‘Sometimes you have to protect yourself’: Why Josh Hader took a stand until he got a long-term deal
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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
ON APRIL 30, with the Houston Astros tied 8-8 with the Cleveland Guardians in the ninth inning, Josh Hader emerged from the bullpen to pitch. This wasn’t unusual — Hader, whom the Astros signed to a five-year deal in January, has been a late-inning reliever for the Astros, San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers since he took over the closer role in Milwaukee in 2019.
What was unusual was what happened in the next inning: Hader came back out. Despite giving up a double to David Fry, he got out of the 10th inning with two strikeouts and a fly ball, and the Astros won on a two-run walk-off homer in the bottom of the inning.
It was Hader’s first two-inning appearance since Sept. 7, 2019.
That gap was no accident. Hader, one of the greatest relievers of his era, had spent the previous four years working under unprecedented, self-imposed usage rules to keep himself healthy. Together with his agent, Jeff Berry, Hader became the first known relief pitcher to place such restrictions on himself.
“From the outside looking in, some people would say it’s selfish; some people feel like players should do what they’re told,” Hader said. “But if I get hurt, I’m not able to work. Sometimes you have to protect yourself.”
That remained Hader’s stance until a team was willing to make him a long-term commitment, a process that extended until late January, when the Astros signed Hader to a five-year, $95 million deal. It is the first multiyear deal of Hader’s career.
Now that his professional future is settled, Hader and Berry are telling the backstory of Hader’s contractual machinations in his first six-plus years in the majors — including an arbitration hearing against the Brewers that compelled Hader and Berry to set the usage rules.
Hader and Berry see the reliever’s story as a pertinent example of an almost existential problem for baseball: teams striving to suppress salary doled out to some of their best employees — some of their best players, like Hader — in an industry worth tens of billions.
Hader has struck out 42% of the 1,578 batters he has faced in the big leagues, and batters have hit .159 against him in his career, with a .293 slugging percentage. Since his debut in 2017, no relief pitcher has more fWAR than Hader’s 11.7. All of this data reinforces what his former manager, Craig Counsell, said about him: Hader is among the greatest relievers in baseball history.
“He’s been a historic reliever in our game,” Counsell said in an interview in late March. “He’s had just one blip in his career” — in 2022, he had a two-month stint when he gave up 25 runs in 19 appearances — “but other than that, there’s never been anybody better.”
And yet Hader lost his arbitration hearing in 2019 and went unsigned for months this winter, in what Berry believes is a lack of acknowledgment of his importance to a roster. It’s a well-known pressure point for relievers and even starters. Last year, Tampa Bay Rays reliever Ryan Thompson posted about his issues with the arbitration process; he made $1 million in 2023 after asking for $1.2 million. Now-Baltimore Orioles ace Corbin Burnes lost his hearing and earned $10 million rather than $10.75 million and said his hearing “definitely hurt” his relationship with the Brewers.
According to multiple agents interviewed for this story, the industry’s view of relievers has made them more and more disposable: Teams believe relievers’ volatility means it makes more sense to cycle through a high volume of bullpen arms with one-year obligations rather than committing to multiyear contracts. One agent pointed to a parallel to how NFL teams view running backs.
”This efficiency model has taken over a lot of the industry,” Berry said, “and it’s bonkers.”
In 2013, the 30 teams across MLB used 513 relievers. Last season, 651 pitched in major league games — an increase of more than 25% over a decade, with many at or close to minimum wage. That this all comes at a time when arm injuries are ever more prevalent only exacerbates the problem.
Through the course of reporting this story, players, agents and members of multiple front offices agreed with Hader and Berry’s larger point.
“The system is broken,” one team staffer said. “We need to find a way to make it better.”
HADER WAS A 19th-round draft pick of the Baltimore Orioles in 2012, and the following year, he was traded to the Houston Astros — where David Stearns was assistant general manager — in a deal for pitcher Bud Norris. Two years later, Hader was traded to the Brewers in the summer of 2015 — where Stearns inherited the left-hander again when he was hired as general manager that September.
Hader made his major league debut on June 10, 2017, and right away, he became a unique weapon out of the bullpen of then-Brewers manager Craig Counsell. Counsell lined him up against left-handed hitters but also deployed him for multiple innings in high-leverage situations before the ninth inning. Of the 35 games that Hader pitched in his rookie year, he generated four or more outs in 16 of them. Corey Knebel was the Brewers’ closer and an All-Star that season; Hader did not register a single save.
