Everything else
Assuming the Rockies don’t lose out — which could happen, of course — they won’t end up matching or surpassing the 2024 White Sox’s season record for losses. Still, this marks the Rockies’ third straight 100-loss season, fourth straight last-place finish and seventh straight season of finishing fourth or worse in the NL West. The Rockies are long overdue when it comes to asking hard questions about how they do things.
Biggest success: Tarik Skubal
The Tigers are closing in on their first division title in 11 years and second straight playoff berth. They are built largely on internally developed players and hold baseball’s best overall organizational record. In other words, lots more talent is on the way. Still, Skubal stands out on a team full of success stories by replicating or even bettering his Cy Young-winning 2024 campaign. He has become one of baseball’s biggest stars and the face of what Detroit has been building — and this edifice has a lot of faces.
Biggest failure: The rotation depth
Skubal’s is but one turn through the rotation, and the Tigers’ run prevention has lagged over the second half of the season. Since the break, Skubal has a 2.31 ERA with eight quality starts in 10 outings. The rest of the Detroit rotation has a 5.32 ERA with only 10 quality starts in 43 outings. If this bites the Tigers in the postseason, there will be questions about why Detroit didn’t take a bigger swing at the trade deadline.
Biggest success: Front office improvisation
The Astros are almost right at their preseason forecast, but their path to those 87-88 wins has been less than predictable. Because of that, much of the story of Houston’s season can be told in two of the measures we keep mentioning. First, the Astros rank last in the injury impact metric, meaning no team has been more affected by player absences (Yordan Alvarez especially). Second, the Astros rank first on the in-season acquisition leaderboard. Carlos Correa, Jesus Sanchez, Ramon Urias, Craig Kimbrel and others have helped keep Houston’s contention window ajar as we enter the home stretch.
Biggest failure: Christian Walker
The Astros’ offense is much less dynamic than it has been in a long time. No one player is to blame, and Alvarez’s long stay on the IL has to be kept in mind. But things wouldn’t be quite so severe if Walker had plugged what has become a longstanding hole for Houston at first base. It’s always dicey signing free agent hitters who are well into their 30s, and so it has been so far for Walker, whose OPS+ has slipped from a three-year average of 123 in Arizona to 95 in Houston. He has been better since the All-Star break, so we should hold off final judgment on the signing for now, but the bottom line is that, at the moment, Walker is barely over replacement level on the season.
Biggest success: The starting pitching
Last season, the Royals got 151 starts from their top five starters. This season, they’ve had 12 pitchers make at least two starts and depending on when, and if, Michael Wacha returns before the end of the season, none of them might qualify for an ERA title. The injuries have affected the rotation performance during the second half, but it hasn’t fallen off a cliff, and for the season, Kansas City has MLB’s sixth-best rotation ERA. Whether it’s converting relievers (Kris Bubic), developing midlevel prospects (Noah Cameron) or identifying trade targets (Ryan Bergert), the Royals have become adept at finding rotation answers that fit their system.
Biggest failure: The offense
Bobby Witt Jr. remains a superstar. Maikel Garcia has been one of baseball’s most improved players. Vinnie Pasquantino remains a high-level run producer. But other than a midseason surge, the Royals have just not been able to score consistently enough to hang in the playoff chase, despite their elite pitching-and-defense combo. They’ve tried to paper over their holes with trades during the season, but the baseline for the lineup is just too low to fix on the fly.
Biggest success: Zach Neto
With a second straight five-WAR season, Neto has become one of baseball’s top shortstops at age 24. He sat out time early in the season and his numbers for the most part are similar to 2024, save for a non-trivial uptick in slugging. As he has matured, Neto has hit the ball harder more often, while still shining in the field and on the bases.
Biggest failure: Mike Trout
During the four-year period from 2021 to 2024, Trout averaged just 66.5 games per season. But on a per-162-game basis, he had rates of 46.3 homers, 109 runs and a 160 OPS+. If he could only stay in the lineup. With a move to DH this season, Trout has indeed been more available, but his impact has ebbed. Trout’s OPS+ is 115 — solid, but not Trout-like — and his slugging percentage is a shocking .417. Maybe it’s just the adjustment to DHing, which isn’t always smooth. Trout, after all, is still only 34 years old.
