GameDay Kickoff: Sounds, storylines and players to watch ahead of Week 3
After an exciting Week 2, we look ahead to a Week 3 slate with a battle involving the Wildcats on Friday night, as new Big 12 member No. 20 Arizona faces No. 14 Kansas State. Elsewhere, a Tulane wide receiver will make his return to his original college stomping grounds.
Can Tulane’s Mario Williams continue his trend of at least 100 receiving yards per game in his first visit back to Oklahoma? Can Kansas State’s defense stop Arizona WR Tetairoa McMillan? Both Arizona and Kansas State go into Friday’s matchup 2-0, so one Wildcats team is bound to lose their first game.
And for an extra dose of excitement, Colorado and Colorado State face off, and Deion Sanders had something to say as the Buffaloes are 1-1 going into Saturday’s matchup.
Our college football reporters give insight on big storylines and players to keep your eyes on in Week 3.
Jump to a section:
Journey to UNLV | Returning to old stomping grounds | New conference rivals
Freshman QB shines | Five freshman to know
Quotes of the week
Jacob De Jesus’ journey to UNLV
In high school, Jacob De Jesus left recruiting camps feeling discouraged and unsure.
Not of himself. He shined at those camps and dominated some, but coaches never talked to him afterward. De Jesus knew why.
“I used to question myself, I used to question God and be like, ‘Why did you give me this dream to play football? Like, why do I love football so much? I’m so small,'” De Jesus told ESPN. “Nobody wants me to be on their team.”
Fortunately for De Jesus, he was wrong about the last part. As he neared a future without football, probably working as a UPS driver and caring for his 2-year-old daughter, UNLV reached out. Three years later, he’s an All-American returner and productive wide receiver for the Rebels, who aim for a 3-0 start and their second win against a Big 12 opponent Friday at Kansas.
De Jesus is often the smallest player on the field, at 5-foot-7, 175 pounds. He’s also one of the best, leading the FBS in total return yards last season (1,079), finishing second on the team in average yards per runback, behind All-American Ricky White.
“I knew I was good enough to play at this level,” De Jesus said. “I just didn’t know if anybody was going to give me a chance.”
UNLV wide receivers coach, Del Alexander, seemed unlikely to be that person. Alexander’s history is with big wide receivers. Only once had he taken one as small as De Jesus, in Wisconsin‘s Kenzel Doe, a 5-8 dynamo who finished second in team career kick-return average.
But then Nelson Fishback, a staff member who initially discovered De Jesus while working at Morehead State, alerted Alexander about De Jesus.
“I honestly believed that he was going to be exactly who he was on film,” Alexander said. “I just knew that his speed was not an accident.”
De Jesus had amassed 2,550 yards for Modesto Junior College, near his home in Manteca, California. But as the 2022 season ended, he appeared to be out of options. He had been working at UPS as a package handler and was close to becoming a driver. The money would’ve been good. De Jesus had just turned 21.
“I was really close to being done with it,” he said.
UNLV’s new coaching staff, led by Barry Odom, needed a returner. As the coaches surveyed options, Alexander became more convinced about De Jesus, who received an offer from UNLV on New Year’s Day 2023.
Days later, De Jesus was on campus, working out with the team.
“He did everything full speed,” Alexander said. “He won every race, he won every agility [drill], he was ultra competitive. It was just noticeable. It just made everybody else look bad.”
De Jesus’ life changed. After UNLV’s spring game that April, he proposed to his girlfriend, Kirsten Lopez, on the field at Allegiant Stadium.
He had 208 all-purpose yards, 158 on kickoff returns, in his Rebels debut. He earned All-Mountain West honors at both return spots, the first Rebel to be recognized for two positions since quarterback Randall Cunningham, who also punted, in 1984. De Jesus was a finalist for the Jet Award, given to the nation’s top return specialist. Alexander heard from friends on opposing coaching staffs, such as Michigan and San José State, all with the same message: “Man, that 21 is special.” The coach who was leery of small receivers now wants to get De Jesus to the NFL.
There are immediate goals, too, namely a scoring return. UNLV hasn’t had a punt return touchdown in 23 years, the longest drought of any FBS team, and no kickoff return touchdowns since 2011.
“We’ve been close, so close,” De Jesus said. “I know how my team feels about it. They know that I can and I’m capable.” — Adam Rittenberg
Returning to old stomping grounds
Tulane’s Mario Williams was supposed to be the next great Oklahoma Sooners wide receiver.
That was the plan, at least, when Williams arrived at the school as ESPN’s No. 1 high school pass catcher in early 2021. It was all so clear to Williams at the time, too.
He’d settle in at Oklahoma, carve a role in Lincoln Riley’s high-scoring offense and quickly become a key piece within a program competing for Big 12 titles and national championships. A few years after that, perhaps, Williams would be in a position to jump to the NFL.
“I was going to have a career at Oklahoma and that was going to be that,” he told ESPN this week. “But God took me on another path and I’m thankful for every moment.”
Williams caught 35 passes for 380 yards and four touchdowns in his lone season at Oklahoma in 2021, then followed Riley to USC. Now on his third school in four seasons this fall, Williams has become a playmaker in the Green Wave passing game during the initial weeks of his debut season with Tulane.
On Saturday, he returns to Oklahoma Memorial Stadium as one of 2024’s early transfer portal gems under first-year head coach Jon Sumrall when the Green Wave visit the No. 15 Sooners in Norman.
Williams caught four passes for 124 yards in Tulane’s season opener against SE Louisiana on Aug. 29, then followed with six catches for 128 yards in a narrow loss to Kansas State in Week 2 to mark the first back-to-back 100-yard receiving games of his college career.
Through two weeks, he leads all FBS transfer wide receivers with 252 total receiving yards. Williams’ 126 yards per game rank 10th in the country and his 25.2 yards per catch sit 18th nationally with Williams playing the best football of his college career in a Green Wave offense poised to make an upset bid in Week 3.
“I’m just having fun,” Williams said. “Getting back to my groove and getting in my groove. Going out there and enjoying the game with my teammates.”
Williams is having fun again on a path that has exposed him to some of the college football’s rough edges: the pressure of being the nation’s No. 17 overall prospect, the uncertainty of a sudden coaching change after Riley left for USC in 2021 and two trips through the transfer portal leading to stops at USC and now Tulane.
“I’ve just been able to experience a lot about how college football works and the business side of the game,” Williams said. “I’ve gotten to experience playing high-level football and everything that comes with it.”
After two seasons at USC, Williams hit the transfer portal looking for a fresh start last December. Alabama and UCF emerged as early contenders. So did Tulane through a connection with Green Wave offensive analyst Collin D’Angelo, who had recruited Williams in high school. A visit with Sumrall’s staff helped seal Williams’ decision.
