Best slugger, best game … badonkadonk of the year?! Jeff Passan’s 2025 MLB season awards
With another two months until baseball writers vote for the Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Award winners and Rookies of the Year, now seems the perfect time for a far wider-ranging set of honors for Major League Baseball’s 2025 season.
The third annual Passan Awards aim to celebrate the most enjoyable elements of a season and recognize that even those who aren’t the best of the best deserve acknowledgment. Certainly, the winners are talented, but the players favored to win the MVP awards for the second straight season, Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani, will not get this hardware. Instead, the first award honors a player for his anatomy.
Badonkadonk of the Year: Cal Raleigh
As if it could be anyone else.
Ball knowers understood who Raleigh was entering the 2025 season: the best catcher in MLB, a switch-hitting, Platinum Glove-winning, home-run-punishing hero with the most appropriate (and inappropriate) nickname in baseball — the Big Dumper, for his lower half putting the maximus in gluteus.
This, though? A superstar turn in which the Seattle Mariners’ best player passes Hall of Famers such as Mickey Mantle and Ken Griffey Jr. in the record books? A season-long run in which he keeps pace with Aaron Judge, the best hitter in the world still at the peak of his powers, in the American League MVP race? A legitimate shot at becoming only the seventh player in MLB history to hit 60 or more home runs in a season.
Look hard enough and it makes sense. A season like Raleigh’s 2025 necessitates playing every day, which, at a position where 120 games is the norm, is almost impossible. Well, Raleigh has sat out three games this year. Amid all his responsibilities as a catcher, he has taken a right-handed swing that was the weaker of the two and honed it into a stroke as powerful as his left-handed wallop.
The confluence of it all in Raleigh’s age-28 season has thrust the Mariners to the precipice of their first AL West title since 2001 and put Raleigh on a pedestal alongside Judge. Raleigh’s case for MVP is strong. He has got the numbers to back up the narrative, which could be very compelling for voters: the game’s 2025 home run king, playing its most important position, carries the franchise with whom he signed a long-term extension to the postseason while the star in the Bronx, already a two-time AL MVP winner, doesn’t do anything different than he typically does.
Of course, just maintaining his status quo is actually a pretty good case for Judge, considering his OPS exceeds Raleigh’s by nearly 175 points. But that’s for MVP voters to decide. The case of the best badonkadonk is open and shut. From the city that gave the world Sir Mix-A-Lot comes version 2.0: bigger, better, dumpier.
None of this is new for Schwarber, the 32-year-old who has spent the past four seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies as the National League’s three-true-outcomes demigod. Schwarber is third in the NL in walks (behind Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani), second in strikeouts (behind James Wood) and tied with Ohtani for the lead with 53 home runs. Beyond the season-long compilation of gaudy numbers, though, are the moments that have appended “of the year” onto the slugger label he long ago earned.
When NL manager Dave Roberts needed hitters for the All-Star Game swing-off — a truncated Home Run Derby that would break the game’s 6-6 tie — of course, he chose Schwarber, who whacked three home runs on three swings and secured the win. If anyone in the sport was poised to go on a single-game heater and pummel four home runs, he was near, if not at, the top of the list for that, too — and did so Aug. 28.
Schwarber is the archetypal slugger. He will have some rough at-bats, and his slumps will be uglier than most because of his propensity to strike out. But when he gets hot, there’s nothing like it: the compact stroke, the innate power and the symbiosis between him and the electric crowds at Citizens Bank Park converge to create a monster of which pitchers want no part.
Even though the team doesn’t have ace Zack Wheeler and All-Star shortstop Trea Turner because of injuries, Schwarber stabilized the Phillies and kept them from sliding down the standings alongside the New York Mets. Schwarber’s impending free agency will grow into a heated bidding war because he is as beloved as he is good, and he’s very, very good.
In the meantime, because he is a designated hitter with a mediocre batting average, Schwarber will not receive the MVP love he deserves. So, consider this a way of honoring Schwarber: king of the sluggers, ready to light up another October.
Base thief of the Year: Juan Soto
Of all the unbelievable things to happen in the 2025 season — the no-way-that-can-be-true, how-did-that-happen, you-got-to-be-kidding-me facts — this is unquestionably the wildest: Juan Soto leads MLB in stolen bases in the second half.
Seriously, Juan Soto. The $765 million man. In 58 games since the All-Star break, Soto has 24 stolen bases — four more than runner-up Jazz Chisholm Jr. This season, Soto has swiped 35, nearly triple his previous career high of a dozen set in 2019 and 2023. And it’s not as if Soto is leaving all kinds of outs on the basepaths; he has been caught just four times this season (though three of those are in September).
Soto hits home runs with regularity (42 this season, 19 in the second half). He has the best eye in the game. Stolen bases, though? The guy who ranks 503rd out of 571 qualified players in sprint speed? The one who takes more than 4½ seconds to go from home to first base?
It’s just further proof that ripping bags, in this era of larger bases and limited pickoff moves for pitchers, is no longer the sole domain of the speedy. With a little bit of know-how and gumption, anyone can become a base stealer. Josh Naylor, the Seattle Mariners’ burly first baseman, is fourth in MLB in the second half with 17 — one ahead of Tampa Bay rookie Chandler Simpson, one of the fastest runners in the big leagues. Miami rookie catcher Agustin Ramirez, who is also objectively slow, has stolen more bases since the All-Star break than Bobby Witt Jr., Jose Ramirez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Julio Rodriguez and Elly De La Cruz.
The new rules have led to remarkable seasons: Ronald Acuna Jr.’s 40/70 year in 2023 and Ohtani’s 50/50 campaign last year. As unprecedented as each was, they’d have been likelier bets than Soto threatening to become just the seventh player to go 40/40. That he’s at 30/30 already — alongside Chisholm, Jose Ramirez and Corbin Carroll — is remarkable enough.
Credit is due in plenty of places. To Mets baserunning coach Antoan Richardson, whose work with Soto encouraged him to study the craft of stealing a base and trust his instincts. To the Mets’ late-season ruin that made every base seem that much more important. Most of all, to Soto, who, after signing the richest contract in professional sports history, refused to pigeonhole himself as someone defined by patience and pop and actively sought his most well-rounded incarnation yet.
Best Player You Still Know Nothing About: Geraldo Perdomo
Who were the five best everyday players in baseball this year? There are three locks: Raleigh, Judge and Shohei Ohtani. After that, it’s a matter of preference. Want a masher? Schwarber or Soto would qualify. Prefer an all-around player? Witt is a good choice at No. 4, Ramírez always warrants consideration and, had he not gotten hurt, Turner would have been firmly in the mix.
Consider, however, the case of Perdomo, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 25-year-old shortstop. As easily as Perdomo’s bonanza 2025 can be summed up with Wins Above Replacement — his 6.9 via FanGraphs ranks behind only the three locks and Witt, and Perdomo’s 6.8 via Baseball-Reference comes in third behind only Judge and Raleigh — his statistics get even more interesting upon a granular look. Here are Perdomo’s numbers, followed by their MLB rank out of 144 qualified hitters:
Batting average: .289 (13th)
On-base percentage: .391 (5th)
Slugging percentage: .462 (47th)
Runs: 96 (13th)
RBIs: 97 (14th)
Strikeout rate: 10.9% (8th)
Walk rate: 13.4% (14th)
Stolen bases: 26 (19th)
Games played: 155 (8th)
And that’s to say nothing of Perdomo playing the second-most-important position in baseball at a high level. He is not Witt defensively, but Perdomo is always on the field — his 1,363 innings are the most at shortstop in the majors this season — and, outside of the occasional throwing mishap, eminently reliable.
Take it all into account, and it adds up to a legitimate case for Perdomo to join the game’s luminaries. He is neither the most well-known star on the Diamondbacks (Carroll) nor even in his own middle infield (Ketel Marte). And that’s fine. The numbers tell his story. And it’s one worth knowing.
Individual Performance of the Year: Nick Kurtz
Since the turn of the 20th century, a period that comprises around 4 million individual games played by position players, there have been:
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Nine games with a player scoring six runs
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21 games with a player hitting four homers
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81 games in which batters went 6-for-6
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170 games with a player having at least eight RBIs
And only one game with all four.
That belongs to A’s rookie first baseman Nick Kurtz, who, three months after his major league debut, turned in arguably the greatest game by a hitter. Facing the Houston Astros on July 25, Kurtz, 22, started with a single in the first inning, followed with a home run in the second, doubled off the top of the wall in left field two innings after that, and finished homer, homer, homer in his final three at-bats.
The home runs came off four pitchers: starter Ryan Gusto, relievers Nick Hernandez and Kaleb Ort, and utilityman Cooper Hummel, whose 77.6 mph meatball went over the short porch in left field at Daikin Park. Five of Kurtz’s six hits that night went to the opposite field, a testament to his lethal bat that should win him unanimous American League Rookie of the Year honors and will land him on plenty of AL MVP ballots.
