How the Air Force fueled the rise of Paul Skenes
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Ryan Hockensmith
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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Adam Rittenberg
The wildest college football coaching cycle — perhaps ever — has reached the hiring phase.
Schools around the Power 4 that fired their coaches in the first two months of the season — or, in Stanford’s case, way back in late March — are targeting candidates and finalizing deals. Interestingly enough, one of the first major coaches to lose his job, Penn State’s James Franklin, was the first noninterim coach to be hired, as he is headed to Virginia Tech.
New hires always come with hope and optimism, grand proclamations and the chance to get programs on the right track. But not all hiring processes are the same. The financial component with jobs is essential — what schools are willing to spend not just on their head coach, but the assistants and support staff and, perhaps most important, the team roster.
We will be reviewing all of the major coaching hires in the 2025-26 cycle, evaluating how each coach fits in the job, their major challenges and what it will take to be successful. We will also assign an initial letter grade for each hire.
Jump to: Kentucky | Michigan State | UCLA | LSU | Ole Miss | Florida | Arkansas
Auburn | Stanford | Oklahoma State | Virginia Tech
Why is this a good fit?
Stein loves Kentucky. He told me that when I visited Oregon recently. We were talking about the coaching carousel, jobs that had opened and potential openings, and he mentioned his connection to Kentucky. How both of his parents went there and that his dad, Matt, played defensive end for the Wildcats under coach Jerry Claiborne. Stein is from Louisville and played quarterback for the University of Louisville, Kentucky’s in-state rival, but grew up attending UK games. Despite other suitors in this cycle and likely in future ones, Stein had a desire to coach Kentucky, which really matters.
He also gives Kentucky a vision for the offense that it needs after the past few seasons. Since the start of the 2022 season, Kentucky ranks 115th nationally in scoring and 101st in total offense. Stein has quickly emerged as one of the sport’s top playcallers, and has won with different quarterbacks, from the record-setting Frank Harris at UTSA to Bo Nix, Dillon Gabriel and now Dante Moore at Oregon. He operates a system that should attract talented offensive players to Lexington. Stein also has been around strong mentors, from Jeff Traylor to Dan Lanning.
What are the biggest challenges for Stein?
Stein has shown he can handle quarterbacks and design offensive game plans, but how ready is he to oversee an SEC program? He has made a quick rise after landing his first on-field job in the FBS in 2020. The SEC is seemingly getting deeper by the year and can be merciless to coaches and programs that aren’t buttoned-down in every aspect. Stein will need to compile a strong staff, especially on defense but also with a veteran mentor or two. He must take the best elements of coaches like Lanning and Traylor, and apply them as he shapes his own program.
The other big challenge is personnel and upgrading Kentucky’s talent level, ideally with greater resources than Stoops had at the end of his tenure. Stein’s childhood connection to Kentucky and personality should get donors and fans engaged, but the program has fallen behind operationally as teams like Vanderbilt and Missouri have accelerated. Athletics director Mitch Barnhart and university president Eli Capilouto have been in their roles a long time, but they’re also nearing the ends of their careers. Stein must push both leaders to help him get what he needs, especially during the first 12-18 months of his tenure.
Grade: A-
Stein’s lack of head-coaching experience is the only thing keeping the grade from being a full-on A. Kentucky needed a coach who wanted to be there, knew enough about the program and had a plan to elevate its offensive production after Mark Stoops went through a revolving door of coordinators late in his tenure. Kentucky will score and be exciting under Stein, who already has a baked-in connection to the program. Stein will need a strong staff around him but should give UK a chance to rise, even in the difficult SEC. — Adam Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
The Big Ten always made the most sense as the setting for Fitzgerald’s return to the sideline. His connections to Northwestern and the Chicago area are obviously extensive, and he has a son playing for Kirk Ferentz at Iowa, where he attended several games this season. Fitzgerald knows the league and the recruiting footprint, and also how to do more with less. Jonathan Smith is a good coach but had never worked outside of the Pacific Northwest; Fitzgerald is a true Midwesterner who has seen firsthand how good Michigan State can be. He coached at Northwestern when MSU won three Big Ten titles under Mark Dantonio and recorded three consecutive AP top-6 finishes from 2013 to 2015. Fitzgerald should create an immediate connection with MSU fans that Smith unfortunately lacked.