“They’re player-first driven — they love their players,” Williams said. “They’re going to make sure the players are good and that’s what I really like about them.”
Williams doesn’t have any expectations for what it will feel like to be back at Oklahoma on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
He plans to rekindle connections with former teammates Danny Stutsman, Billy Bowman Jr. and Woodi Washington, three of the Sooners’ four remaining Riley-era holdovers. Past that, Williams is approaching the Week 3 matchup with the even-keeled mentality he has brought in his early games at Tulane, a perspective honed through the experience of his modern college football journey.
“Just keep going and have fun,” Williams said. “The story didn’t get written how I expected. But that’s the best part about it. Just keep going and keep proving people wrong.” — Eli Lederman
Get to know your new conference rival
Arizona’s trip to Manhattan, Kansas, on Friday is a Big 12 test run of sorts. The game was scheduled before Arizona’s move from the Pac-12, so for scheduling purposes, it was easier to keep it as a nonconference game to prevent the schools from both having to try to find a new opponent with not much lead time. That dynamic lessens the stakes a bit because it effectively gives the loser a mulligan in conference play, but with the teams ranked in the top 20, the outcome will still set the tone for both schools as conference play begins the following week.
After Michigan’s loss last week, Arizona’s nine-game winning streak is the longest active one in the country, but after a subpar showing last week against FCS Northern Arizona, ESPN BET installed Kansas State as a 7.5-point favorite in this battle of Wildcats. There might not be a more intriguing quarterback matchup in college football this week with Arizona’s Noah Fifita and Kansas State’s Avery Johnson both emerging last season after starting the year on the bench.
After throwing for 422 yards and four scores — with 304 of those yards and all four touchdowns to Tetairoa McMillan — in the opener against New Mexico, Fifita was more pedestrian against NAU last week, throwing for just 173 yards. For any team Arizona plays this season, the defensive focus will be on McMillan, the likely first-round pick who arrived in Tucson as one of the most celebrated recruits in school history.
K-State’s start has been similar. After a ho-hum win against UT Martin to start the season, it was fortunate to escape last week’s trip to Tulane after trailing by a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Johnson was solid in both games, but Friday’s game will be more revealing about what to expect in conference play. — Kyle Bonagura
DJ Lagway shines in the spotlight
Trent Miller had a small gathering at his house to watch Florida play Samford last weekend, his eyes trained on true freshman quarterback DJ Lagway and his every move.
Miller coached Lagway at Willis (Texas) High, watching Lagway make the impossible plays possible. In the third quarter against Samford, Lagway dropped back to pass, then scrambled back toward the line of scrimmage as he felt the pressure around him. He did a little jump hop, shot-putting the ball toward the corner of the end zone, for a 41-yard touchdown pass to Aidan Mizell.
Back in Texas, Miller could not help but flash back to the moment he knew Lagway would be one of the top quarterback recruits in the country. It was during the first day of spring practice, a few months after Miller got the job at Willis. Lagway was a sophomore.
“We were doing 7-on-7 against our defense,” Miller told ESPN in a recent phone interview. “He rolls out, hits that little jump throw, hits the receiver in the back corner of the end zone, and I was like, ‘Oh wow. 16-year-old kids don’t make that throw.'”
Lagway became the No. 1 quarterback in the class of 2024, with Miller by his side through it all. When he chose Florida, Lagway knew the spotlight would not only be on him but on his coaches to deliver, too. When he got his opportunity to start last week in place of injured Graham Mertz, he made the most of it, setting a school record for passing yards by a freshman with 456 yards, while adding three touchdowns in a 45-7 win.
The question moving forward is how Florida plans to use Lagway, as he starts Saturday against Texas A&M in the SEC opener, especially as coach Billy Napier faces increasing pressure to win this season. Napier has been mum on how he plans to handle the rotation with a healthy Mertz in the mix, saying only he would play both quarterbacks moving forward.
“For DJ to go out there and do what he did, it puts a lot of pressure on the coaching staff this week to be very strategic on how they roll out the two quarterbacks, but I don’t think there’s any denying that he’ll get out there at some point and play meaningful reps,” Miller said. “What that is, and what that looks like, I don’t know. But what I do know is Coach Napier has never lied to him about what the process looks like.”
Miller said Napier was honest from the beginning about sharing time with Mertz. Miller also said the coaches did a great job during the recruitment process of acknowledging the elephant in the room — that they had to get the Gators turned around in short order.
“They did a great job of getting DJ to commit early to help the process of building that brand with recruits and everybody else around him,” Miller said.
Lagway committed to Florida in December 2022 and held firm a year later, after USC made a final push to flip him. Miller said, Lagway is in a good head space and committed to getting the job done with the Gators — no matter what that looks like moving forward.
“Whatever DJ’s role is, big or small, he’s going to do it to the best of his ability,” Miller said. “You’ll never hear him say anything negative about his playing time, the coaching staff, whatever it is. He made a decision to go there. He’s committed to being there and he’s going to do whatever he can whenever his number’s called to benefit that football team.” — Andrea Adelson
Five freshman running backs to know
Nate Frazier, Georgia: Frazier made the most of his opportunities in his college debut against Clemson, rushing for 83 yards and a touchdown on 11 carries in the Bulldogs’ 34-3 blowout win. The No. 3-ranked running back recruit and No. 62 overall recruit in the 2024 ESPN 300 has impressed Georgia coaches since he arrived from California powerhouse Mater Dei and should continue to have a key role in their rushing attack alongside Florida transfer Trevor Etienne.
Jerrick Gibson, Texas: Gibson, the No. 2-ranked running back and No. 59 overall recruit in his class, is showing he’s ready to step up and help a Texas run game that lost CJ Baxter and Christian Clark to season-ending injuries. The 5-10, 205-pound back from IMG Academy leads the team with 103 rushing yards and has scored in each of his first two games, including a 7-yard touchdown run against Michigan in the Longhorns’ 31-12 rout at Ann Arbor.
Isaac Brown, Louisville: Peny Boone reentering the transfer portal in April opened the door for Brown and several young backs to help power Louisville’s run game. The four-star signee from Florida leads the team with 187 yards from scrimmage, including a 77-yard touchdown in his debut against Austin Peay, and is also returning kicks. Fellow true freshman Duke Watson has gained 137 yards and scored two TDs on only 10 carries and redshirt freshman Keyjuan Brown has put up 116 rushing yards and two scores for a Cardinals offense that’s No. 2 in the ACC and 14th nationally in rushing.
Wayshawn Parker, Washington State: The three-star back from Sacramento, Calif. has teamed with quarterback John Mateer to give Washington State a surprisingly dangerous rushing attack. Parker has produced 219 yards from scrimmage over his first two college games and has scored touchdowns of 54, 52 and 43 yards. The Cougars burned Texas Tech for 301 yards on the ground in their 37-16 upset win Saturday, their second-most rushing yards in a game in more than a decade.