Kurtz finished the game with 19 total bases, tying a record that has long belonged to Shawn Green, whose line was almost identical to Kurtz’s: a single, double and four home runs with six runs — but only seven RBIs. Yes, all four of Green’s homers came off big league pitchers, and he did it at Miller Park, a tougher place in 2002 to hit homers than Daikin in 2025.
When trying to adjudicate a winner, every factor counts. But for argument’s sake, let’s say Kurtz’s game was better than Green’s because of that additional RBI. Was it superior to Ohtani’s last September, in which he went 6-for-6 with a single, 2 doubles, 3 home runs, 10 RBIs and a pair of stolen bases — and in that same game he became the first player with at least 50 homers and 50 steals in a season? It’s difficult to argue with the historical nature of Ohtani’s game. Context should matter, and to do something never conceived of before 2024 adds a delicious narrative flourish to Ohtani’s performance.
If Kurtz’s game isn’t the best, it’s certainly among the top five. And in the year of the four-homer game — there have been an MLB-high three this season, with Schwarber and Eugenio Suarez joining the party — none compared to Kurtz’s.
The average major league fastball ticked up another 0.2 mph this year, all the way to 94.4 mph, more than 3 mph harder than when the league began tracking pitch data in 2007. Pitch velocity is a marker not only for where the game is now but where it’s going. And where it has gone is featuring a starting pitcher with a slider nearly as fast as a league-average heater.
Misiorowski, the Milwaukee Brewers’ rookie right-handed starter, is a walking outlier. At 6-foot-7, he is taller than all but 18 of the 868 players who have thrown a pitch this season, and at under 200 pounds, his slender body and its elasticity stretch the bounds of what a pitcher should look like. What they create is magic.
Though the 23-year-old Misiorowski’s triple-digit fastball generates the most oohs and aahs, his slider induces the most gawking. Misiorowski’s slider averages 94.1 mph. He has thrown 85 of them at least 95 mph this season — a full 10-plus mph over the rest of the league’s average. He got Mookie Betts swinging on a 97.4 mph slider in August. It was the full-count version of the pitch he delivered at 95.5 mph against Willi Castro on June 20, though, that earned this award.
It wasn’t just the velocity or pitch shape that was most impressive. It was the swing Misiorowski induced. Castro just wanted to get on base. Hell, he just wanted to make contact. Instead, he got this:
HE BROKE HIS ANKLES@Jmisiorowski9 pic.twitter.com/bWG3UkzCae
— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) June 21, 2025
That right there — the velocity, the late movement, the pitch shape — is an evolutionary slider. For all the pitchers who have made 90-plus-mph sliders a regular thing, Misiorowski essentially said: “Thank you for walking so I could run.” Castro did not simply swing and miss. He got pretzel’d. Misiorowski punctuated it with a celebratory twirl off the mound. The visual only amped up Miz Mania, which peaked when, barely 25 innings into his career, MLB named him an All-Star replacement.
Since then, the league has caught up to Misiorowski. The plan is for him to pitch out of the bullpen in the postseason, though injuries to the Brewers’ pitching staff — the best team in MLB this year — could change that. Whether he’s a starter or reliever, Misiorowski can unleash the sort of pitch previously seen only in dreams — or, as Castro will attest, nightmares.
Put together two teams like the Pirates and Rockies, and the possibilities are endless. Most of those possibilities, of course, are offensive — and not in the run-scoring sort of way. The baseball gods’ sense of humor reveals itself at the oddest times, though, and when the teams met at Coors Field the day after the trade deadline, they partook in the most madcap, rollicking affair of the 2025 season.
That day had already offered a Game of the Year candidate: Miami’s 13-12 victory over the New York Yankees, who blew a five-run lead in the seventh inning, recaptured it in the top of the ninth and got walked off in the bottom. The notion that the Pirates and Rockies would one-up that was unlikely, but then the beauty of baseball is as much in the unexpected as it is the known.
It started as any game at Coors can: with a nine-run top of the first inning, matching the run support the Pirates had given Paul Skenes in his previous nine starts combined. Pittsburgh, facing Antonio Senzatela, started single, single, single, single, grand slam, single, walk before Jared Triolo grounded into a double play. The Pirates followed single, walk, home run, single, single, then finally closed the frame when their 14th batter, Oneil Cruz, struck out.
The Rockies chipped away — a run in the first, three more in the third. The middle innings were chaos. Three for the Pirates in the top of the fourth, two for the Rockies in the bottom. Three more for the Pirates in the top of the fifth, four for the Rockies in the bottom. After a run in the sixth, Pittsburgh held a 16-10 lead and carried it into the eighth inning, when the Rockies scored a pair.
The bottom of the ninth beckoned. Pittsburgh had traded its closer, David Bednar, to the Yankees the previous day and called on Dennis Santana, who came into the game having allowed seven runs in 46⅓ innings. He struck out Ezequiel Tovar for the first out. Then, the madness of the day peaked. A Hunter Goodman home run. A Jordan Beck walk. A Warming Bernabel triple. A Thairo Estrada single. And, finally, a Brenton Doyle walk-off homer to left-center field.
Final: Rockies 17, Pirates 16.
In the modern era, only 20 games featured more runs than the Pirates and Rockies — the two lowest-scoring teams in 2025 — put up that day. Just two of those were decided by one run. Neither ended on a walk-off, let alone a walk-off homer.
Baseball is funny like that. Even two last-place teams that have combined for more than 200 losses this season can face off and emerge with something unforgettable.
The Chicken-and-Beer Award for Most Staggering Collapse: New York Mets
Note: This could wind up including the Detroit Tigers, whose lead over the Cleveland Guardians — 15½ games on July 8, 12½ on Aug. 25 — has almost evaporated. If Cleveland surpasses Detroit in the AL Central, consider the Tigers compatriots in ignominy with New York.
For now, the dishonor belongs alone to the Mets, who on June 12 won their sixth consecutive game to extend their major-league-best record to 45-24. Queens felt like the center of the baseball universe. Soto wasn’t even hitting up to his standard, and the Mets were still bludgeoning opponents enough that they held the best expected winning percentage along with the top record.
Since then, the Mets have the same record as the White Sox: 35-52. Not only have they frittered away what was then a 5½-game advantage over Philadelphia atop the NL East, they’ve fallen out of the first, second and third wild cards, too. As of today, they are on the outside of the postseason looking in.
The Mets haven’t flamed out in one spectacular blaze. It has been a slow burn, a consistent degradation of quality, gradual and raw. It’s everywhere. An inconsistent lineup. A bad bullpen. A starting rotation that buoyed them over the first 69 games disappeared, through injury and ineffectiveness, to the point that New York is now relying on three rookie starters, all of whom the team preferred to keep in the minor leagues until next year.
Now, Nolan McLean, Jonah Tong and Brandon Sproat are fundamental parts of any salvage job the Mets hope to hatch. And that is the most damning indictment of all: a $340 million team, left to rely on a group of young players to rescue the franchise from its self-inflicted depths. Attempts in the middle of the season to turn things around, as they did in making an NLCS run last year, didn’t work. Adding reliever Ryan Helsley and outfielder Cedric Mullins at the trade deadline didn’t, either.
This collapse isn’t the 1964 Phillies or even the 2011 Red Sox, whose pitching staff habitually ate fried chicken and drank beer in the clubhouse during games, even as the team’s nine-game advantage in September evaporated. At least that was the equivalent of a Band-Aid being ripped off. This has been interminable, a stark reminder that for all the Mets have going for them — the richest owner in the game, plenty of talent, excellent resources — they’re still the Mets, professional purveyors of pain.
There were plenty of choices. Soto’s contract is an all-timer. Max Fried has been everything the Yankees needed. And there was no shortage of trade options, from the blockbusters (Kyle Tucker to the Cubs, Rafael Devers to the Giants) to the deadline stunners (Mason Miller to the Padres, Carlos Correa back to the Astros).
In terms of sheer impact, the Red Sox’s December acquisition of Crochet is unbeatable. And it’s among the most infrequent of trades, too: one in which both parties emerge elated. Without Crochet, 26, headlining the rotation, Boston isn’t sniffing a playoff spot. Not only did the Red Sox think enough of him to give up four players who had yet to make their major league debut, but during spring training, they kept Crochet from reaching free agency next winter with a six-year, $170 million contract extension even though the left-hander had never thrown 150 innings in a season.
Boston’s faith was well-founded. Crochet leads MLB in strikeouts and the AL in innings pitched. He has faced 788 batters this year, and they are hitting .220/.268/.360 against him. And with a 17-5 record and 2.69 ERA, he has positioned himself as the likely runner-up behind Tarik Skubal in AL Cy Young voting.
