‘I’m living proof’: How Lucas Erceg is using his sobriety journey to inspire others
BOONVILLE, Missouri — The softball field at Boonville Correctional Center has two fences. The first is a standard outfield fence, 275 feet from home plate, stretching from foul line to foul line. The second, about 50 feet farther, is made of taut barbed-wire strands ringed by circles of razor wire, separating the state penitentiary from the world. It’s a stark reminder that the field is, quite literally, a diamond in the rough.
That didn’t keep Lucas Erceg from admiring it. Erceg, who over the past two seasons has established himself as one of the most reliable relief pitchers in baseball for the Kansas City Royals, had arrived at Boonville, a minimum security facility that houses more than 800 inmates, about an hour earlier. He walked through a door that listed the rules to enter — no tight, transparent or otherwise revealing clothing; no holes in jeans or pants; no skirts, dresses or shorts above the top of the kneecap — and, as he toured the grounds, stopped at the field to appreciate its beauty amid the endless array of brick buildings that surround it.
Erceg had found purpose and meaning on the baseball field, and it brought him here, about 90 minutes east of Kansas City, Missouri, on an off day. Soon after Erceg was traded to the Royals last year, Tristram “Sean” McCormack, the chaplain at the facility, sent Erceg a letter asking if he would consider speaking to a group of inmates. Willie Mays Aikens, the former Royals first baseman who had served 14 years in federal prison for selling crack to an undercover police officer, had spoken at Boonville. So had Darryl Strawberry, the former New York Mets and New York Yankees star whose issues with drugs derailed his career. Even if Erceg were comparatively anonymous, McCormack believed his story would resonate with those incarcerated.
The date they settled on, June 9, was exactly five years to the day Erceg swallowed his last sip of alcohol. He is not shy about recounting his sobriety journey, but never before had he done it in front of a group of people so large, many of whom shared a similar history. His wife, Emma, had encouraged Erceg “to try and make something more out of my outlet as a baseball player and do more with the opportunities that I have.” And so here he was, wearing a black shirt, chinos and white sneakers, flanked by Emma, nervous as he had been in years, striding toward the final stop of the tour.
They arrived in front of the building where he would talk with the group. HOPE CHAPEL, a sign out front said, with the building number on another sign underneath it: 17. It just happened to be Erceg’s favorite number growing up. He isn’t necessarily one to believe in kismets, but the anniversary, a chapel named after his underlying ethos — and now the number? This couldn’t all be coincidence.
“It was meant to be,” Erceg said.
HAD ERCEG NOT awoken June 10, 2020, and committed to never drinking again, he worries he would have ended up somewhere like Boonville or even worse. It’s a complicated reality to confront, one that makes him appreciative not only of the career he has built but of the support system that buoyed him as he foundered.
Stability had never found Erceg in his youth. He grew up in Campbell, California, about 10 miles southwest of San Jose. His mom had a drinking problem. His dad was abusive. Erceg nevertheless thrived at Westmont High as a third baseman and pitcher, earning a scholarship to Cal, where his worst instincts took root. He drank constantly. He stopped going to class. Suicidal thoughts rippled through his mind. After being named first-team All-Pac-12 as a sophomore, he flunked out of school.
“I always used baseball as an outlet to kind of get away from all that and just go out and compete,” Erceg said. “I had natural abilities, and I had that natural fire, that natural competitor in me that kind of took me to the next level quickly. But I wasn’t a man, you know what I mean? I didn’t make the right decisions. And I think that’s when alcoholism kind of imploded on me and took over who I was as a person.”
Erceg transferred to Menlo College, then an NAIA program, and impressed enough for teams to look past his off-field issues and slot him high on their draft boards. The Milwaukee Brewers chose him with the 46th pick in the 2016 draft, scrapped him pitching despite his pleas to be a two-way player and envisioned him as their third baseman of the future. Erceg struggled to establish himself as a prospect, and his drinking went inverse with his career prospects. He chalked up his missteps — one time, he drank too much during a round of golf with his close friend, now-Yankees center fielder Trent Grisham, and flipped a cart when attempting to do a donut — to youthful indiscretion, not problematic behavioral patterns.
When COVID hit in 2020, Erceg spent his days pounding beers and playing Fortnite. Emma, whom he married in 2022 after they had met at Menlo six years earlier would arrive home, find 15 empty beer cans strewn about and “try to understand how it got to this point.” Deep down, she knew Erceg was drowning his unresolved childhood trauma in beer, which turned him mean. That June, Emma told Erceg she was leaving their home in Phoenix and gave him an ultimatum: If he did not stop drinking in the next two weeks, she wouldn’t come back. He resolved then and there: no more alcohol. He could do this, through single-mindedness and grit, like he had so many other things.
“Looking back on it now … I was constantly putting myself in the worst position possible to have success but still able to find that success just so I can say, ‘Hey, I did that. I did that on my own,'” Erceg said. “I didn’t need any help. I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t want help. I was kind of flipping people the bird when they reached out their hand.”
Erceg quit cold turkey. No rehab program. No 12-step meetings. The first three months of sobriety turned him gaunt. Previously a hearty 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds, he lost his taste for food and water and, along the way, almost 40 pounds. Managing life without alcohol was tricky, but Erceg proved adept. When he wasn’t invited to the Brewers’ alternate site for minor league prospects during the pandemic, he drove nearly 1,200 miles from Phoenix to Houston to play for the independent Sugar Land Lightning Sloths. One night in the team hotel, his teammate and bourbon aficionado Joe Wieland poured some in a cup and placed it on a PlayStation for Erceg. It was the first time Erceg had to explain to someone why he couldn’t drink. Wieland apologized and snatched away the cup, his support the sort of building block Erceg needed to resurrect his career.
Eventually, Erceg’s appetite and weight returned, and along came a plan by the Brewers to transition him into a full-time pitcher. It had been five years since he had been on the mound, and while his arm remained exceptional, the art of pitching would take time to master. Erceg spent 2021 at Double-A and split the next season between Double-A and Triple-A, showing flashes of excellence with a slider and changeup to complement a fastball that could touch triple digits. The A’s believed in Erceg’s talent enough to purchase his contract from Milwaukee for $100,000 in May 2023 and add him to their major league roster.
In less than three years, he had gone from nearly drinking himself out of the game to the big leagues. As a 28-year-old rookie, he struck out 68 batters in 55 innings. Teams took notice, and at the 2024 trade deadline, Erceg was one of the most sought-after relievers available. The Royals landed him for three prospects, and within two weeks, he was their closer. He locked down both of their wins in a wild-card series sweep of the Baltimore Orioles, and as Erceg tried to navigate the postgame celebration in which droplets of champagne pooled on his mustache, he remembered a night out with Emma in the winter of 2022. He ordered a non-alcoholic Moscow mule, took a sip and immediately recognized the bartender had made it with vodka. Erceg spit it back into the copper mug.
One taste could lead him back to the depths he had worked so hard to leave in the past.
REMAINING COGNIZANT OF that past is part of Erceg’s recovery, and it’s why when McCormack described Boonville’s goals to him, they sounded familiar: education, vocation, restorative justice. Erceg has done much of the same, learning who he was, is and wants to be, absorbing the skills that promote success and doing right by those done wrong by his actions.
The tour of Boonville showed Erceg the side of prison he otherwise would never have understood. The facility, which until 1983 was a home for minors who had run afoul of the law, had evolved in recent years to emphasize that imprisonment offers opportunities for personal growth. Restorative justice programs aim to take away a purely punitive approach to criminality by providing offenders opportunities in the local community to repair the damage they caused. Missouri’s Department of Corrections leaned into that concept with nearly 20 programs offered to those incarcerated in its 21 facilities.