Hader was just as good in 2018, when he pitched 81⅓ innings, the sixth-most innings by any reliever, over 55 games. Hader got 12 saves in 2018, and then in 2019, he continued to pitch as the Brewers’ closer, picking up 37 saves; he worked more than three outs in 15 of those 37 saves. The Brewers were using him like a Swiss Army knife, Berry recalled, and the lefty was thriving.
The following winter, Hader was eligible for salary arbitration for the first time. What he had done on the mound was largely unprecedented, but Berry, needing a comparable performance in history, cited Jonathan Papelbon’s one-year, $6.25 million deal as a closer with the Boston Red Sox in 2009. Berry asked for $6.4 million in arbitration for Hader. The Brewers offered $4.1 million.
The day before the hearing, Stearns and Berry spoke, and Stearns made a two-year offer over speakerphone. Though Berry doesn’t remember the exact proposal, he said it did not reflect Hader’s standing as an elite reliever.
“It seems that you want to go to a hearing,” Stearns said, according to Berry. (Stearns — now the head of baseball operations for the Mets — said in a recent phone interview that he would not comment on conversations he had with Berry or Hader.) Berry recalled that Stearns, who had once worked in Major League Baseball’s central office, pitched a warning. “I’ve seen the case,” Stearns said, “and it’s going to be bad.”
Berry knew that meant MLB’s case would be based on Hader’s low volume of saves — the primary currency for relievers in free agency — in his first 2½ seasons. Stearns also acknowledged that the lawyers presenting the case for the Brewers would introduce offensive statements that Hader posted on social media as a teenager, years before he signed professionally (a tactic front offices had used in contentious arbitration hearings before).
To Berry, this was mind-boggling — a team minimizing and obscuring the performance of one of its own players, and an example of how counterproductive the arbitration structure was for relievers. Berry consulted with Hader before relaying a message to Stearns: “Bring up anything you want.” Stearns and the Brewers knew better than anyone, Berry thought, just how dominant Hader had been. Nothing could change that.
When the arbitration hearing began, Berry made his case, pointing to Hader’s historic performance. The lawyers working on behalf of the Brewers and MLB’s labor relations department — which typically drives arbitration recommendations to the teams, with the team carrying the right to act on its own — focused on the saves, in spite of how Milwaukee deployed Hader.
Berry recalled Patrick Houlihan, the executive vice president of Major League Baseball labor relations, opening his argument by saying that Berry and Hader were trying to change 40 years of precedent, referring to the importance of saves in similar hearings. True or not, Berry felt it a disingenuous argument, given how the Brewers had deployed Hader.
“What I heard in that room was how they valued relievers,” Hader recalled, “and it was 100% based on saves.”
Even so, when a union lawyer called Berry to tell him that Hader had lost, he was shocked. When he spoke with Stearns for the first time after the decision, Berry said Stern’s response seemed to be: Sorry, that’s the system. Berry remembers Stearns’ kicker: “He’ll make his money in free agency.”
Stearns assured Hader that it wouldn’t affect their relationship. “We value you as one of the best pitchers in the organization,” Hader remembered him saying.
An MLB spokesperson declined comment on the specifics of Hader’s rules, pointing to a statement issued by management last year about the arbitration process: “During the last round of bargaining, MLB proposed replacing salary arbitration with a formulaic approach that would have paid more money to arbitration-eligible players in aggregate. That proposal was rejected. We continue to believe the salary arbitration system creates unnecessary acrimony between the clubs and players and wastes an enormous amount of time and money. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss changes to the system.”
BERRY SPENT DAYS stewing over management’s handling of Hader’s arbitration.
Before resigning from CAA in March, Berry was a player representative for 26 years, and more than once he had called for change in baseball’s system. When Buster Posey, one of his clients, suffered a shattered ankle in a home plate collision in 2011, Berry campaigned for rules about home plate collisions, which he says earned angry calls from both players’ association and Major League Baseball officials; that rule was changed. In 2018, Berry wrote a long memo to players advocating for change on arbitration, salary structure and roster manipulation, which led to a tense call with commissioner Rob Manfred. Berry now says he served as a source of a story about how MLB officials award a championship belt for success in navigating the arbitration season.
So after mulling over Hader’s treatment, he had an idea.
“My first thought was: ‘You can’t have it both ways,'” Berry recalled. “You can’t say he’s the best and use him any way you want, and then not pay him like the best. You can’t throw up your hands and say, ‘That’s the way it is.'”
