Connect with us

Published

3 hours ago

on

Sep 11, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

Since Aaron Judge entered the majors near the end of the 2016 season, there has not been a more prolific — and fear-inducing — slugger than the New York Yankees superstar.

Listed at 6-foot-7, 282 pounds, Judge’s mix of size, power and patience makes him every pitcher’s nightmare. Nobody has hit more home runs than Judge’s 359 since his major league debut and nothing else can get an entire stadium to perk up in anticipation quite like when No. 99 steps to the plate.

Though a midseason right elbow injury slowed the pace a bit on what could have been his best work yet, Judge is putting the finishing touches on his fourth season with at least 40 home runs and his fourth straight with an OPS over 1.000 while, yet again, entering the final weeks with the American League MVP award within his reach.

We asked those who have faced Judge throughout his major league career — and some who first got their first taste of his power before the reigning AL MVP was a household name — to share their best Aaron Judge stories.

“Maybe I should start an Aaron Judge he’s-hit-a-home-run-off-me support group”

For better or worse, every pitcher who faces Judge today goes into the matchup knowing what he is up against. But there was a time when he had the element of surprise on his side as he rose through the ranks at Fresno State.

During the 2012 season, Mark Appel was the talk of college baseball. On March 2, the ace of No. 1-ranked Stanford baseball took the mound for a nonconference matchup against Judge’s Bulldogs unaware of what awaited him.

“We had very limited scouting. Video scouting was not really a widespread thing,” Appel recalled earlier this month. “So, we knew just based off of the numbers, but it was so early in the season. I don’t think he had a prolific freshman year. He was relatively unknown to us.

“I remember we went to Fresno, and they already had some fans — probably just some of his fellow classmates — that would go to the games, and they had this little chant for him whenever he came up, I can’t even remember what it was, but it’s like, ‘Here comes the Judge.'”

Judge entered that day with no home runs nine games into his sophomore season — after hitting just two his freshman year — but took Stanford’s ace deep twice in a stunning 7-4 upset.

And the legend of Judge was born.

Appel: We kind of walked in there — I think we were No. 1 in the country — like we’re just gonna kind of steamroll these guys, you know? And we did not. We did not.

We were so dumbfounded. We were like, ‘What is going on right now?’ I think I had just come off of a game [against Texas] where I threw seven innings, 10 punches, one run maybe. I was just dominant, you know? And then we go to this, a .500 Fresno State team, and they put up a seven spot on me.

Pretty sure that year I only gave up three home runs, and two of ’em were in that game to Aaron.

Erick Fedde, Milwaukee Brewers (UNLV, 2012-14): Back then, he obviously still had that presence of a big human. I guess I didn’t have that expectation of a perennial All-Star, best hitter, MVP caliber player, but you obviously knew he had power.

Appel: I had a big fastball, especially for college. So, I think Fresno State’s game plan against me was like, ‘Hey, look for the fastball, get on it early and just try to put a barrel on it.’ I left one just kind of middle-in, right in Aaron’s sweet spot, and he just — I mean, it was one of the hardest hit balls I’ve seen. It got out in a hurry.

Matthew Boyd, Chicago Cubs (Oregon State, 2011-13): The first year of the BBCOR bats … I just remember we were taking BP, and we were complaining because we thought the Nike BBCOR bats just stunk. And then when we go watch Fresno State, they’re swinging Easton bats, and this one freshman was just peppering the scoreboard. Just hearing this metal bang on the scoreboard every time and it’s like, ‘Oh, we’re complaining [to Nike] about the bats.’ And then come to realize it’s not the bats. That was Aaron Judge as a freshman.”

Fedde: I saw him hit some home runs off [my UNLV] teammates that were some of the farthest balls I’ve ever seen hit.

Appel: A year later, he gets drafted in the first round … my teammates are like, ‘He’s got you to thank for that. You’re the one that put him on the map.’ And now, in hindsight, I’m like, ‘OK, guys. Turns out this guy’s a generational kind of player. I think he’s proven that he was way better than me.’

When I got called up in 2022, every day it was the Aaron Judge Home Run Tracker. We are watching history here, and so I was like, ‘Man, this is cool.’ In some ways, I felt connected to him just because I was maybe part of the origin story of Aaron Judge.

Maybe I should start an Aaron Judge he’s-hit-a-home-run-off-me support group. Maybe that’s how I get to hang out with some cool dudes.

“He just turned on it, hit it — I mean it had to be 500 feet”

After jumping on the national radar with his feats against Appel at Fresno State, Judge firmly planted himself on MLB draft boards with his performance in the prestigious Cape Cod League the following summer.

The nature of the showcase league had Judge going up against future major league aces and other collegiate pitchers nearing the end of their careers.

Frederick Shepard now manages hedge funds in San Francisco and Anthony Montefusco is a tech salesman in Orlando, Florida. Neither has pitched in a decade, but both can still quickly recall their stories of pitching to Judge that summer.