The men at Boonville can attend school four days a week. For those who prefer to ply a trade, one program gives graduates professional welding certification. When Erceg walked into a room with heavy equipment simulators — wheel loader, bulldozer and excavator — he looked at Emma and said: “Wow.” Even though the dirt they were moving was virtual, the operators wore hard hats and fluorescent vests and worked eight-hour days to prepare them for as smooth of a reentry as possible into life outside of razor-wired walls.
In Boonville’s wood shop, funded by money collected at the prison’s canteen, men make a variety of items — perhaps the most popular are the cornhole boards given to local communities to raise money at auctions. Puppies for Parole, a program that offers dog training certification to those who work on the grounds with rescues, is a welcome sliver of home. On the day Erceg visited, around 30 men were at work-release jobs beyond the walls of Boonville.
“In the last five, six years, the department has changed its focus, and we’re trying to set them up to be successful when they go home,” said Justin Page, the warden at Boonville. “What is that going to do to recidivism? It’s going to take another 10 or 15 years to really see. But I always say: How can it be a bad thing? We give guys tools that they didn’t have before they came here.”
The tour crystallized Erceg’s sense of what he needed to say when he arrived at Hope Chapel. He knows how fortunate he is. Beyond the fame, the money, the privilege that comes with being a Major League Baseball player, he has freedom and agency. Inside him, though, is still the shared pain that fomented so many bad decisions. Since June 10, 2020, he better understands it doesn’t define him — just as their decisions and incarceration don’t define them.
“Dealing with adversity when you’re growing up and in your life — it takes a toll on you mentally, it takes a toll on you physically,” Erceg said. “Addiction is a serious topic, and I don’t think it gets enough reach. So I want to make what I’ve been through relevant in these inmates’ eyes and make them appreciate life for what it is, no matter what the circumstances are.”
DOZENS OF MEN wearing standard-issue gray uniforms filed into Hope Chapel around lunchtime June 9 and filled the wooden pews. The roof above them was made of tin and tattered, the walls to their sides bright with stained glass and the scene in front of them welcoming: McCormack, their friendly faced pastor, sitting with Erceg, who was trying to hide the nerves surging inside of him. Emma chuckled. Over the winter, Erceg had done a smaller-scale version of this, talking with a group of local children who had been in trouble.
“He was red as a freaking tomato, all nervous,” Emma said. “He can pitch in front of 40,000 people with bases loaded and not break a sweat. But public speaking is difficult.”
Erceg hid it well. He smiled as McCormack ran a short video explaining who Erceg was. He looked comfortable in front of a microphone, his legs crossed, his posture at ease. More than anything, he recognized that he was doing exactly what Emma encouraged him to: giving a little bit of himself, being vulnerable to those whose state in life made them inherently even more so.
“Before we even get started, I just want to tell you this: Thank you for taking the time out of your day to listen to what I have to say,” Erceg said. “At the end of the day, I only have one goal in mind being here, and that’s just to connect with you guys. I don’t want to make it seem like I’m here to talk at you. I want to make sure that you guys understand that this means a lot to me.”
He delved into his background: the tough upbringing, the successes in spite of it, the failures because of it. The value in talking, as uncomfortable as it might be. The need for support, whether it’s from family, friends, community, religion, work — wherever it can be found. And the ultimate realization that previous decisions do not foretell future ones.
“I know that if I take a drink, all that hard work that I put in the last five years would go out the window and I’d have to restart,” he said. “So it’s almost like for me personally, I’m challenging myself every day to maintain, maintain that slow little step. I mean, five years down the line, I’ve walked a hundred miles. But I know I’ve got a thousand more to go.”
In the back of the chapel sat Alex Luttrell, 38, who in September 2022 drove drunk, passed cars on the wrong side of the road and caused a head-on collision with 25-year-old Steven Stafford, who died in the wreck. Luttrell pleaded guilty to DWI causing death of another and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Since arriving at Boonville, he said, he had sobered up and worked to mend his relationship with his wife and three children.
Through an empowering dads program Boonville offers, Luttrell gets to spend time with his family once a month. He tells them about his work with Puppies for Parole: He trains dogs for Retrieving Freedom, an organization that places dogs with veterans in need of service animals and children with autism who require emotional support.
“When he was being asked what made him finally say, ‘That’s enough. I’ve had enough.’ — I think I related to that the most,” Luttrell said. “For me, it was years and years and years I was drinking. You’re in denial. You don’t want to believe you got a problem. I thought I could stop at any time.”
That shared feeling brought Erceg to Boonville and guides him elsewhere. Earlier this season, he spent a day at Triple-A Omaha on a rehabilitation assignment. Inside the clubhouse, he said, teammates mandated a quick icebreaker. He could sing a song, do a goofy dance, tell them something they might not know about him.
“I made the decision to say something interesting about myself,” Erceg said, “and I immediately just shared, ‘Hey, I’m about to be five years sober. Please, if you guys want to come to me anonymously and share your story with me, I’m more than willing to help and just talk you through some things. It’s a scary road to go down, but I promise it looks good on the other side. Like I said, I’m living proof.’
“And immediately one of my teammates came up to me. He shared with me that he was working on three months of sobriety. I just gave him a big hug and told him, ‘Thank you for sharing.’ And that’s something that means …”
Erceg paused to compose himself.
“That’s something that means a lot to me because …”
He stopped again. Tears welled in his eyes.
“I know how scared he was to tell me that,” Erceg said. “And he still told me, and that s— fired me up, dude.”
All of Hope Chapel broke into applause.
“I know it meant a lot to him,” Erceg continued. “And selfishly, it meant way more to me. I never thought I would be in that situation because the way I’ve grown up thinking about myself and all that stuff, but to have him do that was truly special. And I hope you all get to experience that too, because like I said, it’s special and you don’t really understand how much it means to you until you’re in the right spot to understand that.”
Emma jokes with Erceg that he is almost too positive, relentlessly so, but really it’s just a rebalancing. All the years of sadness that drove him to drink excessively warrant a cosmic equalization. Erceg likes to say that the day he stopped drinking, his life went from black and white to color. His day at Boonville felt like the whole Pantone spectrum, filled with shades he didn’t know existed.
Erceg wrapped the session by offering to let those at Boonville pick his entrance music — “I ain’t doing NSYNC, though,” he said, drawing laughs from the attendees who soon thereafter lined up to shake Erceg’s hand and thank him. For the insight, and for the honesty, and for caring about people most of society forgets.
As he walked toward the exit, Luttrell, standing with the black lab he was training, waved goodbye. McCormack and the rest of the staff thanked Erceg and Emma for their time. They jumped into their car and went into immediate debrief mode.
“I don’t like giving myself credit,” Erceg said, “but I just kept thinking like, ‘Hey, you did a really good thing.’ And that’s something that was important and it stuck out to me because I don’t think we as humans give ourselves enough credit.”
It’s something Erceg is trying to do more. Every time he cracks a bottle of sparkling water instead of a bottle of booze: That’s a win. Every time he’s feeling down and speaks to a therapist instead of turning to alcohol: That’s a win. Every time he plays Fortnite without needing a swig from a can of beer: That’s a win. They pile up, day after day, and help him believe he is going to be the sort of parent his never were when his and Emma’s first child, due Dec. 28, arrives.
Whenever the doubts creep in, Erceg knows all he needs to do is look down at his glove to validate just how strong he is. The stitching above his thumb is there as a reminder:
“6/10/2020,” it says. The day his life forever changed — and set him on the course to change others’.
Go to SAMHSA.gov or call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at (800) 662-HELP [4357] or TTY (800) 487-4889.
AVONDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Larson knew he wasn’t going to catch Denny Hamlin in the final laps on Sunday, not without the sort of help that only a caution flag can bring.
Larson got his lucky break.
Hamlin only got heartbreak.
Larson is now a two-time NASCAR champion after denying Hamlin what would have been his first career title when a late caution at Phoenix Raceway sent the championship-deciding finale into overtime.
Without that caution, which came with three laps to run, Hamlin had it locked up and was ready to finally shed the label of greatest NASCAR driver to never win a championship. But fellow title contender William Byron got a flat tire and hit the wall to bring out the caution, and a few minutes later, it was over.
“Just unbelievable,” Larson said. “I cannot believe it.”
Neither could Hamlin.
“I really don’t have much for emotion right now. Just numb about it ’cause just in shock,” Hamlin said after consoling his crying daughters on pit road. “We were 40 seconds away from a championship. This sport can drive you absolutely crazy because sometimes speed, talent, none of that matters.”
When the caution for Byron came out, Hamlin led the field down pit road and got four new tires on his Toyota; Larson only took two tires on his Chevrolet. It meant Larson was fifth for the two-lap sprint to the finish, with Hamlin back in 10th.
With so little time to run down Larson, Hamlin came up short with a sixth-place finish as Larson finished third. Ryan Blaney, who was eliminated from title contention last week, won the race.
“You do have to feel for that group and Denny. Doing a good job all day, it not playing out for him. But that is racing. It sucks sometimes,” Blaney said. “They can hang their head about it, but they should be very proud about the effort. They had the fastest race car here. Just one of those things where it doesn’t work out. Looked like it was going into his favor, unfortunately for him, it didn’t.”
It is the second championship for Larson, who won his first title in 2021 when he joined Hendrick Motorsports.
As Larson celebrated, Hamlin sat in his car motionless for several seconds, then wiped his face with a white towel, never showing any emotion.
Larson, who has been in a slump since his disastrous Memorial Day attempt to race both the Indianapolis 500 and Coca-Cola 600 on the same day, was also in shock.
“We didn’t lead a lap and won the championship,” Larson said. “We had an average car at best and had the right front [tire] go down, lost a lap and got the wave around, saved by the caution with the wave around. It’s just unbelievable. What a year by this motorsports team.”
When Hamlin finally got out of his car he embraced his crew members but it was a scene of disbelief among the Joe Gibbs Racing crowd. Team members were crying, some sitting in shock on the pavement; Gibbs himself stood silent, one hand on his hip and a look of disbelief on his face.
It is the sixth shot at a title to slip away from Hamlin in his 20 years driving for Gibbs. He led 208 of the 319 laps and started from the pole.
“Nothing I could do different. I mean, prepared as good as I could coming into the weekend and my team gave me a fantastic car,” Hamlin said. “Just didn’t work out. I was just praying ‘no caution’ and we had one there. What can you do? It’s just not meant to be.”
He said crew chief Chris Gayle made the correct call with four tires, but too many others took only two, which created too big of a gap for Hamlin to close on Larson in so little time.
The 44-year-old Virginia native had been extremely jinxed in five previous championship finales, with bad luck, bad strategy and bad cars breaking his heart in 2010, 2014, 2019, 2020 and 2021. Sunday was his first time eligible in the winner-take-all race in four seasons.
Hamlin was remarkably loose and calm all week, rented three houses in Scottsdale for 30 friends and family, won the pole and then dominated Sunday’s race.
He just didn’t close it out.
“Man, if you can’t win that one, I don’t know which one you can win,” Hamlin said.
Larson was OK during the race, but hasn’t won since early May, a slump that has now extended to 24 consecutive races.
Hamlin teammate Chase Briscoe finished 18th in his debut in the championship finale, while Larson teammate Byron was 33rd after his late issue. He felt awful for ruining Hamlin’s chance even though his Hendrick Motorsports teammate won the championship.
“I’m just super bummed that it was a caution obviously. I hate that. Hate it for Denny. I hate it for the 11 team,” Byron said. “I mean, Denny was on his way to it. I hate that. There’s a lot of respect there. I obviously do not want to cause a caution. If I had known what tire it was, known that a tire was going down before I got to the corner, I would have done something different.”
-
Kyle Bonagura
Close
Kyle Bonagura
ESPN Staff Writer
- Covers college football.
- Joined ESPN in 2014.
- Attended Washington State University.
-
Mark Schlabach
Close
Mark Schlabach
ESPN Senior Writer
- Senior college football writer
- Author of seven books on college football
- Graduate of the University of Georgia
While there was stability at the very top of the college football hierarchy in Week 10 — with Ohio State and Indiana rolling to big wins — there were plenty of surprises and consequential results further down the pecking order.
The biggest shockwaves came in the ACC, where Georgia Tech suffered its first loss of the season, Miami lost for the second week in a row and Virginia emerged in sole possession of first place. If the Cavaliers can hold on and win the ACC championship, they would be a most unlikely participant in the College Football Playoff.
As with last season’s inaugural 12-team CFP, the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams, will make the field. Unlike last year, the four highest-ranked teams (not necessarily conference champions) will be awarded first-round byes. The other eight teams will meet in first-round games at the campus sites of seeds Nos. 5 through 8.
From there, the quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in what had been the New Year’s Six bowls, with the national championship game scheduled for Jan. 19 at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
All of that is just the tip of the iceberg, though. Apart from the playoff is the 35-game slate of bowl games, beginning with the Cricket Celebration Bowl on Dec. 13.
We’re here for all of it.
ESPN bowl gurus Kyle Bonagura and Mark Schlabach are projecting every postseason matchup, including their breakdowns of how the playoff will play out, and we’ll be back every week of the season until the actual matchups are set.
Jump to a section:
Playoff picks | Quarterfinals
Semis, title game | Bowl season
College Football Playoff
First-round games (at campus sites)
Friday, Dec. 19/Saturday, Dec. 20
Times and networks TBD.
Bonagura: No. 12 North Texas at No. 5 Oregon
Schlabach: No. 12 Memphis at No. 5 Georgia
Bonagura: No. 11 Virginia at No. 6 Georgia
Schlabach: No. 11 Virginia at No. 6 Ole Miss
Bonagura: No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7 Ole Miss
Schlabach: No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7 Oregon
Bonagura: No. 9 Texas Tech at No. 8 BYU
Schlabach: No. 9 Texas Tech at No. 8 BYU
First-round breakdown
Bonagura: North Texas to the playoffs? Sure, why not? After ending Navy’s undefeated season Saturday, the Mean Green are positioned as well as anyone else to win the American, which will likely result in a playoff spot. You can drum up a scenario where San Diego State gets picked from the Mountain West, but the American champion is in the driver’s seat. And picking from the league’s pool of options is tough: Navy, Memphis, North Texas, Tulane, South Florida and East Carolina all have just one conference loss. The Mean Green have been the most impressive over the past three weeks.
Georgia Tech’s loss to NC State means the ACC no longer has an undefeated team, which stands as another indicator the ACC will be a one-bid league. Is that team Virginia? The Cavaliers’ only loss of the season also came against NC State, but that was classified as a nonconference game, so they’re still undefeated in league play. Regardless, it’s hard to be optimistic about the chances any ACC team will win a first-round game.
Schlabach: It was another unpredictable Saturday in college football with three teams in the AP Top 10 falling. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of chaos over the final month of the regular season, too.
Vanderbilt’s dream season hit a road bump at Texas, as Longhorns quarterback Arch Manning threw for 328 yards with three touchdowns in a 34-31 victory. The Longhorns have won four in a row after most of us left them for dead. They’ll play at Georgia in two weeks, followed by home games against Arkansas and Texas A&M.