He presented his idea to Hader while the two played a round of golf: If the Brewers were going to fight the All-Star over his salary, then they would design rules to protect him. Berry had never heard of another pitcher dictating his own usage, but he also had never had a pitcher used as Hader had been. Berry proposed three new rules for Hader to present to the front office: He would not pitch more than two days in a row; he would not pitch more than three outs; he would pitch only in a save situation or when the score was tied.
Hader quickly agreed. Hader and Berry had watched teams use elite relievers over and over until they broke — like Dellin Betances of the Yankees, who was deployed in a similar high-leverage role. Betances made the All-Star team for four straight seasons (2014-2017) before suffering injuries that derailed his career at age 31.
“If they don’t see what I do as valuable,” Hader said, “and I can’t get the value I’m worth, then why would I put myself in jeopardy to get hurt — and not have a job? If I get injured, a team isn’t going to sign me to a long-term deal, because I wouldn’t be able to pitch and I’d have no value to them. I was just following what they told me was valuable.”
Berry called Stearns to inform him of the pitcher’s personal rules, and he remembers Stearns reacting in disbelief. “You can’t tell us how to use our player,” Stearns said, according to Berry. But Stearns’ only real recourse, Berry knew, was to suspend Hader — and provoke a public confrontation with one of his best players. Berry said that Stearns was initially skeptical about Hader’s rules and whether having those restrictions would become unworkable over a full season.
“This was about doing what was right for Josh Hader,” said Berry, who said his sense was that Stearns never took the pitcher’s stance personally. “[Stearns] understood the position I was taking, even if he didn’t agree with it.” When Stearns was asked for his memory of first hearing about the Hader rules, he wouldn’t comment.
The pitcher met with Stearns and Counsell in the manager’s office at the Brewers’ spring training site to discuss the rules for how he would be used, and he believed Counsell processed them with respect for his feelings. As a player, Counsell had been part of the union’s executive committee, and as a manager, he has a reputation for being an excellent communicator. In a recent interview, Counsell, now in his first season as manager of the Chicago Cubs, recalled that conversation with Hader.
“It’s hard to disagree with it,” Counsell said. “I think Josh had worked really hard up to that point, and done whatever the team had asked him to do. More than anything, Josh was trying to stay healthy. … How can I not agree with that? Especially after what he had done.”
With Hader’s rules in place, Counsell managed the closer over the next 2½ years. During the regular season, he did not find the situation onerous. “He was available; he pushed himself to be available,” Counsell said. “I didn’t feel restricted by him not being available.”
Stearns wouldn’t talk about the specifics of the meeting with Hader but said that afterward, “Josh did a really good job with us communicating what his preferences are. … Throughout his time in Milwaukee, the goal was to always use him in the highest leverage point.
“With the open communication and the back-and-forth with Josh, I think it allowed Josh to perform at a high level, and along the way, the Brewers won a lot of games.”
AFTER THAT MEETING, Hader’s usage shifted dramatically. In the COVID-shortened 2020 season, Hader got four (or more) outs in only one of his 21 appearances, and he never pitched more than two consecutive days. During the 2021 season, Hader pitched on three consecutive days April 29-May 1, and then again June 11-13 and Sept. 24-26. He never had an appearance of more than three outs. Early in 2022, Hader got saves on both ends of a doubleheader.
Midway through the 2022 season, Hader was traded to the Padres, who were in the midst of their best season in decades. During trade negotiations, he and Berry asked that his usage guidelines remain intact. In a season and a half in San Diego, Hader recorded 40 saves; he made his fifth All-Star Game and closed five games in the 2022 playoffs without giving up a run. In all, since 2021, the lefty had racked up 103 saves and three more All-Star appearances, averaging 14.6 strikeouts per nine innings.
Meanwhile, the Padres were among the most aggressive teams in pursuing stars, trading for Yu Darvish and Juan Soto, chasing after Trea Turner and Aaron Judge as free agents and signing Xander Bogaerts. Joe Musgrove and Jake Cronenworth signed extensions with the team. But the Padres never advanced talks on a long-term deal with Hader, according to Berry. “They knew we were open to it,” Berry said. “The Padres could’ve signed him.”
But the Padres didn’t engage, and when Hader reached free agency in fall 2023, no one else came running either.
“There weren’t many calls,” Berry said.
He reached out to the Texas Rangers, who were coming off a World Series title and, on paper, seemed to be an excellent fit for Hader. But Berry heard the same from general manager Chris Young that other agents did: Because of the Rangers’ uncertainty over their television deal, they didn’t have spending flexibility. Berry remembers citing the Rangers’ own success with Corey Seager and Marcus Semien as an argument to pursue Hader. “You’ve proven the impact that star players can have,” he said to Young.
