“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the sight of God …”

Ref, are you blind?!

“Marriage is a sacred and joyous covenant, which should be entered into reverently …”

We’re never entering the end zone …

“Marriage has been guarded and esteemed through the ages for the stability and happiness it brings to the individual, the family and the community …”

This esteemed DB can’t guard any individual …

“The uniting of these two people in heart, body and mind is an occasion of great significance, which we can all celebrate …”

Yes! Touchdown! War Eagle!

The three pillars of autumn in America are the colors of fall foliage, the traditional colors of one’s chosen college football allegiance and the colors of bridesmaids dresses, bow ties and bridal gowns. For as surely as the sun shall rise and set on October Saturdays, those days shall be packed with the shifting hues of the trees around us, incredibly crucial midseason college football contests with immeasurable postseason impact, and yes, more weddings taking place in more venues than at any other time of year.

Forget Texas vs. Oklahoma, or even Republicans vs. Democrats. Because at this time of year the greatest divide in this great nation of ours is about an event planner that collides like Jadeveon Clowney hitting a running back in the Outback Bowl.

Fall weddings vs. college football.

As this season hits mid-October and Week 7, every game matters much more than they have all autumn long. Those teams with College Football Playoff hopes can’t afford another loss (we’re looking at you, Alabama, playing at Missouri, and LSU, hosting South Carolina) and we have also officially entered the six-win vs. six-loss bowl eligibility-or-not stanza of the fall.

But all of that potentially season-altering stuff is happening at the exact same time as thousands of life-altering stuffs are coming down aisles from coast to coast.

“This is a test of true loves,” Clemson coach and admitted wedding reception dance enthusiast Dabo Swinney said when asked this summer about those Saturdays when exchanging the possessions of two hearts conflicts with exchanging possessions of the football. “She or he might be the love of your life now. But for that groom or that bride who has a Clemson tiger paw tattoo, they have loved this team longer than they have loved them, probably. Listen, marriage is all about compromise. You’re going to get married in the fall around here? Well, you’re jumping right into that lesson about compromise right off the bat!”

“I know this. You’re going to find out who in your family actually loves you,” added Missouri head coach Eliah Drinkwitz, father of four (potential) future brides. “Because if you’re getting married on an Alabama game weekend, I’m betting that one uncle who named his dogs Bear and Saban, he’s probably not coming.”

Herein lies the rub play

According to the annual report of wedding hub theknot.com, this Saturday, Oct. 11, is the third most popular wedding date of 2025, ranking behind only Sept. 20 and Oct. 25. In fact, the top five are all fall dates, the one September Saturday joined by all four in October. During her research, Knot Worldwide associate editor Chapelle Johnson discovered that this all represents a significant audible when it comes to booking nuptials. Fall didn’t rise to the top of the matrimonial timetable until 2015, when it overtook summertime as the prime time to trade rings. As recently as 2009, a whopping 41% of betrothals took place between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Now that trend has shifted more than Peyton Manning changing plays pre-snap.

Why? Johnson suggests it’s because of the cooler weather and the amazing paint-brushed palette those fall leaves provide, the perfect backdrop for big outdoor events. You know, the exact same reasons those days are perfect for college football.

The fall is so alluring, in fact, that even the daughter of the face and voice of college football — Elizabeth Davis, aka Daughter of Rece — couldn’t resist the marital magic of September’s final weekend. Dad even christened the event with one of his legendary “College GameDay” show opens, written as if her alma mater was facing off against her new husband’s. At least the bride was kind enough and smart enough to book the wedding on a Sunday.

So, schedule rubs be damned, newlyweds — even those who have long been wedded to their football-playing institutions of higher learning — make it work.

“The Penn State football schedule rules the wedding planning schedule in our area,” said Kit Henshaw, general manager and partner at the Mount Nittany Overlook, a venue prized for fall weddings because it sits on the ridge of college football’s most famous mountain, looking down into Happy Valley’s pinwheel of petioles every fall. “Most people avoid Penn State football home game weekends, but lots of weddings occur on away game weekends because of the beautiful fall colors and weather.”

