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  • Ryan HockensmithAug 28, 2024, 09:00 AM ET

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      Ryan Hockensmith is a Penn State graduate who joined ESPN in 2001. He is a survivor of bacterial meningitis, which caused him to have multiple amputation surgeries on his feet. He is a proud advocate for those with disabilities and addiction issues. He covers everything from the NFL and UFC to pizza-chucking and analysis of Tom Cruise’s running ability.

PAUL SKENES IS TRYING to sleep. But he’s too tall for his Air Force bed, so his feet dangle into a sink in his dorm room, just a few feet from two other people who are also trying to sleep.

He’s at basic training in June 2021, exhausted in his room alongside a randomly assigned fellow “doolie” and a randomly assigned Korean exchange student. Every cadet is given a standard-issue 7-foot bed inside a standard-issue cramped dorm room.

Skenes is 6-foot-5, 225 pounds — on his way to 6-6, 250 — and he has grown so fast that his body seems a little foreign to him.

The tale of this period of his life is almost too tall to believe. During those two years — 2021 and 2022 — Skenes began an unheard-of rise from an unknown Division I catcher to a transcendent baseball pitching phenom in about 1,000 days. There has been almost nothing in recent baseball history like his ascension, and it’s hard to imagine a sequel coming along any time soon.

Skenes was 5-10 and 150 pounds as a high school sophomore, then gained 57 pounds in one year once he learned how to lift and eat like the Division I athlete he wanted to be. And he just kept growing.

Basic training is a blur. For six intense weeks, Skenes gets up at 5 a.m. to the sound of “Reveille” and has 10 minutes to brush his teeth, get in uniform, shave and make his bed before breakfast. He and his two roommates can’t believe how hard it is to complete that last part, and eventually call in bed-making ringers to assist.

“We were so slow,” Skenes says now. “We always had to get other people to run into our room to help us.”

At breakfast, he has 15 minutes to eat whatever is put in front of him, then hustles down to the baseball diamond for an hour of some light throwing and hitting off a machine. There are no coaches around so calling these sessions practices would be an insult to practices.

The rest of the day is even blurrier. Classes on how the Air Force operates. Chow. Classes on how to stand, how to study, military history, important historical quotes. Chow again. At 9 p.m., sometimes with a pair of his giant dogs in the sink, “Retreat” plays and lights go out. Rinse and repeat. This is his daily routine for most of the summer.

Skenes quietly goes about his business. Cadets are required to wear masks at all times, and he’s never been a loud person. He connects with another cadet, Aerik Joe, and they start making plans to live together when boot camp is over. Joe is a fast, 5-10, 180-pound shortstop and scrappy top-of-the-order guy. He’s neat and driven, just like his new friend.

Once the normal Air Force Academy fall semester kicks off, Joe and Skenes move in together. After long days, they collapse in their room. Joe pulls Skenes in on one of his hobbies, meal prep and cooking, and the two may or may not have allegedly skirted a rule about running a bootleg kitchen in their room. Skenes, in turn, introduces Joe to one of his favorite things, firing up some George Strait and other old-school country music. They’d eat and sing along until “Retreat” retired them for the day.

At some point early in the fall, Skenes says, “You know, I pitch a little, too.” Joe is surprised. A Luka Doncic-sized catcher and pitcher? That’s not a thing, he thinks. And besides, Skenes has emerged as the team’s best hitter and starting catcher. Coaches are talking about batting him leadoff just to get him more at-bats. What’s he going to do, catch one day, pitch the next, then catch again? Who does that?

But teammates also get to know Skenes enough to understand how driven the big man is. Skenes doesn’t have to be here. He narrowed his list to Air Force and Navy instead of Stanford and UCLA because he wanted to serve. Wanted the grind of academy life. To fly jets and play baseball. He’s a different kind of motivated, and his teammates all see it right away.

Fall practice sessions are slightly more organized, but mostly the guys just hit off a batting machine. As Skenes blasts towering BP home runs, his teammates marvel at the way the ball comes off his bat. When Skenes talks about pitching, too, everybody just kind of shrugs. He’s already become such a stoic figure that the idea of the team’s best catcher being a pitcher, too, seems both patently absurd and perfectly reasonable.

Then one day during an intrasquad game, Skenes finally takes the mound. His first pitch is a 94 mph thwack that raises about 60 eyebrows. Maybe Skenes isn’t playing around when he talks about pitching.

Skenes has so much ambition that coaches aren’t quite sure how to quench it. Skenes is an incredibly gifted catcher — renowned baseball trainer Eugene Bleecker says if Skenes caught five games in MLB right now he’d be among the league leaders in receiving metrics — and he expresses interest in playing every game except for the day he would start on the mound. And Skenes doesn’t just want any day on the mound: He tells coaches he sees himself as “the Friday night guy,” which is sacred in college baseball. Really good pitchers start on Saturday. Solid starters go on Sunday. Friday is for aces.

As the season approaches in winter 2021, coaches come up with a patently absurd but reasonable middle ground with Skenes — he would be the team’s everyday catcher … and its closer.

FIVE YEARS AGO, Paul Skenes was a decent Southern California Division I catching prospect, with soft hands and a gawky body that somehow still generated power. To this day, his coaches shake their heads that he even ended up in central Colorado.

Yes, he wanted to serve and would have heavily considered the academy. But Skenes had spent 2017 and 2018 working on his pitching with Bleecker, who’d emphasized catching when he first met Skenes in 2015. When they spent the next two offseasons focused on his pitching development, Skenes’ fastball went from the mid-80s to 90 to low 90s so quickly, without heavy work, that Bleeker began to see Skenes as a potential college pitcher — maybe even a Friday starter.

He could wind his body up and power down through his lead foot in such a fluid but forceful way that his velocity seemed like it could go up another 5-10 mph. “His delivery was Mozart, Mozart, then Metallica,” Bleecker says. He emphasizes the “Metallica” to capture how metal Skenes’ delivery had become.

Skenes was getting scary good at both positions. The coaches and kids at Bleecker’s training facility started giving him nicknames, such as Big Hoss, Big Country and Shohei Paultani. It’s worth noting that Skenes is exhibit A for the generation of young baseball players who grew up in the age of Ohtani and reset their dreams in a way that made some seemingly impossible ideas — like being a catcher and closer — seem possible.

But just when Skenes was about to NASA launch into Power 5 college offers and potential first-day draft consideration as a pitcher, COVID shut down his senior season.

Air Force pitching coach Ryan Forrest had begun hearing rumbles that Skenes — the academy’s blue-chip catching prospect — was generating chatter among MLB scouts and Division I coaches as a pitcher. Then the world went into quarantine before he truly lifted off. “If COVID didn’t happen, I don’t think Paul Skenes makes it to our campus,” Forrest says. “I think he’s been pitching in the big leagues for two or three years by now.”

Skenes pushes back on that idea, saying he would have been able to resist the MLB draft if he had blown up as a senior. “You know why I wouldn’t have changed my mind?” he asks. “Because I was committed to Air Force. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was an easy decision.”

But even the Air Force didn’t yet see him as a pitching recruit in the same way that Skenes saw himself. Falcons coaches loved how his big body and hands seemed to comfort pitchers in such a way that they felt like they were throwing to the side of a barn instead of a person. He got so good at framing pitches that between innings once during his freshman year, an ump told Air Force assistant coach Jimmy Roesinger, “Hey, if you don’t see me again, it’s been fun.”

“What do you mean?” Roesinger asked.

“Your catcher has the quickest hands I’ve ever seen,” the ump said. “So I’m probably going to get fired because I keep calling strikes that aren’t strikes.”

His pitchers loved his attitude, too. Skenes could certainly bark at a struggling pitcher to jolt him out of a funk. But he was mostly soothing, with a habit of raising one fist every time a pitcher got to two strikes. “He would get after your ass if he needed to,” says his friend Doyle Gehring, a starting pitcher from the same recruiting class. “But he would sometimes tell you to take a deep breath and that you’d be OK, and you believed him. He always knew which attitude to have.”

Gehring’s favorite memory is from a chippy game against Nevada his first year, where he gave up such an obvious home run that he never even turned around to see if it went over the fence. He just waited for a new ball and stared in at the plate, where Skenes’ body language indicated the ball was about 400 feet away.

But Skenes’ body language also indicated something else: silent scorn. The batter took his good old time getting out of the box, tossing the bat, celebrating toward the dugout, dragging out the home run for 10, 15, 30 seconds. By the time he got to first base, Gehring was smiling at observing Skenes’ fury.

“Start running!” Skenes yelled. “Run!”