Antwan Raymond, Rutgers: The Scarlet Knights currently have college football’s second-leading rusher in Kyle Monangai and found a steal in Raymond to complement him. The 5-11, 202-pound back hails from Canada and reclassified from the 2025 class to join the program this summer. Raymond has turned 23 carries into 126 yards and two touchdowns, has seven rushes of 10 or more yards and has forced nine missed tackles, according to TruMedia. — Max Olson
Quotes of the week
“The rivalry, the energy in the air. It’s not just one day. It’s bragging rights for the year and for the rest of time. … Other people are looking forward to games against Ohio State or Michigan down the road, but this is my Super Bowl.” — Oregon senior linebacker Bryce Boettcher on playing Oregon State one last time in his career.
“When you lose, you’re going to be ridiculed, you’re going to be prosecuted and persecuted and I’m good. I’ve been on the cross for a long time, and I’m still hanging.” — Colorado coach Deion Sanders after the team’s 1-1 start.
“This is not a statement win. Washington State has played at the highest level forever. We beat another team that plays at the highest level. That’s it. We’ve done that hundreds of times,” — WSU coach Jake Dickert on the win against Texas Tech.
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Adam Rittenberg
College football fans have several unmistakable traits. Patience is not one of them.
Fans and other stakeholders around every program want results without the wait. Their reasoning varies — from long-term history and status, to recent investments, to increased postseason access with a larger College Football Playoff field. Is there a degree of entitlement that triggers impatience in the sport? Absolutely. But college football teams aren’t created equal, and the factors that drive success are pretty clear to those who care the most.
The goal here is to index teams according to impatience entering the 2025 season. Some appear below because they haven’t reached the CFP recently — or at all — despite having the resources to do so.
For years (decades even), a team like Georgia would have appeared below. The Bulldogs couldn’t break through nationally despite baked-in advantages as the only SEC program in a talent-rich state with widespread fan support. Then, coach Kirby Smart came along and delivered back-to-back national titles. Now, Georgia fans are getting impatient for another.
But the Bulldogs have accomplished enough in recent years to stay off of the Impatience Index. Other notable programs, meanwhile, are under pressure to deliver.
I’ve sorted the Impatience Index into four tiers. Let’s get started.
Jump to a tier:
Big money investors | Need a playoff run | Title or bust | Hot seat coaches
Return on investment tier
Coach: Mario Cristobal (22-16 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 10-3, 6-2 in ACC, No. 18 in final AP poll
Last national title: 2001
Last conference title: 2003
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: Miami’s lull without even a conference title remains bewildering for those drawn to college football in the 1980s, when the U sat firmly at the top. But there’s context around a large portion of Miami’s drought, namely that the school fell behind with its program investments. Miami simply wasn’t spending like a national contender, which isn’t good enough, even for a program in a major city, surrounded by top talent. The Hurricanes fell behind rival Florida State, but also ACC programs like Clemson and, at times, Virginia Tech, Louisville and Georgia Tech. But the hiring of Cristobal in December 2021 marked a seismic change.
Despite Cristobal’s ties to the school and the city, he wasn’t going to leave an Oregon program with incredible resources and two recent conference titles for a cash-strapped situation back home. Miami answered those critiques and lured him back with greater resources, which have translated into transfer additions such as quarterback Cam Ward and running back Damien Martinez. But the Canes have yet to break through on the field under Cristobal, going 6-10 in ACC play during his first two seasons. Last fall, Miami had the nation’s top offense, led by Ward, the eventual No. 1 NFL draft pick, but couldn’t hold a lead at Syracuse and fell out of the ACC championship game (and, essentially, the CFP).
The team once again has a high-priced transfer quarterback addition in Georgia’s Carson Beck, and a roster that, talent wise, projects among the best in the ACC. Miami’s patience for a CFP appearance should be thin, as there is real pressure on Cristobal to deliver in Year 4.
Coach: Brian Kelly (29-11 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 9-4, 5-3 in SEC, unranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2019
Last conference title: 2019
CFP appearances: One (2019)
Assessing the impatience: LSU is always among the most fascinating programs to evaluate because of its volatility. There have been low moments on the Bayou, both in the program’s long-term history and even more recently. LSU is no stranger to dysfunction, but the potential to not just rise up, but reach the apex of the sport, always exists for the Tigers and their fans, who rightfully demand excellence. Before firing Ed Orgeron in 2021, LSU became the only program with three consecutive coaches — Orgeron, Les Miles and Nick Saban — to win national titles during the BCS/CFP era. Athletic director Scott Woodward fired Orgeron less than two years after he had coached LSU’s best team, the 2019 juggernaut led by Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow at quarterback.
In hiring Kelly, LSU aimed for sustained excellence. The school had never hired such an accomplished head coach, as Kelly twice led Notre Dame to the four-team CFP and won two Division II national titles with Grand Valley State. Kelly helped LSU to the SEC championship in his first season and coached Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels in 2023. But LSU hasn’t reached the CFP nor finished inside the AP top 10 under his leadership. The roster build has been a bit slower than expected, especially at historically strong position groups like defensive back. But LSU brought in a monster transfer class, which included big groups at defensive back and defensive line, and earned ESPN’s top spot as having the best offseason in the FBS. Kelly should have the personnel to at least reach the CFP by the end of Year 4, a point by which each of his three predecessors had won national championships.
“Every program I’ve taken over, I’ve never walked in there and said, ‘We’re winning a championship,'” Kelly told ESPN’s Andrea Adelson. “I want to leave that program in elite status. I’ve done it wherever I’ve been. We’ll do it here. We’ll get this program back to elite status. Everybody’s going to put a time restraint on, but there is really no time restraint. This is about working towards that.”
Coach: Brent Venables (22-17 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 6-7, 2-6 in SEC play, unranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2000
Last conference title: 2020
CFP appearances: Four (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019)
Assessing the impatience: Sooner impatience falls into several buckets. The program is one of the sport’s historic heavyweights, owning seven national championships and 50 conference crowns, including a stretch of 14 straight from 1946 to 1959 that likely will never be matched. More recently, OU won six consecutive Big 12 championships from 2015 to 2020, reaching the four-team CFP four times during that span. What has transpired since coach Lincoln Riley’s shocking exit to USC — two 6-7 seasons, the program’s lowest wins totals since it had three consecutive losing seasons under coach John Blake in the mid-1990s — has left Sooners fans understandably restless. Venables waited longer than most top-rate coordinators to take a head coaching job and returned to Oklahoma with hero status after Riley left. But his homecoming has hit several snags.