Georgia Tech suffered its first loss of the season in an ugly 48-36 defeat at NC State. The Wolfpack had 583 yards of offense, including 243 rushing, as Tech’s defense had no answers. The Yellow Jackets will play surging Pittsburgh and rival Georgia in their final two games, so they’ll have to get things fixed quickly.
Georgia Tech, Miami, Vanderbilt and Navy all fell out of my 12-team bracket. I replaced them with Texas Tech, Notre Dame, Virginia and Memphis.
CFP quarterfinals
Wednesday, Dec. 31
CFP quarterfinal at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic
AT&T Stadium (Arlington, Texas)
7:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 7 Ole Miss vs. No. 2 Indiana
Schlabach: No. 5 Georgia vs. No. 4 Alabama
Thursday, Jan. 1
CFP quarterfinal at the Capital One Orange Bowl
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)
Noon, ESPN
Bonagura: No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 4 Alabama
Schlabach: No. 7 Oregon vs. No. 2 Indiana
CFP quarterfinal at the Rose Bowl Game presented by Prudential
Rose Bowl (Pasadena, California)
4 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 8 BYU vs. No. 1 Ohio State
Schlabach: No. 9 Texas Tech vs. No. 1 Ohio State
CFP quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl
Caesars Superdome (New Orleans)
8 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 6 Georgia vs. No. 3 Texas A&M
Schlabach: No. 6 Ole Miss vs. No. 3 Texas A&M
Quarterfinals breakdown
Bonagura: Half of this week’s projected quarterfinal field — Texas A&M, Alabama, Oregon and BYU — was off this weekend in what felt like a quiet one for college football. The only change for me here from last week is that Georgia Tech is gone, with BYU in its place. The Cougars travel to Texas Tech this week in what might be the most consequential conference game outside the SEC and Big Ten the rest of the way.
BYU is following a similar script to last season, when it started 8-0, only to lose twice late in the year and miss out on a trip to the Big 12 title game. Things are tight again in the Big 12, so this is as close as it gets to a must-win game for both teams.
Schlabach: My quarterfinal matchups largely remained unchanged from a week ago, although Texas Tech replaced Georgia Tech in one of the games.
The CFP selection committee members wouldn’t admit it, but hopefully they’ll tweak the final rankings to avoid the intraconference matchups in my bracket. There are all-SEC matchups in the Cotton Bowl and Sugar Bowl, and an all-Big Ten contest in the Orange Bowl.
Texas Tech and BYU are in the driver’s seat for a Big 12 title, and I’m not sure the unbeaten Cougars are getting enough love nationally. They’ve already beaten Utah and Iowa State, and they’ll have a chance to make an emphatic statement when they play the Red Raiders on Saturday.
CFP semifinals, national championship game
Thursday, Jan. 8
CFP semifinal at the Vrbo Fiesta Bowl
State Farm Stadium (Glendale, Arizona)
7:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 1 Ohio State
Schlabach: No. 4 Alabama vs. No. 1 Ohio State
Friday, Jan. 9
CFP semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
7:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 3 Texas A&M vs. No. 2 Indiana
Schlabach: No. 3 Texas A&M vs. No. 2 Indiana
Monday, Jan. 19
CFP national championship
Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, Florida)
7:45 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: No. 2 Indiana vs. No. 1 Ohio State
Schlabach: No. 2 Indiana vs. No. 1 Ohio State
National championship breakdown
Bonagura: With Ohio State and Indiana both winning decisively, there is no reason to revisit the title game projection. They continue to look like the two best teams in college football and haven’t showed any signs of slowing down.
Schlabach: Ohio State and Indiana continued to roll this week. The Buckeyes got off to a slow start before dismantling Penn State 38-14. The Buckeyes will be heavy favorites in their next three games — a road trip to Purdue and home contests against UCLA and Rutgers — before closing the regular season at rival Michigan in the Big House on Nov. 29.
Indiana also got off to a slow start before routing Maryland 55-10 on the road. Indiana has won its past three games against Michigan State, UCLA and Maryland by a combined 120 points. It doesn’t figure to get much more difficult over the Hoosiers’ final three games against struggling Penn State (road), Wisconsin (home) and Purdue (road).
Complete bowl season schedule
Saturday, Dec. 13
Cricket Celebration Bowl
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (Atlanta)
Noon, ABC
Bonagura: Jackson State vs. Delaware State
Schlabach: Jackson State vs. Delaware State
LA Bowl
SoFi Stadium (Inglewood, California)
9 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Arizona vs. San Diego State
Schlabach: Arizona vs. San Diego State
Tuesday, Dec. 16
IS4S Salute to Veterans Bowl
Cramton Bowl (Montgomery, Alabama)
9 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Louisiana Tech vs. East Carolina
Schlabach: Jacksonville State vs. Coastal Carolina
Wednesday, Dec. 17
StaffDNA Cure Bowl
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
5 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Buffalo vs. Jacksonville State
Schlabach: Buffalo vs. Old Dominion
68 Ventures Bowl
Hancock Whitney Stadium (Mobile, Alabama)
8:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Arkansas State vs. Western Michigan
Schlabach: Liberty vs. Central Michigan
Friday, Dec. 19
Myrtle Beach Bowl
Brooks Stadium (Conway, South Carolina)
Noon, ESPN
Bonagura: UCF vs. Marshall
Schlabach: East Carolina vs. James Madison
Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
3:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: South Florida vs. Florida State
Schlabach: UConn vs. Florida State
Monday, Dec. 22
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl
Albertsons Stadium (Boise, Idaho)
2 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Toledo vs. UNLV
Schlabach: Ohio vs. UNLV
Tuesday, Dec. 23
Boca Raton Bowl
Flagler Credit Union Stadium (Boca Raton, Florida)
2 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Southern Miss vs. Coastal Carolina
Schlabach: Temple vs. Miami (Ohio)
New Orleans Bowl
Caesars Superdome (New Orleans)
5:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Western Kentucky vs. Old Dominion
Schlabach: Western Kentucky vs. Southern Miss
Scooter’s Coffee Frisco Bowl
Ford Center at The Star (Frisco, Texas)
9 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: UTSA vs. Hawai’i
Schlabach: North Texas vs. Louisiana Tech
Wednesday, Dec. 24
Sheraton Hawai’i Bowl
Clarence T.C. Ching Athletics Complex (Honolulu)
8 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Boise State vs. California
Schlabach: Hawai’i vs. Tulane
Friday, Dec. 26
GameAbove Sports Bowl
Ford Field (Detroit)
1 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Maryland vs. Ohio
Schlabach: Maryland vs. Western Michigan
Rate Bowl
Chase Field (Phoenix)
4:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Baylor vs. Northwestern
Schlabach: Baylor vs. Northwestern
SERVPRO First Responder Bowl
Gerald J. Ford Stadium (Dallas)
8 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Temple vs. Troy
Schlabach: Boise State vs. Iowa State
Saturday, Dec. 27
Go Bowling Military Bowl
Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium (Annapolis, Maryland)
11 a.m., ESPN
Bonagura: NC State vs. Tulane
Schlabach: Wake Forest vs. Navy
Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl
Yankee Stadium (Bronx, New York)
Noon, ABC
Bonagura: Pittsburgh vs. Minnesota
Schlabach: SMU vs. Minnesota
Wasabi Fenway Bowl
Fenway Park (Boston)