Skenes went to home plate and was standing over it, giving a death stare to the hitter as the theatrics continued around the bases. Gehring saw the plate ump had noticed that Skenes was blocking the plate.

“Move back a little,” the ump told Skenes.

Skenes just stood there.

“Move back,” the ump said.

Skenes ignored him, or he didn’t even hear him through the fog of irritation.

The runner rounded third and everybody waited for the looming confrontation at home plate. But the hitter was wise enough to slow down as he approached, then he came to a near stop and snuck the tip of his cleat between the legs of Skenes to complete the home run. Skenes never moved and never stopped staring.

There was no more Nevada hotdogging the rest of the game, even though the Wolfpack won 14-7.

For most of the season, Skenes had an unorthodox arrangement that most fans, players and coaches had never seen before. He’d catch eight innings, then hustle down to the bullpen for a few warmups before the ninth inning so he could close out the game. As rare as a catcher and closer might have been for Air Force players and coaches at first, opposing teams were completely befuddled.

His very first college pitching outing happens to come against, of all schools, LSU, his future transfer destination. The moment became an indelible image for Skenes and his Air Force family: him heading to the mound with a 6-4 lead as teammates wait to see if their catcher actually could do double duty. There is a genuine sense of nerves in the Air Force dugout — LSU is No. 7 in the country, and nobody had any idea if this might be an ugly flameout for Skenes against one of the nastiest hitting lineups in the country.

The Baton Rouge crowd, meanwhile, is giddy. Tigers fans behind the Air Force dugout laugh when Skenes drops his gear and starts to warm up. He is sweaty, dirty and moves like someone who’s been catching for two hours. “They’re out of pitchers!” fans say loud enough that the Air Force bench can hear it.

In his warmup tosses, Skenes dials up low-90s heat and looks sharp enough to rile up his teammates. What a sight — their Adley Rutschman ditching the gear to become their Craig Kimbrel. He’d be facing 9-1-2 in the LSU order, which included freshman Dylan Crews (now a consensus top-five MLB prospect) and potentially thumper Tre Morgan (now a promising Rays minor leaguer) if anybody got on base.

His first pitch is a two-seam thwacker that hits 97 mph. The fans aren’t giggling anymore, and his teammates start oohing and aahing. Skenes strikes out the first guy swinging and goes up 0-1 on Crews.

But Crews turns on a fastball and lifts it beyond the outfield wall. Suddenly LSU is within 6-5, with the heart of the order coming up. Skenes gets the next hitter to ground out, then digs in for a showdown with Morgan, a future third-round pick in the 2023 draft. Morgan battles from 1-2 to 3-2, and Skenes stands on the mound for a make-or-break pitch.

He’s still standing on the rubber when Morgan steps out of the box and stares at the barrel of his bat. Morgan takes his time, inhaling a few deep breaths, staring at his bat again, and Air Force coaches notice that Skenes hasn’t moved. He’s a statue, ready to throw, as Morgan dilly-dallies outside the box. It’s eerie how still Skenes remains, as if somebody hit the pause button on him the same way Gehring described him standing at home plate. He’d begun to grow into his frame.

It’s getting downright concerning how stuck Skenes is when Morgan finally steps back into the box. As if somebody just hit the unpause button, Skenes launches right into his windup and dials up a 98 mph fastball on the money pitch.

Metallica. Thwack. Swing and a miss.

Skenes celebrates in a very subdued, Air Force kind of way with his teammates in front of their dugout in Baton Rouge. It’s the ninth inning of a Sunday afternoon game, not the first inning of a Friday game. But it feels significant, and there’s a vibe in the stadium that people had just seen something they’d never seen before, a catcher and a closer living within the same body.

Now that vibe feels like a piece of baseball history, one of those moments that 2,572 fans saw. But don’t be surprised if, oh, 100,000 people someday claim to have been there that day when the astonishing pitching career of Paul Skenes began.

AS MUCH AS the Air Force impacted Skenes as a baseball player, he says the academy changed him as a human being even more. He studied biochemistry and started every baseball game as a freshman, with a hilarious stat line unlikely to ever be reproduced in major college baseball: 3.0 GPA while tutoring other freshmen in math and science courses, with team bests of 11 home runs, .410 BA, 43 RBIs, 131 total bases and 11 saves. And yet he still had one goal crystallized in his brain: He told coaches he saw himself as the Friday night guy.

He stuck around for a chunk of time that summer to cram in more coursework, and so did his roommate, Aerik Joe. They’re both achievers (Joe is now an Air Force combat rescue officer, the branch’s equivalent of a Navy SEAL), so the idea of a nearly empty campus sounded delightful to them, not daunting. They hung out, listened to country, cooked in the room (allegedly) and studied.

In their free time over the summer, they’d hang out at one of their coaches’ houses. Almost all of their coaches were older, with kids, and yet Skenes and Joe liked being around them. Skenes would play with the kids like a big kid himself — pitching coach Ryan Forrest’s son still remembers being a 3-year-old who asked for (and got) “the heat” from Skenes in whiffle ball. “Paul would blow it by him with no regret whatsoever,” Forrest says.

But mostly Skenes was a 19-year-old going on 29. He had a vision for himself, and it didn’t include most of the stuff other college underclassmen were grappling with on weekends. Brushing back a 3-year-old and eating a steak with his baseball coach was about the wildest party scene that Skenes liked to engage with.

Skenes eventually went home to California for a few weeks in midsummer. But then it was back to business on campus, and he took a class in Air Force standardizations and evaluations. Part of the class entailed him participating in something like a nightmarish merging of an RA with a hall monitor, charged with enforcing rules and regulations across campus. Skenes was supposed to keep tabs on his peers for things such as compliant uniform wear, room cleanliness, length of hair and, of all things, proper shaving.

Let’s just say he understood the assignment. One piece of Skenes lore is an anecdote about how he was at the baseball field one day and observed two people not following academy protocol. The clock had struck 4:45 p.m. and, like it did every single day of life at Air Force, “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play over the academy’s giant speaker system. Air Force rules require everybody to turn and salute the flag at that time, and these two guys in a golf cart — they were cadet managers with the football team — kept moving. “No hesitation, when the anthem was over, Paul went up and got on the guys,” Gehring says.

The issue wasn’t necessarily about the song or gesture itself, though he does treat the anthem with great seriousness. Skenes is the kind of guy who, if the academy had asked cadets to stand at attention every day at 8:29 a.m. and sing “What Does The Fox Say?” he would have been in your grill to start making animal noises.

Another time, Skenes had been assigned to do room checks on fellow cadets during lunch period, which is a little like giving out parking tickets to your friends. But Skenes was relentless about it, going so far as to give a senior basketball player’s room a 30 (out of 100). He was so disgusted that he even grabbed Aerik Joe and took him to the room. “Look at this atrocity,” Skenes said.

The irritated cadet eventually saw that his room had failed inspection. So he reached out on Instagram to plead for Skenes to give him a passing grade. Skenes’ response: “Clean your room.”

Skenes says the guy’s lucky he even got a 30. “It was a bad room,” he says, and he immediately recounts that in addition to being a mess, the room hadn’t been locked properly and the cadet had a Chicago Bulls flag that hadn’t been authorized. “If I put my name on that room, that’s my name. I can’t do that. I probably graded it too fairly. I could have been more harsh. You’ve got to be on top of your stuff.”

His teammates and fellow cadets grew to respect his stickler ways, though. The same way he refused to yield Air Force cleaning standards for rooms, he also held himself to a high standard. Joe would always be hustling to clean up or study late at night with the 9 p.m. buzzer lurking, and Skenes would be talking about recovery time for his body and living clean and overcoming caloric deficits, a common issue for cadets constantly on the go. Skenes usually already had handled his business for the day as Joe hustled to close the gaps.

Skenes is also a compartmentalizer, which means he blocked out time for his cadet duties, his baseball duties and his fun and friendship duties. On tough days that can break many cadets, Skenes would sit and listen to Joe as he worked through whatever struggles he was going through. Skenes wouldn’t say much. He’d just listen and nod his head. Somehow, even with a mask on, his eyes conveyed that he understood.

And yes, he also made space for fun, but it was planned fun. Skenes wasn’t so Type A that he scheduled out laugh sessions. But he did find pockets that were reserved for fun — whiffle ball heaters, for example — and tried to maximize those time slots. Joe still is amused when he thinks about how Skenes would fire up a clip or two from the movie “The Other Guys,” the goofy Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg police buddy comedy from 2010. He also loved throwing out some Ferrell quotes from “Anchorman” and “Step Brothers,” two other Skenes favorites.