Montefusco was coming off his sophomore year at George Mason and came out of the bullpen for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox to face Judge in the eighth inning on June 28, 2012. Montefusco attempted to run a fastball inside, caught too much of the strike zone and watched his pitch sail over the left-center-field fence never to be seen again.

“He just turned on it, hit it — I mean it had to be 500 feet, to the tops of the trees in their place at that point,” Montefusco recalled earlier this month.

Shepard, who pitched at Division III Amherst College, was a starting pitcher for the Wareham Gatemen that summer. On July 8, they visited Brewster, and his then-girlfriend Kristina Ballard was able to ride her bicycle to watch Shepard pitch from where she was working on the Cape.

That afternoon, she saw Aaron Judge turn on a pitch from her future husband and hit a home run that cleared the enormous trees that sat beyond the center-field fence, leaving an entire ballpark in awe.

Shepard: [Kristina] tells this story to this day — to anyone who will listen. She thinks it was so cool.

Montefusco has heard about his moment just as frequently because he grew up in New Jersey among a family of diehard Yankees fans. His mom’s favorite player? Aaron Judge.

Montefusco: I’m like, ‘How can you be after that home run?’ But it’s also hard not to be an Aaron Judge fan.

I remember getting him to two strikes. [Coach] called fastball inside, which … a physical specimen in the box, it’s always, ‘Get this ball in,’ but you don’t want to hit him. And I threw a decent pitch; he fouled it off.

Coach called fastball in again, and I was like, ‘Make sure you get it in,’ and left it kind of middle-middle, middle-third … Yeah, missed my spot, but he didn’t miss it.

Sean Manaea, New York Mets (Hyannis, 2012): I saw Aaron in the Cape, too, so I’ve really seen him all over the place.

The first thing is the size. It’s very hard to not notice that. He’s a very large human being. If I’m looking up to you, you’re a very big person because I’m a pretty big person. I remember shaking his hand and I was like, ‘Wow, that’s a pretty large hand.’ And obviously the baseball skills have been there for as long as I can remember.

Shepard: There’s nothing like standing there on the pitcher’s mound and Aaron Judge stepping to the plate, being all the way back in the box, all the way out, and you can’t pitch him anywhere. His bat reached the other batter’s box, and you couldn’t pitch him in because he was already off the plate as much as he could be. It was impossible.

Manaea: Funny story: I was throwing a no-hitter. I think into the seventh, eighth or ninth, something like that. And I hear a, one of their teammates in the dugout, is like, ‘Hey, let’s break up the no-hitter here!” And I’m like, ‘What?’ And then Judge was up, and he broke up the no-hitter.

Montefusco: It was one of those home runs that you give up and you’re not even that mad at, because of how far it was. I turned and watched it, and then my teammate from George Mason, he was on the team. I looked at him and he was laughing with his jaw on the floor.

“He’s definitely the focal point, right? His name stands out”

The challenge of facing Judge comes in two parts.

There’s the pitcher vs. slugger showdown that fans see on the field: A locked-in Judge standing 60 feet, six inches away, waiting to turn the slightest mistake into a souvenir for a fan seated 400-plus feet away in the outfield bleachers.

The mental battle begins long before that, starting in the pregame preparation when a pitcher realizes his task includes navigating a lineup with the sport’s premier long ball threat looming in the middle of it.

Max Fried, New York Yankees: I mean, he’s definitely the focal point, right? When you look at the lineup, you look at it and say, ‘You don’t want this guy to beat you.’

His name stands out so it’s definitely something you’re paying attention to and you know when he’s starting to come up or when his spot in the order is coming up.

Ryne Stanek, New York Mets: People pitch him scared and then have to come back, as opposed to being super aggressive. And I think that happens to a lot of other really good hitters. People are always super cautious and then have to go back at ’em and then they’re in such an advantage and it doesn’t work, especially when you’re facing really good hitters.

Manaea: From just the outside looking in, it’s not like he’s trying to hit home runs. It’s like he’s just trying to be a great hitter, which he is. And you could see that in the way he covers the fastball. He recognizes spin. He doesn’t strike out like a whole crazy amount.

Stanek: He doesn’t wildly chase, and he knows where he’s trying to hit the ball … he knows he doesn’t have to overswing to do damage, and he’s just got to put barrel on the ball.

Martin Perez, Chicago White Sox: We’re always talking about ‘Why you throw me this pitch’ but you have to be careful because he’s a powerful hitter. Anything he touches with the bat, it could be a homer.

Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers: “I haven’t quite figured out (how to prepare for him). If I had it figured out, his numbers wouldn’t be what they are.”

Stanek: I think guys that know they have enough juice to get it out of anywhere and they don’t overswing, it minimizes holes. I think that’s one thing that he’s done a really good job of over the course of his career. He knows who he is, and he knows what he’s trying to do.

Fried: You know if you leave a ball over the plate, it’s going to go a long way.

“I mean 6-foot-8, the visual’s already like, ‘Oh s—‘”

Once the plan of attack is in place, the only thing left for a pitcher to do is step on the mound and execute — which is easier said than done.