Oklahoma has stepped up to help Venables behind the scenes. The school hired Jim Nagy, previously the executive director of the Senior Bowl, to serve as general manager, and built an NFL-style front office around him that includes senior assistant GM Lake Dawson and others. After slipping to 97th nationally in scoring offense last season, OU landed the top available quarterback-coordinator package in John Mateer and Ben Arbuckle from Washington State. The Sooners’ investments also showed up in constructing the 2025 roster, which includes several key retentions and new players such as Mateer, running back Jaydn Ott (Cal) and safety Kendal Daniels (Oklahoma State). Venables has a favorable contract situation, and longtime athletic director Joe Castiglione is retiring from his role during the upcoming school year. Although Venables isn’t entering a CFP-or-bust situation this fall, he must show tangible progress after all the money Oklahoma has put into his program.
Coach: Joey McGuire (23-16 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 8-5, 6-3 in Big 12 play, unranked in final AP poll
Last national title: None
Last conference title: 1994
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: Texas Tech doesn’t have the historical profile to match the other three teams in this tier. The Red Raiders last won a league title 31 years ago, in the old Southwest Conference, and haven’t claimed an outright championship since 1955 in something called the Border Conference. The team has just one 10-win season since 1976, zero AP Top 25 finishes since 2009 and zero AP top-10 finishes in its history. But this is 2025 and the NIL engine has allowed programs like Texas Tech, spurred by deep-pocketed super booster Cody Campbell, to dream bigger. Grander dreams bring less patience, though, and Campbell and the top Texas Tech stakeholders aren’t going to wait around for stronger results. Texas Tech had a monster offseason, addressing both lines with transfers including UCF’s Lee Hunter, Stanford’s David Bailey, Georgia Tech’s Romello Height and North Carolina’s Howard Sampson. McGuire’s staff retention and additions helped Texas Tech earn the No. 2 spot behind LSU in ESPN’s top offseason rankings.
The money pouring into the program makes expectations for 2025 extremely clear.
“To really grow this program, we need to be in AT&T in December,” McGuire told ESPN, referring to the Big 12 championship game. “That’s the last box that we need to check off.”
McGuire mentioned Texas Tech’s softball team, which this spring made its first trip to the Women’s College World Series and played for a national title thanks largely to pitcher NiJaree Canady, a Stanford transfer who became softball’s first million-dollar player. As a top high school coach in Texas, McGuire understands the pressure to win and chooses to embrace it, saying, “How lucky are we to be at a place that you can win? Because there’s places that you are optimistic but you’re not going to win. … I’d rather be at a place that you have the opportunity to win, versus man, you’re just hoping and praying that the ball bounces the right way.”
Texas Tech players share in the urgency, as the team will be very senior heavy in 2025.
“This is everyone’s last year,” quarterback Behren Morton said. “All the marbles are in the bag.”
Seeking a CFP breakthrough tier
Coach: Billy Napier (19-19 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 8-5, 4-4 in SEC play, unranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2008
Last conference title: 2008
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: Florida’s impatience with Napier rightfully dipped late in 2024, as the team displayed impressive fortitude and growth with a signature win against CFP hopeful Ole Miss and four consecutive victories to cap a season that began ominously. The Gators bring back arguably the nation’s top young offensive backfield in quarterback DJ Lagway and running back Jadan Baugh, as well as national awards candidates like center Jake Slaughter and defensive tackle Caleb Banks. Napier continues to recruit well, as Florida signed ESPN’s No. 10 class for 2025. But when Gator fans zoom out and see a program without an AP top-10 finish or a season of nine or more wins since 2019, and zero playoff berths in the first decade of the CFP, their impatience meter surely will rise. Florida doesn’t have as much long-term elite history as others in the SEC, but the team dominated college football in the 1990s under coach Steve Spurrier, and had two national titles and three AP top-3 finishes under Urban Meyer between 2006 and 2009.
The Gators’ goals for 2025 might not be limited to a CFP appearance, especially with another taxing schedule that includes one of the sport’s toughest four-game stretches from Sept. 13 to Oct. 11 — road games against LSU, Miami and Texas A&M, and a home contest against Texas. Florida also faces Georgia, Ole Miss and Tennessee later in the fall. However, continued progress toward the playoff is necessary for Napier, whose contract with Florida runs through the 2028 season. The school just won its third men’s basketball national title and competes nationally in many sports. Florida would have reached the 12-team CFP a few times if it had existed earlier, and the team must soon be among the SEC group that competes annually for a spot.
Coach: Lincoln Riley (26-14 overall, fourth season)
2024 results: 7-6, 4-5 in Big Ten play, unranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2004
Last conference title: 2017
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: From 2002 to 2008, USC and Florida were college football’s most dominant teams, combining for four national championships. Coach Pete Carroll’s Trojans didn’t finish outside the AP top 4 in any of those seasons, going 82-9 during that span. Although the program had backslid before Carroll’s arrival from the NFL, USC had produced other elite stretches, including four national championships and 16 consecutive AP top-20 finishes under coaches John McKay and John Robinson from 1967 to 1982. The Trojans haven’t come anywhere near sustained success since Carroll left. They made a string of insular coaching hires — including Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian, who are better and more mature leaders now than they were when they guided USC — and bad athletic director choices. The program fell behind in facilities and overall infrastructure, which allowed Oregon to emerge as the top West Coast power and Washington to make two CFP appearances.
USC’s bold hire of Riley was supposed to be the inflection point, showing that the program had a willingness to bring in an accomplished outsider — and pay big for coaches and players. Riley led Oklahoma to four, including three consecutive, CFP appearances. But after a debut in 2022 where the Trojans reached the Pac-12 championship behind Heisman Trophy winner Caleb Williams, USC is just 15-11. Last season was bookended by wins against SEC opponents LSU and Texas A&M but didn’t go well in the Big Ten, especially away from home, where the Trojans lost four games by seven points or fewer. USC hired Chad Bowden from Notre Dame to be its general manager and has built out more of a front office to oversee personnel, which has shifted away from the portal and toward high school recruiting. The team has ESPN’s No. 1 recruiting class for 2026. Riley’s massive buyout likely provides job security beyond 2025, but he needs to start delivering CFP appearances soon.
Championship or bust tier
1:25
Why Penn State has the best shot at winning the CFP
Heather Dinich and Harry Douglas explain why they believe Penn State has the best chance at winning its first college football national title since 1986.