Teammates goofed on Skenes a bit when he received two incentive plane rides, a reward for handling his business. Skenes rode in an F-15 once and an F-16 another time, and his buddies loved seeing him mashed into the cockpit with his legs curled up and his upper body vised on both sides. The only thing missing was a sink for his feet.

As the spring semester kicked off in 2022, Skenes had emerged in the offseason as his obvious final form — he was hitting 98 mph with ease in intrasquad games, which meant Air Force coaches would have been derelict in their duties if they didn’t focus on him as a pitcher.

The only question remaining: What day would he be starting?

AS THE 2022 SEASON approached, Skenes seemed to have been seized by what he now believed to be his calling. It wasn’t catching, and it wasn’t pitching, either. It was both.

He’d begun telling coaches that he wanted to be a starting pitcher and play catcher or DH in every other game. In his mind, his world should now revolve around him throwing a complete game on one day — a very specific day, ahem — and then he’d play every inning of the next two. But even in an era of Ohtani, coaches were torn between his dramatic improvement as a pitcher, and his remarkable skill set as a catcher and hitter. Doing both seemed like too much, too soon, even for Shohei Paultani.

“I’m the Friday guy,” he’d say. “I’m starting on Fridays.”

“You’re so valuable to the team in several roles,” his pitching coach, Forrest, would say. “So I can’t guarantee it.”

Then Skenes would always stare at Forrest the way he stared at that celebrating home run hitter from his freshman year.

“I’m a Friday guy,” he’d insist.

Eventually, the coaches couldn’t fight him off. Skenes was hitting mid-90s, with a solid breaking ball, and he’d been named a team captain, a rare honor for a true sophomore at Air Force.

Then he found out the news he’d been waiting for: He’d start the opener and be the team’s “Friday guy,” and coaches would try to get him in the lineup as much as possible on the other days. They had a rough outline of him pitching on Fridays, DHing on Saturdays and catching on most Sundays. The 2021-22 season opened against a tough Iowa team that eventually finished as the Big Ten runner-up that year.

His first college start was also among his worst. Skenes got bounced around by Iowa on Feb. 18, 2022, giving up four runs in 3⅓ innings in a 12-2 blowout loss. It’s not like he stopped wowing people seeing him for the first time, though. In what would be a regular occurrence that year, Skenes hit for himself, and against Iowa, he clubbed his first of 13 home runs. He didn’t have the gear on anymore, but he was still doing a bang-up job of replicating Shohei Paultani from the year before.

Skenes settled into a schedule that made him perhaps the busiest major college athlete in the country. He played every game that year and was often the best player on the field, regardless of what position he was playing. He’d become a Paul Bunyan figure to his teammates, always capable of doing something to make them shake their heads in disbelief. “Paul Skenes was the most unbelievable thing most people have ever witnessed during a baseball game,” says his hitting coach, Roesinger.

On the mound, he wins four of his next five starts and looks better each game. His growth is so fast that even the coaching staff feels like there are vapor trails behind him. At the plate, he’s the team’s best hitter, batting .283 with three home runs and 11 RBIs in 18 games.

But the rocket ship has a scary moment on April 8, 2022, against Cal Baptist. Skenes is dealing on the mound, cruising into the sixth inning with nine strikeouts and one run allowed. With one out in the sixth, he’s still throwing 95-plus mph when he uncorks a fastball that a Cal Baptist hitter connects hard with. The ball is right up the middle, going north of 100 mph, and coaches still remember the thump of the ball bouncing off Skenes’ face.

Skenes collapses backward and lies there for a second as coaches and teammates sprint toward the mound. “I thought the worst …” Roesinger says. He decides not to finish the sentence, other than to wait a few seconds and say, “A big tree falls hard.”

When Roesinger and the other coaches reach the mound, Skenes stands up and moves around as blood poured out of his face. He seems cognizant even though everybody can already see bruising form around his eyes.

“All right, let’s get you off the field,” an athletic trainer tells Skenes.

Skenes is taken out but ends up getting the win. He does seem fine when he is out of the game, and he passes every medical check afterward. So believe it or not, the following day Skenes shows up and DHs even though he looks like he just lost a five-round 50-45 UFC decision. His eyes are both puffed and purpled up, but he looks good in batting practice and is insistent on playing.

He goes 0-for-4 and Air Force gets drubbed 21-5. The Falcons are now a disappointing 14-16 and feel like they should be 20-10, especially with Skenes finding his footing as an ace. But they can’t string together wins and panic is beginning to set in. They needed the Sunday game if they had any hopes of achieving what had been a realistic preseason goal — to make their first NCAA baseball regional since 1969.

The coaching staff decided to let Skenes catch on Sunday, even though his eyes had gotten worse overnight. But he could see and felt fine, sounded fine, caught fine.

Cal Baptist jumped to a 5-0 lead in the third inning of that crucial game, and desperation began to seep into the Air Force dugout. Another blowout loss would crush morale and put another loss on a record that needed W’s to maintain postseason hopes. Skenes settled down starter Seungmin Shim, who gave up only one more unearned run as Air Force battled back. At the plate, Skenes went 3-for-5 with three RBIs, including a two-run homer, as Air Force roared to a potentially season-saving 12-7 win.

The team didn’t exactly go on a heater after that. But there were signs of life, and it’s because Skenes began to morph into his sorta-final form. Air Force posted a 12-11 record down the stretch, with Skenes going 7-0 in his starts. He gave up 11 runs in his starts and hit 10 home runs in the games he didn’t pitch. He was especially ridiculous against No. 1 Texas, where he didn’t pitch but went 5-for-9 with two home runs and five RBIs in an impressive — and necessary — two-game split in Austin.

Air Force eventually ran through the Mountain West tournament, going 3-0 behind a Skenes masterpiece in the title game (7 shutout innings, 10 strikeouts) to lock up the school’s first regional berth. The Falcons were overmatched there, though, going 2-2 with both losses to Texas.

On the field afterward, the entire team was somber but proud of the late-season push. A few coaches and players seemed downright distraught, though, and that included Skenes. He had told the staff that the team’s final game would be his final game with the team — he was going to transfer.

He essentially had no choice. If he had returned to the Air Force for his junior year, he could have been drafted but would have been locked into spending his senior year completing schooling at the academy. That one-year mandatory sit-out would have been bad for everybody involved. His head coach, Mike Kazlausky, worked with the academy to ask for an exemption. But the Pentagon eventually said it wouldn’t be able to bend the rule — Skenes had to either transfer to another school or stay at Air Force for two more years.

Skenes still wrestled with the choice. He loved the Air Force. Loved everything about it. He still says he wants to go back someday and finish his training. But in Kazlausky’s office, through tears, he explained why he thought he had to leave. Kazlausky, to his enormous credit, gave Skenes no choice. “You have to go,” he told Skenes. That was the permission Skenes needed to move on.

The two hugged and tears were shed, and then Kazlausky had his assistants come to his office. When they walked in and saw Skenes and the misty eyes, they all started crying too. “We knew,” Forrest says.

So when they got knocked out by Texas, that core group of coaches felt especially somber. Skenes had become college baseball’s Shohei Paultani, winning the John Olerud Award as the best two-position player in the country.

On the field after the last Texas loss, quite a few Air Force players lingered as the Longhorns celebrated the win. They just milled around, taking their time, talking about what a bittersweet but historic season they had. The vibe was a little weird — as if the players kind of knew deep down that this moment was one they’d want to hang on to forever.

During that time, Skenes pulled his roommate, Joe, aside and told him he was transferring. They both cried and hugged. Joe looked at Skenes and couldn’t even believe how much he’d changed as a baseball player and yet was the same guy who slept with his feet in the sink and may or may not have cooked lots of food during basic.

Joe thinks he and Skenes walked around on the field for 30 or 45 sweet-and-sour minutes after the game. It was one of those beautiful nights for young people where everybody knew the end was near and that it was going to hurt. “I told him I loved him the same no matter what, that I understood this was something he had to do,” Joe says. “I think he saw his best opportunity to play professional baseball was to leave the academy.”

As soon as the team got back to Colorado, Skenes announced to everybody else that he wouldn’t be back. “This has been an honor,” he said. “I wish I could stay. But I have to go.”

Then he fell apart, and so did about 40 other guys. “There were a lot of dudes with tears in their eyes,” Gehring says. “Everybody loved the guy. Nobody held it against him. It was the right decision.”

Not long after, Skenes picked LSU, where he’d unite with the team he caught and pitched against in one of his first college games. But the days of throwing off the gear and hustling out to the bullpen for a few quick warmup pitches were in the rearview mirror ever since he started hitting 100 mph on the radar gun.

Skenes was going to LSU as a pitcher — a starting pitcher — and there was no doubt when he’d be pitching: He’d become the ultimate Friday guy.