2:15 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Wake Forest vs. Army
Schlabach: NC State vs. South Florida
Pop-Tarts Bowl
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
3:30 p.m., ABC
Bonagura: Miami vs. Cincinnati
Schlabach: Georgia Tech vs. Cincinnati
Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl
Arizona Stadium (Tucson, Arizona)
4:30 p.m., CW Network
Bonagura: Miami (Ohio) vs. Fresno State
Schlabach: Toledo vs. Fresno State
Isleta New Mexico Bowl
University Stadium (Albuquerque, New Mexico)
5:45 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: New Mexico vs. Washington State
Schlabach: New Mexico vs. Washington State
TaxSlayer Gator Bowl
EverBank Stadium (Jacksonville, Florida)
7:30 p.m. ABC
Bonagura: Louisville vs. LSU
Schlabach: Louisville vs. Vanderbilt
Kinder’s Texas Bowl
NRG Stadium (Houston)
9:15 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: TCU vs. Oklahoma
Schlabach: Houston vs. Oklahoma
Monday, Dec. 29
JLab Birmingham Bowl
Protective Stadium (Birmingham, Alabama)
2 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Memphis vs. James Madison
Schlabach: Troy vs. UTSA
Tuesday, Dec. 30
Radiance Technologies Independence Bowl
Independence Stadium (Shreveport, Louisiana)
2 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Kansas State vs. Kennesaw State
Schlabach: Kansas State vs. Kennesaw State
Music City Bowl
Nissan Stadium (Nashville, Tennessee)
5:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Nebraska vs. Missouri
Schlabach: Illinois vs. LSU
Valero Alamo Bowl
Alamodome (San Antonio)
9 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Houston vs. Washington
Schlabach: Utah vs. USC
Wednesday, Dec. 31
ReliaQuest Bowl
Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Florida)
Noon, ESPN
Bonagura: Illinois vs. Vanderbilt
Schlabach: Iowa vs. Tennessee
Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl
Sun Bowl Stadium (El Paso, Texas)
2 p.m., CBS
Bonagura: Duke vs. Arizona State
Schlabach: Pittsburgh vs. Arizona State
Cheez-It Citrus Bowl
Camping World Stadium (Orlando, Florida)
3 p.m., ABC
Bonagura: Michigan vs. Texas
Schlabach: Michigan vs. Texas
SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl
Allegiant Stadium (Las Vegas)
3:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Iowa vs. Utah
Schlabach: Nebraska vs. California
Friday, Jan. 2
Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl
Amon G. Carter Stadium (Fort Worth, Texas)
1 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Kansas vs. Navy
Schlabach: Kansas vs. Army
AutoZone Liberty Bowl
Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium (Memphis, Tennessee)
4:30 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: Iowa State vs. Auburn
Schlabach: TCU vs. Mississippi State
Duke’s Mayo Bowl
Bank of America Stadium (Charlotte, North Carolina)
8 p.m., ESPN
Bonagura: SMU vs. Tennessee
Schlabach: Duke vs. Missouri
Holiday Bowl
Snapdragon Stadium (San Diego)
8 p.m., Fox
Bonagura: Georgia Tech vs. USC
Schlabach: Miami vs. Washington
-
Bill Connelly
Two top-10 teams fell on the road to unranked opponents. A third fell to a lower-ranked team. No. 5 Georgia flirted with disaster, as always, and just because nothing is allowed to make total sense in the ACC, No. 15 Virginia and No. 16 Louisville also thought hard about face-planting before rallying.
Week 10 didn’t give us quite as many absolute disasters as it could have, and the damage was mostly contained to the increasingly chaotic ACC. And with two-thirds of the 2025 college football season done, we now shift into Playoff Hyperdrive.
Let’s look back on Week 10 with help from the construct I used for the Week 10 preview: Playoff Tiers.
Updated playoff tiers
The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season come out Tuesday, and using a combination of the Allstate Playoff Predictor and odds driven by my SP+ rankings, we can pretty easily bunch teams into groups of playoff likelihood. The tiers didn’t change all that much this weekend, though conveniently, each team that lost fell into the tier below.
Tier 1
Indiana (9-0, 99.5% average playoff odds) — def. Maryland 55-10 Saturday
Ohio State (8-0, 99.3%) — def. Penn State 38-14
Texas A&M (8-0, 95.7%)
With A&M off and Indiana and Ohio State winning by a combined 93-24, nothing changed here. These are the three most likely teams to make the CFP, and while the playoff committee could overthink and try to talk itself into ranking Alabama ahead of A&M or something because of ranked wins, the Aggies deserve the edge to me, both because of their road win over Tier 3’s Notre Dame and the extremely important fact that they didn’t lose to a 4-4 Florida State team like the Tide did.
Tier 2
Ole Miss (8-1, 83.6%) — def. South Carolina 30-14
Oregon (7-1, 75.6%)
Alabama (7-1, 74.0%)
BYU (8-0, 69.3%)
Texas Tech (8-1, 68.5%) — def. Kansas State 43-20
Georgia (7-1, 54.1%) — def. Florida 24-20
With Georgia Tech’s loss to NC State on Saturday, the Yellow Jackets dropped from Tier 2 to Tier 3, but with a surprisingly comfortable road win over a smoking hot Kansas State, Texas Tech jumped from Tier 3 to 2. I’m curious how the CFP committee might view the Red Raiders, a team with eight wins by at least 23 points and a lone loss coming without starting quarterback Behren Morton. Their strength-of-schedule numbers aren’t very good, but they ace the eye test, and if “best” is supposed to matter over “most deserving,” well, they’re fourth in SP+.
Georgia, meanwhile, is uninterested in passing “eye tests.” The Bulldogs once again painted themselves into a corner, this time spotting rival Florida a 20-17 lead and letting them drive into field goal range midway through the fourth quarter. But they rallied once again, stuffing Jadan Baugh on fourth-and-1, immediately driving for a touchdown, then forcing a four-and-out and winning the game. They look impressive for about one quarter per game, but they’re 7-1 with a Tier 2 win over Ole Miss and a lone loss to Tier 2 Bama. The road still features games against Texas and Georgia Tech, however.
Tier 3
Notre Dame (6-2, 41.1%) — def. Boston College 25-10
Virginia (8-1, 37.6%) — def. California 31-21
Louisville (7-1, 37.1%) — def. Virginia Tech 28-16
Texas (7-2, 33.5%) — def. Vanderbilt 34-31
Georgia Tech (8-1, 30.2%) — lost to NC State 48-36
Tier 3 is evidently the transition tier. Of last week’s four Tier 3 teams, one moved up with a win (Texas Tech), and two moved down with losses (Miami, Vanderbilt). Meanwhile, it caught Georgia Tech on the way down and Texas on the way up. And with all the other chaos in the ACC, two one-loss teams that won as favorites Saturday (Virginia and Louisville) saw their conference title odds rise by solid amounts. They also moved up from Tier 4.
Tier 4
Oklahoma (7-2, 27.0%) — def. Tennessee 33-27
Vanderbilt (7-2, 26.8%) — lost to Texas 34-31
Utah (7-2, 24.2%) — def. Cincinnati 45-14
Miami (6-2, 17.9%) — lost to SMU 26-20
USC (6-2, 14.0%) — def. Nebraska 21-17
Washington (6-2, 13.6%)
Missouri (6-2, 10.7%)
Michigan (7-2, 10.5%) — def. Purdue 21-16
Pitt (7-2, 6.9%) — def. Stanford 35-20
Duke (5-3, 6.4%) — def. Clemson 46-45
Iowa (6-2, 6.0%)
SMU (6-3, 5.7%) — def. Miami 26-20
Oklahoma and Vanderbilt both have decent enough odds that I could have slipped them into Tier 3, but since they’ve both lost to Tier 3 Texas, and head-to-head matchups between two-loss SEC teams could matter a lot, we’ll go ahead and put them here. At this point, Tier 4 is a mix of two-loss Big Ten and SEC teams (OU, Vandy, USC, Washington, Mizzou, Michigan, Iowa), two-loss Big 12 and ACC teams that either have impressive wins (Miami) or are simply smoking hot (Utah, Pitt) and three-loss ACC teams that still have a puncher’s chance at the conference title (Duke, SMU).