“We have a bride who has just scheduled her wedding for Aug. 1 for this very reason, to be ahead of the football Saturdays,” said Whitney Skipper, founder, CEO and event and design curator at Poppies and Peonies, an event planner and floral designer in Anderson, South Carolina, located in the shadow of Clemson’s Death Valley. Skipper is a Clemson alum. “For many brides, they would be taking more than one team schedule into account. But we do love fall weddings,” she said. “It is a beautiful time to celebrate, to be outside and to use florals and decor in warm, comforting colors.”

As September rolled into October and football/wedding season began their coupled march down the field, we reached out to wedding planners and venues in college towns around the country asking how it’s done, why people do it and what the biggest issues to overcome are. In the end, three prevailing problems were continually mentioned: game-day traffic in relatively small college towns, combating booked-up rooms and jacked-up rates, and yeah, getting that uncle who Coach Drink warned us about to pay attention.

“Some wedding couples do avoid Duck or Beaver game days, especially if their guests will need hotel accommodations,” said Jenni Hendricks, general manager of the River Valley Inn, one of the most coveted espousal settings in Eugene, Oregon. “I was actually in a wedding where the couple moved the ceremony time because the kickoff time changed. That said, not everyone avoids game days entirely. Some couples hope that a venue might be more available — or even more affordable — because it’s competing with the football crowd. It really depends on the couple and their guest list.”

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The rulebook

When that guest list is the football crowd, even those couples who might not be the biggest college football aficionados learn to lean into the spirit of the game instead of fighting it. A fall equinox etiquette has emerged, written out in bridal magazines and even publications such as the monthly bible of SEC/ACC country, Southern Living.

It was one year ago that Southern Living editor Kaitlyn Yarborough, a Georgia alum living in Austin, Texas, laid out the “7 Unspoken Rules Of Having A Wedding During Football Season In The South.” She warned brides not to have their feelings hurt when they receive some declined RSVPs or if they catch those who did say yes sneaking a peek at their phones for score updates. She also suggested some theming, from a football-shaped groom’s cake and the band or DJ announcing game updates to countering a “clear no-phones rule” protocol during the ceremony by providing TVs at the reception, especially on rivalry weekends.

“We have a big group coming from Wisconsin looking to shake things up at the game this month on Saturday, after a traditional wedding ceremony on Friday evening,” explained Fiona Gledhill, the sales and event manager at River Valley Inn, looking ahead to Oregon‘s home game with Wisconsin on Oct. 25. “This couple, who both attended the University of Oregon and are proud UO Ducks fans, are looking forward to dragging the bride’s Wisconsin Badger-fanatic family over to a postnuptial tailgate and nail-biter at the lauded Autzen Stadium. To top the weekend competition off right, the losing team’s side of the family will be picking up the tab at a post-game-day brunch party.”

One of Skipper’s Clemson clients tried to do the right thing and booked a post-regular-season, closer-to-Christmas Saturday last Dec. 21. Then the Tigers made it into the CFP and their first-round game at Texas fell directly on top of the ceremony. “The wedding was at a beautiful local inn that had the game on a large TV in the lobby,” Skipper said. “We definitely had to pull some of our guests back into the event a couple of times for moments like introduction of the bride and groom. The guests were kind and agreeable, but they were definitely wanting to check the game as often as possible.”

For those who aren’t blindsided by the surprise of a postseason run, it is best to forewarn guests of the gridiron/conjugality double booking. That was the tack of Bailey Graham and Evan Howard, a pair of hardcore Tennessee fans who scheduled their 2024 ceremony for Oct. 19 at 3 p.m. in Townsend, Tennessee. That’s 33 miles from Neyland Stadium, where the Big Orange was hosting Alabama in their annual Third Saturday in October rivalry game … at 3:30 p.m.

When friends and family visited their event website page at theknot.com, they were greeted with a warning that was posted just below their engagement photo and way above the actual event information.

“The day of our wedding is the same day as Tennessee vs. Alabama football.” After a reminder that that would create hotel and travel snags, they wisely added: “We will have two projectors at the venue for your viewing pleasure.”

They did indeed. And when their beloved Vols upset the hated Tide, it only added to the magic of the evening. “Everyone was freaking out,” the bride texted earlier this week from Hawai’i, where the couple was celebrating a one-year anniversary/belated honeymoon. “It was such a good game. Hopefully, we can do again in a few weeks!”