THE NEXT YEAR was all Paul Bunyan, no Paultani. As a pure pitcher at LSU, Skenes was breathtaking. He became the clear No. 1 pick during a dream season (13-2, 1.69 ERA and a ridiculous 209 strikeouts in 122⅔ innings) that ended with him as the NCAA pitcher of the year, the NCAA player of the year, the most outstanding player at the Men’s College World Series for the national champ Tigers. He won everything you could win. The Pittsburgh Pirates had no choice but to take him.

The only sad memory for his old Air Force coaches and teammates is that Skenes never got a chance to chase a career as a catcher. His recruiter from the Air Force, C.J. Gillman, is now the hitting instructor for the Mariners’ minor league teams. Before the 2024 draft, he sent the team’s lead catching evaluator footage of Skenes at Air Force behind the plate.

“I hope we’re going to draft this kid?” the guy responded.
“I don’t think we can get him,” Gillman joked, “because he’s starting the All-Star Game for the National League as a pitcher.”

Skenes has nothing but fond memories himself. When he’s asked what the Air Force did for him, he says he doesn’t even know how to answer the question. “It’s easier to answer, what didn’t it do for me?” he says. “You can’t get away with anything at the academy. If you waste time, if you’re not on top of things, you’re going to drown. There are so many benefits to your work ethic, time management, everything.”

Many of his former teammates and coaches regularly catch up with him, and the Air Force is talked about as the foundation for everything that has happened since his cadet days. So the academy isn’t in his rearview mirror; it’s on the dashboard.

When his old friend, Doyle Gehring, heard chatter in 2023 that maybe Skenes had started dating Olivia Dunne, the LSU gymnast and mega-influencer, he asked him point blank, “Are you talking to Livvy Dunne?”

“Well …” Skenes said. He never finished the sentence. He didn’t have to.

The rumors were true. A friend of Skenes’ was dating LSU gymnast Elena Arenas, who introduced Skenes to her roommate, Dunne. He can’t remember exactly what they did as a first date — it was either sushi or ice cream, or maybe both? He just remembers they realized that they had to go out in the quietest possible way.

“If we had been spotted, it would have made waves in Baton Rouge,” he says.

They’ve been together for a little more than a year now, and his friends all say she has been the perfect partner during Skenes’ meteoric ascent to the top of baseball. She has been famous for years and knows how to manage celebrity and all its trappings, and Skenes is a newbie. “She knows how to deal with it, and I know how to deal with it now, too,” he says. “She’s been so good for me.”

That fame is only going to increase, though. Skenes is one of those star rookies who crosses over into phenom territory like he is in the EZ Pass lane for A-list sports status. He has all the ingredients: He’s 6-foot-7, throws 100 mph, is dating one of the most famous college athletes ever and even has an awesome mustache.

However, the mustache drives some of his old Air Force buddies up the wall. It began so innocently at LSU when he ran out of razor blades on a road trip to Ole Miss. As the mustache came in, Skenes let it grow. “I decided, screw it, I’m keeping the mustache,” he says.

When Kazlausky saw him at the All-Star Game, he said, “Your mustache is a stupid-ass mustache.” Then he turned to Dunne and implored her to tell Skenes to shave it off. “And make him get a haircut, too,” Kazlausky said.

Skenes just grins when Kazlausky needles him. He knows that Air Force standardizations and evaluations officer Paul Skenes would agree with Kazlausky about Paul Skenes, a Pirates pitcher with a Doc Holliday ‘stache.

But other than the mustache, it’s hard not to spot the Air Force when you look at Skenes. Roesinger had on a West Virginia baseball shirt, repping his current employers, and went to Skenes’ start against the Reds in July. Skenes got him a spot in a section of family and friends of Pirates players. About 50 feet away, Roesinger clocked Dunne right away but didn’t approach her. After the game — a 4-1 victory for Skenes — Roesinger was supposed to go down to the clubhouse and he ended up near Dunne, who also was headed down.

He started to introduce himself. “Hi, I’m Jimmy, one of Paul’s coaches from …” he began.
“From Air Force!” she interjected. “I kept looking for you but I was expecting to see you in Air Force blue. So nice to meet you.”

Roesinger was struck by how warm and kind Dunne was, but also by how much Skenes carries Air Force with him. He spent a few minutes chitchatting with her, and the way she asked questions about the Air Force made him feel like the academy was a part of their relationship.

Of all the possible favorite moments to choose from, though, Skenes’ old head coach, Kazlausky, makes a surprising choice. Kazlausky went to the All-Star Game as a VIP guest of Skenes’ and watched him pitch a scoreless inning against the AL’s top of the order. Yet he says he’ll never forget when he watched Skenes on the field for the national anthem in Arlington, Texas, that night.

No surprise, Kazlausky is a big-time rah-rah anthem guy. But he was especially proud to see how Skenes stood at attention, right hand on his heart, left hand firm against his side, his feet touching at the heels and spread out in a perfect 45-degree V shape.

The Air Force way. Just without the sink this time.

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Ohio State? Bama? Indiana? Anyone in the ACC? Who we can — and can’t — trust

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October 21, 2025

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Ohio State? Bama? Indiana? Anyone in the ACC? Who we can -- and can't -- trust

  • Bill ConnellyOct 19, 2025, 06:30 PM ET

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      Bill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.

With four ranked-versus-ranked games on the Week 8 docket, we were guaranteed to see some good teams fall this weekend. We got more than we bargained for. No. 2 Miami lost as a 10.5-point home favorite to an unranked team. No. 7 Texas Tech (10.5-point favorite), No. 22 Memphis (21.5-point favorite) and No. 25 Nebraska (5.5-point favorite) all fell to unranked squads as well.

And in the SEC, No. 4 Texas A&M barely survived 2-4 Arkansas, while No. 16 Missouri (against 3-3 Auburn) and No. 21 Texas (against 2-3 Kentucky) needed overtime to secure road wins.

Parity has been the watchword in college football this year — the elite teams don’t seem quite as elite, and the sport’s middle class seems closer to the top of the pack than usual. It rules, frankly. Week 8 certainly reinforced that notion. It was a breathless mess from start to finish.

In times like these, it’s hard to know what teams and players you can trust. I’m here to help. After eight topsy-turvy weeks, we have at least a decent idea of teams’ ceilings and floors, so let’s talk about college football’s most — and least — trustworthy entities.

I went on an Ohio State podcast last week and revealed an ugly truth: Ohio State is annoying the hell out of me this season. Amid all the parity talk, I’m pretty sure Ryan Day’s Buckeyes are comfortably the best team in the country at the moment, but they choose to drop hints only in periodic doses. I prefer my elite teams to win games 63-0 and basically wear a giant “WE’RE ELITE” sign, but after last season’s experience — in which the Buckeyes lost late in the year to Michigan but shifted into fifth gear in four comfortable College Football Playoff wins — no one better understands that the goal is to peak in December, not October.

It would help if they had some elite opponents to look toward, but the Big Ten opponent on their schedule that was supposed to be elite (Penn State) is anything but, and the Buckeyes aren’t scheduled to play Indiana. Instead, they’ve been left to alternate between second-gear blowouts of iffy to bad teams and comfortable 18-point road wins over solid-but-unspectacular opponents such as Illinois and Washington.

Day at least let Julian Sayin throw some pitches Saturday. In front of a less-than-robust Wisconsin crowd (perhaps just hours before the inevitable firing of head coach Luke Fickell), Sayin, who averaged just 26.8 dropbacks per game in his first six starts, went 36-for-42 for 393 yards and four touchdowns. He distributed the ball to 10 receivers, though the dynamite duo of Jeremiah Smith and Carnell Tate combined for 15 catches and 208 yards.

Wisconsin’s offense was never going to threaten the best defense in the country — the Badgers gained just 144 total yards and took just nine snaps in Ohio State territory (yards gained in those snaps: 6) — so there was no downside to stretching Sayin out a bit. He averaged only 10.9 yards per completion, and Smith is still averaging just 9.4 yards per catch and 6.9 yards per target against power-conference opponents. For that matter, the Buckeyes’ run game is producing almost no explosive plays, but one assumes the passing game will provide more than enough explosiveness if it’s ever asked to, especially as Sayin, the redshirt freshman, grows in confidence.

Of course, we might have to wait a while to confirm that. Ohio State gets a bye week, then four straight games against teams with losing records (Penn State, Purdue, UCLA, Rutgers). Three of those games are at home, and three of those opponents rank worse than 65th in SP+. Anyone craving a glimpse at fifth-gear Ohio State is probably going to have to wait at least another month.