The 50-year-old will receive improved resources at Michigan State, both financially and with admissions, that he never really had at Northwestern. He put together Northwestern’s most consistently successful stretch of the modern era from 2008 to 2018, when the program had five AP Top 25 finishes, won two Big Ten West titles and appeared in 10 bowl games. He will need a much better plan for the staff than he showed toward the end of his Northwestern tenure, when the team’s results fell off a cliff. But sometimes several years away from the game can give a talented coach like Fitzgerald the perspective needed to shift certain philosophies that held him back. — Rittenberg
Biggest challenges Fitzgerald will face?
Michigan State’s quarterbacks have struggled the past decade, following the years of stability with Drew Stanton, Kirk Cousins, Brian Hoyer and Connor Cook, who all gave the Spartans offense a high floor. Aidan Chiles, who came over with Smith from Oregon State two years ago, was benched in favor of Alessio Milivojevic on Nov. 1. Milivojevic lost his first three starts before throwing four touchdowns in the season-ending win over Maryland. To have any chance at instant success, Fitzgerald will have to look at the quarterback situation, potentially bringing in a transfer. Fitzgerald will also have to be smart with who he brings in at coordinator.
Northwestern never recovered after Fitzgerald fired longtime offensive coordinator Mick McCall in 2019 and veteran defensive coordinator Mike Hankwitz retired in 2020. The Wildcats won four games combined in 2021-22. The Big Ten is also different from when Fitzgerald last coached. Oregon, Washington and USC — combined with the emergence of Indiana — have made the Big Ten that much tougher for programs like Northwestern and Michigan State. — Jake Trotter
Grade: B
Fitzgerald deserved another opportunity after settling his lawsuit with Northwestern this past summer and being publicly cleared of culpability in the hazing scandal. There has been some selective amnesia in evaluating his candidacy, though. He wasn’t the first coach to win at Northwestern (predecessors Randy Walker and Gary Barnett both won Big Ten titles there). While he had a really nice run before NIL, the transfer portal and when the Big Ten had divisions, he also went 4-20 in his last two seasons and won three games or fewer in three of the last four. Fitzgerald must harness the qualities that made him a consistent winner at Northwestern but also show growth in how he hires staff and approaches roster-building to win at MSU. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
For UCLA to come out of a competitive hiring cycle with a coach like Chesney is certainly a big win for the program. Chesney not only has continued the success predecessor Curt Cignetti had at James Madison, but he has won everywhere else he has coached. The 48-year-old guided Holy Cross to five consecutive FCS playoff appearances, including a No. 6 finish in 2022. Chesney went 44-16 at Assumption University in Massachusetts and 23-9 at Salve Regina, a Division III program in Rhode Island. There might not be an exact replica of Cignetti out there, but Chesney’s background as a program-builder, with a clear vision, provides a nice pathway for UCLA after a tumultuous period.
Penn State seemingly would have made more sense for Chesney, a Pennsylvania native who has spent his entire career in the region. But UCLA pried him away and gives itself a chance to reset after a 2025 season that began with great optimism but sidetracked quickly with the firing of coach DeShaun Foster. Chesney is charismatic and should be able to connect with key UCLA stakeholders and garner the support needed to move the program forward. UCLA has tried several coaches with ties to its program who haven’t really panned out. Chesney is a bit of a departure but could be the one to get the Bruins more competitive in the Big Ten. — Rittenberg
What are the biggest challenges for Chesney?
When Foster was hired to be UCLA’s next head coach after Chip Kelly’s departure, the challenge was making UCLA attractive again. The Bruins opted for familiarity with a former player and first-time head coach and it backfired. Now, they’ve gone outside the box to a coach who hasn’t spent any time on the West Coast. There lies Chesney’s biggest challenge.
UCLA may not be able to immediately recruit or use the transfer portal with the likes of USC and Oregon on this side of the college football world, but Chesney has the pedigree of being able to develop players at lower levels and win wherever he has been. How he can harness that into not only excitement around the program, but also substance and results will be crucial.
There’s plenty of talent on the West Coast for UCLA to be better than it has been in recent years, but Chesney may need to completely revamp the school’s reputation on the recruiting trail (and in his roster-building approach utilizing the portal) as he sets out to create a vision for what kind of team he wants the Bruins to be.