Tier (Group of) 5
James Madison (7-1, 27.7%) — def. Texas State 52-20
North Texas (8-1, 26.4%) — def. Navy 31-17
Memphis (8-1, 15.9%) — def. Rice 38-14
USF (6-2, 13.9%)
San Diego State (7-1, 8.9%) — def. Wyoming 24-7
There’s still a scenario in which, say, SMU wins the ACC at 10-3 but ranks behind a pair of one-loss Group of 5 champions, and the G5 ends up with multiple bids. That said, one G5 bid is still far and away the most likely scenario, and that race remains awfully interesting. JMU impressed enough in San Marcos last Tuesday that the Dukes jumped from 50th to 36th in SP+. They aren’t going to finish with a great résumé — their most impressive performance was a loss to Louisville in which they were tied in the fourth quarter before a fumble recovery touchdown put them behind — but they look the part enough that they should feel good about their chances if they finish 12-1 to win the Sun Belt, and the American Conference champ is 11-2.
Still, it’s clear the American winner, whoever it ends up being, is most likely to score the bid even if JMU’s odds are better than any single team.
What Tuesday’s rankings should look like
For the past couple of years, I’ve been fiddling with what amounts to a BCS-ish formula, derived half from the AP poll and half from a combination of both computer power ratings (SP+ and FPI) and computer résumé ratings (Résumé SP+ and Strength of Record). With a few exceptions — Alabama over Florida State in 2023, SMU over Alabama in 2024 — it tends to adhere pretty closely to what the committee ends up deciding.
Tuesday’s rankings will be the first since the CFP committee began using “enhanced metrics to help evaluate schedule strength,” however. What does that mean in practice? I have no idea. So in anticipation of Tuesday’s release, let’s look at four rankings for the teams most likely to be ranked by the committee: 1) their AP poll ranking; 2) their ranking in this BCS-ish formula; 3) their Strength of Record ranking and 4) their Résumé SP+ ranking.
This obviously adheres pretty closely to the tiers above, but it gives us a good idea of what to look for Tuesday night. If the committee really is taking strength of schedule or strength of record further into account — and for the record, I really don’t think it needed to — then we might expect teams that are more well regarded by the computers to win some arguments. Texas A&M would definitely rank ahead of Alabama in this case, and BYU might rank higher as well. Also, two-loss Texas and Vanderbilt would likely trump one-loss Louisville and Georgia Tech.
All in all, I think the top 11 on Tuesday should end up looking almost identical to the AP poll, while the spots from No. 12 to No. 21 could end up in pretty much any order.
A hypothetical playoff simulation, because why not?
Based on where teams are most likely to rank this week (via the BCS-ish rankings above) and which teams are currently most likely to win their conferences (per SP+), here’s what I’m going to call Week 11’s playoff bracket.
9 Texas Tech at 8 BYU
Winner plays 1 Ohio State
12 North Texas at 5 Georgia
Winner plays 4 Alabama
11 Louisville at 6 Oregon
Winner plays 3 Texas A&M
10 Notre Dame at 7 Ole Miss
Winner plays 2 Indiana
We’ll see a shakeup following Week 11’s Texas Tech-BYU battle in Lubbock, but for now, this gives us Notre Dame’s first-ever trip to Oxford, a potential playoff rematch between Indiana and Notre Dame in the quarterfinals and another Alabama-Georgia playoff game (this time in the quarterfinals). Based on current SP+ rankings, it would also give us these national title odds based on 10,000 simulations:
Hypothetical title odds based on the above bracket:
1-seed Ohio State 30.6%
2-seed Indiana 28.2%
6-seed Oregon 12.4%
3-seed Texas A&M 7.4%
4-seed Alabama 6.8%
9-seed Texas Tech 5.6%
5-seed Georgia 3.0%
10-seed Notre Dame 2.4%
7-seed Ole Miss 1.7%
8-seed BYU 1.1%
11-seed Louisville 0.4%
12-seed North Texas 0.2%
And because odds alone aren’t very satisfying, I grabbed a random simulation from the batch of 10,000. Here’s what’s officially going to happen this postseason. You can stop watching now.
(Please don’t stop watching.)
FIRST ROUND
Texas Tech over BYU in Provo
Georgia over North Texas in Athens
Oregon over Louisville in Eugene
Notre Dame over Ole Miss in Oxford
QUARTERFINALS
Rose Bowl: Texas Tech over Ohio State
Sugar Bowl: Alabama over Georgia
Cotton Bowl: Texas A&M over Oregon
Orange Bowl: Indiana over Notre Dame
SEMIFINALS
Peach Bowl: Alabama over Texas Tech
Fiesta Bowl: Indiana over Texas A&M
FINALS
Indiana over Alabama in Miami
If you Google Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, as he told you to a couple of years ago, it might soon tell you that he’s a national title-winning head coach.
5 other random thoughts from Week 10
Damn, Mario. By Mario Cristobal’s standards, his late-game management against SMU wasn’t a crime against humanity or anything, but after SMU tied the game with 25 seconds left, Miami got the ball back with a timeout in hand and a quarterback Cristobal paid loads of money for … and the Hurricanes kneeled out the clock to go to overtime. Granted, Carson Beck’s dreadful overtime interception, which set up SMU’s winning touchdown, certainly didn’t help his cause, but it doesn’t matter how much money you shell out if you’re still going to play by “Three things can happen when you pass, and two are bad” rules in the 2020s.
But since Cristobal took over at Miami in 2022, his Hurricanes have lost five games as double-digit favorites; only Alabama can match that total, and (A) Bama has been a double-digit favorite 50% more often and (B) three of the Tide’s five such losses came in a small cluster of games last season. Cristobal has lost at least one such game each year that he’s been in charge. Death, taxes and Miami suffering a catastrophic loss it should have put away.
Holy (whistle) smokes (whistle), Arkansas (whistle). Generally speaking, penalties and penalty yards don’t correlate to wins and losses as much as you might think. Committing a lot of penalties can often signify that you’re properly pushing the limits from an aggressiveness standpoint, and of the 66 teams to have suffered more than 100 penalty yards in a game this season, 38 ended up winning the game.
It’s nice to know there are limits, however. Arkansas committed 18 penalties for 193 yards against Mississippi State on Saturday, the third most for any FBS team in any game over the last 10 seasons. Only Kansas (216 yards in a win over UNLV in 2023) and Northern Illinois (194 in a win over Eastern Illinois in 2017) can top that number. But while those teams still managed to win, Arkansas’ discipline ran out late. Mississippi State scored 17 points in the game’s final 11 minutes to overcome a 14-point deficit and win 38-35. If Sam Pittman hadn’t already been fired, he probably would be now. (And it probably goes without saying that interim coach Bobby Petrino hasn’t shined enough to justify hiring him full time, though I’m sure you can still find an Arkansas booster advocating for it.)
So many close SEC games. We can question whether the SEC has a team the caliber of Ohio State or Indiana this season, but we cannot question its commitment to competitiveness. The league featured six games Saturday, five were decided by one score — including both of its ranked-versus-ranked encounters — and the sixth was within one score with 12 minutes left. For the season, the league has had 43 conference games to date, with 26 decided by one touchdown or less. It’s been close enough overall that Arkansas somehow (A) ranks first in the league in points per drive in conference play and (B) is 0-5 in conference play.
