Passan: Why it’s World Series or bust for the Yankees this year
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
NEW YORK — The New York Yankees epitomize big. The brand, the payroll, the expectations, the excitement, the disappointment. It is an appropriate bit of casting that the largest star in baseball history, Aaron Judge, wears pinstripes. He is the physical embodiment of the Yankees franchise: too big to keep failing.
For the past 14 years, the Yankees have not functioned as the perpetual conquerors who have won more World Series titles than any franchise. They entered this postseason having lost 10 of their past 18 playoff series. They have fallen in their past five American League Championship Series appearances. The most recognizable franchise in baseball, whose caps are worn around the world, has been rendered just another team.
With Game 3 of the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians set for 5:08 p.m. ET on Thursday, the Yankees can taste their first World Series appearance since 2009, when they won their 27th championship. Their 6-3 win in Game 2 was New York’s fifth in six postseason games, giving them a 2-0 series lead on the Guardians.
Now is the time for them to deliver. Everything has lined up for the Yankees. They won the AL East. Their greatest tormentors, the Houston Astros, were knocked out in the first round, unable to wreck more Yankees dreams. They dispatched the pesky Kansas City Royals in the division series. And not much looks as if it will change in the ALCS. Among the five wild pitches in Game 1, the shoddy defense in Game 2 and the flaccid bats in both, the Guardians haven’t looked up to the task of beating a Yankees team that has found its groove in October.
For large chunks of the season, this team looked like a threat to win its 28th World Series. In the playoffs, New York has preyed on a pair of AL Central teams to reinforce they are the best the league has to offer. The Yankees this postseason have walked 37 times and struck out 44 times in six games. They feature a lineup whose Nos. 7-9 hitters in Game 2 went 5-for-10 and scored three runs. Their leadoff hitters have been on base in 25 of the 51 innings they’ve played in October. Their bullpen ERA is 0.77 over 23⅓ innings. They’ve given up only three stolen bases.
The only thing missing for New York had been Judge, whose failures in past Octobers — a career .769 OPS in the postseason compared to 1.010 in the regular season — are the lone ding on a pristine résumé. If he begins to perform like his MVP self — and perhaps he started something Tuesday with his first home run this October — Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. predicted nothing short of a gilded future.
“We’re World Series champions. No other doubt in my mind,” Chisholm said. “I’ve been saying it from day one, and that’s without him raking. He’s starting to come together. And now I see it.”
This has been the plan all along. They spent $360 million to re-sign Judge and gave up a boatload of talent to acquire Soto. They stuck with manager Aaron Boone and have seen him work wonders with a questionable bullpen. The Yankees are carrying themselves the way they haven’t in years — with a strut, a we’re-good-and-we-know-it attitude. Championship No. 28 is within reach. And now is the moment — first against the Guardians, then whomever wins the dogfight between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets — for 14 years of letdowns to give way and let the Yankees earn what they believe is theirs.
LAST WEEK IN Kansas City, as the champagne celebration raged inside the Yankees’ clubhouse after their division series, one person remained in the dugout. Judge was missing the tail end of the revelry, by choice, because through the bowels of the stadium walked the players’ families, ready to celebrate themselves on the Kauffman Stadium field.
This is what Judge does, and this is who he is. Family matters as much as his teammates, and he wanted them to know that. Even as his struggles at the plate mounted, Judge hadn’t lost sight of who he is, what he means and why he is the face of the Yankees.
It was simultaneously gratifying and frightening, then, to see what happened in the seventh inning of Game 2 on Tuesday night. Cleveland’s Hunter Gaddis, one of the best relief pitchers in baseball this season, delivered a 95 mph fastball in a great location — the tippy-top of the strike zone, between the belt and the letters even on the 6-foot-7 Judge. It was the sort of pitch Judge saw dozens of times this season and batted .095 against.
He suffered no such frailties Tuesday. Even in the cold autumn air of Yankee Stadium, with the wind conspiring to knock down the ball, it kept flying, 414 feet, over the center-field fence, prompting paroxysms of joy among the 47,054 fans who witnessed Judge’s first major moment of this postseason.
The gratification comes from the Yankees’ immense respect for Judge — how much he cares and how he carried the team for months and how he holds people accountable without making them feel as if they’re being held accountable. As great of a player as Judge is, he is regarded as a similarly gifted leader, and to see their captain not performing to his capabilities vexed Yankees players. He had struggled for only 15 at-bats — nothing in a normal stretch, everything in October. Which is what made Judge showing signs of life frightening as well: If the Yankees were rolling through the postseason before Judge found his swing, imagine what they’ll look like if the home run off Gaddis portends more. Especially if the hitter in front of him keeps getting on base.
EVERYTHING THE YANKEES envisioned when they traded for Juan Soto last offseason has become a reality. Rare is the deal with outsize expectations that are actually met, and yet here is the 25-year-old Soto, in the midst of another postseason run, able to relish it far more than he did the first time.
Soto was 20 when the Washington Nationals won the World Series in 2019. He burst on the scene a year earlier, a 19-year-old wunderkind with the best eye since Barry Bonds and preternatural power who shot balls over the fence to all fields. Winning a championship only a year later spoiled Soto.
So he’s relishing this — the opportunity to make history with a franchise where history matters more than anywhere. The trade for Soto cost the Yankees dearly in talent. Not only did they give up Michael King, who threw 173⅔ innings of 2.95 ERA ball this season, but four other players as well. All for one season of Soto.
