Connect with us

Published

6 months ago

on

KINGSPORT, Tenn. Jerry Qualls had a heart attack in 2022 and was rushed by ambulance to Holston Valley Medical Center, where he was hospitalized for a week and kept alive by a ventilator and blood pump, according to his medical records.

This story also ran on States Newsroom. It can be republished for free. additional coverage Tennessee Tries To Rein In Ballads Hospital Monopoly After Years of Problems Read More

His wife, Katherine Qualls, said his doctors offered little hope. In an interview and a written complaint to the Tennessee government, she said doctors at Holston Valley told her that her husband would not qualify for a heart transplant and shouldnt be expected to recover.

Defiant, she insisted he be transferred hours away to a hospital in Nashville. Within days of leaving Holston Valley, Jerry Qualls was awake and sitting upright, his wife said, and he ultimately received a lifesaving heart transplant.

How many families dont know how to get a transfer and their loved one dies? Katherine Qualls wrote in her complaint to the state. My husband would have been dead within a few days if I didnt get him out when I did. Jerry and Katherine Qualls of Mount Carmel, Tennessee.(Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)

Holston Valley Medical Center is a flagship of Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia that is the only option for hospital care in a large swath of Appalachia. Ballad formed six years ago when lawmakers in both states, in an effort to prevent hospital closures, waived federal antitrust laws so two rival health systems could merge. The merger created the largest state-sanctioned hospital monopoly in the nation.

Since then, Ballad has largely kept those hospitals open. But the monopoly has also fallen short of about three-fourths of the quality-of-care goals set by the states over the last three fiscal years, including failing to meet state benchmarks on infections, mortality, emergency room speed, and patient satisfaction, according to annual reports from the Tennessee Department of Health and Ballad itself.

Some local residents have become wary, afraid, or unwilling to seek care at Ballad hospitals and must drive over an hour to reach other options, according to written complaints to the Tennessee government and state lawmakers, public hearing testimony, and KFF Health News interviews conducted over the past year with patients, family members, local leaders, and some officials who once publicly supported the monopoly, including a former government consultant and one state lawmaker. Many of those who submitted complaints or were interviewed allege that paper-thin staffing at Ballad hospitals and ERs is the root cause of the monopolys quality-of-care woes. The entrance to Holston Valley Medical Center, a part of the Ballad Health hospital system.(Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)

In a two-hour interview vigorously defending the company, Ballad Health CEO Alan Levine said the hospitals are rapidly recovering from a quality-of-care slump caused by covid-19 and a subsequent rise in nursing turnover and staff shortages. These issues affected hospitals nationwide, Levine said, and were not related to the Ballad merger or the monopoly it created.

Levine declined to discuss specific complaints from patients. But he said that each of the complaints referenced in this article took issue with medical decisions made by doctors in Ballad hospitals not any policy or practice at Ballad.

I can understand if the patients, if the wife, was upset about the medical decisions they made if it turned out to be wrong, Levine said. But that has nothing to do with the merger, OK? Thats a completely different issue, and it happens in hospitals all over the country.

In the interview with KFF Health News and in the days that followed, Levine flexed considerable connections to officials in the Tennessee government. As Levine spoke in a boardroom at Ballads hilltop headquarters, he was flanked by three local mayors who voiced support for the hospitals and said complaints came from a vocal minority of their constituents. Days later, Levine got two Tennessee state agency directors and a former state health commissioner to provide emails or text messages supporting statements he made during the interview. Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing. Your Email Address Sign Up

Logan Grant, executive director of the Tennessee Health Facilities Commission, which processes complaints against hospitals for the state, said in a statement prompted by Levine that Ballad hospitals are not an outlier in terms of substantiated survey findings.

Joe Grandy, the mayor of Tennessees Washington County, where Ballad is headquartered, said most residents consider the quality of care in the area about as good as it gets.

Brenda Getaz certainly doesnt.

Getaz, 76, who spent three decades as a hospital official specializing in quality standards before retiring to Washington County, said she plans to move to Atlanta if state governments do not take action to fix Ballad in the coming year. Getaz said local medical professionals she trusts have urged her to move away so she does not have to rely on Ballad for care.

Im frightened to be taken to a Ballad facility, she said. Brenda Getaz, a retired hospital quality-of-care professional, says she is considering moving away from her home in Johnson City, Tennessee, because she does not trust the hospitals owned by Ballad Health.(Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)

Glimpses of Government Concern

The Tennessee Department of Health, which has the most direct oversight over Ballad Health, over the past year has declined multiple interview requests to discuss the hospital monopoly. Department emails reviewed by KFF Health News, some of which were obtained through public record requests, offer glimpses of concern inside the agency.