Biggest success: Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Remember, we’re dealing with expectations here, so Shohei Ohtani doesn’t get credit in this context for doing the incredible things he already was doing. But it has been a banner season for Yamamoto, the most stable part of a deep Dodgers rotation that has again been riddled with injuries. Yamamoto has lived up to his pre-2024 hype but ramping up the volume, at least for a Dodgers pitcher. Already over the 162-inning minimum, Yamamoto is the first Dodgers pitcher to qualify for the ERA title since 2022.
Biggest failure: Health
Health has continued to be a general problem for the Dodgers, but it continues to be especially bad on the pitching side. L.A. is baseball’s deepest team but despite that, the injuries have come so frequently that the Dodgers have kept the transaction wire spinning all season. They’ve used 39 different pitchers, 16 of whom have started at least one game and 10 of whom have earned at least one save. How does manager Dave Roberts keep it all straight?
Biggest success: An emerging lineup
Between young players who have hit the ground running (Agustin Ramirez, Jakob Marsee) and young veterans improving as they enter their primes (Otto Lopez, Xavier Edwards and, especially, Kyle Stowers), the Marlins increasingly look like a team that can field an exciting lineup in 2026.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Injuries over the past couple of years have rocked a talented group of Marlins starters. Other than a midseason surge when the Marlins’ pitchers got hot as a group, Miami’s starters have been lit up for most of 2025, ranking 28th in rotation ERA with the second-lowest total of quality starts. Yet the talent of Sandy Alcantara, Eury Perez, Edward Cabrera, Max Meyer and an interesting wave of coming prospects remains tantalizing. Maybe next season it’ll all come back into focus.
Biggest success: Brice Turang
Turang’s ascension into an All-Star-caliber player is undeniable now that he has added power to an already full toolkit. He’s one of the game’s best second basemen, but more than that, he typifies Milwaukee’s transformation into MLB’s top regular-season club. He’s young, athletic, great on defense and gets on base. And he’s exciting, standing out as one of baseball’s most aesthetically pleasing players to watch.
Biggest failure: Reliever health?
Most everything has gone right for the Brewers, so it’s hard to term anything as a failure. Even the bullpen has been excellent over the course of the season. But a spate of late-season injuries has made things a wee bit more interesting as we edge toward the playoffs.
Biggest success: Joe Ryan
The Twins’ right-hander made the leap from solid midrotation starter to top-of-the-rotation ace this season. Ryan will finish with a career-high innings count and will likely match that volume with his best ERA+ (currently 126) and bWAR (4.5). Ryan’s season isn’t out of line with what he has done before on a per-inning basis, but he has done it more often. Now, as Ryan stands to earn a jump in pay per the arbitration system, we’ll see if the frugal Twins pay him or trade him.
Biggest failure: The midseason unloading
The Twins pulled the plug on their season at the trade deadline and the results since have not been pretty, on the field or off the field in terms of fan reaction. Since then, Minnesota has baseball’s second-worst record and has been drawing attendance figures lately indicative of a fan base that entered the season already annoyed by the Twins’ passive offseason. News that the franchise is no longer on the market hasn’t helped. The trajectory is bad.
Biggest success: Juan Soto
No, Soto hasn’t reinvented baseball during his first season as a Met, but he has been Juan Soto, and that has been a reminder of why he was so coveted. Soto is having a down season in the average category thanks to the vagaries of BABIP, but everything is vintage Soto. And it feels as if we forget this part: He still hasn’t turned 27. Soto has more seasons like this ahead of him, but he has some even better than this in his hip pocket. In any event, any concerns that Soto’s huge contract would be his ruination ought to be alleviated by now.
Biggest failure: The collapsing rotation
The Mets’ pitching freefall has been one of the most stunning stories of the season. Through the end of July, the Mets had baseball’s fifth-best rotation ERA (3.44). The starters ranked 27th in quality starts and 25th in innings, so they weren’t going deep, but they were effective while out there. Since then, New York’s starters have a 5.40 ERA (24th), further taxing a bullpen that has arguably been just as bad or worse. The avatar is Kodai Senga, who went from Cy Young candidate to minor leaguer in about six weeks. Maybe the rookie trio of Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat will save the day, but this is not how the Mets drew it up.
Biggest success: Bronx bombing
This isn’t a perfect Yankees team, but they’ve bashed their way back into the World Series picture in a very literal way. A stunning 59% of the Yankees’ runs this season have come via the home run. When Anthony Volpe hits his next homer, the Yankees will feature a regular lineup in which every slot is occupied by a player with at least 20 homers this season. That includes Ryan McMahon, who hit most of his dingers for Colorado, but it’s still going to be amazing to see.