In part because of how quickly SP+ was saying Indiana was really good in 2024, I feel like I’ve been in the front car of the Hoosiers bandwagon for a while now. And even I have found myself wondering if or when they might begin to look a bit more mortal, to drop a hint that they might be dealing with extra pressure and expectations. It would be normal and forgivable if it happened, and when Aidan Chiles and Nick Marsh connected to give Michigan State a 10-7 lead early in the second quarter in front of 55,165 in Bloomington, I thought we might be encountering such a moment.

Nope. The Hoosiers ripped off a 75-yard touchdown drive, forced a punt, drove 80 yards for another touchdown and, after a halftime weather delay, drove 75 and 68 yards for two more touchdowns to put away a 38-13 win. Fernando Mendoza was nearly perfect once again, engineering five TD drives in five tries before a turnover on downs ended the streak early in the fourth quarter. He went 24-for-28 for 332 yards and four touchdowns, and stars Omar Cooper Jr. and Elijah Sarratt caught 12 passes for 185 yards and three of the scores. The Indiana defense had a poor game by its standards, allowing six Michigan State drives to finish in IU territory, but the Hoosiers still haven’t allowed more than 20 points in a game this season.

Even if your brain has been slow to completely grasp this — mine evidently has, despite my best efforts — there’s absolutely no reason to think of Indiana as anything but an elite team that will play like an elite team most of the time. And if that remains true, then go ahead and pencil the Hoosiers into the Big Ten championship game: Their five remaining games are against three teams ranked 65th or worse in SP+ and two (Maryland and Penn State) who are a combined 0-7 since Week 4.

We entered Week 8 with five teams looking at odds of 25% or higher to finish 12-0: Ohio State, Texas Tech, Indiana, Memphis and Miami. Three of them lost; the other two — Ohio State (now 49%) and Indiana (45%) — are on a collision course to meet in Indianapolis.

Don’t trust: The ACC

All of it. The entire conference is untrustworthy at this point. There were eight games involving ACC teams in Week 8; four produced upsets, three on the favorite’s home field, and two others nearly did. Stanford beat Florida State as a 17.5-point underdog, Louisville (+10.5) won at Miami, SMU (+5.5) won at Clemson in a game altered by multiple quarterback injuries and Georgia Tech (+3.5) won at Duke 27-18 in a game impacted heavily by a 95-yard Omar Daniels fumble return score.

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0:48

Omar Daniels takes Duke fumble 95 yards to the house

Georgia Tech strikes first as Omar Daniels recovers a Duke fumble and returns it 95 yards for the touchdown.

Oh yeah, and Cal nearly lost as an 8.5-point home favorite against previously hapless North Carolina, and Virginia (-16.5) needed a late Washington State implosion to beat the Cougars 22-20 at home. In all, only Pitt’s 30-13 win over Syracuse — the Panthers have genuinely gone to a new level since installing freshman Mason Heintschel at quarterback (though he admittedly didn’t do much Saturday) — and collapsing Boston College’s 38-23 loss to UConn produced what you might call expected outcomes, though UConn’s winning margin was larger than anticipated.

As one would expect, such a wacky week shuffled the conference title odds a good amount.

ACC title odds, per SP+:
Georgia Tech (7-0, 4-0 ACC): 26.9% (up 9.2%)
Louisville (5-1, 2-1): 16.8% (up 6.5%)
Miami (5-1, 1-1): 13.4% (down 17.3%)
Virginia (6-1, 3-0): 12.9% (up 1.9%)
SMU (5-2, 3-0): 12.9% (up 5.8%)
Pitt (5-2, 3-1): 8.3% (up 2.5%)
Duke (4-3, 3-1): 7.3% (down 7.7%)
Cal (5-2, 2-1): 1.0% (up 0.4%)

SP+ pinpointed Miami as more of a top-15 team than an elite one weeks ago, and as such, the Hurricanes could struggle in road trips against SMU (which has won three in a row) and the aforementioned Pitt in a series that has produced upsets in five of the past nine meetings. Louisville’s offense isn’t quite trustworthy yet, but the Cardinals have only one more SP+ top-40 opponent on the schedule (No. 37 SMU).

Virginia and SMU still have mulligans to spend — both are unbeaten in conference play — as does Georgia Tech, which remains unbeaten overall and has moved into the ACC driver’s seat. But as fun as the Tech story is, it’s hard to trust the Yellow Jackets, who, despite having not yet faced an SP+ top-40 team, have needed three one-score victories to remain unbeaten and rank only 29th in points per drive on offense and 53rd on defense. They’re 28th in SP+, behind Miami and Louisville and only narrowly ahead of Pitt, SMU and a quickly deteriorating Florida State.

Translation: This race probably has a few more plot twists to go. The spirit of the ACC Coastal division lives. Trust no one.

For what I believe was the first time since it expanded to 16 teams last year, the SEC had eight conference games going on the same Saturday. Two went to overtime, and others were decided by two, three, seven and eight points.

When we talk about parity in college football, we’re directing a lot of that at the SEC. It currently doesn’t have a team within six points of Ohio State in the SP+ ratings, but its top 10 teams are within five points of each other. All are ranked between fifth and 19th nationally, and even with Alabama bolting out ahead of the pack, we’re still looking at eight teams with at least a 5% chance at the conference title.

SEC title odds, per SP+:
Alabama (6-1, 4-0 SEC): 25.8% (up 7.0%)
Texas A&M (7-0, 4-0): 17.6% (up 3.1%)
Georgia (6-1, 4-1): 13.9% (up 3.4%)
Oklahoma (6-1, 2-1): 10.4% (up 2.7%)
Texas (5-2, 2-1): 7.7% (up 1.2%)
Missouri (6-1, 2-1): 7.4% (up 1.5%)
Ole Miss (6-1, 3-1): 7.1% (down 9.1%)
Vanderbilt (6-1, 2-1): 5.5% (up 1.8%)

Alabama indeed eased out in front thanks to Saturday’s 37-20 win over Tennessee. Who knows how the game might have played out if Zabien Brown hadn’t picked off a Joey Aguilar pass at the goal line and taken it 99 yards for a touchdown as the first half expired — instead of a 16-14 or 16-10 halftime lead for Bama, it was 23-7. But the Tide once again got the two things they have come to rely on: red zone stops from the defense and just the right plays from Ty Simpson.

In Bama’s current run of four straight wins over ranked foes, opposing teams have scored touchdowns on just seven of 14 red zone trips, with three turnovers, a turnover on downs and only one field goal among the seven failures. The Tide are just 58th in yards allowed per play and 66th in success rate allowed, but they’re 22nd in scoring defense. That’s a tenuous balance, and we’ll see what happens against Oklahoma or anyone they might face in the SEC championship game or CFP, but it’s working well for now.

It works even better since they know they’ll get what they need from Simpson. That Week 1 defeat at Florida State grows more baffling by the week, but since then Simpson ranks seventh in Total QBR with a 74% completion rate, a 16-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio and a 52% success rate on third and fourth down (national average on those downs: 40%). He’s also the only guy this season who has outdueled Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia. Simpson has earned our trust, although I’m still willing to cast a suspicious glance toward the defense.

Trust: Georgia’s toughness

I’m also struggling to trust quite a few aspects of Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. They struggled to run efficiently against either of the two good defenses they’ve faced, they continue to lack in the big-play department, and while they’ve played against three top-15 offenses, per SP+, we still expect a Smart defense to rank higher than 49th in points allowed per drive or 48th in success rate allowed.

Still, you have to admire the Dawgs’ flair for the moment. They spotted Tennessee a 14-point lead in the first quarter, Auburn a 10-point lead in the first, Alabama a 14-point lead in the second and Ole Miss a nine-point lead in the third, and yet, the only team they lost to was Bama. (And it looked like they were going to win that one, too, until Bama’s defensive red zone magic struck.) Against Auburn’s awesome defense in Week 7, they eventually figured out a way to eke out 20 points and a road win; against Ole Miss’ awesome offense in Week 8, they allowed five straight touchdowns to start the game but stayed within pecking distance and then suddenly locked the Rebels all the way down. Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss went 1-for-10 passing during a fourth quarter in which Georgia outgained the Rebels 143-13 and outscored them 17-0. The result: yet another comeback win 43-35.

When the Bulldogs need to score 40-plus, they do it. When they need to hold an opponent to 10, they do it. It would be awfully boring if, in this year of epic SEC parity — when Texas A&M, Missouri, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt all have at least a puncher’s chance at the crown — we got another Georgia-Bama conference title game. But it’s pretty damn hard to think we won’t at this point, isn’t it?