All was not lost for Chicago. Teel has been exceptional and looks like a future All-Star at catcher. Meidroth gives the White Sox a high-on-base, low-strikeout threat at either middle-infield position. Gonzalez is becoming a reliable big league bullpen option. And Montgomery, a switch-hitting center fielder, is already up to Double-A.
Trades don’t work out more often than they do. (Just ask the Mets.) But on the day this deal was consummated, the industry response liked it for each side. The White Sox weren’t willing to commit to a Crochet extension and wanted to avoid injury or ineffectiveness cratering his value, and in Boston, they found a team desperate enough to offload an immense amount of talent. Year 1 of a deal that included a combined 30 years of club control is too early to name definitive winners and losers. So for now, it’s an easy call: the rare win-win.
The Tickle Me Elmo Award: Torpedo Bats
Remember the torpedo bat? It was going to revolutionize baseball. The first weekend of the season, with a lineup full of hitters using the bat that looked like nothing MLB had ever seen, the Yankees hit 15 home runs — against the Brewers, who since have been among the best teams in baseball at home run prevention.
The concept was simple: MLB allows the redistribution of wood weight as long as the bat stays within specified parameters, so why not take the mass that typically is toward the end of the barrel and create a new shape that better suits individual hitters? After the Yankees’ home run barrage, the torpedo bat became baseball’s version of Tickle Me Elmo, Furby and Cabbage Patch Kids: the must-have toy of the moment.
Well, the moment passed. Torpedoes certainly remain in circulation — Raleigh uses a different model from each side of the plate — and are not going anywhere. But the notion that half the league would switch bat models ignored the realities that a) baseball players are creatures of habit and b) the torpedo doesn’t suit the significant sum of players who hit the ball more toward the end of the bat.
And that’s fine. Not every piece of technology is meant for every consumer. The takeaway from torpedo bats isn’t that they are a failure because they haven’t taken over the market, nor is it that they are a success because the best home run hitter of 2025 uses them. It’s that the game is full of curious people who aren’t afraid to build a new mousetrap. That’s how a game that has been around for 150 years evolves. And that’s a perfectly good thing.
Thing we’ll still be talking about in 50 years: The Colorado Rockies’ run differential
Maybe Raleigh hits 60. Or Judge continues his spate of all-time-elite seasons, giving this one greater context. Perhaps there’s a surprise World Series winner. It is baseball, which means trying to predict the next 50 minutes, let alone the next 50 years, is a fool’s errand.
But in the modern era, which comprises every season since 1900, never before has there been a team as good at giving up runs while being as bad at scoring them as the Rockies. There have been thousands of baseball teams in the game’s history. None has a worse run differential than Colorado’s -404 (and counting).
That is not just hard to do. It has been, to this point, impossible. Getting outscored by more than 2½ runs per game is the domain of teams in the 1800s. (The 1899 Cleveland Spiders yielded an astounding 723 runs more than they scored in 154 games.) And yet, here are the Rockes, whose ignominy won’t launch them past the White Sox for the most losses in a modern season but will place them atop record books with a minuscule likelihood of being supplanted.
The numbers are quite simple. Colorado has scored just 584 runs, fewer than any team except Pittsburgh, whose offense includes a single player (Spencer Horwitz) with an adjusted OPS above league average. Colorado has allowed 988, the most in the big leagues by more than 125 runs. And the heretofore mythical minus-404 differential, seen as an impossible wall to breach, has crumbled, felled by an organizational ineptitude that has grown uglier annually since 2019. Even the all-time-bad teams — the 1932 Red Sox (43-111, -345), the 2023 A’s (50-112, -339) and the 2003 Tigers (43-119, -337) — look at these Rockies and say: You are awful.
So, yeah. It’s not the kind of record worthy of celebrating or shouting from the mountaintops. It’s just one strong enough to stand the test of time, even if it takes another 100 years to break it.
The more things change, the more … Ohio State remains the same.
There were some Week 10 surprises, but not at the top, where defending national champion Ohio State should start the first College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday right where it left off last season — at No. 1. Although there could be some debate over the top spot when the 12 members of this year’s group vote on teams for their first official top 25 ranking of the season, the bigger discussion will likely revolve around one-loss Alabama and undefeated Texas A&M for the No. 3 and No. 4 spots.
How far do the two-loss Canes fall after their loss at SMU, and how high can two-loss Notre Dame rise? Can Texas Tech make its debut in the CFP top 25? Was Vandy’s moment in the field fleeting after its loss to Texas?
Here’s a prediction of what the selection committee will do on Tuesday night when it reveals its first of six rankings (8 p.m. ET/ESPN) — the season’s first true baseline of the playoff pecking order.
Projecting the top 12
Why they could be here: Ohio State has been one of the most consistently complete teams, and that season-opening win against Texas will continue to boost the Buckeyes. The Longhorns’ win against Vanderbilt on Saturday helped both their playoff hopes and Ohio State’s résumé. Ohio State also has road wins against Washington and Illinois, two of the Big Ten’s better teams. Ohio State hasn’t allowed a team more than 16 points this season. The Buckeyes entered Saturday leading the nation in total efficiency and ranked in the top three in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Saturday’s lopsided win against a Penn State team that remains winless in conference play won’t wow anyone in the room, but it will continue to enhance the Buckeyes’ record strength.
Why they could be lower: Indiana has a better win — by double digits at Oregon — and is statistically comparable. The Hoosiers are No. 2 in total efficiency and ranked in the top six in both offensive and defensive efficiencies entering Week 10. The committee also compares common opponents, and the Hoosiers had a historically large margin of victory against Illinois, although Ohio State also won with ease.
Need to know: The Buckeyes are trending toward the No. 1 seed on Selection Day if they win the Big Ten, and that means they would earn a first-round bye and play the winner of the No. 8 vs. No. 9 first-round game. Ohio State entered Saturday with the best chance in the country to reach the playoff (95.7%).
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 29 at Michigan. The Buckeyes are trying to avoid a fifth straight loss to their rivals.
Why they could be here: The Hoosiers earned their third road win of the season on Saturday at Maryland, which is now a four-loss team. Indiana has been one of the most dominant teams in the country, regardless of opponent, ranking No. 2 in ESPN’s game control metric — second only to Ohio State. Indiana’s nonconference lineup, though, doesn’t include an opponent as impressive as Texas. The Hoosiers beat Old Dominion, Kennesaw State and Indiana State — the latter being a struggling FCS team. IU and Ohio State are very evenly matched statistically, but Ohio State entered Saturday with the best defense in the country, holding opponents to 6.88 points per game.
Why they could be higher: Indiana still owns one of the best wins in the country, beating Oregon 30-20 on Oct. 11 — and that remains a better win than Ohio State’s win against Texas in part because it was on the road, but also because the committee will likely have Oregon ranked ahead of Texas on Tuesday. The Hoosiers entered Week 10 ranked No. 2 and with a slight edge over the No. 3 Buckeyes in ESPN’s strength of record metric. The committee also compares common opponents, and IU dominated Illinois 63-10, whereas Ohio State won 34-16. The committee, though, doesn’t incentivize running up the score, and any margin greater than three touchdowns or so isn’t earning any bonus points in the room.
Need to know: If the Hoosiers run the table and play for the Big Ten championship, they should be a CFP lock. Even if they lose in the title game, the committee will likely keep them in contention for a top-four finish and first-round bye.
Toughest remaining game: There isn’t one. Penn State, Wisconsin and Purdue each have at least five losses, and the Hoosiers have at least a 77% chance to win each of those games.
Why they could be here: If Georgia is a top-five team on Tuesday night — and Notre Dame is behind it — Alabama’s best win would trump Texas A&M’s top win against the Irish. Both were close games on the road. The bigger difference is that the Tide also earned wins against Vanderbilt, Mizzou and Tennessee, which should all be CFP top 25 teams on Tuesday night. Alabama has four consecutive wins — from late September to mid-October — against teams the committee holds in high regard, including two on the road. Alabama has been a slightly better defensive team against more elite competition, ranking No. 15 in defensive efficiency, while the Aggies are No. 18. Overall, Alabama entered Saturday ranked No. 8 in total efficiency, another small edge over No. 10 Texas A&M.
Why they could be lower: Some committee members could continue to penalize Alabama for its season-opening loss to Florida State, which looks worse each week. Plus, the Aggies haven’t lost and are No. 1 in ESPN’s strength of record metric.
Need to know: So what’s the difference between earning the No. 3 or the No. 4 seed? The No. 3 seed faces the winner of the No. 11 vs. No. 6 first-round game. The No. 4 seed plays the winner of the No. 5 vs. No. 12 matchup.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 15 vs. Oklahoma. The Sooners will likely be the last CFP top 25 team Alabama faces during the regular season.