To clarify, she means beat Alabama again, not get married again. Clearly, they have that part down pretty well, texting with a mai tai in their other hand.

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Love wins … and hopefully your team does, too

Banging on those who choose to be wed on the same Saturday that the home team is going to war has become a low-hanging college football internet pinata. Some have even starred in “College GameDay” features on the topic, perhaps even a particularly handsome ESPN senior writer with glasses. (See video at the top of this story.)

But full disclosure, I empathize with those who are ripped for their ritual timing because, you see, I am one of them. I married my lovely Knoxville-raised bride, whom I met when we were both students at Tennessee, on Nov. 21, 1998. We said “I do” around 6 p.m., which was just at the start of the fourth quarter of a contest between our alma mater, undefeated and pushing toward an eventual national title, and a Kentucky Wildcats team that was led by quarterback and soon-to-be-No. 1 NFL draft selection Tim Couch.

Why in the world did we do this? Because back in the day, I covered auto racing full time and we had to wait until NASCAR, aka the longest season in professional sports, finally took the checkered flag, and that wasn’t until mid-November.

Me and my groomsmen, nearly all Tennessee grads, damn near missed kickoff, er, the start of the ceremony, because we were crowded around the AV club-looking TV strapped to a cart that we found in the church office and rolled into our dressing room. Then, as the wedding video reveals, mere moments after I walked back up the aisle as a married man, we all ran back down the hallway to that same room to see if the Vols had held on. They had.

Playing at the same time were No. 4 Florida and No. 5 Florida State. My future in-laws, all from Florida, weren’t happy about that. Also in action were Wake Forest and Georgia Tech. My brother and best man, a Wake grad, and all my cousins from Atlanta weren’t happy about that. East Carolina, trying to win a sixth game and perhaps receive a bowl invite, was in the middle of beating Memphis. My father, the Pirate, wasn’t happy to miss that. Pops was also a college football official, an ACC field judge, so we cost him a game assignment, not to mention the check that came with it.

It was 1998. We had no smartphones. No earbuds. No ESPN apps. We had no digital TV projectors. We only had people frantically scrolling through sports talk AM radio as they drove from the ceremony to the reception, where we had the band play “Rocky Top” while my overserved uncle gleefully clogged.

But you know what? My family still loves me. My in-laws still like me. My marriage is still going strong. And all these years later, we still laugh when we talk about me and my dudes running up and down the hallway of the church to see if Tee Martin & Co. could keep Tennessee’s undefeated season going. Tim Couch once introduced me to a Kentucky friend of his by saying, “I did McGee the favor of playing like crap against Tennessee in the first half so he wouldn’t have to get in trouble wearing a radio earpiece or something during his wedding.”

Hopefully, your wedding will always be remembered as one of the greatest days of your life. And if you love college football as much as so many of us do, then that team you’ve dedicated yourself to, a marriage in itself, has likely provided you with so many more of the dates on your greatest days list.

So, it only stands to reason that by combining the two, no matter how much of a controversial hassle it might be, it’s guaranteed to be a pretty damn perfect fall Saturday.

Even if your uncle isn’t looking.

Jack Eichel has signed an eight-year contract extension with the Vegas Golden Knights that carries a $13.5 million average annual value, the team announced Wednesday.

The agreement came just hours before the Golden Knights open their season against the Los Angeles Kings in Las Vegas. The sides intensified talks as training camp opened, with both focused on getting a long-term deal secured ahead of the season.

The extension begins in the 2026-27 season, and Eichel will be 38 when it ends. He will be the third-highest player in terms of AAV in the league, following Kirill Kaprizov ($17 million) and Leon Draisaitl ($14 million) going forward.

Eichel, 28, was entering the final year of an eight-year contract that carried a $10 million cap hit, a deal he originally signed with the Buffalo Sabres, who drafted him.

Buffalo traded Eichel to the Golden Knights in 2021.

The deal stemmed from his desire to get an artificial disk replacement (ADR) to correct a neck injury, a procedure that never had been done on an NHL player and therefore was considered a risk. Eichel’s agent, Pat Brisson, helped facilitate the trade.