Few players have more experience toeing the rubber against Judge than two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. The two arrived in the majors at the same time in the same division and immediately became stars on contenders. They have also developed a close friendship over the years.

That tight bond has led to some unique interactions around their matchups — but Snell is far from the only one who recognizes the unique challenge in facing the game’s tallest slugger.

Snell: I’m either going to strike him out or walk him. So, when he swings, that’s when he gets into trouble — because it’s not going to be in the zone. And I tell him that. He thinks I’m messing with him. He’s the only person I talk to like that.

I’ve told him since even before the big leagues: ‘Don’t swing.’ I mean 6-foot-8, the visual’s already like, ‘Oh s—t.’ He connects with it; he can hit something hard back at you.

Manaea: The intimidation of just how big he is and when he steps into the box, you really feel that … Just based off the fact of him stepping into the box and his presence … I feel like he leans into that, which he should.

Aaron Civale, Chicago Cubs: He’s a lot taller than the average hitter. The area you can throw the ball in the strike zone is a lot bigger, but he has a lot of coverage. There seems to be a lot of space to throw to, but he covers in and out of the zone.

Spencer Strider, Atlanta Braves: It looks like the zone is huge, but it’s still hard to throw him a strike. I’d say that’s the different visual, given how tall he is … It seems like you have all the space to work with but that’s the misleading aspect of it. He can cover all of it.

Matt Strahm, Philadelphia Phillies: I try to [block] out [the hitter] and throw whatever pitch the catcher calls. But I’m not going to lie, you can feel when someone 6-foot-6 gets in the box.

Aaron Nola, Philadelphia Phillies: You face hitters all around the league, but when you face Judge, it looks weird, because he’s bigger than everything around him.

Robbie Ray, San Francisco Giants: The zone kinda changes with him. The fastball up has to be on. A fastball up to a Cody Bellinger or a Paul Goldschmidt, isn’t as high as it is for an Aaron Judge. The fastball up has to be up. Almost to eye level of somebody else.

Strahm: It’s almost like he casts a shadow over your target. I don’t want to say intimidating, but his presence is just known.

Charlie Morton, Detroit Tigers: As an opposing player or opposing pitcher, it’s like, ‘Man, here comes Aaron Judge.’ He’s one of the best in the league. But I also just really appreciate what he’s done for baseball. How he carries himself. How he goes about his business is great.

Joe Ryan, Minnesota Twins: He’s the captain and everything. It’s real. I never met Jeter, but it feels like they recreated Jeter in a lab or something for the modern era. He’s a beast out there.

“I could’ve sworn that ball was 60 rows deep”

No matter the plan going into the at-bat, giving up long home runs is an occupational hazard those who face Judge have come to accept — and those mammoth blasts stay with a pitcher forever.

Perhaps no pitcher has a more remarkable story to tell of Judge’s prestigious power than reliever Jason Adam‘s lasting memory of a time he was sure he had surrendered a tying home run at the crack of the bat.

The then-Rays closer immediately bent over on the mound with his hands on his knees, not even bothering to look to see where the ball landed. When Adam did finally turn his head, he was pleasantly surprised by the sight of outfielder Jose Siri catching the towering fly ball at the warning track. Big sigh of relief. Game over.

Adam: I could’ve sworn that ball was 60 rows deep. And I was like, ‘No way.’ I mean, he smacked it. But it was high.

That was a hilarious moment because I was like, ‘I just blew the game.’ And then I look up and I see Siri camping. I was like, ‘No way.’ And then I looked at him and he was laughing. So, yeah, that was a fun moment.

Other pitchers haven’t been quite so fortunate.

Chris Sale, Boston Red Sox: He got me at Fenway, dead center, like 2017 or 2018, it was pretty early on. Pretty sure it was a fastball. It was one of those off the bat, forget about it. It was a solo home run, and we were winning by a lot, so it didn’t bother all that much. But right off the bat, it was like ‘I’m getting a new ball.’

Boyd: He had raw power at all times. I remember he hit a homer off me in High-A Tampa, and it was one of those ones where I felt like I tried to flinch for a line drive, and it went out over the center-field wall. It was that hard.

Kyle Freeland, Colorado Rockies: You got to respect it. The one in Colorado earlier this year, we kind of had a pretty decent battle in his first at-bat. And I want to say we were up around eight, nine pitches in the at-bat, threw a well-located fastball down and away, and he put a really good swing on it, went backside into our bullpen.

The other one was in New York last year. Again, I want to say it was a pretty decent battle of an at-bat, and we went hard fastball in off the plate, and he was able to keep his hands in and put the barrel and hit it.

Shane Baz, Tampa Bay Rays: It was the third pitch. I threw a cutter right down the middle and he hit it out. It stayed right over the heart of the plate. … He’s just very talented. He stays back well.

Skubal: He’s got power to all fields so it doesn’t really matter where it’s going. If he’s hitting it hard, it has a chance to leave the yard. The one last year was a sinker to right field so it was — that’s what I’m saying, he’s got power to all yards.