Emails show the health department has attempted to hold Ballad more accountable for its quality of care in closed-door negotiations and is investigating Holston Valleys treatment of a recent heart patient after receiving detailed complaints from his family. In a 2023 email, Tennessee Health Commissioner Ralph Alvarado reacted to a news story about low job satisfaction among Ballad nurses by writing: Ouch. What are they doing to address this?

In another email from the same year, Alvarado praised an informal report submitted at a public hearing that concluded Ballads monopoly had caused more harm than good. The report was written by Wally Hankwitz, a retired health care executive who once led a physician management company in Kingsport. The report levied pages of criticism against Ballads sub-par performance and called for the monopoly to end.

THIS communication from the COPA hearing is particularly good, the health commissioner wrote to some of his staff. Totally based on data. I would almost like to hear Ballads response to this.

When asked to respond to the Hankwitz report, Levine said it was full of errors and that no credible institution would pay attention to it.

Despite concerns, Tennessee and Virginia have each year determined that the benefits of the Ballad monopoly outweigh any negative impacts, issuing stamps of approval that allow the monopoly to continue. This has occurred, at least in part, because both states grade Ballad against scoring rubrics that do not prioritize quality of care.

Larry Fitzgerald, a retired Tennessee consultant who monitored the monopoly for the state for more than five years and always gave Ballad high marks, said in an interview that his hands were tied by the states lenient grading system, which allowed Ballad to succeed on paper even when it failed to meet the states quality-of-care goals.

Fitzgerald said he is unconvinced that the state-sanctioned monopoly had prevented any hospital closures and said the merger had probably not benefited local residents overall.

When asked where he would get medicalattention if he lived in northeastern Tennessee or southwestern Virginia, Fitzgerald immediately responded, Im not going to a Ballad hospital.

In his interview, Levine alleged Fitzgerald had basically defrauded the state by not raising these criticisms of Ballad in his public reports on the monopoly and said it was irresponsible and obscene to express his concerns about quality of care after retiring. Holston Valley Medical Center is one of the flagship hospitals of Ballad Health, a 20-hospital system in northeastern Tennessee and southwestern Virginia that is the only option for hospital care in a large swath of Appalachia.(Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)

Horror Stories From Ballad Patients

Tennessee House member Bud Hulsey, a Republican from Kingsport, wrote in a 2023 letter to the state health department that he was an avid supporter of the merger that created Ballad but since then had become concerned and saddened by the state of the local hospitals.

In a recent interview, Hulsey said that while his family has received excellent care from Ballad, his constituents have told him horror stories for years.

I had people call me from the waiting room after theyve sat there for 12 or 14 hours, Hulsey said. The scales have far more complaints on them than accolades.

Others have soured on the monopoly, too. Joe Macione, who for years was on the board of Wellmont Health System, one of the rival companies that became Ballad, once publicly advocated for the merger.

In an interview, Macione said state leaders should have admitted years ago that the monopoly was a mistake.

It has not worked, said Macione, 87. All my family knows that, if I have the time, I want to go to a highly graded hospital, either in Asheville or Knoxville.

Ballad Health was created in 2018 after Tennessee and Virginia officials waived federal anti-monopoly laws and approved the nations biggest hospital merger, based on whats called a Certificate of Public Advantage, or COPA, agreement. Ballad is now the only option for hospital care for most of the approximately 1.1 million people in a 29-county region at the nexus of Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

In the years since, there have been multiple signs of discontent with and within Ballad hospitals. In 2019, protesters gathered daily for eight months outside Holston Valley to oppose the closure of the neonatal intensive care unit and the downgrading of a trauma center. (Ballad has said the NICU closure was necessary and benefited patients, and a study published this year said the trauma changes saved lives.)

In 2020, Bristol Regional Medical Center CEO Greg Neal resigned after it was discovered he made the initial incision in a heart surgery despite not being a doctor, according to Tennessee state records. (Levine said in his interview that the resignation shows Ballad is holding employees accountable.) Anton Maki Jr., who was once a doctor at Holston Valley Medical Center and returned earlier this year as a patient, with his daughters, Anna Maki Cowley and Alexandra Maki. Anton Maki died in May.(Kate Garland)

In 2022, 14 cardiologists signed a letter warning of severe limitations in the Bristol Regional cardiac catheterization lab that were affecting patient safety and delaying procedures for weeks or months. (Ballad said in a letter to the Tennessee government that it worked with the cardiologists, who it said were partly to blame, to make the lab more efficient.)