Don’t trust: Arch Manning and Texas’ offense

I called Ohio State’s defense the best in the country above, and I certainly believe it is. SP+, however, still leans toward Texas, which held the Buckeyes to 14 points in the season opener and has allowed only one opponent to score more than that. The Longhorns rank fourth in points allowed per drive and 10th in yards allowed per play — quite possibly the second-best defense in the sport to my eyes.

Despite the defense, however, and despite a potentially key tiebreaker win over Oklahoma last week, Texas is only fifth on the SEC title odds list above, just ahead of Missouri and behind those Sooners. You already know the reason, of course: an offense that ranks 74th in yards per play, 88th in points per drive, 101st in success rate (80th rushing, 110th passing) and 116th in percentage of plays gaining zero or negative yards. On 46.5% of their pass attempts this season, they’d have been as well or better off just spiking the ball into the ground; that “spike factor” ranks 120th.

I don’t bring this up to heap further scorn on Arch Manning, or at least not to specifically do that. The preseason Heisman favorite hasn’t gotten any of the help he needed this season, and he certainly didn’t in Saturday night’s 16-13 win over Kentucky. His running backs averaged 3.3 yards per carry in Lexington, and his first 25 pass attempts produced just eight completions and three sacks. He did complete four straight short passes late, but Texas gained just 179 yards against a Wildcats defense that allowed 461 yards to Eastern Michigan in mid-September.

The Longhorns survived when Kentucky foolishly called two straight halfback dives into the teeth of Texas’ enormous defensive line and turned the ball over on downs in overtime, setting up Mason Shipley’s game-winning field goal. But this offense is still failing to clear an increasingly low bar. It has underachieved against SP+ projections in five of seven games and needed a special teams touchdown to overachieve its projection against Oklahoma last week.

No matter how good the defense may be, it’s going to face four of the nation’s top 15 offenses (per SP+) in its last five games, and the offense is going to face three defenses that grade out better than Kentucky’s. If it can’t help Manning, and Manning can’t help himself and start to improve — a hard thing to do midstream, especially when your issues seem to be pretty fundamental things such as footwork, pocket timing and accuracy — then how exactly does Texas end up with a playoff résumé? Things could be worse; the Horns could have easily lost to UK. But it’s hard to see things getting much better.

I’m not sure my trust is going to be enough. At 5-2 with no serious résumé-building win opportunities left, it sure seems like Notre Dame will be at or near the bottom of a pile of hypothetical two-loss teams even if it gets to 10-2 at the end of the regular season. There’s no shame in losing to Miami and Texas A&M — teams that are a combined 12-1 — by four combined points, as the Irish did, and their list of quality wins just isn’t going to end up being all that impressive even if USC, Saturday night’s victim, keeps playing well.

For this conversation, however, that doesn’t really matter. All that matters is that this is one of the five best teams in the country right now, and I’m growing to trust the Irish considerably. (Well, everything but their place-kicking anyway.) They’ve overachieved against SP+ projections over the last five games by an average of 14.9 points. And even though quarterback CJ Carr had a poor game Saturday — 16-for-26 for 136 yards, a TD, an interception, a sack and a 32.8 Total QBR — they still overachieved against their offensive projections thanks to a 228-yard rushing performance from Jeremiyah Love, his first genuine breakout game of the year, and an 87-yard performance with a kick return score from backup Jadarian Price.

Combine a high-end offense with a defense that seems to have completely solved itself over the last month, and you’ve got a hell of a team. After allowing 32.7 points per game in Chris Ash’s first three games as coordinator, the Irish have since allowed just 12.8 per game despite playing USC (first in offensive SP+), Arkansas (fifth) and Boise State (25th), and despite dealing with injuries to stars such as corner Leonard Moore and tackle Gabriel Rubio. USC had scored at least 31 points in every game before Saturday and came to South Bend averaging 8.3 yards per play; the Trojans managed just 24 points and 5.6 yards per play against the Irish.

Thanks primarily to the early defensive struggles, the Irish were 21st in SP+ after three games. They’re now sixth after seven games. Only one remaining game is projected within 17 points, per SP+, and if they make the CFP they could do some serious damage. We’ll have to see what fate has in store in that regard.

This week in SP+

The SP+ rankings have been updated for the week. Let’s take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We’re looking at ratings, not rankings.)

Moving up

Here are the five teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:

Temple: up 4.5 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 88th to 72nd)

Florida International: up 4.3 points (from 130th to 124th)

James Madison: up 3.6 points (from 59th to 47th)

Central Michigan: up 3.5 points (from 125th to 114th)

Oregon State: up 3.5 points (from 114th to 106th)

After losing to Delaware and UConn by a combined 89-26, FIU unleashed a nearly perfect performance out of nowhere Tuesday, heading up to Western Kentucky and winning 25-6. James Madison, meanwhile, knocked Old Dominion out in a delightful Saturday slugfest, scoring 42 straight points to turn a 27-21 deficit into a 63-27 rout.

But we need to talk about Temple for a second: The Owls hadn’t topped three wins since 2019, watching their meticulously rebuilt program crumble to the ground in the 2020s. But then they hired KC Keeler. It might have been the best hire of last offseason. The 66-year-old has them at 4-3 following Saturday’s 49-14 blowout of Charlotte.

Temple hasn’t had the athleticism to keep up with high-level power-conference opponents — Oklahoma and Georgia Tech beat the Owls by a combined 87-27 — but against teams in their weight class, they’re 4-1, having overachieved against SP+ projections by an average of 19.4 points and having lost only to unbeaten Navy in the last minute. What a turnaround.

Here are the five power-conference teams that rose the most:

Minnesota: up 3.1 points (from 57th to 49th)

UCF: up 3.0 points (from 58th to 51st)

Cincinnati: up 1.8 points (from 30th to 25th)

Stanford: up 1.7 points (from 108th to 101st)

North Carolina: up 1.6 points (from 103rd to 98th)

Minnesota sure does love playing Nebraska. The Gophers pummeled the Huskers on Friday night 24-6 to move to 5-2 on the season. Without that ghastly egg-laying loss at Cal in Week 3, they’d be ranked and looking at a potential 9-3 finish or so.

Moving down

Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:

UTSA: down 5.0 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 61st to 71st)

Tennessee: down 4.0 points (from 11th to 18th)

Rutgers: down 3.8 points (from 50th to 67th)

Nebraska: down 3.7 points (from 20th to 26th)

West Virginia: down 3.6 points (from 80th to 97th)

Memphis: down 3.5 points (from 24th to 30th)

Northern Illinois: down 3.3 points (from 118th to 127th)

South Carolina: down 3.3 points (from 40th to 52nd)

USC: down 2.9 points (from 14th to 16th)

Clemson: down 2.8 points (from 39th to 46th)

There’s no great shame in losing at Alabama, but Tennessee’s slippage here has been a long time coming: The Vols have now underachieved against projections for five straight games, and they’ve done so by double digits in each of the past two. The defense, which finished sixth in defensive SP+ last season, has underachieved in every game and is down to 44th, and while the offense propped the Vols up for a while, it has also underachieved the past two weeks. Continued underachievement at that level would put them in danger of losing at Kentucky this coming week.

Who won the Heisman this week?

I am once again awarding the Heisman every single week of the season and doling out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, nine for second, and so on). How will this Heisman race play out, and how different will the result be from the actual Heisman voting?

Here is this week’s Heisman top 10:

1. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (26-for-31 passing for 289 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 59 non-sack rushing yards and a touchdown against Ole Miss).

2. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (24-for-28 passing for 332 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 18 non-sack rushing yards against Michigan State).

3. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (24 carries for 228 yards and a touchdown, plus 37 receiving yards against USC).

4. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (36-for-42 passing for 393 yards and 4 touchdowns against Wisconsin).

5. Alonza Barnett III, James Madison (17-for-25 passing for 295 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 165 non-sack rushing yards and 4 TDs against Old Dominion).

6. Taylen Green, Arkansas (19-for-32 passing for 256 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 131 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against Texas A&M).

7. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (14-for-22 passing for 160 yards and a touchdown, plus 94 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against LSU).

8. Colin Simmons, Texas (4 tackles, 3 sacks and 1 forced fumble against Kentucky).

9. Dylan Riley, Boise State (15 carries for 201 yards and a touchdown against UNLV).

10. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (14-for-21 passing for 205 yards, plus 120 non-sack rushing yards and a touchdown against Duke).

It was tempting to just give each of the top three names a share of No. 1 for the week. Love’s domination of USC was vital to Notre Dame’s playoff hopes (and really fun to watch), and Mendoza was ridiculous yet again — his Total QBR has now topped 90.0 in four of the past five games, and he’s completing 74% of his passes with a 21-to-2 TD-to-INT ratio. Kurtis Rourke was so good for the Hoosiers last season, and Mendoza is raising the bar.