Biggest failure: Devin Williams
Across the past three seasons before coming to New York, Williams gave up 26 earned runs over 148 games with a 1.66 ERA. In his first Yankees season, he has given up 33 earned runs in 61 games with a 5.30 ERA. With a strikeout rate down around 5% off his career figure and 10% from last year, Williams just hasn’t been the same pitcher, and as the season has progressed, the numbers just keep getting worse.
Biggest success: Kyle Schwarber
Already one of baseball’s most dangerous sluggers, at 32 Schwarber has never been better. He already has joined Ryan Howard as the only Phillies in the 50-homer club and leads the majors with 128 RBIs, 24 above his previous career best. He has done this with his best strikeout rate in six years and his typically high walk rate. Good timing, too: Schwarber will be a free agent this winter.
Biggest failure: Aaron Nola
Nola has always been a little up and down, but his downs have never been like his injury- and performance-plagued 2025 showing. Nola’s 6.44 ERA over 15 starts has him under replacement level, and while the Phillies’ overall rotation has been dynamite, Nola’s struggles are more pressing with Zack Wheeler gone for the season. Nola has shown flashes and remains in the rotation, but he’s running out of time before a playoff season that the Phillies will enter as one of the favored teams.
Biggest success: Paul Skenes
Yes, we expected Skenes to be this good, but who else are we going to put here? Skenes has been even better in Year 2, somehow bettering (so far) his sub-2.00 rookie ERA, dropping from 1.96 to 1.92 even while ramping up his innings total. The Pirates are 27-17 when Skenes starts so far in his career, which translates to a 99-win team over 162 games. In the non-Skenes games, they’ve won at a rate of 69 games per 162. He’s pretty good.
Biggest failure: An anemic offense
The Pirates’ lack of any kind of spending or success in developing hitters has left them with a tragic attack. The median run total for a team in a game is four. Let’s say any time a team scores more than four, it’s a win for the offense and a loss for the defense. Finishing at exactly four runs represents a push, or a tie. Using this framework, the Pirates’ pitchers have a record of 77-55-18, giving them the fifth-best winning percentage in the majors. The hitters are 44-88-18, ranking last. That’s your 2025 Pittsburgh Pirates.
Biggest success: Winning the deadline
The Padres haven’t launched since A.J. Preller’s frenetic activity at the trade deadline, but his work then was still crucial. Rather than finishing the roster as Preller probably hoped, the newcomers have helped cover for drop-offs and injuries from those already on hand. That has been especially true for the bullpen, where Jason Adam was injured and Jeremiah Estrada has hit some speed bumps. But acquisition Mason Miller has been even more electric than expected. Meanwhile, Freddy Fermin has solidified the catcher spot and Ramon Laureano, brought in to raise the floor of a struggling outfield slot, has been San Diego’s best percentage hitter since arriving.
Biggest failure: Xander Bogaerts
At 32, Bogaerts has posted his second straight subpar offensive season. His OPS+ (98) is up from last season’s 92 but remains well off the 130-ish level he reached in Boston. The change in ballparks has been more severe for Bogaerts than expected. His career slugging percentage at Fenway Park is .496 but is just .402 at Petco Park. This season, only three of Bogaerts’ 10 homers have come at home.
Biggest success: A revamped lineup
The Giants were subtractors at the trade deadline, particularly when it came to emptying out the back of the bullpen. Yet San Francisco remains on the cusp of a wild-card slot, and it’s not all because the Mets went into a spiral. The Giants have featured a top-10 offense since the end of July, featuring a stable everyday lineup that has coalesced into a nice unit. After a slow start, Willy Adames has come on strong, Rafael Devers had adapted to his post-Boston life, and Matt Chapman has been mashing. A new outfield mix featuring ex-Met Drew Gilbert and Jung Hoo Lee has become a gas to watch. The Giants are fun.
Biggest failure: Defensive range
You have to get specific, because the Giants’ overall defensive metrics are above average because of Patrick Bailey‘s off-the-charts work behind the plate. But out in the field, the Giants rank 27th in Statcast’s outs above average, a disappointing result for a club with flashy defenders up the middle and at third base with Chapman.