In 2023, Ballad Health was ranked last among 200 large health care organizations in an analysis of nurse satisfaction published by an MIT business magazine. (Levine dismissed this analysis as unscientific.) This year, the Federal Trade Commission cited Ballad as a cautionary tale while opposing a similar hospital merger under consideration in Indiana, and a longtime Kingsport doctor took a parting shot at Ballad in his obituary. (Ballad declined to comment on either topic.)

And in August, the widow of a Tennessee sheriff filed a lawsuit alleging that Ballad caused her husbands death and intentionally understaffed hospitals to save money. Brenda Tester, the wife of Johnson County Sheriff Eddie Tester, alleged in that lawsuit that Ballad put her husband on blood thinners and then gave him an unnecessary liver biopsy, causing life ending internal blood loss that led to his cardiac arrest and ultimately his sudden death.

Ballad has yet to respond to the Tester lawsuit in court. Levine said in his interview that the doctors who treated the sheriff were not employed by Ballad but merely contracted to work in its hospitals.

Some of Ballads most determined critics are family members of Anton Maki Jr., a former Holston Valley doctor who returned to the hospital as a patient in February. The family has filed complaints with multiple Tennessee agencies and the federal government and provided emails to KFF Health News showing that Tennessee is investigating Makis case.

In an interview and in those complaints, Makis family members allege Holston Valley gave Maki improper treatment, even though his symptoms and lab tests made it obvious that he was having a serious heart attack that required urgent attention.

The improper care did permanent damage to Makis heart, the familys complaints allege. That damage required him to have a permanent mechanical heart pump surgically implanted at a non-Ballad hospital, said one of his daughters, Alexandra Maki, who is a surgeon in Kentucky. She said her father died after a fall three months later while still in a weakened state. Anna Maki Cowley (left) and Alexandra Maki, the daughters of Anton Maki Jr., have filed complaints with the Tennessee and federal governments about the care that Anton Maki received at Ballad Healths Holston Valley Medical Center earlier this year. Alexandra Maki, a surgeon in Kentucky, is shown with her late fathers stethoscope.(Brett Kelman/KFF Health News)

Alexandra Maki said that her father had been alarmed by the Ballad monopoly for years but that she didnt fully appreciate his warnings until she witnessed his care at Holston Valley firsthand.

I filed these complaints because it is my duty as a doctor to report what I saw, Alexandra Maki said. That was not care. It is a facade of a hospital. It is a well-oiled death machine.

KFF Health News reporter Samantha Liss contributed to this article. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Print Republish This Story

Brett Kelman: bkelman@kff.org, @BrettKelman Related Topics Courts COVID-19 Health Industry Rural Health Hospitals Kentucky North Carolina Tennessee Virginia Contact Us Submit a Story Tip

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Entertainment

Jeff Bezos’s Venice wedding celebrations begin with star-studded party after fresh protests

Published

3 hours ago

on

June 27, 2025

By

Jeff Bezos's Venice wedding celebrations begin with star-studded party after fresh protests

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s star-studded wedding celebrations in Venice have begun, with VIP guests including the Kardashians descending on the Italian city.

The billionaire Amazon founder and his journalist fiancee waved to onlookers as they left a luxury hotel to travel to their pre-wedding reception by water taxi on Thursday evening.

Hollywood star Orlando Bloom was seen flashing a peace sign to fans as he left Venice’s Gritti Palace Hotel and he was soon followed by TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, who smiled and waved.

Orlando Bloom gestures as he leaves Gritti Palace Hotel, ahead of the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and journalist Pic: Reuters
Image:
Orlando Bloom donning all white. Pic: Reuters

Oprah Winfrey gestures near Gritti Palace Hotel, ahead of the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in Venice, Reuters
Image:
Oprah Winfrey is one of the 200-250 guests. Pic: Reuters

Kim and Khloe Kardashian travelled to the reception with their mother Kris Jenner – who snapped a picture of the pair on a water taxi – and other notable figures in town for the nuptials include Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.

Kris Jenner takes a picture of Khloe Kardashian and Kim Kardashian on a boat, ahead of the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos REUTERS
Image:
Kris Jenner snaps a photo of Khloe and Kim Kardashian. Pic: Reuters

Kim Kardashian gestures on a boat as Khloe appears to take a selfie. Pic: Reuters
Image:
Kim Kardashian gestures on a boat as Khloe appears to take a selfie.
Pic: Reuters

Some 200-250 A-list guests from showbusiness, politics and finance are expected to attend the events, with the wedding and its parts estimated to cost €40m-€48m (£34m-£41m).

Bezos, his soon-to-be wife and their famous guests have taken over numerous locations in the city, with the couple staying in the luxury Aman hotel, where rooms go for at least €4,000 per night.