The Los Angeles Dodgers checked in, the New York Yankees checked in, other teams checked in. Team doctors reviewed his medical records, which sources from multiple front offices described as “very unusual” because they didn’t reflect the wear and tear normally seen for a reliever with as many years of service as Hader. But no offers. Berry was flummoxed.
Two executives with teams in contact with Berry believed the price point for Hader was out of their range because Berry told them that Hader should get offers that reflected his standing as the best reliever in baseball. To those executives, this meant that Berry would not settle for less than Edwin Diaz‘s record-setting five-year, $102 million deal with the Mets.
But Berry said he did not ask for a specific amount; rather, he felt he invited offers. And got none in November, or December, or in the first weeks of January. For 2½ months, nobody made a proposal for arguably the most dominant left-handed reliever ever.
“That is completely illogical behavior,” Berry said. “In a business built on competition, it doesn’t make any sense.”
Then Astros reliever Kendall Graveman underwent shoulder surgery in mid-January.
Houston, which lost relievers Hector Neris, Phil Maton and Ryne Stanek to free agency this winter, had been the first team to check in on Hader in the fall, and reached out again after Graveman’s injury. This time, Astros GM Dana Brown told Berry he was ready to be aggressive. “We love this guy,” Brown told Berry. “We’ve done our homework.”
The deal — five years, $95 million — came together quickly. In the end, it was the largest reliever contract ever in terms of present-day value (Diaz’s deal included $26.5 million of deferred money). For Hader, it was also a homecoming, a decade after he won a California League title with Houston’s High-A team in 2014.
His long journey to a multiyear commitment from his employer was finally over. And with the contract signed, Berry asked Hader how he could be used by the Astros.
“Any way they want,” Hader said. “They made a commitment to me, and I’ll make a commitment to them.”
Miami is inching closer but still needs some help.
With the Hurricanes creeping up to No. 12 on Tuesday night in the College Football Playoff selection committee’s fourth of six rankings, the ACC’s hope of having two teams qualify for the 12-team field is still alive. Time is running out, though, to convince the selection committee they’re better than Notre Dame — and right now a gap remains in spite of the head-to-head win. The ACC champion — even if it’s No. 18 Virginia — is almost certainly guaranteed a spot as one of the five-highest ranked conference champions. That’s evidenced by the fact that five ACC teams are still ranked above No. 24 Tulane, the only representative from a Group of 5 conference. The question is whether Miami can do enough to join the ACC champion as an at-large team with one game remaining, on Saturday at No. 22 Pitt.
Though the Canes have no margin for error and could still use some help above them, they might get it if Ole Miss doesn’t win the Egg Bowl against Mississippi State. No. 6 Oregon jumped one spot above No. 7 Ole Miss, indicating that the Rebels might not recover from a second stumble.
With Rivalry Week on the horizon, there are still plenty of scenarios that can unfold — and hope is still oozing from the bubble.
Bubble Watch accounts for what we have learned from the committee so far — and historical knowledge of what it means for teams clinging to hope. Teams with Would be in status below are in this week’s bracket based on the committee’s fourth ranking. For each Power 4 conference, we’ve also listed Last team in and First team out. These are the true bubble teams hovering around inclusion. Teams labeled Still in the mix haven’t been eliminated but have work to do or need help. A team that is Out will have to wait until next year.
The conferences below are listed in order of the number of bids they would receive, ranked from the most to least, based on the committee’s fourth ranking.
Jump to a conference:
ACC | Big 12 | Big Ten
SEC | Independent | Group of 5
Bracket
SEC
Would be in: Alabama, Georgia, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Texas A&M
Last team in: Alabama. The Tide can either lock up a spot in the SEC championship game with a win against Auburn in the Iron Bowl — or can miss the playoff entirely with a loss to its rival. The debate will come if Alabama finishes as a three-loss SEC runner-up. The Tide have played the ninth-hardest schedule in the country, according to ESPN Analytics, and their résumé would only be enhanced by facing a top-five opponent in the SEC championship game. A third loss, though, even in a close game to a top-five team, could drop Alabama into a dangerous spot in the top 12 where it might face elimination to make room for a guaranteed conference champion — or a second Big 12 team.
First team out: Vanderbilt. The Commodores could stay status quo this week, which means at No. 14 they remain a long shot for an at-large bid. Punctuating their résumé with a win against a ranked Tennessee would be the first step, but they’d also need multiple upsets ahead of them to get serious consideration. It’s conceivable, as Miami can lose at Pitt, Oklahoma can suffer a third loss to LSU, and Alabama can lose the Iron Bowl. None of that would matter, though, without a win in Knoxville.