Coach: James Franklin (101-42 overall, 12th season)
2024 results: 13-3, 8-1 in Big Ten play, CFP semifinalist, No. 5 in final AP poll
Last national title: 1986
Last conference title: 2016
CFP appearances: One (2024)
Assessing the impatience: Penn State isn’t the only college team pining for championships this season. Others have waited longer and endured more prolonged struggles than the Nittany Lions. But what team has accomplished more in the past eight seasons without winning a title? Franklin has had five 10-win seasons and five AP top-10 finishes. He has repeatedly beaten the teams he should beat, including Penn State’s first two opponents in its CFP debut, SMU and Boise State. While most of last season’s CFP participants are replacing starting quarterbacks and large NFL draft classes, Penn State returns QB1 Drew Allar, the nation’s top running back tandem in Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen and a defense with national awards candidates at all three levels. Penn State has the most win-now roster in the Big Ten.
When the NCAA imposed historic sanctions on Penn State before the 2012 season, some initial predictions stated the program wouldn’t recover for a decade. But Franklin won the Big Ten just four years later in his second season as Lions coach. The quick recovery perhaps created unrealistic expectations in Happy Valley, but after being so close for so long, Penn State must deliver in the biggest moments, which have hurt Franklin so often since 2016. In Franklin’s defense, he hasn’t often entered the season with the Big Ten’s top roster, but Ohio State and Oregon are replacing a combined 24 NFL draft picks. (Penn State had five, including No. 3 selection Abdul Carter.) Penn State isn’t a program that enters every season with a championship-or-bust mentality, but it certainly applies for 2025.
Coach must deliver soon tier
Coach: Mike Norvell (33-27 overall, sixth season)
2024 results: 2-10, 1-7 in ACC, not ranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2013
Last conference title: 2023
CFP appearances: One (2014)
Assessing the impatience: Florida State fans have really been through it since the team’s last national title. They saw the end to Jimbo Fisher’s tenure, where the coach wanted more resources and left for a deeper-pocketed program (Texas A&M) with nowhere near FSU’s historic level of success. They went through the Willie Taggart disaster and a tough start to Norvell’s tenure. Then, the team started to cook, mining the transfer portal for game-changing players. In 2023, Florida State seemed truly back, bullying through the ACC. The Seminoles won the league title and finished 13-0, but quarterback Jordan Travis’ broken leg led to a CFP snub and nothing good happened in the ensuing year. FSU endured its first 10-loss season in 50 years, and a 52-3 setback against Notre Dame tied for the worst loss in team history.
Norvell is back for a pivotal sixth season, leading a coaching staff with two new notable coordinators in Gus Malzahn (offense) and Tony White (defense). FSU’s high school recruiting efforts are improving, but the team once again will rely on a group of transfers, including quarterback Tommy Castellanos (Boston College). Norvell is 71-42 as a coach, and was among Alabama’s initial targets to replace Nick Saban, but he has more losing seasons than winning seasons in Tallahassee. Most coaches don’t survive what happened last fall. Norvell doesn’t need to deliver a CFP appearance this season, but meaningful improvement is needed with a schedule bookended by Alabama and Florida and featuring Miami and Clemson in ACC play.
Coach: Hugh Freeze (11-14 overall, third season)
2024 results: 5-7, 2-6 in SEC, not ranked in final AP poll
Last national title: 2010
Last conference title: 2013
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: Freeze is the type of coach who generates a range of reactions, mostly for things he has said or done away from the football field. He also made sense for Auburn when the school hired him in late 2022. Despite an initial SEC exile, Freeze was always coming back to the conference, where he recruited well and won big at times with Ole Miss, even taking down Nick Saban’s Alabama teams in 2014 and 2015. The only unknown was which SEC team would give him a second chance. Auburn made sense after the Bryan Harsin tenure went sideways. The team needed a coach who knew the SEC, could win recruiting battles and capitalize on the NIL resources that Auburn assembled. Freeze came to the Plains with a 103-47 record and a track record of big-time recruits and exciting offenses.
But his first two seasons have been rough, not only in SEC play (5-11), but outside of it as Auburn endured home losses to New Mexico State in 2023 and to Cal last year. Quarterback Diego Pavia has led New Mexico State and Vanderbilt into Jordan-Hare Stadium in each of the past two years and beaten Freeze’s teams. The areas where Freeze traditionally thrives, particularly offense, haven’t truly taken off. Auburn ranks 70th nationally in scoring and 89th in passing yards during Freeze’s tenure. Freeze flexed his recruiting reach with the 2025 class, which ranked No. 6 nationally, and has made clear upgrades at spots like wide receiver. But Auburn’s 2026 class doesn’t currently rank in ESPN’s national top 25. His situation also isn’t helped by the success of Auburn’s other coaching target, Lane Kiffin, who is 21-5 with two AP top-11 finishes during the past two seasons. Freeze understands the SEC climate and that three seasons without a major bowl appearance or a CFP push could mean the end. Auburn hasn’t won more than six games since 2019 and expects better, given its investment.
Coach: Luke Fickell (13-13 overall, third season)
2024 results: 5-7, 3-6 in Big Ten, not ranked in final AP poll
Last national title: None
Last conference title: 2012
CFP appearances: None
Assessing the impatience: Wisconsin is generally a patient place. Fans are willing to give coaches time there, at least when they have clear visions for their teams. In 1990, Barry Alvarez took over a Wisconsin program that had won just nine games in the previous four seasons. Alvarez went 1-10 in his debut and had two more losing campaigns before breaking through in 1993 with his first Rose Bowl team. Fickell inherited a much healthier program after the 2022 season, as Wisconsin had made 21 consecutive bowl appearances and finished outside of the final AP Top 25 just three times between 2004 and 2017. He was hired with a clear purpose — to get a somewhat stale program under Paul Chryst into the expanded CFP, which Fickell had reached with Cincinnati in 2021. His hire represented a detour from the Wisconsin way, which Bret Bielema continued after Alvarez and Chryst built upon. If Fickell could elevate Wisconsin, even with a different style and philosophy, most Badgers fans were willing to go along with him.
The problem is that Wisconsin has gotten worse under Fickell, and last fall missed the postseason for the first time since 2001. Wisconsin also doesn’t look like Wisconsin with its approaches toward scheme and roster-building. Fickell’s attempt to bring the Air Raid to Madison with coordinator Phil Longo went poorly, as many Big Ten coaches predicted it would. Wisconsin signed the No. 25 recruiting class in 2024 and the No. 31 class earlier this year, but it has largely looked farther away for prospects. Three of the top four in-state prospects for 2024 signed with Penn State, and the top two in-state prospects in 2025 signed with Notre Dame. Fickell might not face immediate hot-seat pressure this fall, especially since athletic director Chris McIntosh hired him. But he needs better results on the field and also must show a product that better connects with the Wisconsin tradition.
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Why Alabama poses the biggest threat to Texas in SEC
Roddy Jones discusses why he believes Alabama poses the biggest challenge to Texas within the SEC.