Close games will define the rest of November, too. Texas A&M (5-0 in SEC play) has two road games with a projected margin of less than two points, and despite being pretty close to the finish line the Aggies have higher odds of losing two or more in November (27%) than reaching 12-0 (25%).
Alabama (5-0) has three conference games remaining, and all three are projected within single digits, two within one score. SP+ gives the Tide only a 25% chance of winning its four remaining games, with 26% odds of losing at least twice.
Georgia’s odds, meanwhile, are almost identical — the Bulldogs (5-1) have two projected one-score SEC games remaining (at Mississippi State, Texas), plus a one-score visit to Georgia Tech. The result: a 25% chance of winning out and a 30% chance of losing at least twice.
Texas (4-1) actually looked the part for most of Saturday’s win over Vanderbilt, but the Longhorns are projected underdogs in two of three remaining games (at Georgia, Texas A&M), and Arkansas is not a gimme. Odds of winning out: 15%.
Ole Miss (5-1) has the most navigable path of any major conference contender, with only Florida and Mississippi State remaining in SEC play. Odds of winning out: 54%. Then again, the Rebels lost to Florida last year, and the Egg Bowl lives for nonsense.
Colorado looks done done. Over its last two games against Utah and Arizona, Colorado was projected to lose by a combined 23.1 points. The Buffaloes instead lost by 81. Last week’s 53-7 loss to Utah was almost understandable in retrospect (the Utes just walloped Cincinnati, too), but they were equally moribund in Saturday evening’s home loss to Arizona. And based on a weighted average of recent performances (where the most recent game carries more weight), they are officially the team that is underachieving the most against current SP+ projections.
There are plenty of other teams staggering and/or falling at the moment – Syracuse, Penn State, Louisiana-Monroe, Delaware, Maryland, Texas State, Bowling Green – but CU leads the pack. And if the Buffs can’t beat West Virginia in Morgantown this coming weekend, a 3-9 finish begins to look awfully likely. Would that increase the odds of Deion Sanders stepping down at the end of the season?
DeSean Jackson was a spectacular hire. Remember in the offseason, when Norfolk State (Michael Vick) and Delaware State (DeSean Jackson) went the Deion Sanders/Eddie George route and hired celebrated former players as their head coaches? Vick was the bigger headline-grabber – he’s Michael Vick, after all – and he has struggled in year one, as you might expect from a first-time head coach. Norfolk State went 4-8 and finished 101st in FCS SP+ last season; the Spartans are just 1-8 and 115th this season. They have a couple of semi-winnable games left against Morgan State and Howard (they will likely get drubbed by N.C. Central this coming week), but it’s been a year of growing pains.
For Jackson and his Hornets, however, it’s been the exact opposite story. DSU went 1-11 and finished 123rd in SP+ last season, and they haven’t finished higher than 5-6 or 83rd over the past decade. Last Thursday’s win over Vick’s NSU, however, brought them to 6-3 and 54th overall. They’ve already upset N.C. Central, and if they can win a tossup game at home against S.C. State in Week 13, they’ll win their first MEAC title since 2007 and score their first Celebration Bowl bid. It’s looking like Jackson was one of the best hires of last offseason’s coaching carousel.
This week in SP+
The SP+ rankings are updated for the week. Let’s take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We’re looking at ratings, not rankings.)
Moving up
Here are the 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:
Fresno State: up 3.7 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 93rd to 78th)
East Carolina: up 3.4 points (from 61st to 48th)
Florida State: up 3.3 points (from 34th to 24th)
Louisiana Tech: up 3.3 points (from 76th to 67th)
Western Kentucky: up 3.1 points (from 88th to 72nd)
Buffalo: up 2.9 points (from 99th to 87th)
James Madison: up 2.8 points (from 50th to 36th)
Arizona: up 2.8 points (from 43rd to 31st)
UTSA: up 2.7 points (from 70th to 65th)
North Carolina: up 2.5 points (from 98th to 89th)
The ACC’s oddities didn’t stop at the games involving ranked teams. Duke’s win over Clemson was the most statistically unlikely result of the week — Duke somehow won despite a mammoth efficiency disadvantage (success rate: Clemson 58.3%, Duke 37.5%) — and in Tallahassee, Florida State somehow transferred all of its bad vibes to its opponent. Wake Forest collapsed under the weight of its mistakes and the Seminoles’ sudden excellence, and the teams basically traded seven points: FSU moved up 3.3 and, as you’ll see below, Wake moved down 3.7.
Meanwhile, this is the faintest of praise, but since bottoming out at 103rd in SP+ three weeks ago, North Carolina has rallied to 89th, suffering a pair of gut-wrenching losses and finally getting off the schneid with a thumping of quarterback-less Syracuse. The Tar Heels will have to pull at least a pair of upsets to have any hope of bowling, but improvement can be encouraging in and of itself.
Moving down
Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:
Wake Forest: down 3.7 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 56th to 68th)
Cincinnati: down 3.5 points (from 23rd to 32nd)
Maryland: down 3.3 points (from 37th to 51st)
Georgia Tech: down 3.2 points (from 25th to 34th)
Boise State: down 3.0 points (from 47th to 55th)
Colorado: down 3.0 points (from 68th to 82nd)
UCF: down 2.9 points (from 51st to 56th)
Rutgers: down 2.5 points (from 63rd to 69th)
Sam Houston: down 2.4 points (no change from 135th)
South Carolina: down 2.4 points (from 54th to 61st)
Georgia Tech entered Week 10 as the lowest-ranked unbeaten power-conference team by a comfortable margin. After getting pushed around by NC State, the Yellow Jackets are lodged between 4-5 Auburn and James Madison in SP+.
Who won the Heisman this week?
I am once again awarding the Heisman every week of the season and doling out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, 9 for second and so on). How will this Heisman race play out, and how different will the result be from the actual Heisman voting?
Here is this week’s Heisman top 10:
1. Jeff Sims, Arizona State (13-for-24 passing for 177 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT, plus 228 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against Iowa State).
2. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (20-for-23 passing for 316 yards and 4 touchdowns against Penn State).
3. CJ Bailey, NC State (24-for-32 passing for 340 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 41 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Georgia Tech).
4. Jordan Marshall, Michigan (25 carries for 185 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 25 receiving yards against Purdue).
5. Owen McCown, UTSA (31-for-33 passing for 370 yards and 4 touchdowns against Tulane).
6. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (17 carries for 136 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 30 receiving yards against Boston College).
7. Arch Manning, Texas (25-for-33 passing for 328 yards and 3 touchdowns against Vanderbilt).
8. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (25-for-35 passing for 408 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT, plus 113 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against NC State).
9. Darian Mensah, Duke (27-for-41 passing for 361 yards and 4 touchdowns against Clemson).
10. Melkart Abou Jaoude, North Carolina (6 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 2 sacks and 1 forced fumble against Syracuse).
Jeff Sims is the journeyman prototype for the transfer portal era. He has started 28 career games at three schools (Georgia Tech, Nebraska and Arizona State), and in those, he has produced some duds — 10 games with a Total QBR under 30.0, three under 10.0. But he has also thrown for more than 250 yards five times and rushed for 100 or more yards (not including sacks) seven times. And on Saturday in Ames, Iowa, he painted a Sims-ian masterpiece, throwing the ball reasonably well but ripping off an 88-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and nearly doubling his previous career high in rushing.