Still in the mix: None.
Out: Arkansas, Auburn, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas
Big Ten
Would be in: Indiana, Ohio State, Oregon
Last team in: Oregon. With the win against USC, Oregon eliminated the biggest threat to its playoff spot in the Big Ten and further solidified its place in the top 10. The win against USC boosted the Ducks’ résumé enough to jump Ole Miss, and the complete performance against another ranked contender answered some questions in the committee meeting room. Oregon now has a 16.5% chance to reach the Big Ten title game, according to ESPN Analytics, but it must beat Washington and it needs Michigan to defeat Ohio State.
First team out: Michigan. The No. 15 Wolverines are here because they can reach the Big Ten championship game with a win against Ohio State and a loss by Indiana or Oregon. Michigan no longer has to worry about the head-to-head defeat to USC because the Trojans have three losses and dropped behind the Wolverines to No. 17 in the latest ranking. The loss to No. 8 Oklahoma, though, will probably keep them behind the Sooners for an at-large bid if they both finish with the same record. Nobody in the country, though, will have a better win than Michigan if it beats the Buckeyes for a fifth straight season.
Still in the mix: None.
Out: Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan State, Minnesota, Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, Purdue, Rutgers, UCLA, USC, Washington, Wisconsin
Big 12
Would be in: Texas Tech
Last team in: Texas Tech. The Red Raiders can clinch a spot in the Big 12 title game with a win at West Virginia. As long as Texas Tech does that, it should be a lock for the CFP — win or lose in the Big 12 championship. It would be both stunning and difficult for the committee to justify dropping Texas Tech if its second loss is to a top-11 BYU team that it beat handily during the regular season. The Red Raiders would be the only team that could claim a regular-season win over the eventual Big 12 champs in that scenario.
First team out: BYU. The Cougars can clinch a spot in the Big 12 title game with a home win against UCF on Saturday. They’d be a CFP lock with the Big 12 title, but a loss would likely knock them out of the bracket because they’re already in a precarious position and would have lost to the same team twice. They would need multiple upsets to happen above them to stay in consideration as the two-loss Big 12 runner-up.
Still in the mix: Arizona State, Utah. ASU can earn a spot in the Big 12 title game with a win against Arizona and a BYU loss or a win and losses by both Texas Tech and Utah. The Utes will reach the Big 12 title game if they beat Kansas and both BYU and Arizona State win and Texas Tech loses.
Out: Arizona, Baylor, Cincinnati, Colorado, Houston, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, TCU, UCF, West Virginia
ACC
Would be in: Miami
Last team in: Miami. Miami’s chances of reaching the ACC title game are now 14.2% — third best in the league behind SMU and Virginia, which are both above 80%. That means their best chance to reach the CFP remains through an at-large bid. They must win at Pitt on Saturday, and it helped that the committee ranked the Panthers No. 22 on Tuesday night. Miami’s loss to SMU no longer looks as bad as it initially did after the Mustangs cracked the CFP top 25 at No. 21. Miami is getting some help, but it has also helped itself by winning three straight games by at least 17 points. Saturday at Virginia Tech brought Miami’s first road win outside of its home state, which is something the committee has been awaiting. Miami’s win against Notre Dame remains one of the best in the country, and the Canes are within range of the committee revisiting the head-to-head tiebreaker. They’re both in the same conversation as Alabama and BYU. If Miami can win at Pitt, the committee will certainly factor that into its discussion during the fifth ranking. It’s important to remember, though, that head-to-head isn’t the only factor in the room. The entire body of work is considered, and right now, the committee is more impressed by the Irish.
First team out: Virginia. Of all the convoluted scenarios still left in the ACC, this isn’t one of them: If Virginia beats rival Virginia Tech on Saturday, the Cavaliers will clinch a spot in the conference title game. And with No. 21 SMU now one of five ranked teams from the conference, the ACC title game is likely to feature two ranked opponents. The Mustangs have the best chance to reach the ACC championship game (86%) followed by Virginia (81%) after Week 13, but SMU lost to Baylor, TCU and Wake Forest — the latter two of which are above .500. If SMU wins at Cal on Saturday, the Mustangs will clinch a spot in the ACC title game. Virginia was the committee’s second-highest-ranked ACC team behind Miami in its fourth ranking, and the Cavaliers had a bye.
Still in the mix: Duke, Georgia Tech, Pitt, SMU. Here’s where you can find your convoluted scenarios. Pitt can get into the ACC championship game with a win and a loss by SMU or UVA. Duke can get in with a win plus losses by two of the following three teams: Pitt, SMU and Virginia. Georgia Tech needs so many things to happen it might want to find a church instead of playing Georgia.