It never quite felt like Foster was able to do just that, and though interim Tim Skipper did infuse life into the team after Foster’s firing, this is a program that needs a clear, viable and effective long-term directive. The question is whether Chesney can concoct the right recipe to turn a fledgling brand into more than just a Big Ten also-ran. — Paolo Uggetti
Grade: B+
Chesney is a really strong hire for UCLA. My only hesitation is the location — and, to a degree, the league — as Chesney has never worked anywhere near the West Coast. UCLA is a hard job even for those familiar with campus politics, the University of California system, the stadium situation and the Southern California recruiting scene. Although parallels will be drawn between Cignetti and Chesney, Cignetti worked in the Power 4 for Nick Saban at Alabama, as well as NC State and Pitt. There will be an adjustment period for Chesney, but his track record suggests UCLA will be winning soon and consistently. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
LSU got the coach it wanted ahead of other suitors, further confirming that its coaching job, despite the drama and dysfunction, remains one of the best in college football. Kiffin left a great situation at the height of his powers because he knows that LSU can consistently compete for national titles in ways that other programs simply cannot. In Kiffin, LSU gains a coach accustomed to the bright lights and the big stadiums, who can attract and develop talent and potentially restore the program to national powerhouse status. LSU can offer the big stage Kiffin lacked at Ole Miss, and wanted again.
Kiffin hasn’t worked at LSU but knows the SEC well after stops at Ole Miss, Alabama and Tennessee. Like Kiffin did at Ole Miss, he should put together an excellent staff that can scour Louisiana, Texas and the surrounding areas for top talent. He certainly will try to bring some of Ole Miss’ top players with him. Kiffin brings the offensive chops that LSU lacked at the end of Kelly’s tenure. He’s one of the nation’s best at identifying and developing quarterbacks, and the emergence of running back Kewan Lacy and others underscores that the Kiffin plan works on offense. — Rittenberg
Biggest challenges Kiffin will face
LSU has a reputation as a place where it is possible to win championships, and that expectation will be placed on Kiffin immediately – especially with the money he is being paid. The Tigers pride themselves on this fact as Nick Saban, Les Miles, then Ed Orgeron all won national titles. Brian Kelly was an awkward fit from the start and never truly got the vibe down on the Bayou. Kiffin has his own unique way of running a program, but he has to find a way to work with all the different “cooks in the kitchen” so to speak. The entire state is heavily invested in LSU football, and though Kiffin has an extremely high profile, he is moving to an even bigger spotlight in Baton Rouge — the only Power 4 school in the state. Kiffin must embrace that, and everything that comes with it. As coveted as he was in this cycle, Kiffin has never won a conference title and finding a way to get over the hump at a school like LSU has to happen. This will be his best shot to get it done, and the clock will start ticking as soon as his first press conference ends. — Andrea Adelson
Grade: A-
The fixation around Kiffin the past few weeks would normally be attached to a multi-time national championship winner, or at least a coach who has won a Power 4 conference title. Kiffin did tremendous work at Ole Miss but still needs to show he can win the biggest games consistently. LSU is a national championship-or-bust type of program, and Kiffin will be judged at the very highest level, which he craves. He brings the right ingredients to get it done in Baton Rouge, especially his work with quarterbacks. — Rittenberg
Ole Miss makes DC Pete Golding new head coach
Why is this a good fit?
Under normal circumstances, Ole Miss could run a complete coaching search, thoroughly assess candidates currently in head-coaching roles, and others who might help build on the historic success under Lane Kiffin. But these are the strangest of times in Oxford, as Kiffin exits for LSU, a College Football Playoff first-round game looms for the Rebels, and emotions are running extremely high. Kiffin certainly will try to poach the roster for top pieces, and Ole Miss must do what it can to protect as many players as possible. Golding was the lead recruiter for many of them. He’s well-liked by players and won’t need to familiarize himself with Oxford, the administration and how Ole Miss is set up to compete.