Biggest success: Cal Raleigh
This is perhaps the most obvious selection on the board. Raleigh is having one of the most shockingly historical seasons we’ve ever seen. To be sure, Raleigh had been plenty good before this season, one of the best all-around backstops in the game. But this? The best homer season ever by a catcher? The best by a switch-hitter — even Mickey Mantle? It’s unreal. Using the FanGraphs version of WAR, which is more laudatory of Raleigh’s framing skills, his 2025 total (8.0) ranks seventh all time among primary catchers, and he’s still going.
Biggest failure: The rotation
Again, let’s remember that we’re keeping preseason expectation at the forefront of our minds. Seattle’s rotation has been solid, very consistent. The M’s rank 17th in rotation ERA (4.08) and fifth in quality starts. But before the season, Seattle figured to have a top-five rotation at the very least. The group was supposed to be the strength of the roster. Bryan Woo has been great, but everyone else has been worse than projected, either because of injuries, performance drop-off or both. Yet the Mariners regained first place with two weeks to go. If the rotation had been what we thought it would be, they would have already clinched the AL West.
Biggest success: Matthew Liberatore
Well, we have to put something down. Frankly, even though the Cardinals have managed to stay around baseball’s middle, this has felt like a disheartening season. With just a little boost from the front office, the low bar of postseason contention in this year’s NL might have been cleared. St. Louis hasn’t received much in terms of breakout performances, though some of the younger players have shown progress. That pretty much describes Liberatore, the touted prospect St. Louis acquired way back on Jan. 9, 2020, from Tampa Bay for Randy Arozarena. Until 2025, Liberatore hadn’t been able to establish himself as a rotation regular, but he has made 27 starts and stayed within shouting distance of league average. His strikeout rates don’t scream “untapped upside!” but you never know.
Biggest failure: Season approach
Nothing about St. Louis baseball has made much sense for about a year. If the Cardinals had truly reset, that at least would have been a clear direction. As it stands, it’s still completely unclear why the Cardinals didn’t just try to build the best possible roster they could for the 2025 season. After this finally ends, the baton will pass to Chaim Bloom and perhaps he can paint a more coherent portrait. Let the Ray-ification of the Redbirds begin.
Biggest success: Junior Caminero
This has been a mildly disappointing season for Tampa Bay, but not so for its powerhouse, 21-year-old third baseman. Caminero’s 44 homers already rank second in Rays history, and he needs only two more to tie Carlos Pena’s 18-year-old franchise record. The only other age-21 player to reach 44 homers is Hall of Famer Eddie Mathews, who hit 47 in 1953. Caminero still has a shot at that mark.
Biggest failure: Close games
This has been a strange season for Tampa Bay, and not only because the Rays have had to call the Yankees’ spring training facility their home park. Tampa Bay has had a couple of stretches where it looked like one of baseball’s top teams but has been thwarted by close losses — which is the antithesis of what the last few good Rays teams have been like. This season, Tampa Bay is just 33-40 in games decided by one or two runs. Because of that, the Rays are on pace to fall 7.3 wins shy of the record predicted by their run differential, tied with Texas for the biggest shortfall in baseball.
Biggest success: Overcoming injuries
Over their past 20 games coming out of the weekend, the Rangers had won 15, the best last-20 mark in baseball. This has allowed Texas to close its sizable gap with Houston and eke closer to the Mariners. The postseason remains very much in play. During that 20-game stretch, Texas got five games from Corey Seager, zero from Marcus Semien, 10 from Adolis Garcia and zero from Evan Carter. Ace starter Nathan Eovaldi made his last appearance of the season the day before that 20-game window began. The more beat-up the Rangers are, the more they seem to thrive.
Biggest failure: Home offense
The Rangers have just a .676 OPS at Globe Life Field, while they’re at .724 on the road. Last season, they were 34 points better at home. The season before, when the Rangers won the World Series, they were 107 points better. It is a baffling thing. In his first Texas season, DH Joc Pederson has hit .155 with a .559 OPS at home. He hasn’t been great on the road, either, but his OPS is 103 points better while traveling. All of this is too bad for the hitters, but while bemoaning their fate at GLF, we should also note that the Rangers have been baseball’s best home team this season (by run differential) thanks to an absurdly-low 2.77 home ERA by the pitching staff.