Out: Boston College, Cal, Clemson, Florida State, Louisville, North Carolina, NC State, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest
Independent
Would be in: Notre Dame. The Irish are doing everything right — they’re winning and looking good doing it. If they can seal the deal with what should be a relatively easy win against Stanford, Notre Dame will be in the familiar position of waiting and watching while the conference championship games unfold and possibly alter the picture. Notre Dame fans should be keeping a close eye on the SEC and Big 12 title games. If Miami beats Pitt, the committee will compare that common opponent with Notre Dame, which also beat Pitt. They would continue to talk about the head-to-head tiebreaker, but that’s not the final determinant. Both Miami and Notre Dame can earn at-large bids, but if there are two Big 12 teams in, someone currently in the top 10 will have to be excluded.
Group of 5
Would be in: Tulane. This is where the committee will probably continue to differ from the computers, which say James Madison (57%) and North Texas (54.4%) have the best chances to reach the playoff. JMU’s schedule is currently ranked No. 123, while North Texas is No. 127, and that has held both of them back in the committee meeting room. Tulane is No. 73 with wins against Duke and Northwestern. The No. 24-ranked Green Wave maintained their spot this week as the committee’s highest-ranked Group of 5 team following the 37-13 win at Temple, their largest margin of victory this season.
Still in the mix: East Carolina, James Madison, Navy, North Texas, South Florida. JMU has clinched the East Division and a spot in the Sun Belt Conference championship game. It will face the winner of Southern Miss vs. Troy. Five teams from the American are still eligible to play in the conference title game, and multiple tiebreaker scenarios are still looming. Tulane has one of the most direct paths. It would clinch with a win if it is the highest-ranked team from the American in the CFP ranking. North Texas would clinch a spot with a win — because Navy was not ahead of Tulane and North Texas in the CFP ranking Tuesday. Navy could clinch a spot with a win and a loss by Tulane or North Texas.
Bracket
Based on the committee’s fourth ranking, the seeding would be:
First-round byes
No. 1 Ohio State (Big Ten champ)
No. 2 Indiana
No. 3 Texas A&M (SEC champ)
No. 4 Georgia
First-round games
On campus, Dec. 19 and 20
No. 12 Tulane (American champ) at No. 5 Texas Tech (Big 12 champ)
No. 11 Miami (ACC champ) at No. 6 Oregon
No. 10 Alabama at No. 7 Ole Miss
No. 9 Notre Dame at No. 8 Oklahoma
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 Tulane/No. 5 Texas Tech winner vs. No. 4 Georgia
No. 11 Miami/No. 6 Oregon winner vs. No. 3 Texas A&M
No. 10 Alabama/No. 7 Ole Miss winner vs. No. 2 Indiana
No. 9 Notre Dame/No. 8 Oklahoma winner vs. No. 1 Ohio State
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David Hale
We don’t talk nearly enough about luck in sports.
It’s only reasonable to want to believe the best team always wins, that the outcome of a game is the reward for a better process, that, in the end, we all get what we deserve.
But then you watch 10 minutes of Florida State football and it’s impossible to deny that there are football gods at work and they can be awfully vengeful.
And so it is that, at this late point in the season, the College Football Playoff rankings still hinge, in no small part, on a botched extra point at the end of Notre Dame-Texas A&M.
We can look back at Miami‘s game against SMU on Nov. 1 — a game that, with 2 minutes to go the Canes had a 90% chance of winning, according to ESPN’s metrics — and consider it a bad loss, then a week later, see Oregon — with less than a 40% chance of beating Iowa with 2 minutes remaining — pull off a comeback and have it constitute a critical point on the Ducks’ résumé.
Alabama nearly doubled Oklahoma‘s yardage but lost, Ole Miss gave up 526 yards to Arkansas and won, Georgia has trailed in the second half five times this year but has just one loss to show for it.
These things happen, and while there’s clearly valuable data involved — Georgia wins those games, because the Dawgs are really good — any time we’re discussing a one-game sample size, there’s room for ample debate over what matters and what doesn’t.
The committee’s job is to counterbalance the fickleness of luck with a calculated, rational, repeatable process of evaluation that, if applied again and again by dozens of different people, would largely yield the same results; something akin to scientific testing, a way to filter out the noise and get to what matters most. “The process,” as everyone from Nick Saban to Michael Lombardi have called it.