Golding, 41, might not have been on the wish list for other SEC jobs just yet, but Ole Miss found itself in a unique situation. He’s a Louisiana native who has spent his entire career in the region, first at his alma mater Delta State and other smaller programs, and then Southern Miss and UTSA before getting his big break with Nick Saban at Alabama in 2018. Golding spent five seasons as a coordinator under Saban, and helped the Crimson Tide to a national title in 2020, before joining Kiffin at Ole Miss. He gives Ole Miss a chance not only for success in this year’s CFP, but can minimize disruptions during a very bumpy coaching transition.
What will be Golding’s biggest challenge?
Golding should be able to handle the next few weeks, but his true readiness for the enormity of the job is unclear. Again, he didn’t emerge as a candidate for the other SEC openings in this cycle, which suggests some external concern about his ability to handle such a role. Any first-time coaching job brings its challenges and even though Golding knows Ole Miss, he hasn’t been the face of the program. He’s also replacing a coach who put together the team’s most successful run since John Vaught in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Although Golding has shown his talents in recruiting and with schematics, how will he handle the media? How does he do in front of donors and other key stakeholders with the university? Perhaps he just needed the chance, which he now has, but assistant coaches that are shielded from the media often take some time to get fully comfortable.
Grade: B
Coaching hires can’t be evaluated in a vacuum, and Golding’s ultimate success or failure at Ole Miss will be judged by what he accomplishes beyond the 2025 season. But what happens in Ole Miss’ first CFP appearance, after losing Kiffin to a rival SEC school, absolutely does matter, too, and Golding gives Ole Miss a chance to prolong a really special season. There’s little doubt he will continue to compile strong rosters. He will need a strong supporting staff, especially a talented offensive coordinator hire, to ultimately sustain and even elevate the program. The key question here is whether other SEC programs missed out on a great candidate in Golding, or will Ole Miss suffer for making an in-the-moment decision that could backfire long-term? — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
Florida fans: Sumrall isn’t Billy Napier. Yes, Sumrall is another promising Group of 5 coach from a program in Louisiana, just as Napier was when he came to Gainesville. But Sumrall is a different personality who comes from the opposite side of the ball and has more ties to the SEC, where he both played (Kentucky) and coached (Ole Miss, Kentucky). He is more comfortable than Napier was in being the face of a major program and will delegate to his coordinators while compiling a strong staff. Although Auburn seemed like a more natural spot for Sumrall because of his connections to the state of Alabama, Florida gives him an even bigger platform at the lone SEC program in one of the nation’s top talent-producing states.
The other thing Sumrall brings is wins. He won Sun Belt titles in both of his seasons at Troy and went to the American Conference title game in his first year at Tulane. Sumrall has succeeded in different ways and with different types of quarterbacks. He hasn’t won in the Power 4 or at a program such as Florida, which is an understandable concern. But Sumrall is ready for the opportunity and should be able to foster the consistency Florida has lacked for far too long. Florida didn’t have a talent problem under Napier, and Sumrall should continue to excel in personnel while translating it better on the field. — Rittenberg
Biggest challenges Sumrall will face
Where do we start? First and foremost, Sumrall has to find a way to win over a fan base that thought it had a shot at landing Lane Kiffin. Whether that was a reality or not, Gators fans had their hopes up that Kiffin would choose them. With that, Sumrall has to convince fans he is not another version of Napier. Once Sumrall has done that, he has to find a way to win at what has proved to be one of the hardest jobs to crack in the SEC. Florida has not won an SEC title since 2008, and while there remains a belief it is one of the best jobs in the country, Florida goes through coaches at a fairly frequent clip. If past is precedent, Sumrall will be given a year or two to find success before the fan base starts to turn on him; four years max to compete for a championship. Expectations are sky-high, and Sumrall will be given no leeway to learn on the job. — Adelson
Grade: B+
Sumrall has the ingredients to become the next great SEC coach. He’s an excellent communicator who connects with a range of people and should get Florida fans excited about the future, even if they might be skeptical at first because of his background. Florida isn’t where I initially saw Sumrall ending up in a wild coaching cycle, but if the school gives him some time, he should stabilize and elevate the Gators’ on-field performance and start getting more out of very talented rosters there. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
Silverfield has quietly become a really successful coach in the region, and he certainly seems ready for a Power 4 opportunity such as Arkansas. Although he hasn’t generated as much buzz as Tulane’s Jon Sumrall and other American Conference coaches, Silverfield has beaten many of them in head-to-head matchups and boasts a 29-9 record since the start of the 2023 season, including an AP Top 25 finish last fall. Silverfield led Memphis to a win against Arkansas earlier this season, and he has beaten four consecutive Power 4 opponents, including West Virginia and Iowa State in bowl games over the past two seasons.