Why they could be here: The undefeated Aggies have one of the best nonconference wins in the country, a 41-40 win at Notre Dame on Sept. 13. The win against LSU is now … interesting? The Aggies earned a resounding 49-25 win in Baton Rouge, but LSU is a three-loss team that fired its head coach and athletic director. How the committee views LSU will be a factor in how it regards A&M’s résumé. In addition to Notre Dame, Texas A&M’s wins against teams above .500 came versus LSU and Mississippi State. Both Texas A&M and Alabama have three road wins each, but two of Bama’s (Georgia and Missouri) came against ranked teams.
Why they could be higher: The Aggies are undefeated and No. 1 in ESPN’s strength of record metric, and Alabama lost to a struggling Florida State team.
Need to know: The Aggies and Tide don’t play each other during the regular season but are the most likely matchup in the SEC championship game, according to ESPN Analytics. Texas A&M also doesn’t play Georgia during the regular season.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 28 at Texas.
Why they could be here: The Bulldogs escaped a feisty Florida team in Jacksonville on Saturday to remain one of the committee’s top one-loss contenders. The head-to-head SEC results, though, will keep them sandwiched between Alabama and Ole Miss. Georgia’s only loss was by three points at home to the Tide on Sept. 27, and its best win was on Oct. 18 at home against Ole Miss. An overtime win at Tennessee will also help separate Georgia from other one-loss contenders ranked lower. And for as many questions as there have been about Georgia’s defense, Florida converted just 2 of 11 third downs and was 0-for-2 on fourth down.
Why they could be lower: It would be difficult for the committee to justify dropping Georgia below Ole Miss, which it beat, as long as their records are comparable. If there is a knock on the Bulldogs, though, it has been the defense, which was No. 36 in efficiency entering Saturday.
Need to know: Georgia entered Saturday with the third-best chance to reach the SEC championship game behind Alabama and Texas A&M, according to ESPN Analytics.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 15 vs. Texas. The Longhorns beat Vanderbilt on Saturday and have now won four straight games to keep their playoff hopes alive. They’ll have a bye week to prepare for the trip to Athens.
Why they could be here: The Rebels struggled to contain LaNorris Sellers and South Carolina early, but the defense swarmed Sellers in the fourth quarter and Ole Miss pulled away to likely remain one of the committee’s top one-loss teams. Ole Miss will still be ranked behind Georgia because of the head-to-head road loss to the Bulldogs on Oct. 18. The Rebels entered Saturday ranked No. 7 in ESPN’s strength of record metric. Their best win was Oct. 25 at Oklahoma, and the lopsided win against two-loss Tulane is still respectable. Part of the committee’s evaluation of Ole Miss will depend on how much it values a win against three-loss LSU, which has since fired its coach and athletic director.
Why they could be lower: BYU is undefeated and entered Week 10 ranked No. 9 in total efficiency; Ole Miss was No. 21. BYU was also No. 5 in strength of record, a slight edge over No. 7 Ole Miss.
Need to know: Ole Miss entered November with a three-game stretch at home against unranked opponents, including The Citadel in its next game. The Rebels’ best opportunities to impress the selection committee are behind them, but as long as they don’t stumble, it shouldn’t impact their playoff standing. A bad loss, though, could call the Rebels’ résumé into question.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 28 at Mississippi State. The Egg Bowl isn’t a gimme, especially as the Bulldogs have crept above .500. A loss could mean a first-round road trip instead of a home game for Ole Miss — or getting bumped out of the bracket entirely.
Why they could be here: The Cougars had a bye week but will be the committee’s lone undefeated Big 12 team to consider. BYU’s back-to-back wins against Utah and Iowa State are collectively better than anything undefeated Georgia Tech has on its résumé. Heading into Saturday, BYU was ranked No. 5 in ESPN’s strength of record metric, ahead of No. 8 Georgia Tech. The more glaring discrepancy is in strength of schedule, where BYU was No. 49 and Georgia Tech was No. 83. Statistically, BYU and Georgia Tech have been extremely even in most major categories, but the Cougars have done it against better competition.
Why they could be lower: The committee will discuss an FCS win against Portland State, and three wins against teams with losing records — Stanford, Colorado and West Virginia.
Need to know: BYU and Texas Tech are the most likely matchup in the Big 12 title game, according to ESPN Analytics, but they will first play each other in Lubbock, Texas, next week. If BYU reaches the Big 12 title game undefeated, it will almost certainly earn an at-large bid as a one-loss runner-up if it doesn’t win the title. If BYU loses to Texas Tech during the regular season but beats it in the Big 12 title game, it’s also still possible they both get in if it’s a close game. Even with a second loss, the Red Raiders could claim a regular-season win against the Big 12 champs, which would be a huge boost to their résumé in the committee meeting room.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 8 at Texas Tech. BYU has a week to prepare, but the Red Raiders are coming off a road win at Kansas State.
Why they could be here: The Ducks will be one of the committee’s most interesting teams to debate because they have played well, but their best win is … Sept. 13 at Northwestern — the only team they’ve beaten with a winning record. Entering Saturday, Oregon’s opponents had a winning percentage of 47.9%, ranked No. 101 in the country. The Ducks also have an FCS win against Montana State. The committee will likely still respect the Sept. 27 win at Penn State because the Nittany Lions had head coach James Franklin, it was a hostile crowd environment, and the team had yet to unravel. It still wasn’t a win against a playoff contender, though. Oregon lost to Indiana, the best team it has played, by double digits at home.
Why they could be higher: With the exception of the double-overtime win at Penn State, Oregon has won in convincing fashion all season. The Ducks entered Saturday ranked No. 7 in scoring defense (13.5 points per game) and No. 6 in points per game (41.25). The Ducks also have one of the best losses in the country, as it could be to the committee’s No. 2 team, Indiana.
Need to know: Oregon has more chances to impress the selection committee in November, with games against Iowa, USC and at Washington looming — all teams with winning records and potentially ranked in the CFP top 25. The committee doesn’t project ahead, though, and Oregon had a Week 10 bye, so this is the résumé it will be judged by on Tuesday.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 29 at Washington. The 6-2 Huskies have lost only to Ohio State and on the road against Michigan.
Why they could be here: The Red Raiders are clearly a talented team — and might be better than undefeated BYU — but the loss at Arizona State will probably keep them from climbing much higher in the initial ranking. They don’t have much to compensate for it, aside from the 34-10 win at Utah on Sept. 20. Saturday’s win at Kansas State, though, was Texas Tech’s third Big 12 road win. The committee will respect the Oct. 4 win at Houston, but it didn’t help that the Cougars (7-2) lost to West Virginia on Saturday.
Why they could be lower: The brutal nonconference lineup against FCS Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Kent State and Oregon State doesn’t include any teams with winning records. The Red Raiders entered Saturday No. 14 in ESPN’s strength of record metric, and No. 60 in strength of schedule.
Need to know: If Texas Tech loses to BYU on Saturday but still wins the Big 12, it’s a CFP lock. The problem is that if the Red Raiders lose a second conference game, they’re going to need some help to reach the Big 12 championship. So a loss to BYU could be devastating to their conference and CFP hopes. If the Red Raiders beat BYU next Saturday but lose to the Cougars in the Big 12 championship game, they will still have a chance at an at-large bid as the Big 12 runner-up. They would be able to claim a win over the eventual Big 12 champs, which would be a much-needed boost to their résumé. It would depend in part on how the game unfolded.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 8 vs. BYU. The Cougars are the only remaining opponent with a winning record, as Texas Tech ends the season against UCF (4-4) and at West Virginia (3-6).
Why they could be here: The Irish have now won six straight after their 0-2 start and made a case for a top-10 ranking — with the help of Miami, Georgia Tech and Vanderbilt all possibly falling out. The head-to-head loss to Miami in the season opener will be a discussion point, but it’s one of several tiebreakers, and if the committee feels strongly that Notre Dame is now the better team, it can rank it as such. The Irish got off to a slow start against Boston College on Saturday but eventually pulled away to avoid elimination against a now 1-8 team. Notre Dame’s best win is against USC, and it could have another ranked opponent on its schedule if Pitt works its way into the CFP top 25 on Tuesday. Notre Dame travels to Pitt on Nov. 15. Notre Dame’s improved defense and strong running game could help boost the Irish into a safe ranking spot when it matters the most.
Why they could be lower: There could be committee members who still believe strongly that Miami’s head-to-head win should keep the Canes ranked above the Irish while their records remain comparable.
Need to know: Notre Dame has at least a 75% chance to win each of its remaining games, according to ESPN Analytics.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 15 at Pitt. If there’s a trap game remaining, this is it, as Pitt is an ACC team that has won five straight games. The Panthers also have a bye week to prepare for this game.