And yet, it’s hard to say exactly what the committee’s process really is. Even when it’s explained — Miami isn’t in the same bucket as Notre Dame, so they can’t be compared directly, for example — the logic often crumbles under the slightest bit of scrutiny.
Instead, the committee has mostly relied on its own luck, and each year, by the time the final rankings are revealed, the 13 games played on the field provide enough clarity that most reasonable people will proclaim the committee got things right, save for the occasional reminder to Florida State that, yes, the football gods are not Seminoles fans.
This year though, it’s increasingly likely the committee’s luck could run out.
We have one full weekend of games left. There are reasonably 16 teams who’ll make a case as to why they should earn one of the seven coveted at-large spots. Without a little luck in Week 14, the committee’s going to have some incredibly hard choices to make.
And that means we’ve got plenty of outrage left to send the committee’s way.
This past week seemed to be the apex of the biggest rankings debate: Notre Dame or Miami?
The argument here is easy to understand. The committee has consistently had the Irish well ahead of the Hurricanes, despite both teams having the same record and Miami holding a head-to-head win.
But you know what’s even easier to understand? BYU has a better record than both.
In fact, let’s look at some résumés.
Team A: Best win vs. SP+ No. 19, next best vs. No. 21. Loss to SP+ No. 2. Two wins vs. teams 7-4 or better. No. 5 strength of record.
Team B: Best win vs. SP+ No. 9, next best vs. No. 25. Loss to SP+ No. 3. Six wins vs. teams 7-4 or better. No. 6 strength of record.
Both look like pretty obvious playoff teams, right?
Well Team A just moved up a spot in the rankings, seems assured not just of making the playoff, but of hosting a home game, and no one seems to be arguing about its spot in the rankings. That’s Oregon at No. 6.
Team B would currently be our first team out, a team with a résumé that shows equally impressive wins, an equally understandable loss and a far more impressive breadth of quality opponents. And yet, no one seems to be arguing much about BYU’s spot in the rankings either.
Why is it that the Cougars — the forgotten one-loss team with a higher ranked win than Oregon or Notre Dame and a better loss than Alabama or Oklahoma — sit at No. 11 and no one seems to care?
We get the frustration over Miami’s placement. There’s plenty of anger to go around. But don’t let BYU get lost in the shuffle. The Cougars’ résumé holds up against all the two-loss teams and is on par with Oregon and Ole Miss. Somehow, the committee — and nearly everyone else outside of Provo — seems to be ignoring it.
Wait, are we really defending Notre Dame here? Hey, somebody’s got to do it.
Let’s take a closer look at the Irish, who’ve become the punching bag for every fan frustrated with the committee’s rankings.
Right now, Notre Dame is effectively the golfer who wrapped up his round early and is waiting in the clubhouse, hoping no one else makes too many birdies. The Irish are safely in the field, and only a road trip to lowly Stanford is left on the docket.
But as the committee’s rankings hold steady week after week, there has been more and more time to debate the merits of Notre Dame’s résumé, and when we reach the end of championship week, it’s hard to ignore that one team aiming for a playoff bid doesn’t actually play in a conference.
So, does Notre Dame really deserve the benefit of the doubt?
In short: Heck yeah.
The Irish have five wins against bowl-eligible opponents — more than Georgia, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt or Texas Tech.
Both of Notre Dame’s losses were one-possession affairs against top-12 opponents. The loss to Texas A&M came down to a fluke occurrence, as the Irish flubbed a point after try.
Notre Dame’s game control — about as good an estimation as we have for the eye test — puts the Irish ahead of everyone but Ohio State, Indiana, Texas Tech and Oregon.
In four games since Nov. 1, Notre Dame has beaten its opposition by a combined score of 181-42, lambasting Syracuse so badly in Week 13 that Fran Brown might not shower for a month.
Look at any of the underlying metrics — explosive play rates, defensive stop rates, Jeremiyah Love being awesome rates — and Notre Dame is as good as anyone in the country.
So yes, we get the more logical debates about Miami’s Week 1 win or Alabama’s superior schedule, but the bottom line is, outside of Ohio State, there’s probably no team in the country playing better, more balanced football than the Irish. That probably shouldn’t be the only consideration, but as we debate which teams ought to be docked a few points in the rankings, Notre Dame probably shouldn’t be at the front of the line either.
Yes, Miami has a good argument against the committee’s treatment of the Hurricanes. The committee, too, seems to acknowledge under-appreciating Miami early on, and is adjusting by slowly moving the Canes up one spot each week, hoping that’ll be enough to appease the masses.
But here’s a question: What if Miami’s real beef should be with the ACC, not with the committee?