He has led Memphis since late 2019 but has been at the program since 2016, so he understands the recruiting landscape and where Arkansas must look for players. Arkansas’ location can be a challenge for acquiring talent, but Silverfield shouldn’t be intimidated by it. He also brings a strong background on offense to Fayetteville and should compile a staff that has similar knowledge to the area and possibly the SEC.
What are the biggest challenges for Silverfield?
The SEC is only getting tougher with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, the emergence of Texas A&M, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, and the pressure on a traditional heavyweight such as Florida to start making the CFP. Where does Arkansas really fit in the SEC pecking order? Silverfield likely will have to do more with less initially and win games against programs that have been on steadier footing. His real challenge will be trying to energize and unite the financial hubs around the Arkansas program, which give it a chance to accelerate but haven’t always been harnessed.
Athletic director Hunter Yurachek was blunt earlier this year about the increased resources needed to better compete in the SEC. Arkansas seemingly could access those individuals and corporations with the right coach and vision. That’s where Silverfield comes in, as Arkansas can use those relationships to overcome some of its baked-in obstacles. Silverfield will need a strong introductory period, as Arkansas fans might not know him that well and need to embrace his personality and leadership style. The first offseason will be critical to make sure the program doesn’t fall further behind.
Grade: B
Silverfield’s consistency and success tended to go under the radar at a program such as Memphis, where people have grown accustomed to really strong seasons. But his steady leadership style, shown in 2023, 2024 and most of this year, should help an Arkansas program that needs clear direction. He hasn’t coached in the SEC, and there could be a learning curve, but he shouldn’t be surprised walking in the door at Arkansas after spending so much time with Memphis. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
Every SEC school asks its head coaches to be engaged in recruiting, and Auburn is no exception. Although Auburn never got the results it wanted with Hugh Freeze, the school’s approach toward NIL and acquiring talent — a major draw when it tried to lure Lane Kiffin from Ole Miss — showed up on the roster. Golesh is the type of head coach who could harness Auburn’s established personnel apparatus and really maximize things going forward. He’s about as hands-on in the recruiting space as head coaches get. When Golesh was offensive coordinator at Tennessee, I remember sitting in his office and seeing him monitor all the recruiting transactions from social media on a giant screen. Golesh will get after it to upgrade Auburn’s roster and use all the resources available to him. He won’t be intimidated by the SEC recruiting scene and has ties to multiple states, including Florida and Ohio.
Golesh also brings an offensive background that should energize Auburn fans, especially after how poorly things went on that side of the ball under Freeze. Golesh spent time with Matt Campbell early in his career then with Josh Heupel at both UCF and Tennessee. South Florida ranks in the top five nationally in both scoring and total offense this season, and its defense shined in wins against Boise State and Florida.
What will be Golesh’s biggest challenge?
The challenge at Auburn is almost always the same: Can the head coach truly capitalize on the best parts of the place — an advantageous recruiting location, strong financial resources and a large and extremely devoted fan base — while navigating the big donors and other significant forces that have clashed too often over time and ultimately held back the program’s progress? Golesh is a strong communicator and brings a good mix of experience to the Plains, most notably his two seasons as an SEC coordinator at Tennessee.
He hasn’t been an SEC head coach, though, and he will need to show he won’t be pushed around or swayed by the forces that have doomed Auburn in the past. Golesh’s staff hires at Auburn will be especially important on defense, as South Florida made strides on that side this season but also struggled in key losses to Memphis and Navy. The other element worth watching is how Golesh balances the personnel element, undoubtedly his passion, with some of the other key responsibilities that come with managing an exciting but complicated program such as Auburn.