Boyd: One year in Scranton, Buck Farmer and I and the wives were out to dinner. We were pitching Game 1 and 2 of the series and we were at dinner and Aaron saw us and picked up our check. That meant a ton.

We weren’t making much money back then and even got dessert. I was like, ‘Oh, that was really cool.’ He said hi on the way in and didn’t even tell us. Just picked it up and left.

And the next day Buck started, he hit two homers off Buck and the next day after I started, he hit a homer off me. … He did something nice for us and still hit a homer off me.”

Freeland: Getting to face guys like Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman — those big-name superstars in our game. Those are guys you want to be facing. You want to match up against those guys. You remember those. You remember when you punch their ticket, and you remember when they get a big hit off you for a home run.

Skubal: He’s the game’s best. That’s the beautiful part about this game. You get to compete at the highest level and you tip your cap when they do things like that because that’s special. You gotta be a special player to be able to do stuff like that and he’s one of those guys.

“He’s not seeing this. Keep throwing him this pitch”

Baseball is a game of failure for even the best sluggers and many pitchers have their own tales to tell of the times they’ve gotten the best of Judge.

Having sustained success against him is rare though, and Chris Sale has had as much as anyone over the years — having struck out Judge 17 times in 27 at-bats while limiting him to a .185 batting average.

“You have to be locked in, that’s for sure,” Sale said. “The back of his baseball card speaks for itself. You know that any mistake can be costly, especially if there are runners on.”

Some pitchers are eager to share their tales of glory — while others prefer to keep their tricks tucked away for the next time they need them.

Ryan: I’ve made some good pitches, kept him off-balance, maybe kept him guessing a little bit. Those are the main things.

[Former Twins teammate] Nick Gordon was breaking it down after I faced him. ‘He’s not seeing this. Keep throwing him this pitch.’ I kept doing it. It worked a little bit.

Fried: I remember the ones from last year. I threw a fastball that kind of beat him at the top of the zone, and I threw a 2-2 curveball.

Genesis Cabrera, Minnesota Twins: I attacked the zone. I threw a couple curves really well, that’s why he missed it.

Adam: You know his weaknesses; you know his strengths. He knows what I throw him. So, there’s an element of just trying to maintain unpredictability.

He’s the best in the world, but good pitches will still typically get him out, so you just try to make good pitches and trust the odds are still in your favor.

Perez: I can’t tell you the spot to get him out. I might be facing him [again]. For me it’s location. It’s not about velocity.

Of course, against Judge, success is measured a little differently.

Fried: You just have to really be careful of making the pitches and I think there’s also an element of ‘If you walk him, it’s not the end of the world.’

Snell: The rest of the team I’m going to challenge and all that. But him? I’m not going to let him be the one to get me.”

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Sports

Projecting — and debating — the Olympic hockey rosters for Team USA and Canada

Published

3 hours ago

on

September 11, 2025

By

Projecting -- and debating -- the Olympic hockey rosters for Team USA and Canada

  • Greg Wyshynski

    Close

    Greg Wyshynski

    Senior NHL writer

      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

  • Rachel Kryshak

    Close

    Rachel Kryshak

    ESPN

      Rachel Kryshak is a professional data consultant specializing in data communication and modelling. She’s worked in the NHL and consulted for professional teams across North American and Europe. She hosts the Staff & Graph Podcast and discusses sports from a data-driven perspective.

Sep 11, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

USA vs. Canada isn’t only hockey’s greatest rivalry, but one of the most competitive and nastiest in all of sports.

It’s a rivalry that permeates down into the world junior level and bubbles up to the NHL like lava. Please recall the 4 Nations Face-Off last February, where the first meeting between the nations started with three fights in nine seconds and the second meeting ended with a dramatic overtime win for Canada to claim the championship.

The next battle could come at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. The Americans and Canadians are in different groups, but as the reigning hockey superpowers in the tournament it’s not too farfetched that the path to gold will run through that rivalry.

Canada has had the better of the Olympics matchups since the NHL started sending its players in 1998, holding a 4-1 series lead. That includes two wins in gold medal games, in 2002 and 2010.

As 4 Nations showed, the gap between these teams has closed. The Americans’ talent pool has deepened with elite skill players and especially goaltending. Selecting the right roster for the 2026 could be the difference between a medal ceremony or elimination.

In the spirit of this storied rivalry, we had a Canadian — ESPN writer Rachel Kryshak — select her ideal Team Canada roster, and get roasted by an American, ESPN senior writer Greg Wyshynski. Then, Wyshynski selected his ideal Team USA roster, which Kryshak sliced apart.

Jump to USA roster

Team Canada

Continue Reading

Sports

‘They believe’: South Florida’s hot start is no fluke

Published

3 hours ago

on

September 11, 2025

By

'They believe': South Florida's hot start is no fluke

  • Andrea AdelsonSep 11, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

    Close

    • ACC reporter.
    • Joined ESPN.com in 2010.
    • Graduate of the University of Florida.