Biggest success: Ernie Clement
No, really. The Blue Jays have the AL’s best record. Among all teams, they are 10th in OPS+ and 15th in ERA+, solid but not No. 1-seed solid. There are some facts that align with the standing — a 50-25 home record, and a 40-28 mark in games decided by one or two runs. Toronto leads all teams in FanGraphs’ DEF metric, suggesting the Jays have a strong claim as baseball’s best defensive team. For all that, it just feels as if there is something intangible going on with this club, and no one typifies that more than Clement, a jack-of-all trades infielder who contributes on both offense and defense. Clement is a very different kind of player than Ben Zobrist — and not as good — but there is something reminiscent of Clement on Toronto to Zobrist’s roles with championship teams in Kansas City and Chicago last decade.
Biggest failure: Jeff Hoffman
It’s hard to believe Toronto’s record in close games is as good as it is given Hoffman’s up-and-down season as the Blue Jays’ primary closer. Hoffman has 30 saves but he has blown seven games and somehow has a 9-7 win-loss record, which isn’t the kind of thing you expect to see from a 2025 closer. Heck, if he blows a couple of more saves that the Jays rescue him from, he could tie for Toronto’s team lead in wins. Seriously, though, Hoffman has been barely replacement level this season. He has been on a nice roll of late, until he gave up a ninth-inning homer to Houston’s Yainer Diaz that resulted in his seventh loss last Wednesday. If Toronto’s feel-good season is going to last deep into October, the Jays really need Hoffman to be part of the happy tidings.
Biggest success: James Wood
It hasn’t been a happy season for the Nats, who are likely to lose more games than the 91 they dropped in 2023 and 2024. That’s not how rebuilding is supposed to work. Wood has been the best player in a bad situation, adding some power to his solid rookie season percentages and improving his defensive metrics. He has struggled at home, though, and his first-half OPS — a star-like .915 — has dropped to .663 since the All-Star Game. Even the Nats’ good news is bad.
Biggest failure: The rebuild
It will continue, of course, because there is no other choice. But the post-championship reset embarked upon by the old regime of Mike Rizzo and Dave Martinez is officially kaput, and those two were put out of work on the same day in July. This offseason represents a fresh start for a franchise that very much needs one.
Only three weeks into the season, Notre Dame and Clemson have dropped out of the playoff picture with two losses each. According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, Notre Dame (0-2) now has a 6% chance of reaching the College Football Playoff. Clemson (1-2) has a 4% chance.
That makes room for somebody else.
Below you’ll find one team in the spotlight for each of the Power 4 leagues and another identified as an enigma. We’ve also tiered schools into three groups. Teams with “Would be in” status are featured in this week’s top 12 projection, a snapshot of what the selection committee’s ranking would look like if it were released today. A team with “Work to do” is passing the eye test (for the most part) and has a chance at winning its conference, which would mean a guaranteed spot in the playoff. And a team that “Would be out” is playing in the shadows of the playoff — for now.
The 13-member selection committee doesn’t always agree with the Allstate Playoff Predictor, so the following categories are based on historical knowledge of the group’s tendencies plus what each team has done to date.
Reminder: This will change week-to-week as each team builds — or busts — its résumé.
Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten
SEC | Independent | Group of 5
SEC
Spotlight: Texas. In the latest top 12 projection, the No. 12 Longhorns would be out of the playoff to make room for projected American champion South Florida. Let that sink in for a minute: The most hyped team in America this preseason is now projected to watch the playoff from home. ESPN Analytics gives Texas the fourth-best chance to reach the SEC championship game (26%) behind Georgia, Ole Miss and Alabama. The Longhorns’ season-opening road loss to Ohio State isn’t the problem — it’s the product on the field. Quarterback Arch Manning has a QBR of 49.6, No. 88 in the country. He completed 44% of his passes against UTEP on Saturday and threw an interception in the end zone. It’s not just Manning. Penalties. Third-down conversions. Red zone efficiency (or lack thereof). ESPN’s FPI projects Texas will win each of its remaining games except the Nov. 15 trip to Georgia. If that comes to fruition, and Texas finishes as a two-loss SEC team without a conference title, the Longhorns will likely be in the selection committee’s top 12. Whether they are seeded in the playoff, though, depends on if they can improve enough to be ranked in the top 10, where there’s no danger of getting knocked out in favor of the fourth- and fifth-highest-ranked conference champions that might be ranked outside of the top 12.