For each of the past two years, there has been widespread consensus that the ACC’s best team is Miami. But, barring some truly high-level chaos in Week 14 — something the ACC is apt to provide — the Canes won’t be playing for a conference championship again.
When leagues were smaller and had two divisions, the idea of pitting one division champ against the other made intuitive sense. But with expansion and the end of division play, what we’ve gotten is wildly diverse scheduling and the potential for confounding tiebreakers to ultimately decide which two teams get to play for a conference title.
In the Big Ten and SEC, where winning the league isn’t a do-or-die proposition, that’s fine. In the ACC, where only the champion might get a playoff bid and there’s a real chance that six different teams will tie atop the conference with a 6-2 league record — well, that’s a big issue.
So, why not just tweak the rules of how a conference championship game is seeded? What if one spot goes to the team with the best conference record and the other spot goes to the next highest ranked team? Doing so would ensure both the most deserving team (best record) and best team (highest ranked) got a shot, and it would’ve ended any concerns about the ACC being passed by multiple Group of 5 leagues, because a mediocre team like Duke would’ve had no shot at winning the league.
The ACC has bent over backward to try to find unique solutions to potentially existential problems in recent years. This is a change that would be forward thinking, easy and beneficial to the league’s playoff prospects.
It just won’t come in time to save Miami in 2025.
Remember last week when Tulane was also No. 24, just ahead of Arizona State, and behind Illinois, Houston and Missouri, who all lost? It might seem reasonable, given that precondition, that Tulane would then move up, say, three spots or so, while remaining a tick ahead of Arizona State.
But no, a week later, the Green Wave still check in at No. 24, a spot the committee seems to have set aside as “Where we put a Group of 5 team,” like the junk drawer in your kitchen that holds packing tape and birthday candles and those weird scented oils your mother-in-law ordered for you off TV — a placeholder for all the stuff you don’t know what else to do with.
In the big picture, it probably doesn’t matter. As long as Tulane stays ahead of its compatriots in the Group of 5 — winning the American, out-ranking James Madison — the Green Wave will make the playoff. And perhaps that’s all that matters.
But of the teams that jumped Tulane in the rankings this week are Arizona State — still with a chance to win the Big 12 — and Pitt and SMU, who have decent odds of making the ACC title game. Georgia Tech, despite a miserable loss to Pitt, also held firm ahead of the Green Wave.
A year ago, the ACC’s championship game implosion earned Clemson a bid into the playoff, but also shifted the ACC behind Boise State, the best Group of 5 champion, allowing the Broncos to land a bye. The stakes have changed for 2025-26 — the top four conference champs are no longer guaranteed an off week — but that doesn’t mean Tulane should be fine settling for the 12-seed either.
Tulane’s strength of record is ahead of Georgia Tech, Virginia and Pitt. If one of those teams claims the ACC’s playoff berth, what’s the rationale for putting them ahead of the Green Wave? And the difference between the No. 11 seed and the No. 12 seed might be about traveling to the SEC or the Big 12 for a playoff game.
The Group of 5 has largely been set to the side by this committee all year, so none of this comes as a surprise. But Tulane — or JMU or Navy or North Texas or San Diego State — all deserve to be judged on the merits of their résumés, not by which conference they’re affiliated with.
The bottom of the top 25 seems to be prime real estate for the ACC, but the one ACC team who might most deserve one of those coveted spots between 20 and 25 is nowhere to be found.
Wake Forest has the same record as SMU, and it beat the Mustangs head-to-head.
Wake Forest has a better overall résumé than Georgia Tech, and it only lost to the Yellow Jackets (in overtime) as a result of an officiating call the ACC later apologized for.
Wake Forest is a game behind Virginia in the standings, and the Deacons have a head-to-head win over the No. 18 Cavaliers, too.
Look, Wake Forest doesn’t ask for much. The Deacons are like the friend who’s always willing to pick you up from the airport, only better because they’ll probably bring along a box of Krispy Kreme. So if some ACC team that no one respects is going to be ranked 23rd regardless, why not Wake? Because the next time a committee member’s connection gets delayed out of CLT, it won’t be Pitt offering to pick them up and give them an air mattress to crash on. That’s strictly a Wake Forest thing.
Also angry this week: James Madison Dukes (10-1, unranked), North Texas Mean Green (10-1, unranked and now losing their coach), Navy Midshipmen (8-2, unranked), Utah Utes (9-2, No. 13 after being this week’s team that somehow isn’t as good as Miami anymore), Alabama Crimson Tide (9-2, No. 10 and far too close to the edge of the playoff for comfort)
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