TAMPA, Fla. — USF coach Alex Golesh repeated the same thing after both of his team’s first two wins — a stunning blowout in the season opener against Boise State, and another shocker last weekend against Florida — “This ain’t the same ol’ South Florida, my brother!”

The 2-0 Bulls are ranked for the first time since 2018, notched the first win in school history over the Gators and are an early favorite to win the Group of 5 automatic berth into the College Football Playoff.

But there is more meaning behind those words, more than just a statement about big nonconference wins. Those nine words are a nod to one of Golesh’s close friends.

On the side of his headset, Golesh has the initials AAR, for the late USF men’s basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim.

Golesh and Abdur-Rahim were hired within three months of each other, similar coaches with similar beliefs, tasked with the same goal: Get USF to shed its underachiever status. Abdur-Rahim had done it at his previous stop at Kennesaw State, developing the Owls from being a one-win team to reaching the NCAA tournament.

Golesh had inherited a one-win football program and looked to Abdur-Rahim for advice. A few days after Abdur-Rahim was hired, Golesh went to see him in his office.

“They had literally just done at Kennesaw what we were trying to do, build it the right way,” Golesh said.

The two hit it off immediately. Their kids went to the same schools. Their wives became friends. That first spring they were together, in 2023, Abdur-Rahim would come out to practice and quickly became a fixture around the football program.

He would text Golesh after games that first season and offered his thoughts on a four-year plan for success. Golesh and his son, Barrett, would go to basketball games as Abdur-Rahim led USF to its best season ever in 2023-24, winning its first conference title and a school-record 25 games. It was during that run that Abdur-Rahim went viral for saying, “This ain’t the same ol’ South Florida, my brother!”

As the Bulls finished off their 34-7 win over Boise State on Aug. 28, Golesh felt a presence around him. He thought back to what Abdur-Rahim told him from the very beginning: Year 3 is when the players stop hoping they can win. Now, they start believing they can win.

“Amir used to always say, ‘They ain’t gonna believe until they see it,” Golesh told ESPN. “I felt like, ‘All right. They believe.'”

That belief is why USF is 2-0. The question is: How did Golesh get them to believe?

When Golesh met with then-USF athletic director Michael Kelly to discuss the open head coaching job in December 2022, he had questions. USF had moments of success in its short football history — including back-to-back 10-win seasons in 2016 and 2017 — but its more recent record was abysmal. The Bulls finished 2022 with a 1-11 record and four total victories over a three-year span. And the program had never won a conference title.

Golesh wanted to know right away — Would USF provide the resources required to win? Would they give him time to turn the program around? The answer to both was a resounding yes.

“His experience at other places showed what he felt he needed,” Kelly told ESPN. “I never felt it was unreasonable. It was just, ‘This is the way it is if we’re going to win this league.'”

Kelly said the staff size increased, and an additional $1.5 million was added to the assistant coach salary pool. The recruiting budget increased. Golesh also had the entire nutrition, strength and conditioning program and athletic training staff revamped.

Under the previous staff, for example, players got breakfast and lunch but no dinner at the facility. But now, they get three meals a day and have access to a nutrition bar in the weight room. Plus, there are fully stocked mini-fridges and snack baskets in every team meeting room.

There was no bigger sign of commitment to football than the approval of an on-campus $349 million football stadium, set to open in 2027, an idea that had been decades in the making. Most days, USF players practice to the sound of steel pillars going into the ground, just beyond the practice fields.

“It just goes together with what we’re doing on the football field, building a foundation,” quarterback Byrum Brown says. “We put the dirt down. We’re putting up poles. We’re seeing what this program can really be for years to come.”

Resources are one thing. Buy-in and belief are another. Center Cole Best remembers a meeting Golesh had with returning players during his second day on the job.

“He said, ‘I just need a little blind faith,'” Best said. “And I said, ‘I’m going to give it to him, and I’m going to buy into whatever this is. It was difficult at times, but I knew within his first couple of days here that, ‘This is the guy.'”

Sixth-year linebacker Mac Harris, who was on those three USF teams that won four total games before Golesh arrived, said those teams often found ways to cut corners, or avoided doing what was hard and uncomfortable.

Golesh’s Bulls don’t take the easy way out.

“AG says it all the time, leave no rock unturned. Check every detail, go through every obstacle you have to go through the right way,” Harris says. “Some people call them cliches, but they mean something, and they hold weight. I think doing that each and every day, and holding your teammates accountable to it, and them holding you accountable to it, created an expectation to win.”

In his first season as head coach, USF went 7-6, the second-best win improvement among all FBS programs in 2023. Then last season, USF showed glimpses of its potential, playing Alabama close for three quarters before losing, and then playing Miami close for a half before losing. Brown missed the final seven games of the season with a lower leg injury and USF still finished 7-6 and made it to another bowl game.

With a healthy Brown and 15 other starters back, Golesh and his team felt optimistic about the possibilities for this season.