Jeff Bezos, center left, and Lauren Sanchez, center right, leave a hotel for their pre wedding reception, in Venice, Italy, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)
Image:
The bride and groom leaving their hotel. Pic: AP

The first of the weekend’s many wedding parties is taking place in the cloisters of Madonna dell’Orto, a medieval church that hosts masterpieces by 16th century painter Tintoretto.

While the couple and their A-list guests were all smiles, some in Venice are not happy about the wedding – with protesters seeing it as an example of the city being gift-wrapped for ultra-rich outsiders.

Read more: Why are activists protesting the wedding?

An activist from Extinction Rebellion unfolds a banner in front of St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, Italy, on Thursday, June 26, 2025,
Image:
An activist from Extinction Rebellion unfolds a banner in front of St Mark’s Basilica. Pic: AP

An activist climbed one of the poles in the main St Mark’s Square on Thursday, unfurling a banner which said: “The 1% ruins the world.”

Elsewhere, a life-size mannequin of Bezos clutching an Amazon box was dropped into one of the city’s famous canals.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding in numbers

€48m price tag

The wedding and its parts are expected to cost €40m-€48m (£34-£41m), Luca Zaia, the president of Venice’s local government, said on Tuesday.

This includes sizeable charity donations from the Amazon founder, including €1m (£850k) to Corila, a consortium that studies Venice’s lagoon ecosystem, local media has reported.

90 private jets

The first private jets began landing at Venice airport on Tuesday and there will be around 90 in total, Mr Zaia said.

They’re not all arriving in Venice though, as some have landed at the nearby Treviso and Verona airports.

250 guests

Five of the city’s most luxurious hotels have been booked out to host an estimated 200-250 guests.

These include the celeb favourite Cipriani, where George and Amal Clooney married in 2014.

30 water taxis

Attendees of course aren’t hopping on public water buses to get around the city’s many islands.

The wedding’s organisers have booked at least 30 water taxis for them to use instead.

In a bid to keep demonstrators away from Thursday’s party, the city council banned pedestrians and water traffic from the area surrounding the venue, from 4.30pm local time to midnight.

Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player

Bezos wedding protests explained

The couple will exchange their vows on Friday, on the small island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark’s Square.

Another party will follow on Saturday – the venue for which was changed at the last-minute earlier this week.

Continue Reading

Entertainment

Convicted killer jailed for stalking Cheryl admits another restraining order breach after turning up at her home

Published

3 hours ago

on

June 27, 2025

By

Convicted killer jailed for stalking Cheryl admits another restraining order breach after turning up at her home

A convicted killer previously jailed for stalking Girls Aloud singer Cheryl has admitted another breach of his restraining order after turning up at her home.

Daniel Bannister, 50, pleaded guilty to the new charge at Reading Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday.

Confirming his plea, he told the court he attended an address he “reasonably believed or suspected” was the star’s home.

A court previously heard Bannister “can’t stay away” from the 41-year-old singer.

He was jailed for 16 weeks in March for repeatedly turning up at Cheryl‘s Buckinghamshire home while under a restraining order.

He had initially been jailed for four months in September last year and was handed a three-year restraining order, which he breached when he turned up at her home unannounced in December 2024.

At the March hearing, Cheryl said she “immediately panicked” when he rang the bell at the gate and was “terrified” when she saw him – fearing for the safety of her eight-year-old son Bear.

Cheryl in June 2022. Pic: PA
Image:
Cheryl in June 2022. Pic: PA

In 2012, Bannister killed 48-year-old Rajendra Patel in an attack at a south London YMCA shelter and pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

He was remanded in custody on Friday and will appear at Reading Crown Court on 23 September.

Read more from Sky News
Star-studded guest list for Bezos’ wedding
Brad Pitt’s home burgled
Prosecution accuses ‘Diddy’ of criminal enterprise

Bear’s father, former One Direction star Liam Payne, died last October in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after falling from his third-floor hotel balcony.

Cheryl described his death as “indescribably painful“, as she voiced fears about protecting their son.

Continue Reading

Sports

What’s ahead in 2025 for Notre Dame, UConn and the Pac-2?

Published

3 hours ago

on

June 27, 2025

By

What's ahead in 2025 for Notre Dame, UConn and the Pac-2?

  • Bill ConnellyJun 27, 2025, 07:07 AM ET

    Close

      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

Army and Navy are in the AAC. Liberty and New Mexico State landed in Conference USA. UMass decided to head back to the MAC. Sacramento State’s efforts to become an FBS independent aren’t working out. In a year, Oregon State and Washington State will be members of a fully stocked Pac-12 again. (They aren’t really indies now, either, but I’m putting them in here because I didn’t want to write a two-team conference preview.)