Grade: B+
Despite no Power 4 head coaching experience, Golesh checks a lot of boxes with his background, having worked in the Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC, and in the Midwest, South and Southeast. His time at Tennessee should really help him at a program such as Auburn, which has a chance to move up in the SEC pecking order but will need a smart, aggressive approach. Golesh’s record of 23-15 doesn’t really jump off the page, and he hasn’t been part of a conference championship just yet. But his assertive vision as a recruiter gives Auburn a chance to quickly improve its roster and win more in an increasingly difficult SEC. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
Pritchard understands Stanford — its advantages, limitations and possibilities — better than most. He played quarterback for the Cardinal from 2006 to 2009, ahead of Andrew Luck’s run, and then spent the first 13 years of his coaching career with his alma mater, until joining the Washington Commanders‘ staff in 2023. He won’t be blindsided by what he’s walking into at Stanford. He also has a very close relationship with Luck, who is truly directing the program. There will be no feeling-out period between head coach and general manager.
Pritchard, 38, was part of Stanford’s seismic shift under Jim Harbaugh, quarterbacking the team to a signature win against USC in 2007. He then witnessed Stanford’s rise to a consistent contender and, more importantly, saw how things went downhill so quickly after COVID and in the portal/NIL era. His ability to learn from those difficult times and ensure Stanford avoids them will be important. But again, he’s not doing this alone, as he comes in immediately aligned with Luck. — Rittenberg
What will be Pritchard’s biggest challenge?
Generating momentum. Few people share as close an association with some of the biggest moments in Stanford history as Pritchard, but during those heights, the Cardinal never truly resonated broadly within a competitive San Francisco Bay Area sports market. With the collapse of the Pac-12 and six losing seasons in the past seven years, Stanford football has essentially become irrelevant locally. Building a program under those circumstances is difficult.
The academic side of things will always be a draw and should, in theory, help the program limit excessive outgoing transfers, but there also needs to be a robust NIL program. At Stanford that doesn’t have to be a problem. The university’s alumni base is notably wealthy, but it also has not proved to be a group eager to part with large sums of money to help field a better football team. That’s perhaps more of an issue that Luck will be responsible for dealing with, but it is very much part of the hand Pritchard has been dealt.
Beyond the structural challenges, this is just a team that needs a talent upgrade. They don’t have the players right now to compete at a high level. — Kyle Bonagura
Grade: C+
Luck didn’t make the most imaginative hire here. He went with a close friend who needs no introduction to Stanford and the vision for success there. But Pritchard hasn’t been a head coach before and wasn’t mentioned as being on the radar for many other college or NFL jobs. Stanford is really betting on potential here. He only really knows Stanford, which might work out in this case, but he also must learn from what happened toward the end of David Shaw’s tenure and chart out a new path. — Rittenberg
Why is this a good fit?
Oklahoma State needed a coach who knew the Big 12 and the region, and someone who could bring a clear vision, especially on offense. Quarterback play was central to Oklahoma State’s identity under Mike Gundy, and Morris has become one of the best talent identifiers in recent years. Oklahoma State needs to accelerate its recruiting, but likely won’t have the first choice for players, and Morris has repeatedly shown the ability to find and develop under-the-radar players. Ideally, he can bring quarterback Drew Mestemaker and others to Stillwater, and perhaps more importantly, make Oklahoma State an attractive destination for top offensive performers again.
Morris played and coached in the Big 12 at Texas Tech and spent time at Houston early in his career, so he won’t be unfamiliar with the key characteristics of a program like Oklahoma State. He’s not a Gundy disciple, but he can respect what Gundy did to elevate the program, while implementing his own vision, which worked both at Incarnate Word and at North Texas. — Rittenberg
What will be Morris’ biggest challenge?
The answer here is twofold: 1) Morris must live up to the unprecedented levels of consistent success his predecessor brought Oklahoma State; 2) Morris will also have to figure out exactly how to take the Cowboys’ football program to the future.
On the first point, whomever Oklahoma State chose to hire this cycle was going to be replacing a coach who won more — and more consistently — than any other figure in program history. Before 2023, the Cowboys made 18 consecutive bowl appearances under Gundy, winning eight or more games in 13 of those seasons. Past leading Oklahoma State to the very top of the sport and turning the program into a national brand, Gundy’s greatest achievement was transforming a school that had registered back-to-back 10-win seasons only once before he took over in 2005 into a perennial winner. Morris, who made two playoff appearances at Incarnate Word and has North Texas contending for the American this fall, has a history of producing quick turnarounds. Getting Oklahoma State upright — which will likely require a massive roster and staff overhaul — should be his first objective. From there, Morris will be judged on the expectations set by Gundy before him.