Why they could be here: With their win against Vanderbilt — and Georgia Tech’s loss at NC State — the Longhorns are back in the conversation. Texas now has two wins against what should be CFP top 25 teams in Oklahoma and Vanderbilt, and the season-opening loss at Ohio State isn’t going to hurt the Longhorns in the eyes of the committee. The Oct. 4 loss at Florida is bad, but unlike Georgia Tech, the Longhorns have statement wins to help offset it. Texas has won four straight games since its loss to the Gators, and it has the head-to-head win against rival Oklahoma. That looks even better after the Sooners beat Tennessee on the road Saturday. Texas entered Week 10 ranked No. 13 in both ESPN’s strength of record and strength of schedule metrics.
Why they could be lower: The selection committee could also consider dropping Georgia Tech or Miami here, or adding Virginia into the mix. Some committee members could also give more credit to Oklahoma’s road win over Tennessee than to the Longhorns’ home win against Vandy. And much like the Miami-Notre Dame scenario, there could be people in the room who give less weight to the head-to-head result than other factors.
Need to know: If the playoff were today, Texas would be bumped out to make room for the ACC champion, which is now projected to be Virginia, which is ranked outside of the committee’s projected top 12. Because both the ACC champion and the Group of 5 champion are outside of the top 12, the teams ranked No. 11 and No. 12 would both get bumped out.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 28 vs. Texas A&M. It’s certainly not going to be easy to win at Georgia on Nov. 15, but the Longhorns will have a bye week to prepare for it. A top-four rival on a Friday night in the regular-season finale will be the second-best opponent Texas faces all season, the lone exception being its season opener against Ohio State.
Why they could be here: The Sooners’ two losses were to Texas and Ole Miss, both respectable losses to CFP top 25 teams, and their win at Tennessee on Saturday was a much-needed boost to their résumé. The Week 2 win against Michigan, though, is one of the nation’s better nonconference wins, and the Wolverines are 7-2 after having won three straight games. OU also entered Saturday ranked No. 22 in strength of schedule and No. 16 in total efficiency. The head-to-head loss, though, could keep it behind rival Texas.
Why they could be higher: The win at Tennessee was significant, giving the Sooners a key SEC road win against a ranked opponent. The committee would also consider the hand injury to John Mateer in the Texas game, as he made his return 17 days after having hand surgery and threw three interceptions. The question is if it would be enough of a factor along with the Sooners’ résumé to look past the head-to-head result.
Need to know: If the playoff were today, Oklahoma would be bumped out to make room for the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion, which is guaranteed a spot in the 12-team field. Right now that team — Memphis as the projected American champion — would be ranked outside the top 12.
Toughest remaining game: Nov. 15 at Alabama. The Sooners have a bye week to prepare for it but will be in a must-win situation in Tuscaloosa.
Bracket
Based on the rankings above, the seeding would be:
First-round byes
No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Indiana
No. 3 Alabama (SEC champ)
No. 4 Texas A&M
First-round games
On campus, Dec. 19 and 20
No. 12 Memphis (American champ) at No. 5 Georgia
No. 11 Virginia (ACC champ) at No. 6 Ole Miss
No. 10 Notre Dame at No. 7 BYU (Big 12 champ)
No. 9 Texas Tech at No. 8 Oregon
Quarterfinal games
At the Goodyear Cotton Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Rose Bowl Presented by Prudential and Allstate Sugar Bowl on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1.
No. 12 Memphis/No. 5 Georgia winner vs. No. 4 Texas A&M
No. 11 Virginia/No. 6 Ole Miss winner vs. No. 3 Alabama
No. 10 Notre Dame/No. 7 BYU winner vs. No. 2 Indiana
No. 9 Texas Tech/No. 8 Oregon winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State
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David Hale
Human knowledge is an ever-evolving thing. At points in history, the wisest among us believed, with some degree of certainty, that the earth was flat, that sea dragons consumed ships filled with gold, that Texas was back. In time, most of us who aren’t Kyrie Irving have come to understand the folly of such ideas, but it’s worth appreciating that those great thinkers of the past weren’t fools. They simply lacked information. They took the facts available to them and posited a theory that best explained their reality, but as we learn more, we refine our notions of how the world works, and a new truth becomes clear.
This is to say, it’s really not anyone’s fault Penn State, Clemson, Florida and South Carolina all stink. Two months ago, Drew Allar, Cade Klubnik, DJ Lagway and LaNorris Sellers offered us all the proof we needed to buy into the hype. We were so young, naive and dizzy from Alex Warren ballads.
Who could’ve guessed that, by Week 10, we’d be living in a reality in which Arch Manning toppling Vanderbilt would constitute a massive shake-up in the SEC power structure?
What genius, as recently as a month ago, might’ve predicted that by the first week in November, Miami‘s playoff hopes would be on life support?
Even at halftime in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Saturday we might’ve rightfully posited Georgia Tech was the one team who could afford the ACC some semblance of respectability, and who would’ve argued?
OK, fine, we all probably did see that Miami thing coming. Even the least aware of ancient humans saw the sun come up each day and began to expect it.
Still, if the world worked the way we were led to believe it should, Saturday might’ve looked much different.
Way back when, we assumed Ohio State-Penn State would be a season-defining showdown, believed the showdown between Georgia and Florida would’ve had major SEC implications, that Manning’s Heisman campaign would’ve reached its apex when he threw three TDs against a top-10 foe. And while we might’ve expected the ACC would be at risk of getting just a single team into the playoff, it would’ve seemed a safe bet that team was Miami.
Instead, SMU stunned the Hurricanes 26-20 as Kevin Jennings threw for 365 yards and Carson Beck threw another deadly interception in overtime that proved Miami’s death knell. Three weeks ago, the Canes were undefeated and had, arguably, the most compelling résumé of any team in the country. But, of course, ever since Mario Cristobal sold his soul to a mysterious stranger at a crossroads in West Palm Beach in exchange for a supernatural cellphone that allowed him to become the world’s greatest recruiter, he has been afflicted with inescapably bad luck late in the season. The Canes are now 4-11 after Nov. 1 under Cristobal, including a 1-3 mark when ranked in the AP top 10.
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SMU storms the field after upset OT win over No. 10 Miami
SMU defeats Miami in overtime to secure its first home win over an AP top-10 team since 1974.
Instead, Penn State was but a speed bump for Julian Sayin, Carnell Tate and Jeremiah Smith, as the Buckeyes breezed to a 38-14 win. The Nittany Lions lost for the fifth straight game, Penn State mustered just 200 yards of offense, and every coach whose name has been mentioned to fill James Franklin’s vacant office space is getting a hefty raise and extension. Sayin, who looks young enough to get carded when buying tickets to a PG movie, carved up Penn State’s veteran defense, throwing more touchdowns (four) than incompletions (three).
Instead, Florida’s season devolved quickly, Billy Napier was fired, and the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party had all the cache of a book club meeting where your neighbor has too many glasses of rosé and spends a half an hour explaining the symbolism in Matthew McConaughey’s new book of poetry. Never mind that Georgia still staggered through much of the contest, running headlong into a wall again and again until Chauncey Bowens finally broke through with a 36-yard touchdown run to secure the win. These Dawgs enjoy playing with fire, like the kid your parents wouldn’t let you invite to your birthday party in third grade. This was Georgia’s fourth win of the season after trailing in the second half, a sign that either we don’t really know that much about the Dawgs’ excellence or that they simply enjoy toying with their prey like a bored house cat.
Instead, NC State ran through Georgia Tech’s defense like Sherman marching through Atlanta. That the Wolfpack had lost their past four games against FBS opponents, were without their two best skill position weapons in Justin Joly and Hollywood Smothers, and that QB CJ Bailey was playing with a bum ankle throughout the second half was utterly meaningless information. What mattered was only that an ACC team had flown too close to the sun, and the football gods were determined to smite poor Georgia Tech. If Haynes King, a man who once won a game of Connect 4 in two moves, cannot subdue the forces of ACC chaos, it is fair to assume the league’s collective mediocrity might one day consume us all.
Instead, it wasn’t Sellers chasing a Heisman Trophy in Oxford, Mississippi, on Saturday, but rather Trinidad Chambliss, a guy who opened the year as the Rebels’ backup after transferring from Ferris State, a school that could barely be considered one of the 10 best programs in Michigan and so irrelevant to the national conversation that you’re just now learning Ferris State is in Michigan. Chambliss accounted for a pair of touchdowns, while Kewan Lacy ran for 167 yards and Ole Miss rolled to a 30-14 win. South Carolina, on the brink of a playoff berth a year ago, is now 1-6 in SEC play.
Instead, Clemson is reeling, Miami is a mess, and despite a win Saturday that salvaged Mike Norvell’s job for another week, Florida State is a lost cause. Meanwhile, Pitt, Duke and Virginia are a combined 14-1 in ACC play. The ACC, as is its destiny, has devolved into a “Three Stooges” film, all slapstick and vaudevillian violence, and also Brent Key looks a little like Curly.