I had to give No. 1 to Stockton, though. He had to be great for the Dawgs to keep up with Ole Miss, and when the Georgia defense finally showed up, Stockton raised his game even further. Awesome stuff.

Honorable mention:

Byrum Brown, USF (14-for-24 passing for 256 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 123 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Florida Atlantic).

Zabien Brown, Alabama (seven tackles and a 99-yard pick-six against Tennessee).

Anthony Hankerson, Oregon State (25 carries for 204 yards and 4 touchdowns against Lafayette).

Caleb Hawkins, North Texas (18 carries for 133 yards, plus 90 receiving yards against UTSA).

Brad Jackson, Texas State (26-for-38 passing for 444 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT, plus 77 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Marshall).

Nick Minicucci, Delaware (32-for-50 passing for 422 yards and a touchdown, plus 20 non-sack rushing yards against Jacksonville State).

Dante Moore, Oregon (15-for-20 passing for 290 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT, plus 49 non-sack rushing yards against Rutgers).

Kejon Owens, Florida International (22 carries for 195 yards and a touchdown, plus seven receiving yards against Western Kentucky).

(By the way, a quick shoutout to Curry College’s Montie Quinn, who broke the Division III record with 522 rushing yards … on 20 carries! The Colonels beat Nichols 71-27, and his seven touchdowns alone gained 399 yards, including jaunts of 85, 84, 76, 64 and 58 yards.)

Through eight weeks, here are your points leaders:

1. Ty Simpson, Alabama (29 points)
2. Taylen Green, Arkansas (27)
3T. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (19)
3T. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (19)
3T. Demond Williams Jr., Washington (19)
6T. Luke Altmyer, Illinois (16)
6T. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (16)
8. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (15)
9. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (14)
10. Jayden Maiava, USC (12)

For the first time all season, the points race and the current Heisman betting odds have begun to match up. Six of the above names are also in the top 10 per ESPN BET: Mendoza (No. 1 betting favorite), Simpson (No. 2), Sayin (No. 3), Stockton (No. 5), Pavia (No. 8) and Chambliss (No. 9T).

My 10 favorite games of the weekend

1 and 2. Stanford 20, Florida State 13 and California 21, North Carolina 18 (Friday). We had matching last-minute goal-line stands in the Bay Area, though Stanford-FSU gets the edge for adding in a mini-Hail Mary (to get to the Stanford 9 with two seconds left) and an untimed down following a pass interference call (which followed an errant snap). And are we sure Gavin Sawchuk didn’t make it to the end zone? One of the most unique finishes you’ll see.

Cal, meanwhile, merely forced a fumble millimeters before the end zone with four minutes left. Boring.

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0:48

Cal forces UNC fumble at the goal line for a touchback

Cal’s Brent Austin punches the ball out of Nathan Leacock’s hands at the goal line to force a fumble and subsequent touchback.

3. FCS: East Texas A&M 52, Incarnate Word 45. With 6:45 left, East Texas A&M took its first lead 45-42 after trailing by as many as 21 earlier in the game.

With 1:55 left, UIW’s Will Faris hit a 57-yard field goal to tie the game at 45-45.

With 0:27 left, ETAMU not only scored the winning points but did so with one of the most physical runs of the week.

Hot damn, EJ Oakmon.

4. Louisville 24, No. 2 Miami 21 (Friday). Louisville’s offense hasn’t carried its weight at times this year, but the Cardinals scripted out two early touchdowns and got a beautiful, 36-yard burst from Chris Bell. The defense took it from there. T.J. Capers‘ interception — the Cardinals’ fourth of Carson Beck — clinched the upset and sent the ACC race into chaos.

5. FCS: Lamar 23, UT Rio Grande Valley 21. UT Rio Grande Valley is 5-2 in its debut season; the Vaqueros have acquitted themselves well, and they almost took down a ranked Lamar team in Beaumont with two fourth-quarter touchdowns. But Ben Woodard nailed a 57-yard field goal with 1:03 left, and Mar Mar Evans picked off a desperate Eddie Lee Marburger pass with 14 seconds left. Lamar survived.

6. No. 9 Georgia 43, No. 5 Ole Miss 35. I almost just assumed that Ole Miss would score late and send this one to overtime. Alas. A heavyweight matchup in a heavyweight environment.

7. Tulane 24, Army 17. I reflexively made the Chris Berman “WHOOOP” sound when this happened.

8. Arizona State 26, No. 7 Texas Tech 22. Texas Tech backup quarterback Will Hammond finally looked like a backup, but the Red Raiders overcame a number of miscues to take the lead with two minutes left, only for ASU to respond with a 10-play, 75-yard drive capped by Raleek Brown‘s last-minute touchdown.

9. TCU 42, Baylor 36. One of many games with lengthy weather delays, this one almost saw a three-minute, 21-point comeback. TCU led 42-21, but Keaton Thomas returned a fumble for a touchdown, Sawyer Robertson completed a 35-yard touchdown to Kole Wilson, and Baylor recovered an onside kick with 30 seconds left. But Namdi Obiazor picked Robertson off near midfield, and the Horned Frogs survived.

10. UAB 31, No. 22 Memphis 24. You get points for creativity, Memphis. After Greg Desrosiers Jr. had his game-tying, 41-yard touchdown disallowed — replay determined he was down just short of the goal line — Memphis proceeded to commit two false starts and a delay of game, and backup quarterback AJ Hill‘s fourth-down pass to Cortez Braham Jr. was incomplete by inches. I’ve never seen a team lose a game like that.

11. Division II: Benedict 31, Edward Waters 27.

12. UCLA 20, Maryland 17.

13. Houston 31, Arizona 28.

14. FCS: Chattanooga 42, ETSU 38.

15. Marshall 40, Texas State 37 (2OT).

16. No. 16 Missouri 23, Auburn 17 (OT).

17. Iowa 25, Penn State 24.

18. Division III: No. 14 John Carroll 31, No. 11 DePauw 27.

19. NAIA: Faulkner 36, Cumberlands 35.

20. Florida 23, Mississippi State 21

It says a lot about the week that we had two SEC overtime games, and neither made the top 15.

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Takeaways: Notre Dame and Arizona State make comeback statements

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11 mins ago

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October 21, 2025

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Takeaways: Notre Dame and Arizona State make comeback statements

Oct 20, 2025, 08:25 AM ET

Week 8 had its share of surprises as four Associated Press Top 25 teams fell to unranked opponents.

One of the upsets of the week came from Arizona State as it handed then-No. 7 Texas Tech its first loss of the season. The Red Raiders fell to 6-1, 3-1 in the Big 12, and dropped to fourth in the conference standings. The Sun Devils, on the other hand, are bouncing back from two losses this season, looking for back-to-back Big 12 title game appearances and a potential spot in the College Football Playoff.

Notre Dame is another team making a comeback this season. After an 0-2 start, the Fighting Irish are on a five-game winning streak after a big rivalry win over then-No. 20 USC on Saturday. And Vanderbilt — one of the hottest teams in the sport — is showing just how different this season has been.

Which team is Arizona State’s toughest matchup ahead as it looks to be a Big 12 title contender? After a tough start to the season, can Notre Dame continue its hot streak and make another run at the CFP? What accomplishments has Vanderbilt crossed off through Week 8?

Our college football experts break down key storylines and takeaways from the week.

Jump to:
Freeman at it again | ASU’s road back
Vanderbilt’s rise | Pitt’s freshman QB

Marcus Freeman is the comeback king

No win was more impactful to the College Football Playoff picture than Notre Dame‘s season-saving victory against USC on Saturday. For the second straight year, Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman has pulled his team out of an absolute pit and back into the hunt for a national title. Last year, it was the baffling Week 2 home loss to Northern Illinois that was followed by 13 straight wins and a spot in the national championship game. Most teams don’t play 13 games in a season, let alone win that many in a row.

Now, the Irish have won five straight after their 0-2 start and are back on the selection committee’s radar. Yes, there is still work to be done, and yes, the Irish remain in must-win mode for the rest of the season. But USC was their toughest opponent left. And Notre Dame continues to improve every week, particularly on defense. If that continues, Notre Dame won’t just be a playoff team — it will be capable of making another run at winning it. Freeman already wrote the blueprint. — Heather Dinich

Don’t forget about Arizona State

After a close loss to Mississippi State and an embarrassing 43-10 loss at the hands of Utah, defending Big 12 champion Arizona State appeared to be on its way to a disappointing encore season following their surprise College Football Playoff appearance last year.

In reality, Kenny Dillingham’s team just needed to feel like an underdog again.