The indie party has thinned out significantly in recent years. It looks like we’ll be down to Notre Dame and UConn by next year, and, one of these years maybe those perpetual “UConn to the Big 12?” rumors will actually bear fruit, too. Regardless, these four teams bring loads of storylines to the table. Notre Dame might be more loaded this season than it was during last year’s earlier-than-expected run to the national title game. UConn has restocked after last year’s thrilling (and rather out of nowhere) nine-win campaign. Oregon State’s roster has stabilized after a tumultuous 2024, and Washington State is attempting a complete culture transplant.

Let’s preview 2025’s independents (and the final two-team Pac-12)!

Every week through the summer, Bill Connelly will preview another FBS conference, ultimately including all 136 FBS teams. The previews will include 2024 breakdowns, 2025 previews and team-by-team capsules. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and AAC previews.

2024 recap

We had a lot of plot lines running here despite a small number of teams. In their first season after watching 10 conference mates (and a bunch of players) depart the Pac-12, Wazzu and Oregon State started strong and collapsed; the former started 8-1 and finished 0-4, while the latter started 4-1 and finished 1-6. Wazzu then lost its head coach and most of its stars as well.

Meanwhile, out East, Jim Mora was engineering UConn’s best season in 14 years while fending off all sorts of transfer portal vultures. Per SP+, the Huskies fielded their best defense since 2015 and their best offense since 2009, and after a pretty clear regular-season split — 0-4 against power conference teams, 8-0 against the Group of 5 — they capped a nine-win campaign with a 27-14 Fenway Bowl thumping of North Carolina.

Oh yeah, and Notre Dame reached the national title game. The Fighting Irish had their line depth tested significantly — only one offensive or defensive lineman started all 16 games — and passed with flying colors. After a shocking loss to NIU in Week 2, they had to win out to reach the CFP and did so, and then they beat Indiana, Georgia and Penn State before a midgame lull in the finals resulted in a 34-23 loss to Ohio State. It’s hard to find new firsts to accomplish in South Bend, but Marcus Freeman got to check the “Notre Dame’s first 14-win season” box.

Continuity table

The continuity table looks at each team’s returning production levels (offense, defense and overall), the number of 2024 FBS starts from returning and incoming players and the approximate number of redshirt freshmen on the roster heading into 2025. (Why “approximate”? Because schools sometimes make it very difficult to ascertain who redshirted and who didn’t.) Continuity is an increasingly difficult art in roster management, but some teams pull it off better than others.

For a title-game finalist, Notre Dame’s continuity is pretty impressive. Freeman didn’t have to do a ton of portal work because his Irish return 10 starters from 2024, plus loads of part-timers and some key injury returnees (namely, left tackle Charles Jagusah and defensive end Jordan Botelho). He plumped up depth at receiver (a necessity) and in the defensive line and secondary, but he stayed in-house to find a replacement for quarterback Riley Leonard. If that proves to be the right call, the Irish will contend again.

Elsewhere, UConn managed to avoid getting completely plucked apart by the aforementioned vultures, and while Wazzu is starting almost completely from scratch, Oregon State has encouraging continuity heading toward the fall.

2025 projections

Notre Dame’s schedule is a strange one: The Irish play projected top-15 teams in each of the first two weeks (at Miami in Week 1, then Texas A&M in Week 2) but don’t play another projected Top 25 team for the rest of the year. If they’re genuinely a title-caliber squad again, the Irish could roll, but all sorts of land mines await — at Arkansas, Boise State, USC, Navy, at Pitt — if their attention drifts.

Out West, OSU and Wazzu did something I enjoy: They arranged a home-and-home. They’ll face off in Corvallis on Nov. 1, then again in Pullman on Nov. 29. (Personally, I think they should make it a best-of-three and play on a neutral site over Championship Week if they split the first two games. Put it in Las Vegas. Call it the “Pac-12 Championship.”)

Notre Dame’s schedule strength will be impacted greatly by how good teams like Arkansas and Boise State turn out to be, but at this moment the Irish are one of the surest playoff contenders on the board. Start 1-1, and you’re in great shape from there. And while UConn does have some roster holes to fill, a schedule featuring nine opponents projected 91st or lower in SP+ should make a third bowl trip in four seasons pretty likely.

Five best games of 2025

Here are the five games involving independents that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under 10 points.