Yes, the start to the 2025 season came up during his job interview, as Golesh was looking at future schedules with Kelly. He looked down and saw a three-game nonconference doozy: Boise State, at Florida, at Miami. There was initial skepticism. Not because Golesh wanted to shy away from playing those teams. But playing all three in a row, in the same season, seemed, well, “kinda crazy.”

“The initial conversation was, ‘We’ll handle that as we get there, but it won’t look like that,” Golesh said. “We got to last January, and it still looked like that, and I’m like, ‘You know what? Let’s go play them.”

Last June, when Kelly was getting ready to leave USF to take the athletic director job at Navy, Golesh told him, “We’re going to go win those games, and you’re going to tell me, ‘I told you so.'”

If the win over Boise State had people across the country take notice, the win over Florida legitimized USF in a bigger way. For decades, there has been the “Big Three” in the state of Florida: Miami, Florida State and Florida. UCF made it into a Power 4 conference when it joined the Big 12, leaving USF fighting for national relevance in the Group of 5.

That helps explain why Golesh had 500 text messages waiting for him after the 18-16 come-from-behind win over the Gators.

Best said he had eight former teammates call him after that win to congratulate him. “It brings tears to my eyes,” Best says. “I took a step back and let it all soak in. It hasn’t been easy. It’s been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, and to see it pay off, it just means the world.”

The process is the process, so there was no time this week for USF to celebrate a 2-0 start. Not with a trip to No. 5 Miami on deck. Golesh came into the office last Sunday and says he “ripped apart” the game tape with his staff.

“We haven’t arrived,” Golesh says. “We have two really good wins. We have another really good game, and then we’ve been really average in this conference for the last two years. We have so much left to do.

“As Amir used to say, ‘Headphones on. Hear nothing.”

There is a sadness in his voice as he recalls those conversations with Abdur-Rahim. They were supposed to be doing this together, celebrating each other’s wins as if they were their own. After Abdur-Rahim got sick last fall, he stopped coming around to practice but refused to tell Golesh what was wrong.

Then Golesh got a long text from Abdur-Rahim. He still has it saved in his phone. Abdur-Rahim wrote, in part, he was ready to fight what was ailing him, but seemed unsure whether doctors had any answers.

Abdur-Rahim died Oct. 24, 2024, at age 43, from complications that arose during a medical procedure related to his undisclosed illness. The loss was felt across the entire USF community, including the football team. As a lasting tribute to his friend, Golesh had a picture of Abdur-Rahim speaking to the team one day at practice enlarged and placed in the hallway of the football facility.

“Coach Golesh giving us a reminder of what a great human being he was, and what a great coach he was, and the lessons and advice that he instilled in us, it means a lot,” Brown says.

Golesh may not have responded to every single one of the hundreds of text messages he has received over the past two weeks. But there are two that he will never forget. Arianne Abdur-Rahim, Amir’s widow, texted Golesh after the Boise State win and again after the Florida win.

“Amir is looking out for you.”

Continue Reading

Sports

The stories, the experiences, the hair: Rob Ryan has brought it all to the Trojans

Published

9 hours ago

on

September 11, 2025

By

The stories, the experiences, the hair: Rob Ryan has brought it all to the Trojans

LOS ANGELES — Rob Ryan might be as relaxed as he has ever been.

The longtime defensive coach walks out on the balcony of USC‘s John McKay Center, his alabaster white hair flowing in the slight breeze that frames an idyllic summer afternoon in Los Angeles, and as always, he is not lacking for words.

“I’m totally different than most people,” he said with a chuckle. “And I don’t care.”

Even Ryan’s robust laugh — a kind of deep guffaw that fills any room inside or out — carries with it a tone that projects his breadth of experience: nine NFL teams, five power conference programs, two Super Bowl rings and hundreds of stories.

The son of legendary coach Buddy Ryan and brother of former NFL head coach Rex Ryan has held clipboards and drawn up defensive formations everywhere from the Arizona desert to the Atlantic coast, from Tennessee State to the New England Patriots, Hutchinson Community College to the Dallas Cowboys.

However, college football — USC, of all places — is different. This, the 62-year-old Ryan admits, is unexpected, even for him.

“I honestly never thought about it,” Ryan says. “I was happy in pro football.”

His eyes dart down for a second, and he remembers how he ended up here — wearing USC colors, living in a downtown L.A. apartment and coaching 18-year-old linebackers — more than 25 years after he last coached in college football, nearly 40 years from when he started in this profession.

“I can remember parking the car here [at USC] and walking up,” Ryan says. “I thought, ‘Man, there’s no way I’m ever going to take this job.'”

THE LAST TIME Ryan patrolled the college football sidelines, Peyton Manning was coming off his rookie season in the NFL and Ricky Williams had just run all over the sport on his way to the 1998 Heisman Trophy.

Ryan, then the defensive coordinator at Oklahoma State, remembers Williams’ prowess, but more than that, he remembers how his defense countered it.

“You can ask Ricky,” he said. “He didn’t win the Heisman against us.”