Saturday wasn’t anything we should’ve realistically expected two months ago, but that’s the beauty of college football. It is never the season we deserve, but it is always the season we need.
So now, 10 weeks into this unlikely reality, what do we really know? Ohio State and Indiana look like sure things. Texas A&M, Alabama, Georgia and Ole Miss appear playoff bound. The ACC, as a group, requires parental supervision when using scissors. These are our truths today.
And yet, there is a month of football still to be played, a month of data waiting to alter our concept of truth and rewrite the scripts we had convinced ourselves were canon.
To paraphrase the great philosopher Roddy Piper, just when you think you have the answers, college football changes the questions.
More:
Trends | Under the radar
Heisman five
Week 10 vibe check
Each week, the biggest games push us further toward clarity for the College Football Playoff, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find smaller shifts in the sport’s ecosystem that often have just as much impact. We try to capture those here.
Trending up: Fatalism in Death Valley
Dabo Swinney took over as interim coach at Clemson on Oct. 13, 2008, and proceeded to lose his first home game 21-17 to Georgia Tech. After that Swinney won 74 of his next 83 games vs. power-conference competition in Death Valley and established Clemson as one of the country’s best programs, and Memorial Stadium as one of the most intimidating places for an opponent to take the field.
Now, Death Valley is more like a Motel 6, with Dabo leaving the light on for anyone interested in stopping by for a visit.
Duke jumped out to a 21-7 lead, converted all five fourth-down tries, used a controversial pass interference call to score with 40 seconds remaining and then completed a 2-point conversion to topple Clemson 46-45. It was Duke’s first win at Clemson since 1980, and it was the Tigers’ sixth straight defeat at home against a Power 4 foe, dating back to last year.
The good news for Clemson is Swinney can now stop by his home stadium and pick up one of those giant skeletons for, like, 75% off.
“Death” Valley pic.twitter.com/77Q4LRXj6v
— Duke Football (@DukeFOOTBALL) November 1, 2025
Trending down: The haters
Week 10 was a rough time for all those folks who like to laugh at the struggles of Bill Belichick or Arch Manning.
First, Belichick’s North Carolina team picked up its first ACC win of the season on Friday 27-10 over a Syracuse team that started a lacrosse player at QB and, we think, a herd of mildly aggressive alpacas on defense. Belichick began his UNC tenure by promoting the notion the Heels would be “the 33rd NFL team” but, much like “fun-size” candy bars, the promise of the wording and the reality of what’s inside the wrapper were dramatically different. But on Friday, Demon June accounted for 182 yards and two touchdowns, as Freddie Kitchens looked on like a guy playing Madden for the first time who just hit a bunch of buttons on the controller that somehow resulted in a 72-yard TD pass.
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Demon June takes it to the house for 72-yard UNC TD
Gio Lopez connects with Demon June, who takes off for a 72-yard Tar Heels touchdown against Syracuse.
Meanwhile, after receiving official notice last week that he was being considered for demotion to the McCown family of QBs, Manning finally seemed to find his mojo, throwing for 328 yards and three touchdowns as Texas took down No. 9 Vanderbilt 34-31. Manning had been in concussion protocol earlier in the week, burnishing the possibility that his performance against Kentucky had actually just been a really vivid dream after eating too much Taco Bell, and he joked after the game that perhaps “the concussion helped.”
Instead, head coach Steve Sarkisian said the improved protection from the Texas O-line was the difference in Manning’s strong outing, then kindly returned left tackle Trevor Goosby‘s beloved pet cat he took, safe and sound, as promised only if the unit improved.
And as if that wasn’t enough Hate-or-ade delivered to all the critics in Week 10, Arizona State QB Jeff Sims might have provided the week’s ultimate comeuppance. Sims won his first college start (with Georgia Tech) in thrilling fashion over Florida State back in 2020, but his biggest highlight in the years that followed was getting to use Geoff Collins’ 10% discount at Waffle House one time. On Saturday, he started for the injured Sam Leavitt and turned in a gem — throwing for 177 yards and a touchdown and running for 228 and two more scores in a 24-19 win over Iowa State.
Afterward, Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham, who has already resurrected the stalled careers of Leavitt, Bo Nix and Jordan Travis, stood atop the tallest building in all of Iowa (a Tractor Supply in Des Moines) and exclaimed, “I could have made DJ Uiagalelei a Heisman winner! I am invincible! Kneel before your QB king!”
Trending up: Moral victories
A 43-yard run by Xavier Robinson helped Oklahoma stave off a late rally by Tennessee and escape Knoxville with a 33-27 win.
Tennessee racked up 105 more yards and nine more first downs than Oklahoma. The Sooners had 11 penalties for 104 yards. John Mateer threw for just 159 yards and a pick. The Volunteers were 7-of-13 on third down, and they had the ball deep in Oklahoma territory three times in the fourth quarter, and yet it’s the Vols who likely saw their playoff hopes come to an end.
We can now look forward to Josh Heupel explaining that Tennessee was clearly the better team overall in this game, and Lane Kiffin retweeting the clip while tagging Brent Venables.
Trending down: Joy in Cincy
For the past two weeks, Utah has seemed less interested in winning than in crushing the souls of its opposition, which on Saturday, meant dealing another blow to the fragile emotions of Cincinnati sports fans considering Joe Burrow got hurt and the Reds flamed out early.
But at least they had Brendan Sorsby and his underdog Heisman candidacy and a Bearcats team with a puncher’s chance at the Big 12 title. This was something the city could rally around. It was hope.
Of course, it’s the hope that kills you. Well, hope and Mana Carvalho anyway.
Utah utterly demolished Cincinnati on Saturday, 45-14, with Carvalho’s 75-yard punt return touchdown serving as the icing on the cake. Devon Dampier accounted for 291 yards of offense, the Utes’ D forced a pair of turnovers, and a raucous crowd, decked out in all black, provided a fitting backdrop for Cincinnati’s funeral.
So, it’s back to making the best of an unpleasant situation for the folks in Cincinnati, who, no matter how bad their sports teams perform, will always have the Ickey Shuffle and Graeter’s above average ice cream.
Trending up: ACC field storming budgets
After SMU kicked off Miami in overtime Saturday, the sell-out crowd in Dallas cascaded over the wall and onto the field.
After NC State pulled off the shocker in dominant fashion against Georgia Tech, the Wolfpack fans, too, stormed the field.
0:22
NC State storms the field after upsetting No. 8 Georgia Tech
Haynes King is intercepted in the end zone, and the Wolfpack fans storm the field as NC State knocks off No. 8 Georgia Tech.
That brings the ACC’s total field stormings in 2025 to six — with Florida State (after beating Alabama), Georgia Tech (after beating Clemson), Virginia and Stanford (both after beating FSU) already in the books.
All of this comes on the heels of the ACC announcing new fines for schools who allow a field storming.
The good news is, a few more shockers and that revenue gap with the SEC will be all but closed.
Trending down: Conference losing streaks
Florida State walloped Wake Forest 42-7, and Mississippi State charged back from a 35-21 fourth-quarter deficit to topple Arkansas 38-35 on Saturday, ending two of the longest conference losing streaks in the country.
FSU hadn’t won an ACC game since Sept. 21 of last year, but Tommy Castellanos had a rushing and passing TD, and Duce Robinson caught five balls for 148 yards and score, as the Seminoles demolished Wake Forest, leaving Seminoles fans to concede Mike Norvell can stay for one more week, but after that he needs to find his own place or they’re going to stay with their family in Fort Myers.
Meanwhile, the Bulldogs finally knocked down the door after falling just short of a conference win in each of the past two games against Florida and Texas. Blake Shapen‘s 18-yard touchdown pass to Anthony Evans III on fourth-and-5 with 48 seconds left proved the difference in the game. The win snapped a 16-game SEC losing streak for Mississippi State, which last won in 2023 against … Arkansas.
The Razorbacks are now the lone winless team in SEC play, and each week it’s looking more and more likely Bobby Petrino is going to have to find a new place in which to serve as the offensive coordinator for a head coach who’s about to get fired.
Trending up: Bowl excitement in suburban ATL
Kennesaw State moved up to FBS last year and proceeded to lose its first six games, all by double digits. It didn’t get its first FBS win until Oct. 23, 2024 — a little more than a year ago — and yet, after Tuesday’s 33-20 win over UTEP, the Owls are bowl-eligible.
To put that into perspective, if you had left Midtown when the Owls won for the first time last year, and drove north on I-75 toward Kennesaw in traffic, you would barely be past Marietta by now, and the Owls are already headed to a postseason game. Granted, heading to that game will require stocking up on canned goods and bottled water, and everyone can check their email when they hit the Panera off Exit 8 in Woodstock where there’s free Wi-Fi.