How does Morris take Oklahoma State into the future? Gundy’s initial, outspoken reluctance, then too-little, too-late embrace of college football’s NIL/transfer portal era hurt the Cowboys on the field and laid the groundwork for his unceremonious departure earlier this fall. Oklahoma State has fallen behind in terms of roster budgeting compared to its Big 12 counterparts, and industry sources suggested that the Cowboys’ ability to present improved resources would be a key piece of the hiring process. Morris has built a career on making more out of less, and that will serve him well in Stillwater. He has also proven capable of navigating the transfer portal and the current complexities of the sport. With help from Oklahoma State (and its boosters), Morris must take steps to modernize the program. If he can, a Big 12 conference landscape that remains wide open outside of Texas Tech could once again be Oklahoma State’s for the taking. — Eli Lederman
Grade: A-
Morris is only 40 (cue the Gundy memes), hasn’t been a Power 4 head coach, and before this season had only middling results with North Texas. His quarterback track record is his superpower, though, and Oklahoma State needs a renaissance at the position after things fell off too sharply. Morris can recruit Texas and build up the roster. Time will tell if he has the expertise to win one-score games in a league where programs are extremely similar. — Rittenberg
0:32
Paul Finebaum: Is Virginia Tech an upgrade for James Franklin?
Paul Finebaum weighs in on James Franklin reportedly being hired as Virginia Tech’s next coach.
Why is this a good fit?
When Franklin was fired and almost immediately announced his intentions to coach in 2026, Virginia Tech emerged as a natural landing spot for the 53-year-old. He has spent most of his career near the mid-Atlantic region, twice serving as a Maryland assistant, leading programs in Vanderbilt and Penn State and even working within the state at James Madison in 1997.
He understands the key recruiting areas extremely well. Franklin ultimately was fired for not winning the biggest games at Penn State, but he still won a lot of them (104) and understands how to build a consistently successful program. Virginia Tech ultimately had to do more of the selling here and convince a veteran coach that it was financially serious enough to contend in the ACC. Franklin isn’t shy about asking for what he needs, and he wouldn’t take the job if he didn’t feel that Virginia Tech’s investments are sufficient to compete for ACC championships. — Rittenberg
What will be Franklin’s biggest challenge?
This hire would not have happened without the financial investment Virginia Tech is about to make in football. The Hokies have languished behind their ACC counterparts in nearly every area — from staffing to salaries to NIL — and some of that has to do with an outdated way of thinking. The one through line has been the thought that the Hokies could win the way Frank Beamer won. That is a big reason why they hired Brent Pry, who served as Franklin’s defensive coordinator, as head coach in November 2021. That clearly did not work, as Pry never won more than seven games in a season. Virginia Tech pledged to add $229 million to its overall athletics budget over the next four years — a huge concession that the old model no longer works in this new era of college football.
But Franklin has to get the entire athletic department to believe the old Beamer days truly are over and things must be done his way. That is challenge No. 1. The second challenge is to restore Virginia Tech’s prowess in recruiting its home state. Franklin had success taking players out of Virginia Tech’s backyard and turning them into stars at Penn State. Will he be able to do the same now at Virginia Tech, which has lost an enormous amount of ground to powers outside the state? The high school players being recruited now were toddlers the last time Virginia Tech was a nationally respected program playing in BCS games. They don’t remember the Hokies being elite. Convincing players to stay in state will be a challenge, but one that Franklin can achieve given his track record. — Adelson
Grade: A
Virginia Tech’s two post-Frank Beamer hires were a coach who had not led a Power 4 program (Justin Fuente) and a first-time head coach (Brent Pry). In Franklin, Virginia Tech gets a proven winner from the Big Ten and SEC, who knows the region extremely well and will be extremely motivated to compete for league titles and CFP appearances.
Franklin’s big-stage shortcomings are a concern but perhaps not as much for a program like Virginia Tech, which is seeking to become a consistent conference title contender again. — Rittenberg
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Eli Lederman
Four-star tight end JC Anderson, No. 165 in the 2026 ESPN 300, flipped his commitment from Ole Miss to LSU on Tuesday, landing as the first pledge of Lane Kiffin’s tenure with the Tigers.