A year before Ryan made his way to Stillwater in 1996, Oklahoma State’s defense was one of the worst in the country. Texas had walloped the Pokes 71-14, and Ryan remembers grabbing tapes of the defense and spending countless hours in a room with his dad, trying to remedy it.

“Me and my dad watch ’em every day after we work on the farm,” Ryan said. “And he’s drawing stuff up on napkins, ‘Well, maybe you can do this.’ I’m like, sure. But I see one of his napkins, he’s [telling me] how he could run the wide tackle six. I go ‘What the hell is that? That’s not the wide tackle of six.’ But I did use them. We beat ’em 55 to 10 the next year. There you go. That was a good napkin.”

Over the course of the 1997 and 1998 seasons, Williams had only four games where he didn’t rush for over 100 yards — two of them were against Ryan’s OSU defense.

“I remember that,” Ryan said.

To describe Ryan’s brain as a football encyclopedia would be an understatement. The wealth of knowledge is voluminous and vast. It spans decades, eras, coaching trees and schemes. His coaching career has included being up close with Bill Belichick, the NFL head coaching legend who hired Ryan in 2000 after his college stint as the New England Patriots‘ linebackers coach. to now witnessing Belichick as North Carolina‘s head coach.

“When I was a coordinator in college back 25 years ago, we just had to stop the run,” Ryan said. “Nobody could throw the ball. Well now everybody can throw it, and with all the space there, you have to have an unbelievable plan. Whatever it is, you got to be able to adapt.”

A lot has changed in the sport since, both in the pros and in the college ranks. Through it all, Ryan has remained unabashedly himself, bouncing with a contagious joy thanks to a job where, as Ryan says, “you don’t have to be anything different but yourself.”

“He’s the smartest guy in the room, but he doesn’t want you to know that,” Rex Ryan said. “He’ll work his ass off, outwork every single person in that school, any school. He’ll put every one of them motherf—ers to sleep.”

Perhaps no one hypes Rob up more than his twin brother, Rex, whose coaching history is just as broad while also featuring a stint as an NFL head coach. It’s a career apex that Rob never reached, but according to Rex, what makes Rob such an effective position coach or coordinator is the fact that he has never been interested in that top job.

“He’s not looking for somebody else’s job. This guy’s there to advance the head coach’s plan and to be right there, to be right hand man to D’anton [Lynn], and that’s exactly what he’s going to do,” Rex, now an analyst for ESPN, said. “And he’s just one hell of a f—ing guy. That’s the thing. And if you can’t get along with him, you’re a f—ing jerkoff. Simple as that. You’re a f—ing a–hole.”

As self-assured as Rob is now, even he can admit that this hasn’t always been the case.

WHEN THE CALL came from a familiar voice, Ryan was facing a situation he knew all too well.

The Las Vegas Raiders, with whom he had been working as a senior defensive assistant since 2022, were undergoing a coaching change after the franchise fired Antonio Pierce. While other coaches might have fretted, Ryan — who took the USC job a week before Pete Carroll was hired with the Raiders — wasn’t too anxious.

“When I was young, man, I couldn’t handle it. That was super hard,” Ryan said of his early firings. “It was pressure. You just feel it, man. It’s a mountain. … It destroyed me. I couldn’t enjoy work. I couldn’t come to work and enjoy it. I couldn’t. It was hard. I was so worried. And it affected me off the field too.”

Ryan was not in a rush to find his next stop, but at USC, the program’s previous linebackers coach, Matt Entz, had left to take the head coaching job at Fresno State. Defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn — fresh off his first season in the position — went outside the box.

When Lynn was a defensive analyst on the Buffalo Bills in 2016, his father Anthony was the interim head coach and offensive coordinator, and Ryan was the assistant head coach for defense. Then, in 2021, when a 31-year-old Lynn was hired as the Baltimore Ravens safeties coach, the team’s inside linebackers coach invited Lynn to crash at his house for a few months. That coach was 57-year-old Ryan.

“We go way back,” Ryan said. “He’s an old roommate.”

Lynn and USC head coach Lincoln Riley wanted someone with experience who could also add a little extra juice to the staff, a certain kind of appeal that couldn’t be found in an up-and-coming college position coach. So Lynn rang Ryan and made his pitch.

“As we talk about building our scheme, just having someone with all that experience to bounce ideas off of has been huge,” Lynn said in a recent interview. “And for our guys, they get a chance to just get exposed to what it is to have an NFL position coach, and they’re getting coached as if they were in the NFL.”

Even though Ryan arrived on campus for his interviews with skepticism, he was quickly swayed by Riley and Lynn, whom Ryan has repeatedly referred to as a Mike Tomlin in the making.

“I’m like, ‘Man, this is awesome.’ I talked to D’Anton again and then talked to Lincoln. I’m like, ‘Man, I’m going to do this. I’m just going to take a chance,'” Ryan said. “And I have no regrets. I’ve absolutely loved it. It’s like a breath of fresh air. It’s getting started again. I mean, I’m new again.”