The Golden Knights allowed Eichel to get the surgery, which was such a success that several other NHL players have had it.

The U.S.-born center helped Vegas win its first Stanley Cup in 2023, scoring 26 points in 22 games during the playoff run.

“On or about four years ago, Jack was getting the first ADR surgery for an NHL active player,” Brisson told ESPN on Wednesday. “He is a pioneer. Vegas stepped to the plate and helped the process occur. They’ve since won the Cup. It’s a great place for him, and he’s really happy with the decision.”

Eichel is one of the six players already named to Team USA for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

The Golden Knights are expected to be Stanley Cup contenders, especially after adding winger Mitch Marner this summer. Eichel and Marner are expected to play together on Vegas’ top line in its opener against the Kings.

The agreement takes another big name off the list of what could have been a star-studded free agent class next summer. Connor McDavid re-signed for a two-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers earlier in the week, and Kaprizov inked an eight-year deal with the Minnesota Wild ahead of the season.

IRVINE, Calif. — “My first few years, this place was a nightmare.”

Any set of eyebrows that are within earshot of what Chris Kreider has just said are immediately raised, because this is his response to a question about what allowed the Anaheim Ducks to become more of a desired destination now than they had been in the recent past.

“I mean, the whole Cali trip was awful,” Kreider said.

This is when Kreider becomes a storyteller and a comedian, sharing what it was like to play the Los Angeles Kings, San Jose Sharks and the Ducks three times over the span of a four-day California misadventure.

The Kings were filled with “monsters” — because all but three players on their roster were taller than six feet, while weighing an average of 210 pounds. The Sharks were their own special kind of hell because they had Brent Burns, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton.

“Burns pinned me against the boards and I thought, ‘I’ll move my feet, the refs will see I can’t go anywhere and I’ll draw a penalty,'” Kreider said. “That’s when I looked down and my feet weren’t touching the ice. I’m 6-3, and I was playing at 230 pounds. Brent Burns just lifted me off the ice.”

Then there’s what happened in Anaheim.

“I don’t think I ever touched the puck when I was in this building,” Kreider said. “It was [Corey] Perry and [Ryan] Getzlaf and whoever they were playing with at the time. … I got the ‘honor’ of matching up against them a few times, and I was called into the coaches’ room after that trip. I got told that my game wasn’t where it needed to be.”

Reliving such fun times is what makes Kreider point toward the stalls that belong to teammates like Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier and Jackson LaCombe.

“You look at those guys,” Kreider said. “There’s going to be a day in the near future where [opponents] are saying the same thing about them.”

That, in Kreider’s mind, is why the Ducks are a destination again. But are they a playoff team?

“From my perspective, the expectation is to make the playoffs,” Ducks GM Pat Verbeek said. “So, your answer to that is yes.”

AFTER MISSING THE PLAYOFFS for seven straight seasons, there were questions about the Ducks’ trajectory. However, they’ve developed one of the NHL’s best farm systems through strong drafting — and are now answering those questions. They missed the playoffs last season, but finished with 80 points — their highest total in six years.

This past offseason was one of the most pivotal in franchise history. Verbeek and his staff traded John Gibson and Trevor Zegras — two players who at separate times were the face of the Ducks. They added veterans like Mikael Granlund and Kreider, while signing members of their young core to long-term contracts.

Verbeek also fired coach Greg Cronin after two seasons, and hired three-time Stanley Cup winner Joel Quenneville, who had guided the Chicago Blackhawks to those three titles but hadn’t coached in nearly four seasons. Quenneville resigned from coaching the Florida Panthers in October 2021 and was banished from the league in the wake of an investigation that concluded the Blackhawks mishandled sexual assault allegations raised by former player Kyle Beach against video coach Brad Aldrich during the team’s 2010 Stanley Cup run. The NHL lifted Quenneville’s ban in 2024.

Trading Gibson and Zegras. The decision to add more veterans. The belief that their young core is ready to do more. The entirety of what it means to hire Quenneville, a decision that has led to criticism in some circles.

Verbeek is not alone in thinking that this could be a pivot point in the team’s arc of contention.