Texas Tech came into Tempe undefeated with its own CFP hopes. But the Sun Devils, led by quarterback Sam Leavitt, who had his best performance of the season, outlasted the Red Raiders 26-22 to put themselves right back into the mix for the Big 12.

Dillingham, as he’s prone to do, responded appropriately: by producing another iconic postgame interview moment and then dancing with his team in the locker room.

“Good programs don’t turn left or right. They just turn a little bit,” Dillingham said of how ASU dealt with the blowout loss to Utah. “We didn’t turn the ship a different direction. We just moved it five to seven degrees. The guys responded.”

Arizona State is now tied for third place in the conference, but the Sun Devils are sitting in a very comfortable position. They don’t play the two teams above them (BYU and Cincinnati, who do play each other) and currently don’t have another ranked team on the rest of their schedule. Iowa State in Ames next week is probably their toughest matchup remaining. The roadmap back to Dallas is there for the taking. — Paolo Uggetti

Vanderbilt’s rise the latest evidence that 2025 is different

In a span of five days, Indiana beat an AP top-5 road opponent for the first time, then locked in coach Curt Cignetti to a $93.25 million contract. Two days after the Cignetti deal was announced, Vanderbilt beat LSU 31-24 in an outcome that surprised no one who has watched the Commodores (and, for that matter, LSU) play this season. Welcome to college football in 2025.

Vanderbilt is 6-1 for the first time since 1950, beat LSU for the first time since 1990 and has two wins against AP top-15 opponents for the first time in the same season. The Commodores on Sunday received their first AP top-10 ranking since 1947. But again, when you study Vandy and especially the offense, under the direction of quarterback Diego Pavia and coordinator Tim Beck, it’s difficult to be shocked by any of this.

Clark Lea has possibly forever changed the course of Vanderbilt’s program by bringing in the New Mexico State crew: Pavia, Beck, chief consultant Jerry Kill and others. Vanderbilt will host ESPN’s “College GameDay” this week and face Missouri in a game with legitimate College Football Playoff implications. That’s where we are with college football in 2025, and what a place to be. — Adam Rittenberg

True freshman QB Heintschel sparking Panthers

After back-to-back losses to Backyard Brawl rival West Virginia and Louisville, Pittsburgh’s season appeared to be heading south.

But then coach Pat Narduzzi made a quarterback change, swapping incumbent starter Eli Holstein for true freshman Mason Heintschel.

The Panthers have since reeled off three consecutive wins, including Saturday’s 30-13 victory at Syracuse — with Heintschel becoming the first Pitt true freshman quarterback to win three straight since Pat Bostick in 2007, according to ESPN Research.

Since taking over, the dual-threat Heintschel ranks eighth with 787 passing yards and fifth in rushing with 141 yards among Power 4 quarterbacks.

The Panthers (5-2, 3-1 ACC) are hanging around in the wide-open ACC, with a series of big opportunities looming at the end of the season.

Pitt closes the season with consecutive tilts against No. 13 Notre Dame, No. 7 Georgia Tech and No. 9 Miami. — Jake Trotter

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NHL rink report: Matthew Schaefer’s hot start, Tusky’s debut, games of the week

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11 mins ago

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October 21, 2025

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NHL rink report: Matthew Schaefer's hot start, Tusky's debut, games of the week

Matthew Schaefer has had quite the debut in the NHL, hasn’t he? He has scored a point in every game he has played — including a fun first NHL goal. ESPN analyst John Tortorella noted that he reminds him of Hall of Famer Chris Pronger with his skating; that’s not bad at all for the New York Islanders‘ first overall pick from the 2025 draft.

The debut has also been historical. Schaefer started his NHL career with a five-game point streak (and counting). That’s the second-longest point streak by any defenseman from the start of their career, behind only Marek Zidlicky (six games) in 2003-04. He is the first 18-year-old defenseman in NHL history to achieve that (every other 18-year-old on the list was a forward).

His first NHL goal was electric. There was a big scrum in front on an Islanders power play. Amid the chaos, the puck was lost, and Schaefer barged in from the blue line and poked the puck that was barely visible under Logan Thompson‘s pads into the net in a seamless motion. Among his many other traits, the hockey IQ is quite high.

Schaefer turned 18 on Sept. 5; yes, just over a month ago. He is the youngest defenseman to make his NHL debut, to record a point in his NHL debut, the youngest NHL player on record to score his first goal on the power play, and the youngest player to play 25-plus minutes in a game.

He’s also garnering a lot of early “Isles franchise player of the future” nods from the Islanders faithful. It might be a bit early to be doling out accolades like that. But Matthew Schaefer is definitely fun to watch, and the best is yet to come.

Jump ahead:
Games of the week
What I liked this weekend
Hart Trophy candidates
Social post of the week

Biggest games of the week

7:30 p.m. ET | ESPN

Obviously the biggest game of the week from a storyline perspective is Brad Marchand returning for his first game in Boston. He was injured the last time the Panthers visited Boston, so all of the pomp and circumstance will come during this game.

Marchand is a banner- and statue-level guy in Beantown, without question. I expect an extended ovation, then the fans booing him when he levels David Pastrnak in a scrum.

7 p.m. ET | ESPN+

Two playoff teams from last season. Star power aplenty, with Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt on one side, against Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares on the other.

But there’s another wrinkle to this one. Greg Wyshynski and I created a brand new “North American Hockey Championship” title belt for our digital show “The Drop,” and it’s currently held by me thanks to the Canadian victory in last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off. This is how title defenses work: For every Canada vs. USA international game, men’s or women’s, the title is automatically on the line. In addition, the challenger can choose any NHL game with any sort of Canada vs. USA connection for the belt to be up for grabs.

In this case it’s easy — an American team visiting a Canadian one — and it’s the team for which Wysh grew up rooting against the one for which I grew up rooting. If the Devils win, then the U.S. is the new North American hockey champion. If the Leafs win, Canada retains.

Other key matchups this week

10 p.m. ET | ESPN+

10 p.m. ET | ESPN

9 p.m. ET | ESPN+

9 p.m. ET | ESPN+

6 p.m. ET | ESPN+

What I liked this weekend

Friday was a big day for college hockey. On paper, Boston University vs. Michigan State was already a heavyweight matchup — 34 NHL prospects with 20 NHL teams were represented in the game. The game was broadcast on ESPN2, which is terrific for a matchup so early in the college hockey season. This is the dawn of a new era of NCAA on the ice, with the rules surrounding CHL players changing, and the continued growth and interest in the college game.

The Spartans led 2-0 through two periods, but BU fought back, and the game went to overtime tied 3-3. BU’s Cole Eiserman (Islanders prospect) appeared to win it, but MSU’s Shane Vansaghi (Flyers) swept the puck away before it crossed the goal line. The Spartans brought it back the other way, and Matt Basgall (undrafted) scored off a feed from Ryker Lee (Predators).

Also, count me in as a fan of the NHL’s newest mascot, Tusky. I like Tusky’s overall look, and particularly his dark blue mohawk. I thought the introduction of breaking through blocks of foam ice was cute, and the name is easy for kids to say. I’m a massive fan of mascots — they are critical to game presentation and in-arena fun, to social content, and especially to helping kids and new hockey fans make core memories. I look forward to seeing what fun things the Mammoth have planned for Tusky.

MVP candidates if the season ended today…

Vegas center Jack Eichel leads the league with 15 points. He had some support for the Hart among our ESPN hockey crew this preseason, and could remain a top candidate all season (particularly if the scoring keeps up).

play

0:49

Jack Eichel nets goal for Golden Knights

Jack Eichel lights the lamp for Golden Knights

Speaking of lighting up the scoreboard, Ottawa Senators forward Shane Pinto has seven goals through six games, with all seven of them at even strength. The Senators will need to find other sources of scoring while Brady Tkachuk is out.

Given that goaltender Connor Hellebuyck won the Hart last season, we can’t forget the netminders this season either. You would have to take a long look at New York Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin. Despite going 2-2-1, he boasts a .962 save percentage and is allowing only one goal per game on average. Scott Wedgewood might win out among goalies, however, as he has started the season 5-0-1 with a .938 save percentage, saving 136 of 145 shots for the first-place Colorado Avalanche.

And hey, if the season ended today, I’d even toss Matthew Schaefer‘s name in the mix based on all the ridiculous stats I highlighted earlier.

Hockey social media post of the week

One of my favorite people on social media is “Kickball Dad” — especially when the Miami Dolphins do something to annoy him, or he’s zipping around the backyard on his mower. He might also be the first person in recorded history to shoot hockey pucks on the beach in the Bahamas.

He’s also a massive Devils fan and made a video going to the home opener:

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