The enigma: Ole Miss. The Rebels have won back-to-back SEC games against Kentucky and Arkansas, and now have the second-best chance to reach the conference championship game behind Georgia, according to ESPN Analytics. They also have the fourth-best chance (60.1%) to reach the playoff behind Ohio State, Georgia and Oregon, but they’re about to get into the heart of their most difficult stretch. Ole Miss might have a sneaky tricky game on Saturday when it hosts Tulane, which is competing for a playoff spot and would get a huge résumé boost from beating the Rebels on the road. If the Rebels win, they’d have a critical head-to-head win against what could be the American champs, which would keep them ahead of the Green Wave on Selection Day. There’s no break after that before hosting LSU on Sept. 27. ESPN’s FPI projects Ole Miss will win each of its remaining games, though, except for the Oct. 18 trip to Georgia. If that unfolds, and the Rebels have wins against Tulane, LSU and Oklahoma, they should be in the playoff — and possibly see Georgia again in the SEC title game.
If the playoff were today
Would be in: Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas A&M
Work to do: Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, Texas, Vanderbilt
Would be out: Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, South Carolina
Big Ten
Spotlight: Illinois. The Illini are here for a second straight week because at No. 11 in the weekly prediction, they’d get elbowed out during the playoff seeding process for projected Big 12 champ Iowa State. The Cyclones would be guaranteed a spot as one of the committee’s five highest-ranked conference champions, but because they are ranked outside of the top 12 — along with projected American champ South Florida — the teams ranked No. 11 and No. 12 would be replaced. Illinois has a huge opportunity looming Saturday at Indiana, where it can further assert itself as a contender in both the Big Ten and the playoff conversation. Indiana, which was featured in this space as last week’s enigma, is also 3-0 with a shot to return to the CFP for a second straight season under coach Curt Cignetti. If Illinois wins, its chance to reach the Big Ten title game will increase to 14%. If the Illini lose, that drops to 3%. According to ESPN Analytics, Indiana has a 62.8% chance to win the game. It’s the start of a season-defining stretch for Illinois, as ESPN Analytics projects it will lose three of its next four games (at Indiana, Sept. 27 vs. USC and Oct. 11 vs. Ohio State).
The enigma: USC. ESPN’s computers like the Trojans, projecting USC to win every game except for its Nov. 22 trip to Oregon. USC has quietly been winning in the shadows of the Big Ten favorites — Ohio State, Penn State and Oregon — but it avoids both the Buckeyes and Nittany Lions during the regular season. That doesn’t mean its schedule is easy. USC travels to Illinois, hosts Michigan and travels to rival Notre Dame on Oct. 18 — a team that is under enormous pressure to win out. If the computers are right, though, and USC is undefeated heading into Autzen to face the Ducks in the regular-season finale, the Big Ten narrative could get flipped in Lincoln Riley’s fourth season. According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, USC has the fifth-best chance in the country to reach the CFP (57.9%).
If the playoff were today
Would be in: Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State
Work to do: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nebraska, USC
Would be out: Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, Washington, Wisconsin
ACC
Spotlight: Georgia Tech. Following its win against Clemson, Georgia Tech now has the second-best chance to reach the ACC title game (39.9%) behind Miami (67.8%). ESPN Analytics projects the Jackets will win each of their remaining games except for the regular-season finale against rival Georgia — a playoff team they pushed to eight overtimes last year. With two September wins against Power 4 teams Colorado and Clemson, Georgia Tech isn’t flying under the radar, but it still falls under the “more work to do” category below because its best wins came against teams that are now 1-2. If Georgia Tech wins the ACC, it’s a playoff lock, but if it doesn’t — and its only two losses are to Georgia and whatever ranked opponent it faces in the ACC title game (Florida State or Miami?) — the committee will have a debate about the two-loss ACC runner-up. Georgia Tech’s number of wins against ranked opponents depends on if Clemson can get itself together. The Yellow Jackets currently have the 63rd-toughest remaining schedule, according to ESPN Analytics. They don’t play the ACC’s toughest teams — Miami, Florida State or SMU. Speaking of the Mustangs …
The enigma: SMU. The Mustangs have a much more difficult path to the playoff than last year. SMU already lost a tough, double-overtime home game to Baylor in Week 2. Beyond that, it has two wins against Missouri State (a 1-2 Conference USA team) and FCS opponent East Texas A&M (0-2). So, the picture is still blurry for last year’s ACC runner-up. It will get much clearer on Saturday at TCU, a game that will create separation for the winner with a head-to-head nonconference tiebreaker. ESPN Analytics gives TCU a 67.4% chance to win, and if SMU goes 2-2 in September, a second straight playoff appearance will be highly unlikely. A Mustangs victory on Saturday, though, could wind up being one of the better nonconference wins of the season and help SMU compete for an at-large spot. It still plays Clemson and Miami during the regular season, and ESPN Analytics gives SMU less than a 50% chance to win each of those games.