Coach: Kalen DeBoer (9-4 overall, second season)
2024 results: 9-4, 5-3 in SEC, No. 17 in final AP poll
Last national title: 2020
Last conference title: 2023
CFP appearances: Eight (2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2023)
Assessing the impatience: There are few places, if any, across the college football landscape where patience runs thinner than at Alabama. Any season that doesn’t end with a Crimson Tide championship (SEC or national) will result in some degree of discord. Even Bear Bryant and Nick Saban, two of the sport’s most successful and iconic coaches, saw and felt the criticism when seasons didn’t meet expectations. DeBoer didn’t have history on his side when he took over for arguably the sport’s greatest coach ever in Saban. He recorded a signature win early on against Georgia, but then lost the following week at Vanderbilt, which had lost 23 consecutive games to the Tide. After opening his Alabama tenure with four straight wins, DeBoer didn’t win consecutive games again until the Tide blew out Missouri, LSU and Mercer, only to lose inexplicably at Oklahoma in a game where they didn’t reach the end zone. A bowl loss to a significantly undermanned Michigan team amplified the angst around DeBoer.
Should Alabama fans be a bit more patient with DeBoer, or anyone who took over for Saban? Probably. But it doesn’t work that way at a program with the most CFP appearances (8) and six national titles since the 2009 season, three times as many as any other program during that span. DeBoer has more ownership of the roster, and has had time to groom Ty Simpson and the other quarterbacks to take over. He brought back longtime offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and kept the rest of his key staff members. The Tide must perform better away from home, as they visit Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, Florida State and Auburn. DeBoer likely doesn’t need a title to ensure a third season in Tuscaloosa, but if Alabama misses the CFP again, any remaining patience among the Tide faithful will vanish.
Sports
The team that absolutely cooked, most frustrated fan bases and more: Passan’s 2025 MLB trade deadline awards
What the 2025 Major League Baseball trade deadline lacked in blockbusters it made up for in volume. From the first deal on July 24 to the last at 5:59 p.m. ET on July 31, teams made 63 trades and exchanged 179 players (including those to be named later).
One team dealt away 10 players from its big league roster. Another added seven new faces. Every team made at least one move. All of it served to reinforce an indisputable truth: Nobody does a deadline like baseball.
To honor that, we present an award ceremony like no other: Honors for the dozen most interesting elements of the 2025 deadline, starting with an atypical biggest winner.
The Best Deadline Belonged To A Dealer Award: The Athletics
Plenty of impact players moved to contenders at this year’s deadline, so for the A’s to be the big winners took the sort of trade that almost never gets made anymore. Heading into deadline season, Leo De Vries, the 18-year-old, switch-hitting shortstop who was the prize of the San Diego Padres’ farm system, was considered off-limits in any trade conversation. Three days before the deadline, though, Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller showed a willingness to discuss him in potential deals for A’s closer Mason Miller and Guardians left fielder Steven Kwan. The A’s pounced, including Miller and left-hander JP Sears to net De Vries and a trio of right-handed pitching prospects: Braden Nett, Henry Baez and Eduarniel Nunez.
De Vries is the No. 3 prospect in baseball on Kiley McDaniel’s updated top 50 ranking. He has more than held his own in High-A as a teenager and figures to be in the big leagues — perhaps as a shortstop, perhaps at third base — by the time he’s 21. And there, he would join what’s quickly becoming one of the best lineups in baseball, loaded with Nick Kurtz, Brent Rooker, Jacob Wilson, Lawrence Butler, Shea Langeliers, Tyler Soderstrom and Denzel Clarke.
“I’m so pissed we didn’t get De Vries,” one evaluator said.
“They got De Vries for a guy who pitches one inning at a time,” another lamented.
These sorts of deals simply don’t happen. In a prospect-hugging world, deals that include top-five prospects are once-in-a-decade occurrences. Literally. The previous time a prospect of De Vries’ caliber moved was when the Chicago White Sox landed the consensus No. 1 in MLB, Yoan Moncada, from the Boston Red Sox in the 2016 deal for Chris Sale. Sale was coming off five consecutive seasons receiving Cy Young votes.
The Who Needs Those Kids Anyway Award: The San Diego Padres
De Vries & Co. were not the only Padres prospects to move. In deals that netted them Ryan O’Hearn, Ramon Laureano, Freddy Fermin, Nestor Cortes and Will Wagner, San Diego dealt 10 more players still rookie-eligible. Nobody is willing to sacrifice the future for the present quite like Preller.
Even if the A’s letter grade for the deadline matches their nickname, it doesn’t doom the Padres to an F. On the contrary, there are situations that warrant risky decision-making, and San Diego exemplifies that. Michael King, Dylan Cease, Robert Suarez and Luis Arraez are headed to free agency. Manny Machado isn’t getting any younger. The Padres’ window is now. In the franchise’s 56-year history, it has made two World Series and won none. The previous time the Padres participated in the World Series, the year’s first two digits were 19.
The Padres now have the best bullpen in baseball, and O’Hearn, Laureano and Fermin round out a lineup with Machado, Arraez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts. There is not a weak spot in their order or bullpen — and if King gets healthy, Nick Pivetta keeps shoving and Cease or Yu Darvish find themselves, they will be as dangerous as anyone in the National League come October. San Diego might wind up the No. 6 seed, but so were the Texas Rangers in 2023, and that didn’t stop them from getting their franchise’s first ring.
The Joël Robuchon Award for absolutely cooking: The Seattle Mariners
Give the Mariners credit. They got the best bat at the deadline in Eugenio Suárez, filled a position of need at first base with Josh Naylor, deepened their bullpen with left-hander Caleb Ferguson and did so without sacrificing Colt Emerson, Jonny Farmelo, Ryan Sloan, Jurrangelo Cijntje, Michael Arroyo, Lazaro Montes, Harry Ford or Felnin Celesten, all top 100-caliber prospects.
The new-look Mariners took three of four from the Rangers, with whom they entered their series tied, over the weekend. Seattle is almost fully healthy — and with Bryce Miller carving in his rehab assignment with a fastball tickling 98 mph and Victor Robles potentially back in September, the Mariners are two recalls away from having the scariest squad they have had since their resurgence started in 2021.
By no means did they fleece the Diamondbacks for Suárez and Naylor. Arizona needed pitching and got quality arms in both deals, and Tyler Locklear should be the team’s first baseman for the next half-decade. But this deadline was about an organization that has drafted as well as any in the 2020s shedding its relative conservatism to take a run in a year where there is no favorite. That’s worthy of some Robuchon potatoes.
The Cubs and Red Sox entered deadline season in search of the same archetype: a high-end starting pitcher with multiple years of club control. Both exited with that need unfulfilled.