Trending down: Certainty in the American
Caleb Hawkins ran for 197 yards and four touchdowns as North Texas toppled Navy 31-17 on Saturday, delivering another shake-up atop the American and, in upending a second service academy this season, lending further credence to the theory that Texas could form its own country with a constitution written on the side of a 96-ounce rib eye and immediately become a global superpower.
As for the conference race, there are now six teams with one loss in league play — Navy, South Florida, Memphis, East Carolina, Tulane and North Texas — increasing the likelihood that the American will need to dig deep into its tiebreaker options. Perhaps setting up an epic rock, paper, scissors match between Jon Sumrall and Ryan Silverfield atop the Empire State Building, with the winner advancing to the conference championship game and the loser having to take the train back to Newark would work.
Trending down: Optimism in Boulder
A week ago, Colorado trailed Utah 43-0 at the half and was outgained by 416 yards. On Saturday, Colorado trailed Arizona 38-7 at the half, and was outgained by 154.
And, frankly, it’s unfair that’s all people will talk about rather than mentioning that Colorado was only outscored by seven combined points in the second halves of those two games. It’s like the hate for Coach Prime is so deep that everyone refuses to look at the positives he’s accomplishing every week.
Under-the-radar play of the week
Sometimes a great play is like watching ballet, precise and beautiful. A great play can feel electric, the entire crowd buzzing with so much palpable energy that it’s as if a power beyond X’s and O’s is at work. Sometimes a win can be so close you can taste it. Sometimes, the simple smell of the grass on a crisp fall day is enough to make a football game feel epic.
But let’s be honest, of all the ways a football game can appeal to the five senses, none is quite so enjoyable as the sound of a doinked kick, and Texas Tech delivered a banger on Saturday.
This is a loudest DOINK of the season contender 🔊 pic.twitter.com/JGRZGpKv0M
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 1, 2025
Our only complaint is that we have yet to figure out how to create a goalpost that, when drilled by a football, makes the loser horn sound effect as if you had just overbid on a Nissan Sentra and lost the Showcase Showdown.
Under-the-radar game of the week
Idaho State handed UC Davis its first Big Sky loss of the season in dramatic fashion. Trajan Sinatra, who unfortunately is not some sort of hybrid of Frank Sinatra and former Duke basketball guard Trajan Langdon, drilled a 50-yard field goal with 52 seconds to play to put the Bengals up 38-36, and Nathan Reynolds picked off a Caden Pinnick pass to secure the win.
1:26
Idaho State Bengals vs. UC Davis Aggies: Full Highlights
Idaho State Bengals vs. UC Davis Aggies: Full Highlights
UC Davis’ only prior loss this season had been to Washington, while Idaho State had been riding a three-game losing streak. The win assures the Bengals will now be the most talked-about team from Idaho in Week 10 whose field isn’t painted a random color that isn’t green.
Heisman five
The Heisman race may finally be starting to come into focus, and honestly it’s possible the invitations to the ceremony are just all sent to Columbus, Ohio.
1. Ohio State QB Julian Sayin
Sayin threw for 316 yards and four touchdowns against former Ohio State DC Jim Knowles, which is a little like getting take out with your hot new paramour and finding your ex working the drive-thru. “Hey, Jim, great to see you again. You’re looking … well. We’re just out here celebrating my four touchdown passes and … oh, geez, sorry, but I actually ordered a Diet Coke, not Coke Zero.”
2. Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza
Indiana beat Maryland 55-10, but Mendoza posted only a mundane 201 yards and a score. It’s really unfair that, just because Maryland is so bad as to allow 367 yards rushing in the game, Mendoza’s Heisman campaign has to suffer.
3. Notre Dame QB C.J. Carr
Carr threw for 299 yards and a pair of scores as Notre Dame toppled Boston College Eagles 25-10. And, sure, only beating BC by 15 and only throwing two touchdowns against a defense as bad as the Eagles have isn’t exactly a earth-shattering news, but Notre Dame probably isn’t going to lose again, so we’re all stuck with the Irish being good, and we’re going to have to learn to live with it.
4. Duke QB Darian Mensah
The Blue Devils knocked off Clemson in dramatic fashion Saturday as Mensah delivered a strike for a two-point conversion that proved the difference in a 46-45 game. Mensah threw for 361 yards and four scores in the game and now has 2,572 passing yards, 21 touchdowns and just two picks for the year. In the playoff era, the only other QB to hit each of those marks through his team’s first eight games of the year was BYU’s Zach Wilson. In conclusion, we’re looking forward to 2028 when Mensah is 2-15 as the New York Jets starter.
5. Shirtless Bros
Oklahoma State may be a miserable 1-8 this year, and it may have now lost 18 straight games against Big 12 foes, and it may have fired Mike Gundy, and Pistol Pete may have Rickets, but never let it be said the Pokes haven’t made their mark on the 2025 season. What started with a bunch of bored Oklahoma State fans in the midst of another blowout loss to Houston less than a month ago has now taken over the sport like some sort of bare-chested AI bent on world domination, with shirtless sections becoming more common in college football stadiums than The Wave, “Mr. Brightside” and horrendous ACC officiating combined.
Even down 38-points, these Colorado fans are still going strong in Boulder 🎉 pic.twitter.com/mplywEi8Gz
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 2, 2025
It’s certainly possible this trend is on the brink of becoming over-exposed — not unlike some of the guys who’ve chosen to remove their shirts — and will soon join the likes of The Dab, turnover accessories and Sam Pittman, quaint fads that came and went and now seem a little silly, if we’re being honest. But in the meantime, we just hope to get to a point where a few dozen frat guys stave off hypothermia during an extended replay review amid a 6-3 game between Minnesota a
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Bradford Doolittle
TORONTO — On a night when the Los Angeles Dodgers became the first team in 25 years to repeat as World Series champions, one glorious era in the franchise’s history ended while another one very much looks like it might continue indefinitely.
The Dodgers closed out the Toronto Blue Jays with a 5-4 win in extra innings in Game 7 on Saturday, a fitting finale for what was easily the best World Series of this decade and perhaps much longer than that. As Los Angeles closed in on another crown, it was easy to think about the fourth lefty on the Dodgers’ bullpen depth chart, a 37-year-old who just happens to be a future Hall of Famer and who was watching his last game as an active big leaguer. That end-of-the-bullpen southpaw might very well be the greatest Dodger of them all.
The lefty is Clayton Kershaw, who announced his retirement late in the season and has been on something of a farewell tour ever since, only getting into a couple of postseason games. Kershaw hasn’t been a mere bystander: His snuffing of a bases-loaded Toronto threat in the Dodgers’ epic 18-inning Game 3 win in this World Series was crucial. And that’s gratifying because it means Kershaw was at least a contributor to the third championship of his storied career. He went out on a high note.
While Kershaw is calling it quits, the team he is leaving behind is as strong as it has ever been. Indeed, it might be as strong as any team has ever been when you consider a multiyear window, and the trajectory of the franchise strongly suggests this already tremendous period of domination is not going to end anytime soon.
As the Dodgers bid adieu to an all-time great, it’s worth considering the Kershaw era as a whole; where the Dodgers were when he arrived in Los Angeles as a touted first-round hotshot; and what they have become since — which is, simply put, one of baseball’s greatest dynasties.
MANY STAR PLAYERS, managers and executives passed through Dodger Stadium over the years, but the post-1988 championship drought stretched on and on. By the time the turmoil during the latter part of the Frank McCourt ownership era gave way to the arrival of the Guggenheim group in 2012, the Dodgers were wallowing in mediocrity even as Kershaw rose to the peak of his profession, winning his first Cy Young award in 2011 and finishing second in 2012.
Kershaw was great, but the Dodgers, overall, lacked an identity. They weren’t even the economic bullies that they’ve become. During Kershaw’s first five seasons, the Dodgers ranked from eighth to 10th in Opening Day payroll, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
Then came the Guggenheims, and after the 2014 season, Andrew Friedman arrived from the Tampa Bay Rays as the Dodgers’ lead baseball executive.
“I think when the new ownership group came in, and Andrew came in, I just think it felt very, like, professional,” Kershaw said. “It felt very, like, ‘This is how you do it.’ And I was younger too, so I didn’t understand it. But now … all of us are in it together.”
By the time Friedman arrived, the Dodgers’ climb back to the elite was already underway. They won back-to-back National League West titles in 2013 and 2014, seasons in which Kershaw added two more Cy Young Awards and an MVP trophy. But the Dodgers’ pennant drought persisted.
Since then, the Dodgers have morphed, re-morphed and morphed again into baseball’s most relentless organization. The stars have trickled in nearly every season, either from within or without. For every superstar the Dodgers have acquired — including Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman (all former MVPs, like Kershaw) — others such as Manny Machado and Trea Turner have come and gone.
The Dodgers’ payroll reached No. 2 in 2013, and it has remained in the top five ever since. According to Cot’s, L.A. began the season with MLB’s highest payroll seven times, including this one.