Anderson, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound tight end from Mount Zion, Illinois, is ESPN’s No. 8 overall tight end. He initially committed to Kiffin and the Rebels in June and remained as the second-ranked member of Ole Miss’ incoming class prior to Tuesday.
Anderson joined LSU’s 2026 class less than 24 hours after Kiffin’s introductory news conference with the Tigers Monday afternoon, during which the former Ole Miss coach said closing the program’s latest recruiting class would be his first task in the new job. ESPN sources expect LSU to remain active during this week’s early signing period with wide receivers Corey Barber (Ole Miss decommit) and Brayden Allen (Oklahoma decommit) among the program’s leading targets. Anderson is now the second top 300 skill position prospect set to sign with LSU this week, joining wide receiver Jabari Mack (No. 64).
Four-star wide receiver Kenny Darby (No. 272) announced his decommitment from the Tigers shortly after Anderson’s pledge on Tuesday.
Anderson arrives as the 11th ESPN pledge in the Tigers’ incoming class, which entered Tuesday at No. 15 in ESPN’s latest class rankings for the cycle. That group is anchored by No. 1 overall recruit Lamar Brown and fellow defensive tackle Deuce Geralds (No. 37 overall).
Ole Miss has lost three 2026 pledges since Kiffin officially left the program Sunday. The Rebels enter the three-day signing period Wednesday with the nation’s No. 21 class.
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Jake Trotter
Ryan Day said he “had an inkling” Ohio State‘s headsets might go down during Saturday’s game at Michigan — so the Buckeyes coach had a backup communication plan already in place.
Ohio State lost the ability to communicate over the headsets during the second half of its 27-9 win over the Wolverines.
The Buckeyes had quarterback Julian Sayin come to the sideline between plays and get the calls directly from Day before going back to the huddle, until the problem was fixed later in the half.
“I was just getting us through it until we got the headsets up and running, which took a little while to get done,” Day said Tuesday. “But yeah, just by chance we had planned for it, and so we were ready to go.”
Day was then asked why he had the inkling.
“You just got to be ready for anything,” Day said. “When you go into any big game, you’re always trying to put contingency plans in place for anything that could possibly happen.”
Sayin said, after the game, that running to the sideline before each play reminded him of playing in high school. Day said he met with his assistant coaches Friday to go through the contingency plan.
“I think some of the guys on the staff were looking at me sideways,” Day said, “like, ‘Why would you think that would happen?’ I said, ‘I just don’t know. We just got to be ready for anything.’ It’s funny how your mind works.”
Day then winked, drawing several laughs.
Michigan, however, did not find Day’s implication humorous, denying any involvement in the Buckeyes’ communication issue in a statement Tuesday afternoon.
“We do not manage their communication system. Each athletic department provides electrical power and fiber lines that are equal on both sidelines. Ohio State has staff within its athletic department that handles coach-to-player communication and the coach-to-coach headset system. The coach-to-player communication system is run by a third party chosen by the Big Ten. A neutral technician is on the sidelines to assist both teams at every game across the conference,” the statement read.
“With any cellular-based communication system, there are technical issues that happen from time to time in stadiums across the country. We don’t want the opponent to have issues because our team would have to take our communication system down as well. No one benefits from a system failure.
“In this instance, our game event manager, stadium supervisor, an electrician and staff immediately jumped in to assist with the issue on Saturday. The issue was resolved before anything needed to be taken offline.”
In August, the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions penalized Michigan after investigating the school for stealing signs through advance scouting. The NCAA fined the Wolverines at least $30 million, imposed recruiting restrictions and suspended coach Sherrone Moore three games, including next season’s opener, noting it had “overwhelming” and concerning evidence of a cover-up by Michigan staff. The NCAA committee also levied an eight-year show-cause penalty for former Michigan staffer Connor Stalions and a 10-year show-cause for former coach Jim Harbaugh, now coach of the Los Angeles Chargers.
The top-ranked Buckeyes will face No. 2 Indiana in Indianapolis on Saturday, with the College Football Playoff’s top overall seed on the line.
Day said his team had already put the Michigan win in the past and is “locked in” on winning the Big Ten title.
“This is going to be an electric atmosphere,” he said. “It’s a great opponent. This is a very important game for us. We got to go play our best.”
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