Boston came close. The Red Sox were willing to part with a number of high-end prospects to land right-hander Joe Ryan from the Minnesota Twins. But that wasn’t expressed until the deadline was nearing, and the Twins were so deep in other talks to disassemble their roster, the prospect of moving Ryan had lost appeal. The Cubs landed Michael Soroka from the Washington Nationals the day before the deadline, but the prices on Ryan, Nationals left-hander MacKenzie Gore and right-handers Sandy Alcantara and Edward Cabrera of the Miami Marlins were too high for Chicago’s liking.
The balance the majority of front offices try to strike is not easy. They want to win this year, but they also want to win going forward. What’s most telling is that these are two organizations with enormous expectations — and limitations. When the Red Sox dealt Yoan Moncada in 2016, they were consistently a top-five payroll team. Hoarding young, affordable players wasn’t nearly the imperative it is now, when for the past three seasons Boston has entered Opening Day with a payroll outside the top 10. When the Cubs made the Aroldis Chapman deal in 2016 and the Jose Quintana deal the next season, they were consistently a top-six payroll team. Over the past five years, their Opening Day payrolls have ranked 12th, 14th, 11th, ninth and 12th, respectively.
Could their front offices have ignored those realities and gone for broke? Sure. And none of their fans would have minded. For now. But if they lost in October this year and one of the prospects they moved broke out, not only would the deals be seen as failures, but because they would’ve been made against the advice of analytical models, they would’ve been of the you-should’ve-known variety.
Running a team isn’t easy. Running a team that has pulled back on payroll for seemingly no good reason is a particular sort of challenge. The fact that there is no true World Series favorite this year makes the frustration from fans especially warranted, but it’s also a reminder that no decision is made in a vacuum. Context with the Red Sox and Cubs matters.
The Juggling Octopus Award: The Minnesota Twins
The Twins are for sale. What had one meaning going into the deadline — the franchise has been on the market since this past October — took on a completely different one in the final 48 hours of trade season, when Minnesota shipped off 10 big leaguers and completely altered its trajectory.
The bloodletting was stunning in its scope. The Twins traded their highest-paid player, shortstop Carlos Correa, to Houston. They moved their closer, Jhoan Duran, to Philadelphia, which later acquired center fielder Harrison Bader from Minnesota. They sent right-hander Chris Paddack to Detroit, unloaded their bullpen of Brock Stewart (Los Angeles Dodgers), Danny Coulombe (Texas) and Louie Varland (Toronto Blue Jays, along with first baseman Ty France). Super-utility man Willi Castro went to the Cubs. And finally — and most surprising — relief ace Griffin Jax landed in Tampa Bay.
Just like that, players making around $65 million this year were gone in an instant, replaced by a mixture of big leaguers (right-hander Taj Bradley and outfielders James Outman and Alan Roden), high-end prospects (catcher Eduardo Tait, right-hander Mick Abel, left-hander Kendry Rojas) and lottery tickets. Days later, the industry remains stunned by the extent of the dump.
How much of it is attributable to clearing the books for the sale of the team is unclear. But what shouldn’t be lost in it is that the Twins still find themselves in a reasonable position to compete going forward. Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez are an excellent 1-2 atop the rotation. The everyday lineup, with Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis, Matt Wallner and Ryan Jeffers, will soon be complemented by top prospects like Walker Jenkins, Emmanuel Rodriguez, Luke Keaschall and Kaelen Culpepper. They’ve got excellent starting-pitching depth. And suddenly they’ve got plenty of payroll flexibility for the winter.
Will the new owner use it? That’s the key, of course. A fire sale is to tear down. A recommitment of resources is a strategy most teams don’t have the gumption to undertake. Which course the Twins chart won’t be clear until next spring.
When it was first reported that the Astros were keen on re-acquiring Correa, a linchpin of Houston’s run to seven consecutive AL Championship Series, the news registered as a shock. Correa’s journey — free agent market craters, signs short-term with the Twins, opts out, has deals with San Francisco and the New York Mets fall apart, returns to Minnesota — felt like it had reached an end.
Particularly when the Astros insisted on the Twins eating upward of $50 million of the $104 million owed Correa through the end of 2028 and throwing in a reliever like Jax. Minnesota wasn’t against trading Correa; it was against stupidity. The deal looked dead going into the last 24 hours before the deadline.
It was defibrillated when the Astros moved off the additional-player ask and upped their end of covering Correa’s salary to $71 million. The deal came together about two hours before the deadline, helping Houston get past the season-ending right hamstring tear of third baseman Isaac Paredes and bolster itself as Houston’s two closest competitors, the Mariners and Rangers (who acquired right-hander Merrill Kelly and right-handed reliever Phil Maton along with Coulombe), saw the AL West crown within reach.
To pave the way for the deal, Correa waived his no-trade clause. He never left Houston, keeping a home there, and when the Astros return from their current nine-game road trip on Aug. 11, the ovation will be deafening. For all the foundational pieces that have left the Astros, the sight of Correa and Jose Altuve sharing an infield will conjure memories Houstonians won’t ever forget.
For all the talks Cleveland held with other teams about left fielder Steven Kwan — and there were plenty — the Guardians wound up not moving the two-time All-Star despite a number of strong offers. Perhaps no team in MLB navigates trade talks of veteran players with the discipline and conviction of the Guardians. They set an asking price on Kwan. No one met it. So, they held him.
And that’s a good thing for a city like Cleveland, which has never gotten used to its team’s propensity to extract value out of tenured players before they reach free agency. There is a specific sort of pride in Cleveland, which has suffered without a championship longer than any other baseball team, and the prospect of kicking the can down the road again invoked painful memories of the departures of CC Sabathia, Francisco Lindor, Cliff Lee and plenty of others.
Between José Ramírez and Kwan, the Guardians have two of the steadiest players in the game. Building a lineup around them — and fashioning a proper rotation as well — is the trick on a skimpy payroll. A deal for Kwan could materialize again over the winter, which tends to be when position players get a greater return than at the deadline. Might the bridesmaids for free agent Kyle Tucker see Kwan — a lesser player, but a damn good one still — as a reasonable fallback plan? Sure.
It’s all part of life for the Guardians, who reflexively shuffle as if they’re stuck in an endless game of three-card monte. For now, they held off. And perhaps they can use the next three months to fashion the sort of contract-extension offer that would convince Kwan to remain in a Guardians uniform for a long time to come.
The One Big Move Can Change Everything Award: The Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies wanted — needed — a late-inning relief solution after the past calendar year reminded them of the necessity of bullpen stability. As good as their relievers were this past year during the regular season, the bullpen faltered spectacularly during their division series loss against the Mets. Compound that with the struggles of closer Jordan Romano, the loss of José Alvarado for the coming October due to a previous performance enhancing drug suspension and the fragility of their other relievers, and there was no team that needed a player more than the Phillies did a fireman.