Yet all through this rise in revenue and payroll alike, the Dodgers never slacked in scouting, development, analytics, research, medical science or any facet in running an organization. If it exists, the Dodgers are in pursuit of industry leadership in it. And in doing so, they have become what some see as baseball’s newest evil empire.
“There’s always critics,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re in a big market. We’re expected to win. Our fans expect us to win. I can’t speak to what revenue we’re bringing in, but our ownership puts it back into players, a big chunk of it. That’s the way it should be with all ownership groups.”
Increasingly, the subject of organizational identity seems to come up in conversations about industry trends. The idea is that every organization needs to have a clearly defined set or traits, a style of play that serves as a guiding light for everything from scouting, drafting, development, free agency and the trade market.
What is the Dodgers’ identity? Really, it’s all the above. And more. When Kershaw joined the Dodgers, they were a proud franchise that arguably was defined by a lustrous past. Now, the Dodgers are the one team that can claim to be all things.
“I think that should be everyone’s goal,” L.A. starter Tyler Glasnow said. “Try to build the best playoff team you possibly can. You obviously have to get there, and it’s a little different for the Dodgers. They have done so many things for so many years, from development to signing guys. They’re in a different position than most [teams].”
Whatever their opponents’ strength is, the Dodgers are going to do it better. The brain trust in L.A. remains young. The resources keep growing. And so the chasm between the Dodgers and everyone else keeps getting wider.
Kershaw arrived with a franchise with a proud past trending toward the middle. He leaves with one whose ceiling might be too high to identify.
“It starts with Andrew and [Roberts] and all the way down,” Kershaw said. “There’s no hierarchy here. Everybody does their job in trying to win the game. There’s not one thing that’s more or less important than the other thing.”
ONE THING THAT strikes you when you’re around the Dodgers is the degree of loyalty that their players express to the organization. Certainly Kershaw himself could have left a number of times, and in recent years when he worked on one-year contracts, there were frequent rumors he might want to finish his career with his hometown Texas Rangers.
But Kershaw never left, and the Dodgers never tried to push him out, even though they likely could have replaced his late-career rate of production with a younger, more cost-efficient player. Instead, they let Kershaw linger in his annual decision on whether to keep going and rolled out the red carpet when he wanted to return. Because of that, he will become one of the most precious things in baseball: a one-team Hall of Famer.
But it isn’t just about how they treat their stars. Take Miguel Rojas, once the starting shortstop for the Miami Marlins, who has become a fringe player in L.A., a defensive specialist and sometimes starter when other players are injured. The Dodgers are his original organization and even as his career has iterated, he remains Dodger blue at heart.
“The Dodgers gave me an opportunity to go to minor league camp in 2013,” Rojas recalled after Game 6. “Then I got a chance to play in the big leagues in 2014 when I really wasn’t an impact player in the minors. They gave me an opportunity, and I will never forget that.”
Enrique Hernandez cited the communication between the team and the players as what separates the Dodgers from other teams.
“Other organizations, they’re like, ‘We’re going to do things our way, and you’re just a player, you work for us,'” Hernandez said. “But I think these guys just want to make sure that we’re on top of our game at all times.”
That too, is what the Dodgers have become: a team that players want to play for, where they feel appreciated.
“Even playing against them, watching, it was just always in the back of my mind — I wanted to be a Dodger and play on that team,” Blake Snell said during the NL Championship Series. “To be here now, it’s a dream come true. I couldn’t wish for anything more.”
The Dodgers don’t sign every free agent, though last winter it felt like it at times. As the Dodgers’ payroll has increased, so has their international influence. Of course, the marquee signing was Ohtani during the 2023-24 offseason. Following in his footsteps have been Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, both of whom played vital roles in the Dodgers’ run to the latest championship.
Accompanying the focus on overseas stars has been a tremendous growth in business partnerships looking to capitalize on the overwhelming popularity and attention that is given to the Japanese superstars, particularly Ohtani. So the Dodgers’ revenue not only keeps growing, but it’s hard to imagine what the ceiling for it could be.
Yet despite the depth of resources, the Dodgers have not annually led the majors in payroll. They’ve been able to play footsie with the various luxury tax thresholds because on top of all of the money that goes into their big league roster, they are still cutting no corners in their scouting and development program, either internationally or in the states.
As a proxy to illustrate how consistent the Dodgers’ pipeline is, consider this: According to Baseball America’s annual preseason prospect ratings, the Dodgers have not ranked outside of the top 10 since 2013. This season, which they entered with baseball’s highest payroll and a brand new World Series trophy in tow, ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel ranked their system No. 1 in the sport.
“People just overlook the fact that every year we probably have a top-five farm system in baseball,” Roberts said. “This year I think we probably have the No. 1 or No. 2. We pick at the bottom of the draft every year, towards the bottom, and we still have young guys, whether by way of trade or development, that continue to help and contribute.”
This is what it all comes down to. The Dodgers aren’t beating everyone in just spending or just analytics or just scouting or just development or just free agency. They are beating everyone in everything.
“You see free agents, and you see other guys, they want to be a part of something that is built to last,” Kershaw said. “We don’t want to be one-hit wonders as free agents. You know when you sign up to be a Dodger that you’ll be in these (playoff) situations.”
No, the Dodgers aren’t a shoo-in to win the World Series every year. The just-completed World Series was the perfect illustration of that. With a bounce here or there the other way in two of Toronto’s losses, the Blue Jays would be champs and Game 7 would have never happened. That’s always going to be the case in baseball’s current playoff format.
But the Dodgers are a virtual shoo-in to be considered a leading World Series contender every year. The early 2026 title odds began to circulate this week and — spoiler alert — the Dodgers are already prohibitive favorites to win the 2026 World Series.
If you have Dodger fatigue, you better put on a pot of coffee, because unless something drastic changes, they are not going away for a very, very long time. And if you wonder what that means in the context of baseball history, consider this: The great New York Yankees dynasty, the lineage that stretched from Ruth to DiMaggio to Mantle, lasted from 1921 to 1964.
When a team reaches this ongoing level of organizational success, hovering above all others, it can create a self-reinforcing dynamic that lasts for decades. The Dodgers are in Year 13 of their current postseason streak, with five NL pennants and now three World Series titles, but they very well might just be getting started.
“The mainstays that we have in our lineup, that are going to be here for a long time, and just the continuity, the expectation now is this, every single year, and that’s not easy to do,” Kershaw said. “But that’s what everybody expects.”
THE ARGUMENT THAT Kershaw is the greatest Dodger ever is an easy one to make. Certainly, this is subjective, but it’s a proposition with a statistical defense. This isn’t to diminish the impact of legends like Jackie Robinson, great for ways far beyond what he did on the field, or Sandy Koufax, whose comet-like career ended at age 30 because of injury. That’s just it: Many of the Dodgers’ all-time greats either had short careers or spent a lot of time with other teams.
Take a bottom-line metric like the Baseball Reference version of WAR. You can always quibble about the conclusions of WAR, particularly when it comes to pitchers, but when one player has a sizable edge over another, WAR is probably right. Kershaw has a sizable edge over every former Dodger, with his 80.9 bWAR far ahead of second-place Pee Wee Reese (68.5).
Maybe this will change in time, especially if Ohtani plays into a ripe old age, but for now it’s pretty clear that in terms of cumulative accomplishment, Kershaw is the most prolific Dodger who has ever lived.
Here is where the strength of the Dodgers might be best illustrated. For some teams, the loss of a franchise icon can be a little discombobulating because that player is so entwined with the identity of what the franchise has become.
With these Dodgers, there’s no such concern. It’s not to take away one iota from anything that Kershaw has ever done. It’s just that with Ohtani around as one of the most famous athletes on the planet, and Betts and Freeman among the best players of their generation as sure-fire Hall of Famers, the Dodgers have an identity without Kershaw.
He has been the constant through all of this, the golden link in the great chain that binds an era of one of baseball’s flagship franchises to the next. For much of Kershaw’s career, especially when it came to the postseason, it felt like he was tasked with carrying the Dodgers on his back as he built a legacy and a resume that stands right alongside that of any other pitcher in the history of an organization that has produced some of baseball’s best, not the least of whom is Kershaw’s close friend Koufax.
Yet by Saturday’s finale, Kershaw’s presence on the Dodgers was really more luxury than necessity, and that’s certainly no insult to the great lefty. It simply speaks to the behemoth that the Dodgers have become.
Once, the Dodgers’ success was attached to the question of how far Kershaw could take them. By the time he celebrated with his teammates for the last time on Saturday, the worm had turned. The Dodgers had become so powerful that as the final chapter came to a close, Kershaw was just a passenger on one of baseball’s most glorious rides, one whose end is so far away that no one can imagine when or where or if it will ever end.
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