Cal at Oregon State (Aug. 30). With seven games projected within a touchdown or less, Oregon State’s season could go in quite a few different directions; the Beavers start out with two of those games, both at home. If they’re 2-0 when they head to Texas Tech in Week 3, they could be on their way to a lovely campaign. If they’re 0-2, well…

Notre Dame at Miami (Aug. 31). The single-digit requirement means that only one Notre Dame game shows up on this list. Even against Texas A&M in Week 2, the Irish are favored by 10.2. But this Week 1 battle is enormous. With a new quarterback and new defense, Miami is going to be a talented mystery right out of the gate. If the Irish survive this challenge, their CFP odds skyrocket.

Washington at Washington State (Sept. 20). With former South Dakota State head coach Jimmy Rogers taking over (and bringing lots of former Jackrabbits with him), Wazzu will be fascinating to follow. The Cougs will have a couple of decent tests before this Week 4 matchup, but the Apple Cup will be Rogers’ first big test to prove his physical identity is taking hold.

Houston at Oregon State (Sept. 27). Trips to Texas Tech and Oregon are likely to produce two OSU losses, which means that this one will represent the official start to Act II of the Beavers’ season. They could be 3-2 after the Houston game, but they could also theoretically be 0-5.

Duke at UConn (Nov. 8). Even if UConn struggles with an almost entirely new starting defense, the schedule is kind enough that the Huskies are never projected double-digit underdogs. Even Duke, the third of three ACC opponents and the best projected team on the schedule, will visit East Hartford as only about an eight-point favorite here.

CFP contenders

Head coach: Marcus Freeman (fourth year, 33-10 overall)

2025 projection: sixth in SP+, 10.5 average wins

Of the top seven teams in the current SP+ projections, only one, No. 3 Penn State, returns its starting quarterback. For that matter, only three of the top 13 teams do. This is part of the reason for what I feel is the relative offseason overhyping of Clemson — quarterback Cade Klubnik is the proverbial bird in hand even though he’s never ranked higher than 13th in Total QBR.

It’s worth remembering, however, that six of the top seven in Total QBR last year (and 10 of the top 12) were first-year starters at their schools of choice. The bird in hand is only preferable until we know which of the new guys is awesome.

CJ Carr might be awesome. The Saline, Michigan, product — and grandson of former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr — was a top-40 recruit and the No. 2 pocket passer in the class of 2024. He is by most accounts super-smart with a super-strong arm, and he was solid enough this spring that a) Marcus Freeman didn’t feel the need to make any sort of desperate post-spring portal QB acquisition and b) 2024 backup Steve Angeli read the writing on the wall and transferred to Syracuse.

Carr (or, theoretically, sophomore Kenny Minchey) is one of the most important players of the 2025 season in that, if he’s good, Notre Dame might not have a single weakness. For starters, the Irish will have Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price (combined: 1,871 rushing yards, 24 TDs) back at running back. Love is the best returning yards-after-contact back in FBS; only Boise State’s Ashton Jeanty and Miami’s Damien Martinez topped him in 2024, and they’re both now in the NFL.

At receiver, CFP semifinal hero Jaden Greathouse is back in the slot, and while Freeman added fewer transfers than most, he did nab Malachi Fields (Virginia) and Will Pauling (Wisconsin), each of whom averaged more yards per route run than any Notre Dame receiver not named Greathouse. The offensive line overcame rampant injuries and extreme inexperience to play at a high level late last season; it lost two starters to the portal, but that was in part because others, like Charles Jagusah and center Ashton Craig, were likely to start over them. The defense, meanwhile, returns 12 of the 20 players who saw 200-plus snaps last season and welcomes 2023 starting end Jordan Botelho and potentially high-value transfers like tackle Jared Dawson (Louisville) and nickel DeVonta Smith (Alabama).

In a way, Notre Dame’s charge to the 2024 title game came ahead of schedule, as evidenced by the massive number of key returnees who are either juniors (Love, Price, Greathouse, Craig, right tackle Aamil Wagner, defensive end Joshua Burnham, defensive tackle Donovan Hinish, linebackers Drayk Bowen and Jaylen Sneed, cornerback Christian Gray) or sophomores (Jagusah, left tackle Anthonie Knapp, defensive ends Bryce Young and Boubacar Traore, linebackers Jaiden Ausberry and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, cornerback Leonard Moore, safety Adon Shuler). The passing game produced almost no big plays of note, and the Irish had to rely on long strings of error-free plays to score points, and despite all the youth around Leonard, they got it. And despite having to start 20 different guys at least once on defense, they consistently delivered, especially against the pass.

It was a seasonlong endorsement of what Freeman is building — right down to how this inexperienced Irish team responded to probably the single most shocking result of the season. And now, in theory, this team could continue growing and developing moving forward. As long as it has a QB.