Enter Jhoan Duran. The fit was perfect. It cost the Phillies in Tait and Abel — a prospect price they were willing to pay because it didn’t include Andrew Painter, Aidan Miller or Justin Crawford, their top three. And it gave them a lockdown closer with arguably the best pure stuff in baseball. His “splinker” and curveball are his two best pitches, which is saying something considering Duran runs his fastball up to 103 mph and has hit triple digits 161 times this season.
Beyond Duran, the Phillies can turn to Orion Kerkering and Matt Strahm and hope they fare better this October than last. David Robertson will arrive soon to bolster the group. Tanner Banks has been good. They’re not the Padres. They’re not the Brewers. But with the best starting rotation in the NL, they don’t need to be. Philadelphia’s relievers simply need to be good enough, and after the addition of Duran, they are.
The October Is For Relievers Award: The New York Mets and Yankees
About 59% of innings this year have been thrown by starting pitchers. In recent seasons, that percentage has dropped demonstrably come the postseason. Relievers account for around 50% of the innings pitched in the playoffs. And teams at this deadline acted like they understood the necessity for bullpen help.
Nobody added more relief help than the New York teams. The Mets gave up a lot to add Ryan Helsley and Tyler Rogers to a bullpen that already includes Edwin Díaz, Brooks Raley and Reed Garrett, and as much as it cost in prospects, they didn’t have to move any of their troika of top-flight starting pitchers (Jonah Tong, Nolan McLean and Brandon Sproat) or their positional standouts (Jett Williams and Carson Benge).
The Yankees not only got relief arms in former Pirates closer David Bednar, Giants closer Camilo Doval and Rockies setup man Jake Bird, but control them for multiple years. As grisly as Bednar, Doval and Bird’s debuts were with the Yankees — the sweep at Miami’s hands over the weekend was the nadir of New York’s season — they ultimately will make the bullpen better.
Is it good enough to help them traverse the AL? The team that has spent most of the season atop the standings table, Detroit, thought enough of bullpen depth to acquire four relief arms at the deadline. The Astros, currently atop the West, have the second-best bullpen ERA in the AL — behind the Red Sox, who leapt ahead of the Yankees in the standings over the weekend. And the Blue Jays’ relief corps has the second-highest strikeout rate of any big league bullpen. The Mets and Yankees simply did what they needed to do to compete.
Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak could have gone out and floated any number of desirable players, from Brendan Donovan to Ivan Herrera to Lars Nootbaar, and found a market worth pursuing. Instead, Mozeliak kept things simple, and it was the right thing to do.
He’s leaving his position at the end of the season, ceding to former Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom, and in unloading only Helsley, Maton and Steven Matz — all impending free agents — Mozeliak did not overstep his bounds and make deals that should be the purview of his replacement. Other executives might have let ego get in the way in trying to put one final stamp on a franchise they’ve run for more than a decade. Mozeliak instead recognized this is Bloom’s team going forward, and figuring out how to pilot a group that’s good but not good enough is no longer Mozeliak’s responsibility.
There is urgency for change with the Cardinals; it’s just not the sort of urgency that needed to be met by an outgoing executive. For all the disappointment the Cardinals have provided in the last three seasons — attendance is down in that time from more than 40,000 per game to less than 29,000 — they’ve got plenty of room to expand their payroll, a future star on the cusp of the big leagues in JJ Wetherholt and a wide suite of options going into this winter. In a division as competitive as the NL Central will be over the next half-decade, they’re going to need everything they can get.
Know thyself. It’s perhaps the most important characteristic for any front office. Know the quality of your big league team, know your personnel, know your strengths, know your weaknesses, know your purpose. A cursory glance at the Royals could have left outsiders wondering what business a sub-.500 team had adding at the deadline. And yet it was the perfect example of the Royals understanding themselves.
Even with ace Cole Ragans sidelined and All-Star left-hander Kris Bubic out for the season, both with left shoulder injuries, the Royals know their market. They know Kansas City suffered too many non-competitive seasons to spend the final two months of this season reliving those memories. They know that they want to get a new stadium built, and the first effort at that led to voters rejecting a proposal that would have helped erect one. They know that they’ve got only so many years of Bobby Witt Jr. before he can opt out of his contract. They know, more than anything, that a wild card spot in the AL can be back-doored — because they saw Detroit, nearly 10 games under at the deadline this past year, do just that.
So, yeah, if the price isn’t prohibitive, why not try to win? Kansas City got outfielders Mike Yastrzemski and Randal Grichuk along with pitchers Bailey Falter, Ryan Bergert and Stephen Kolek without giving up a top prospect. The best player the Royals dealt was catcher Freddy Fermin, and considering their top two prospects are catchers Carter Jensen and Blake Mitchell, they moved from a position of strength. The Royals telegraphed this tack when they signed right-hander Seth Lugo to a two-year, $46 million extension, but it still caught some in the industry off-guard.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have. The desire to win is easy to talk about and far tougher to prove through action. The Royals remain a long shot to make the postseason, but inside the clubhouse, the players are appreciative of that shot, and it’s the sort of goodwill that, while immeasurable, is absent in the clubhouses of the teams that closed the deadline with a whimper.
The Let’s Win One For The Gipper Award: The Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays could have been the Twins. They could have gotten a huge return for Yandy Diaz and Brandon Lowe, moved closer Pete Fairbanks, made a half-dozen other moves and culled their already-low payroll to an embarrassingly low mark — under that of what Juan Soto makes all by himself.
Instead, the Rays played the deadline like only the Rays can. They got rid of their two most desirable expiring contracts in starter Zack Littell and catcher Danny Jansen. And they backfilled those spots via a deal for right-hander Adrian Houser (who has been tremendous this year), a three-way deal that landed them a controllable catcher (Hunter Feduccia) and the most surprising non-Correa trade, landing Griffin Jax for Taj Bradley at the deadline buzzer.
Why didn’t they go full dump mode? Beyond a similar rationale to that of the Royals — the league puts the AL in awful — they wanted to give owner Stu Sternberg, whose sale of the team should be complete sooner than later, one last shot at a playoff run.
Sternberg is beloved by Rays employees who appreciate his willingness to allow them to run an experiment in baseball operations. Under Sternberg, the Rays have managed to remain among the most successful teams in the game despite a distinct lack of payroll resources. What Sternberg gave them was leeway. To value things other teams didn’t. To build a front office that has figured out how to marry scouting and analytics to great effect. To create a culture that has kept employees engaged where in other organizations they would have grown bitter.
He was not the best owner, by any objective measure. He was far from the worst, though. And even if the Rays don’t claw their way back in the standings — at 55-58, they’re five games back of the final wild-card spot and must leap four teams to get there — they’ve got a chance, and that’s all they ever really want.
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