If the playoff were today
Would be in: Florida State, Miami
Work to do: Cal, Georgia Tech, Louisville, SMU
Would be out: Boston College, Duke, North Carolina, NC State, Pitt, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Big 12
Spotlight: Iowa State. The Cyclones are still hanging on here, but by only a thread after a choppy performance against Arkansas State. Iowa State was clinging to a 17-16 lead in the fourth quarter before adding a late touchdown, and its position on the bubble is similarly precarious. ESPN Analytics gives the Cyclones the sixth-best chance to reach the Big 12 title game (15.3%), but here’s the thing — there are seven teams in the Big 12 with at least a 10% chance to play for the conference title. Iowa State continues to lead the league in the weekly projection because its wins against Iowa and a beleaguered K-State team are still better than what the other contenders have on their résumés. At least so far. The Cyclones have a week off before hosting Arizona.
The enigma: Utah. Iowa State is leading the résumé debate, but Utah and Texas Tech have looked like the better teams against weaker competition. We’ll learn which to take more seriously Saturday when they play each other. According to ESPN Analytics, Utah currently has the best chance to make the Big 12 title game (40.1%) and win the league (24.6%). Saturday, though, will be the Utes’ first real test. Utah’s wins have come against a UCLA team that just fired its head coach, Cal Poly and Wyoming. But the Utes have scored at least 30 points in each game while allowing no more than 10. If Utah beats the Red Raiders, it will have a much-needed cushion for a tricky road trip to BYU on Oct. 18. If Utah wins the Big 12, it will lock up a playoff spot, but if the Utes have two losses and no title, they’ll have a difficult time impressing the committee with the rest of their schedule.
If the playoff were today
Would be in: Iowa State
Work to do: Arizona, Baylor, BYU, Houston, TCU, Texas Tech, UCF, Utah
Would be out: Kansas State, West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Colorado, Cincinnati, Arizona State, Kansas
Independent
Would be out: Notre Dame. Following an 0-2 start, the Irish dropped out of the most recent top 12 prediction. The Irish no longer control their playoff path; they need to win out and get some help from other contenders losing. It’s not impossible, but it’s more difficult as an independent. Notre Dame doesn’t have the chance to earn a guaranteed spot as a conference champion, so it has to impress the committee with its 12-game season. And its two best chances against ranked opponents are already lost. Notre Dame’s chances of reaching the playoff dropped to 6% after its home loss to Texas A&M.
Group of 5
Spotlight: South Florida. The Allstate Playoff Predictor likes Memphis, giving the Tigers the best chance of any Group of 5 team to reach the playoff (27.5%), but the selection committee doesn’t look ahead. It looks back, and so far, South Florida’s wins against Boise State and Florida still trump what any other Group of 5 contender has on its résumé. It didn’t help that South Florida lost at Miami in convincing fashion, but the Bulls don’t have to beat the Canes to reach the playoff — they have to win the American. This will settle itself on the field when South Florida plays at Memphis on Oct. 25, but the Bulls don’t play Tulane during the regular season. And the Green Wave might be the biggest threat to South Florida’s place in the playoff conversation.
The enigma: Tulane. The Green Wave have a chance to usurp South Florida as the Group of 5’s top playoff contender Saturday at Ole Miss. If Tulane can knock off a top-15 SEC team to add to wins against Northwestern and Duke, the Green Wave will have the best résumé in the Group of 5. Tulane also travels to Memphis on a Friday night (Nov. 7). ESPN Analytics projects those two teams will meet in the American championship game, with Tulane having the second-best chance to win the conference (21.5%). Where it gets interesting is if the Green Wave don’t — and their only loss is in the conference championship game. No other Group of 5 team would have as strong a case for an at-large bid without a conference title as Tulane because no Group of 5 contender has a more difficult game than Tulane’s trip to Ole Miss. ESPN Analytics gives the Rebels an 86.8% chance to win. That result would make winning the league imperative for the Green Wave.
If the playoff were today
Would be in: South Florida
Work to do: Tulane, UNLV, Navy, Memphis
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