Well, a QB and a defensive coordinator. With Al Golden moving on to the NFL, Freeman replaced him with former Rutgers head coach and Texas (among others) defensive coordinator Chris Ash. Ash and Golden are awfully similar from a résumé perspective — once up-and-comers, they were both relative failures as head coaches who spent time in the pros before landing in South Bend. But Golden’s overall track record as a head coach and coordinator was a little bit stronger, and the last time Ash was part of either a top-10 NFL defense or a top-40 college defense was 2015. Freeman’s presence assures a pretty high floor, Ash will have lots of fun toys to play with, and Freeman has quickly earned the benefit of the doubt. But it was hard to love this hire.

The schedule does present one extra obstacle: Not only will the Irish obviously need good quarterback play from an inexperienced player, but thanks to the two best projected opponents showing up in the first two weeks of the season, they’ll need it immediately. This roster positively screams “major national title contender in 2026,” but the Irish’s status as a 2025 contender will be determined by how quickly Carr (or Minchey!) looks the part and whether or not Ash can immediately thrive.

Everyone else

Head coach: Jim Mora (fourth year, 18-20 overall)

2025 projection: 84th in SP+, 7.4 average wins

You’re forgiven if you didn’t see this coming. Lord knows I didn’t. Jim Mora’s UConn tenure began with a massive surge from 1-11 to 6-7 in 2022, but the underlying stats suggested it was awfully fluky, and the Huskies crashed to 3-9 in 2023, then began 2024 with a 50-7 faceplant against Maryland.

Following that terrible trip to College Park, however, they ignited, winning nine of their final 12 games, losing to three ACC teams (Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse) by a combined 15 points and beating everyone else on the docket. The offense dealt with ups and downs but got over 2,200 rushing yards and 18 TDs from a trio of backs — one of whom, Cam Edwards (830 yards, 5.7 per carry), returns — and random big plays from receiver Skyler Bell (who also returns). Under first-year coordinator Matt Brock, meanwhile, the defense basically started and ended drives brilliantly: The Huskies ranked first nationally in three-and-out rate (42.4%), fourth in third-down conversion rate allowed (29.1%) and eighth in red zone touchdown rate allowed (46.5%).

A lot of key components return in 2025: Mora, Brock, Edwards, Bell, quarterbacks Joe Fagnano and Nick Evers, four part- or full-time starting offensive linemen and a pair of excellent DBs in nickel D’Mon Brinson and sophomore corner Cam Chadwick. But when a mid-major team surprises in the mid-2020s, the vultures quickly start hovering. UConn lost four starters to power conference transfers, including three from the dynamite D. In all, of the 13 defenders who started at least four games, Brinson and Chadwick are the only returnees.

Mora tried to strike back the best he could in the portal. He landed 26 transfers in all, including smaller school standouts like running back MJ Flowers (Eastern Illinois), 6-foot-7 offensive lineman Hayden Bozich (Brown), defensive linemen Marquis Black (Gardner-Webb) and Stephon Wright (Texas Southern) and corners Kolubah Pewee Jr. (Georgetown) and Sammy Anderson Jr. (Austin Peay). He also might have identified a potential inefficiency by searching for either guys who were semi-proven but injured in 2024 — receivers Naiem Simmons (USF) and Caleb Burton III (Auburn) — or players like receiver Reymello Murphy (Arizona/ODU), receiver Thai Chiaokhiao-Bowman (Rice/Florida) and linebacker Bryun Parham (Washington/SJSU), multitime transfers who have fallen off of other teams’ radars after nondescript 2024 campaigns.

Mora has been pretty open and interesting regarding his thoughts on the transfer portal, the loyalty of players and whatnot, and in this increasingly transient college football environment, he’s made a lot of astute moves. The defense lost enough players that regression is conceivable, but a more experienced offense (and replenished receiving corps) could pick up the slack, and there are lots of potential wins on the schedule. The outlook for this program flipped quickly.

Head coach: Trent Bray (second year, 5-7 overall)

2025 projection: 73rd in SP+, 6.6 average wins

There are always going to be haves and have-nots in college football, but for a lot of us, it doesn’t seem like too much to ask for some semblance of fairness. If a program invests and hires smartly and puts a strong product on the field, it should be rewarded with more or better opportunities to prove itself, whether it is a historic powerhouse or not.