Sims is quite obviously not a Heisman contender, but one of the reasons I love this Heisman of the Week approach is that we can celebrate when guys like Sims do something beautiful. He even topped nearly perfect performances from Julian Sayin and Owen McCown and a gutsy, hobbled game from CJ Bailey.
Honorable mention:
• Luke Altmyer, Illinois (19-for-31 passing for 235 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT, plus 95 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Rutgers).
• Alonza Barnett III, James Madison (12-for-18 passing for 264 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT, plus 102 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Texas State).
• Tommy Castellanos, Florida State (12-for-16 passing for 271 yards and a touchdown, plus 18 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Wake Forest).
• Evan Dickens, Liberty (22 carries for 217 yards and 4 touchdowns against Delaware).
• Caleb Hawkins, North Texas (33 carries for 197 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 9 receiving yards against Navy).
• Kevin Jennings, SMU (29-for-44 passing for 365 yards and a touchdown, plus a rushing touchdown against Miami).
• Jayden Scott, NC State (24 carries for 196 yards and a touchdown, plus 11 receiving yards against Georgia Tech).
• Danny Scudero, San Jose State (7 catches for 215 yards and 2 touchdowns against Hawai’i).
Through 10 weeks, here are your points leaders. I’ve bolded the guys who are also in the top 12 in the current Heisman betting odds.
1. Ty Simpson, Alabama (29 points)
2. Taylen Green, Arkansas (27)
3T. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (25)
3T. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (25)
5. Demond Williams Jr., Washington (21)
6T. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (19)
6T. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (19)
8. Luke Altmyer, Illinois (16)
9. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (14)
10T. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (13)
10T. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (13)
We might be approaching a “Winner takes the No. 1 seed, winning QB takes the Heisman” game between Sayin’s Ohio State — the current Heisman betting favorite, per ESPN BET — and Mendoza’s Indiana in the Big Ten championship game in four weeks. Simpson, Chambliss and Stockton still have clear paths to impress, however, and with Love shifting into fifth gear over the past two games (a combined 41 carries for 364 yards) he might catch voters’ eyes if he keeps ripping off 94-yard touchdown runs.
My 10 favorite games of the weekend
1 and 2. SMU 26, No. 10 Miami 20 (OT) and Duke 46, Clemson 45. Obviously, Miami was the main character in Saturday’s loss, but what a performance by SMU. Kevin Jennings nearly landed on the Heisman of the Week list with 365 yards, a TD pass and a TD run, and the Mustangs’ defense, much improved of late, allowed just one gain of more than 25 yards, forced Miami to go the length of the field and pounced on mistakes. A great performance in a frustrating season.
Meanwhile, because Manny Diaz is a soccer fan, I can confidently say he’ll know what I mean when I say Duke pulled an absolute smash-and-grab in Death Valley, overcoming a massive efficiency disadvantage with a kick return score and not only a 5-for-5 performance on fourth down but 29 points scored after a fourth-down conversion. The Blue Devils remain in the ACC title race, and Clemson has only about a 39% chance of bowling, per SP+.
3. Division II: No. 7 CSU-Pueblo 24, No. 6 Western Colorado 21. I love it when one of the Smaller-School Showcase games in my Friday preview lives up to its billing. Unbeaten WCU bolted to a 21-0 lead in the second quarter, but CSU-Pueblo had tied it by the end of the third quarter, with help from an 88-yard Roman Fuller-to-Marcellus Honeycutt Jr. touchdown pass. In the end, the Thunderwolves won with special teams: First, Jusiah Sampleton blocked a 47-yard field goal attempt with 4:01 left; then, after a 20-yard pass on third-and-16, Jackson Smith knocked in a 32-yarder as time expired.
4. FCS: No. 25 Abilene Christian 31, No. 2 Tarleton State 28. Tarleton State was the best FCS team not named North Dakota State heading into the weekend, and after entering the fourth quarter down 28-10, the Texans rallied to tie it with 56 seconds left. But a 38-yard pass from Stone Earle to Bryan Henry set up Brandon Perez‘s 47-yard buzzer-beater. TSU is unbeaten no more.
5. No. 5 Georgia 24, Florida 20. This game would rank higher if Georgia hadn’t been involved, but the Bulldogs have pulled the football version of the “Call the ambulance … but not for me” meme too many times, falling behind and then winning with perfect late execution. Regardless, it was a fun, tense way to spend an afternoon even if I didn’t doubt the outcome.
6 and 7. FCS: Idaho 35, Northern Arizona 32 (OT) (Friday) and Idaho State 38, No. 6 UC Davis 36. Drama in the Big Sky! On Friday night in Flagstaff, Arizona, Idaho watched a 26-7 lead turn into a 29-26 fourth-quarter deficit, but Owen Adams nailed a 42-yard field goal at the buzzer, and after forcing an overtime field goal, the Vandals walked it off with a short Hayden Kincheloe touchdown.
On Saturday in Davis, California, Idaho State, which has felt pretty close to an upset win all season, got one thanks to a 219-yard rushing performance from Dason Brooks and a 50-yard, final-minute field goal from Trajan Sinatra, the best-named kicker this side of Florida’s Trey Smack.
0:26
Trajan Sinatra makes 50-yard field goal
Trajan Sinatra makes 50-yard field goal
8. Mississippi State 38, Arkansas 35. After heartbreaking losses to Texas and Florida extended MSU’s SEC losing streak to 16 games (and more than two calendar years), it would take something special to end the streak. Like a game-ending 17-0 run, 193 penalty yards from Arkansas and a monstrous 18-yard catch and touchdown run from Anthony Evans III.
9. New Mexico 40, UNLV 35. If you watched this one as I advised, you were rewarded. New Mexico played catch-and-release, losing leads of 21-0 and 34-21, but with the game on the line, the Lobos executed a perfect, eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, taking the lead on a 13-yard D.J. McKinney run, then making two late stops to move to 6-2 and secure bowl eligibility. It’s hard to say enough about the job Jason Eck has done there in Year 1.
10. Division II: West Texas A&M 53, Texas A&M-Kingsville 48. There should always be room for a nutty track meet on this list, and if you missed the first eight minutes of this one, you missed (1) a 74-yard return on the opening kickoff, (2) a 26-yard touchdown on the first offensive play, (3) a sack-and-strip fumble, (4) a 99-yard kick return, (5) two turnovers on downs and (6) a 43-yard touchdown pass. West Texas A&M took a 22-6 lead from all of that, Kingsville responded with a 22-3 run to charge ahead, and we got six more lead changes from there. Goodness.
11. NAIA: No. 14 Indiana Wesleyan 56, Taylor 48.
12. No. 20 Texas 34, No. 9 Vanderbilt 31.
13. No. 18 Oklahoma 33, No. 14 Tennessee 27.
14. Oregon State 10, Washington State 7.
15. FCS: Central Connecticut 10, Long Island 7.
16. NAIA: Cumberland 40, Cumberlands 37.
17. Minnesota 23, Michigan State 20 (OT).
19. Division II: Chowan 34, Erskine 30.
20. Division III: Wesleyan 34, Williams 28 (OT).
The midweek playlist
Here’s your quick reminder that the CFP rankings are only the second-biggest landmark of the coming week. That’s right: IT’S MIDWEEK MACTION TIME. And we start with a doozy.
Miami (Ohio) at Ohio (Tuesday, 7 p.m., ESPN2). Miami has won five straight since an 0-3 start, and Ohio, the defending champ, has won four of five. The winner of this one will be your odds-on MAC favorite.
UTSA at USF (Thursday, 7:30 p.m., ESPN). USF needs to win out to keep AAC title (and playoff) hopes alive, and UTSA is coming off by far its best performance of the season.
-
Sports2 years agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Sports3 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment1 year agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024