Ryan does not shy away from the fact that his own particular situation afforded him an invaluable opportunity growing up. As the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals in 1994, Buddy Ryan was the one who gave Rob and his brother Rex their first big breaks as NFL position coaches that season.

“We were young coaches, we thought we were good, but he had to take a chance, and he hired us,” Rob Ryan said. “People screamed nepotism, and it was nepotism! There was no question, but we were great, and we were ready. Once we got there, we were ready. But we had to have a chance. Somebody had to give us a chance.”

It’s not too shocking then that Ryan finds himself in his father’s role — in the latter stages of his career with a son who has a business degree from Clemson but can’t seem to shake the family bug. This time, it’s Rob who wants to give his son, Matthew, the chance to give coaching a real shot.

“It’s the family business. We probably can’t do anything else, but we damn sure can coach, and that’s our niche, that’s our life,” Rex said. “We never got in the business to make money, but now, f—, you make a ton of money. We certainly didn’t get in the business to do that.”

While talking to Riley and Lynn about the position, Rob Ryan said that the opportunity — not just for him, but for Matthew to become a defensive analyst on staff — was one he could not pass up.

“It’s not really for my growth, cause I’m not going anywhere,” Ryan said. “I want to be a part of something great, but it’s for Matthew to learn. … This is the perfect place for that. But I mean, it’s for me too. Look around, I’m having more fun than anybody else.”

RYAN REMEMBERS WALKING into a team meeting with the Cardinals back in 1994 and being appalled at just how his dad was running things. In short, Ryan explained, the way a former master sergeant in the Korean War would run a team meeting.

“It’s like the things he was saying was like, oh hell, HR would have him out of there in two seconds. He had no problem having a player do anything,” Ryan said. “I thought, ‘God Almighty, I’m not going to do that. I can’t do that.’ So I realized I needed to be genuine to myself.”

Over the past 30 years, Ryan’s personality has crystallized into a coaching style that runs on a type of magnetic zeal that isn’t affected by game-to-game results.

“He has the most energy every single day, and he is also the oldest on the staff,” Lynn said.

His effervescence, players say, is contagious. He doesn’t connect by trying to relate to players 40-plus years his junior as much as he tries to find common ground in the game they’re trying to excel at, the game that he’s still enamored with to this day.

“He’s got a million stories, lived every one of them,” Rex said. “There’s also a confidence and a thing where nothing’s going to intimidate him. He’s not afraid of the f—ing devil.”

Position meetings, though chock-full of traditional insight and strategy, often include an open session where Rob leans into what makes him, well, him.

“He’ll just have a story for us, just a random story, every day, he’ll have us dying laughing,” Madden said. “It may be something that happened a week ago or something 20 years ago”

USC’s linebackers are already privy to not just Ryan’s storytelling, but also the kind of confidence he has given them.

“He definitely wants us to just be who we are,” freshman linebacker Desman Stephens II said. “He talks about how we’ve been playing football our whole life and we have instincts that are helpful to our game. So he just allows us to go out there and play, not carefree but loose.”

“Even though he’s old-school, even though he’s accomplished a lot in this game, he still has an open ear,” redshirt junior linebacker Anthony Beavers Jr. said. “I think he’s forever learning and that’s unique.”

Ryan likes to say that he teaches football more than he coaches it, an approach bolstered by the many stops he has had throughout his career. But he is also supercharged by what he refers to as an affinity for the game that he wants to not just convey, but impress upon his players.

“I think I love what I’m doing. I think it shows,” Ryan said. “I want ’em to love football. I don’t want ’em to dread it. I don’t want ’em to come to work like it’s in a factory. I’ve worked in factories, but I want ’em to love the game. I think my style is: I’m going to have more fun than anybody on that field.”

TO HEAR RYAN speak about football is to be met with someone who has known no other life. Anything prior to his time as a coach, even the years he spent as a defensive end at Southwestern Oklahoma State University alongside Rex, feel like an inconsequential fable at this point. All that matters is what has transpired inside locker rooms and in between the hash marks over the course of the past four decades — good or bad — and the way that he has held on.

“No one’s more used to being fired than me,” Rob Ryan said. “I get fired. At least I was myself. So I can live with that.”

It all raises the question: How long will Ryan keep doing this? And when will he know to pry himself away from the very thing that has defined him?

“He will probably be there 10 years, he loves to coach that much,” Rex said. “He’ll be a guy they’ll have to drag his ass off the football field.”

Rob could have stayed in the NFL if he wanted to, Rex said, but the fact that he didn’t makes Rex believe Rob’s committed to USC for the foreseeable future, or at the very least, “until they tell him to leave.”

“This is it for us,” Rob Ryan, whose wife is from California, said for the both of them. “This is our last move until we walk off in the sunset.”

In this very moment, as the sun fades away and washes every brick-laden building on the USC campus in an orange hue, Rob isn’t ready to go just yet.

“When I retire, cool, I’ll be retired. I’ll probably be the happiest guy in the world in retirement,” he said. “But right now, I’m the happiest guy in the world still doing this.”

Continue Reading

Trending