“The last couple years, we’ve gone into it like, ‘We might have a good team. It’s going to be this young guy’s first year or that young guy’s first year.’ It was almost a question of, ‘If this guy steps up, we could have a good team,” Ducks winger Troy Terry said. “I think this year we still have some young players but they’re experienced now and we’ve seen what they can do now. There are less questions of ‘If this and this happens, we should be a good team’ and know we should be a good team.”

MARTIN MADDEN IS the Ducks’ assistant GM and director of amateur scouting. He’s overseen the team’s amateur scouting setup since 2008, and has drafted 56 players who’ve reached the NHL. That includes their entire seven-player class from 2011 that included Josh Manson, William Karlsson, Rickard Rakell and Gibson.

All those homegrown players that make up the Ducks’ young core — including Lukas Dostal, Mason McTavish, Olen Zellweger, LaCombe and Terry — were all drafted by Madden. Following Verbeek’s hiring in 2022, they added Pavel Mintyukov and Carlsson to that list of draftees, while trading for Gauthier, selected fifth overall by the Flyers in 2022.

“We came up with a philosophy on the players that we want to draft and we proceeded to try and execute that as closely as possible given the fact there are variables like if a guy is there and if not, you might not have a choice,” Verbeek said. “That’s how we’ve gone about it. The other part is making sure you get to pick high. You know you’re going to find some gems later in the draft. But you have a better chance of finding them if you’re picking high.”

Madden and Verbeek outlined that they wanted prospects who were competitive, smart and had a strong work ethic. They found those players, while acknowledging that every prospect would develop differently.

For every player like LaCombe, who played four years of college hockey, there were others like Carlsson who played against professionals in Sweden or McTavish who played in the OHL and the AHL in the same year they reached the NHL.

There was also a game plan on finding the right players with experience to fill out the roster. Verbeek went after veterans who had either won Stanley Cups, such as Alex Killorn, or those who’ve made numerous deep playoff runs such as Granlund, Radko Gudas, Jacob Trouba and Kreider.

Verbeek pitched those veterans on playing a significant role in building something substantial, establishing a foundational culture with a homegrown core that has a chance to be special.

“I was an older player too, and you can see it and feel it when you play with those [young] players,” Verbeek said. “So I feel that was something that was attractive for those players.”

One example of that is the dynamic between Carlsson and Granlund. The Ducks drafted Carlsson with the No. 2 pick in 2023, with the expectation he could become a two-way, top-line center. They signed Granlund this offseason so they could have a proven two-way, top-nine anchor down the middle.

The Ducks placed Carlsson’s stall next to Granlund’s at the practice facility — a place where teams spend the most time of any venue. It allowed the duo to foster a relationship, and has allowed Carlsson to get instant feedback or seek immediate advice.

“It’s pretty simple. [The Ducks’ veterans] just want us to play our game and they’re giving us awesome tips,” Carlsson said. “Sitting next to Granny [in the dressing room], he gives me tips too and I just listen and take it all in. Then you take it into your game and it’s knowing you’ll be fine.”

Like anything, there is a balance. Kreider and Trouba, who were part of a rebuild with the New York Rangers earlier in their careers, each explained what it means to be a veteran. Trouba said it’s about passing down what you’ve learned, while also being a sounding board because there is so much to learn about how to navigate the NHL.

Kreider added how while it’s important for those veterans to have a voice, they also want those young players to speak their minds.

Yet the player with the firmest grasp on what this means for the Ducks is Terry, the 28-year-old who is the team’s longest serving member. Terry said watching the front office continue to draft and develop homegrown talents proves the organization is more than committed to building a long-term winner. Adding those veterans amplifies that belief.

“It sends the message that we do have the guys here now that can make that push and at minimum, fight for a playoff spot,” Terry said. “I think just the moves that were made help our team a lot but it helps send the message internally that it’s time to really take that next step.”

That also includes another move that Verbeek and the Ducks’ front office made that could be a defining decision in more ways than one.

THERE ARE ON-ICE QUESTIONS that Quenneville must answer given that he hasn’t coached for four seasons. There are off-ice questions, too, about what he says he’s learned from his role in the Blackhawks sexual assault scandal.