What happened to Oregon State and Washington State, then, will never sit particularly well. Jonathan Smith returned to his alma mater at a low point — OSU was 1-11 and 120th in SP+ the year before he arrived — and slowly built it into a top-30 program. The Beavers won 18 games with an average SP+ ranking of 23.5 in 2022-23. They beat Oregon and walloped Florida to finish 2022 and beat Utah (which then left for the Big 12), Cal (ACC), UCLA (Big Ten), Colorado (Big 12) and Stanford (ACC) in 2023. And they were rewarded for this turnaround by losing their power conference status … and eventually their head coach and 19 starters, too. With former defensive coordinator Trent Bray taking over in 2024, the Beavers flashed offensive potential and ran the ball well, but a decimated defense allowed at least 31 points seven times and plummeted from 35th to 107th in defensive SP+. The Beavers’ record fell accordingly.

While I can whine about fairness — and boy, do I! — Bray doesn’t have that luxury. He’s tasked with winning games no matter the situation, and he might have crafted a team that can do so in 2025. He held onto the offense’s two best players (running back Anthony Hankerson and wideout Trent Walker) and added former blue-chippers in quarterback Maalik Murphy (Duke) and tight ends Riley Williams (Miami) and Jackson Bowers (BYU), plus a number of offensive line transfers. On defense, he added six transfers to a lineup that returns 14 of the 21 players who started at least once. Edge rusher Nikko Taylor (nine TFLs) is excellent, 345-pound senior tackle Jacob Schuster is a keeper and sophomores like tackles Thomas Collins and Jojo Johnson, edge rusher Zakaih Saez, nickel Sailasa Vadrawale III and corner Exodus Ayers posted decent numbers in small samples. There aren’t any no-brainer successes among the incoming transfers, but edge rusher Walker Harris (Southern Utah) has the size to succeed.

As mentioned above, the schedule offers lots of win opportunities but few guarantees. The Beavers are projected to win 6.6 games on average, but thanks to the high number of close games, they have both a 7% chance of going 4-8 or worse and a 10% chance of going 9-3 or better. If Murphy and Walker form a strong rapport early on, and OSU gets past Cal and Fresno State to start the season, this could be a pretty fun fall in Corvallis. Of course, the opposite is also on the table.

Head coach: Jimmy Rogers (first year)

2025 projection: 82nd in SP+, 5.6 average wins

Wazzu’s 2024 season didn’t go off the rails the same way that OSU’s did. Despite losing quarterback Cam Ward and most of his skill corps — and despite watching Ward damn near win the Heisman and become the No. 1 pick while at Miami — Jake Dickert’s Cougars actually jumped to 22nd in offensive SP+ thanks to a new set of stars like quarterback John Mateer and freshman running back Wayshawn Parker. They beat back-to-back power conference foes, including Apple Cup rival Washington, during an 8-1 start, too. Defense and special teams were both pretty dire, which became particularly costly during four late losses, but they still improved by three wins. It could have been worse.

Of course, it then got worse. Dickert left for Wake Forest, and a whopping 60 Cougars eventually entered the transfer portal, including Mateer (Oklahoma) and Parker (Utah). Only three returning Cougs started more than two games last season; this roster has been stripped to the studs.

It’s been rebuilt with Jackrabbits. Former South Dakota State head man Jimmy Rogers took over and eventually brought 16 SDSU transfers with him. The success of the SDSU program and the volume of incoming Jacks made Wazzu one of the sport’s more interesting teams to me this spring: “Running backs Angel Johnson, Kirby Vorhees and Maxwell Woods combined to rush for 1,403 yards at 7.2 per carry at SDSU last year; they’re all Cougs now. So are defensive backs Tucker Large, Caleb Francl, Matthew Durrance and Colby Humphrey, who combined for 215 tackles, 14 TFLs, 7 interceptions and 20 breakups. This sort of culture transplant has produced both immediate brilliance (Curt Cignetti’s incredible Indiana turnaround in 2024) and the exact opposite (Jay Norvell went just 5-16 in his first two seasons at Colorado State after bringing double-digit transfers from Nevada). A good player culture is finicky and unpredictable, but if Pullman can become Brookings West in that regard, success will follow.”

Walking through the new Wazzu roster, position by position, there’s plenty to like. Quarterback Zevi Eckhaus looked good in relief of Mateer last season, the SDSU running back trio is absolutely dynamite, slot receiver Josh Meredith is a keeper, the offensive line returns two starters and maybe New Mexico State’s best player (guard AJ Vaipulu), the defensive line welcomes eight new transfers (including maybe NMSU’s second-best player, end Buddha Peleti), linebacker Keith Brown was a small-sample box-score filler last year, and the SDSU transplants in the secondary should hold up nicely. But there’s so much turnover that SP+ isn’t really keeping the faith: The Cougs are projected to fall to 82nd. That obviously comes with some massive potential variance, though, and it wouldn’t take much overachievement to flip a lot of games from toss-ups to wins. This is going to be a fascinating experiment.

Continue Reading

Trending