The second-winningest coach in NHL history said when he took the Ducks job in May that he is a changed man. How has he actually changed? What are he and the Ducks doing to make sure they don’t land themselves in a situation like the Columbus Blue Jackets who acknowledged in 2023 they made a mistake in hiring Mike Babcock?

Quenneville and Verbeek were asked about it multiple times in the early portion of Quenneville’s introductory news conference. Months later, the Ducks continue to face questions.

A team source told ESPN that the organization believes in being transparent when it comes to anything related to Quenneville, including their process for choosing him along with what they did in the years before hiring Quenneville to make the organization a safe environment for all employees.

“A lot of the people I worked with were very helpful in how to deal with, how to be aware and how to address these situations,” Quenneville said. “We talked about this on the first day of training camp, about what my takeaways were from the last four years. A lot of people taught me important things … and the one thing I want to apply is that it’s not going to happen on our watch.

“The awareness factor — be it staff, players, one another. Let’s make sure that we’re all aware that any instances of bad behavior are addressed and identified and that accountability is there and that trust and support is there. I think that the most important thing for me and for us is that your safety is the priority.”

Verbeek said that the education and programming that Quenneville went through over the last three years in his work with advocacy groups is something that the Ducks owners Henry and Susan Samueli, who have owned the team since 2003, have also done for several years. Verbeek said that the Ducks are providing “constant education,” while adding they’ve done education refreshment every two years.

Verbeek said that the training the Ducks provide has created practices and protocols that are in place which allow them to recognize warning signs as a preventative measure.

Quenneville said the time he spent talking to sexual assault survivors about their experience reinforced why those situations can “never happen again.”

“I can’t be in a position to even think about letting it happen again,” Quenneville said. “I learned I should have done more things. I should have asked more questions. I should have been tougher in some meetings to find out more. I’ll take ownership of that and I know that it won’t happen again.”

The NHL determined that Quenneville along with then-Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman and then-executive Al MacIsaac were ineligible to work for other teams, and the Blackhawks were fined $2 million for having inadequate policies in place. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman lifted the ban in July 2024. The league noted the “sincere remorse” by Bowman, MacIsaac and Quenneville for their “unacceptable” response to the allegations.

Bowman was the first of the three to return to the NHL in summer 2024 when he was hired as the GM of the Edmonton Oilers.

ON THE ICE, there were several items that allowed Quenneville to succeed with the Blackhawks. Among them were how he found ways to consistently elevate the team’s young core, led by Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Jonathan Toews.

Seeing what the Panthers had with Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Jonathan Huberdeau reminded him of the Blackhawks, which is what made South Florida appealing. The Panthers have built around Barkov and Ekblad, before trading Huberdeau to get Matthew Tkachuk en route to winning consecutive Stanley Cups in 2024 and 2025.

Although Quenneville was eligible to return in 2024-25, he didn’t land a job but still closely followed the NHL. Quenneville said he was living in Florida when Verbeek, who was his former teammate back with the Hartford Whalers, reached out to pitch him on the possibility of coaching the Ducks.

“Before that, I was looking at, ‘Where could I go if there was an opportunity?'” Quenneville said. “From what I saw and from what everyone told me, that this is the place to come. This is a team that’s ready. They got a lot of the right pieces.”

Quenneville enters this season 31 wins away from 1,000 for his career. He’s second on the NHL’s all-time wins list behind Scotty Bowman, with 1,244. The games and Stanley Cups he has won makes him one of the greatest coaches in league history, and easily the most high-profile coach the Ducks have ever employed.

Part of the reason why Quenneville has succeeded is his ability to teach and connect with young players. During his first season with the St. Louis Blues, defenseman Chris Pronger set a career high in points, and did so while operating as a 22-year-old captain. In his first season in Chicago, several players — like Kane, Keith, Toews and Seabrook — also set new career highs. It was a similar pattern in Florida with Barkov and Ekblad.

Could he do the same thing with the Ducks’ young core in 2025-26 and beyond?

“It’s exciting, but obviously, it’s all on me though when it comes to playing better,” Carlsson said when asked about the prospect of improving under Quenneville. “The thing is he’s proven to younger guys that he’s about giving us a fair chance, and I’m excited for that. He’s just a coach that makes your game better, which I love.”