New York knew he would be headed for free agency this winter, and that didn’t stop general manager Brian Cashman from ponying up a gargantuan package. The pressure on Cashman and Boone, vise-like in a normal year, had tightened after they went 82-80 in 2023. The previous six seasons had ended in postseason losses, but at least they ended in the postseason. This was beyond the pale: fourth place and 19 games behind an AL East-winning Baltimore team with an Opening Day payroll $217 million lower than the Yankees’ $277 million.
Acquiring one of baseball’s finest hitters solved plenty, and the evidence revealed itself early. Soto drove in runs in each of the Yankees’ first four games this season, a sweep at Houston. He proceeded to hit a career-high 41 home runs, lead the AL with 128 runs scored and get on base in 138 of the 157 games he played. And he has been magnificent this postseason, leading the Yankees with seven hits, walking as much as he has struck out and further distinguishing himself as a unique offensive presence.
A player of Soto’s talent with hunger for the moment is about as good as it gets in the sport, and the seamlessness of his transition to New York only heightens what’s ahead of him. Soto’s free agency is primed to be a frenzy: He is a $500 million-plus player, and another World Series appearance would not only validate his rightful place as one of the highest-paid athletes in history, it would reinforce just how properly this Yankees team was constructed.
HAL STEINBRENNER IS not his father. George, who bought the Yankees in 1973, won back-to-back World Series in 1977 and 1978, oversaw the four-titles-in-five-years dynasty from 1996 to 2000 and captured his final championship in 2009, a year before his death. The Yankees’ championship-or-bust standard is a George Steinbrenner creation that Hal inherited and can’t disavow.
Nor does he want to. As the Yankees barge toward a World Series berth, it’s worth remembering Steinbrenner has continued to spend money befitting the Yankees. It’s never as much as fans in New York desire, but their $296.6 million Opening Day payroll this year ranked second in MLB. Their payrolls ranks the nine years prior: 2, 3, 2, 1, 3, 6, 4, 2, 2.
What’s most important — and where Cashman deserves credit — is that the players receiving the majority of that money have played central roles this postseason. Gerrit Cole ($324 million) pitched like an ace to clinch the division series. Carlos Rodon ($162 million) threw six brilliant innings in Game 1 of the ALCS, using his slider for strikeouts and inducing swings and misses on three of his four changeups. Judge is about to win his second MVP in three seasons and carried the Yankees through 162 games. Soto is Soto.
Best of all is Giancarlo Stanton, the 34-year-old slugger whose seven seasons in New York have been as much about the time he hasn’t spent on the field as the time he has. Trading for Stanton, who had nearly $300 million remaining on the final 10 years of his deal, was a risk.
Well, that’s the purpose of a giant payroll: it allows for moonshots. New York figured it was buying the best of Stanton for the first half of his time in pinstripes. The fact he has performed this October like a prime version of himself, with a 1.037 OPS and two home runs, is a reminder the Yankees do have an advantage and it is well within their rights to use it, just as the Mets and Dodgers have.
It also illustrates the biggest difference between the Yankees of past and present. Under George Steinbrenner, Stanton would almost certainly be wearing a different uniform. With Hal, patience is a virtue in which he truly believes. If he didn’t, the man running the team from the dugout almost certainly wouldn’t be there, either.
AARON BOONE IS a very good Major League Baseball manager. This sort of statement angers a fair number of Yankees fans, but it is objectively true. Boone has the deep respect of players, he fights when it’s needed, he manages stars exceptionally, he’s strategically sound a vast majority of the time, he’s conscious of history and he’s good with the media. The Yankees job is the most scrutinized in baseball, and he does pretty much every part of it well.
This postseason has been Boone’s playground. It has been only six games, so there is plenty of time for him to push a button that detonates a game, but his tactical acumen has been exceptional. Three times already he has turned to Luke Weaver — his innings-eating-long-man-turned-closer — in the eighth inning of playoff games. And he has been rewarded with a four-out save and a pair of five-out saves.
Yes, it’s the sort of thing more and more managers are doing. But it speaks to Boone’s understanding of leverage. Sometimes the biggest outs in a game come in the eighth inning, and if you’re gifted a closer who can cover multiple innings and go multiple days in a row, use him and use him plenty.
And the presence of Weaver does feel like a gift. The Yankees are the 31-year-old’s sixth major league team. He arrived in the big leagues in 2016 as a 92-mph-throwing starter. He went to Arizona in a trade, stumbled there, wasn’t any better in Kansas City, scuffled with Cincinnati and Seattle last year and wound up making three starts for the Yankees at the end of their dismal 2023. New York brought him back on a one-year, $2 million contract, and it wound up as one of the best deals of the winter.
The Yankees’ bullpen looked like a mess in early September. Boone finally tired of Clay Holmes‘ blown saves and removed him from the closer’s role. The only pitcher New York acquired at the trade deadline, Mark Leiter Jr., flopped and didn’t crack the Yankees’ ALDS or ALCS rosters. Boone wasn’t comfortable with Jake Cousins (too many walks) or Tim Hill (too few strikeouts). He trusts Tommy Kahnle, but in 221 career games with the Yankees, he has only four saves, an indication of New York’s reticence to throw him in the ninth.
The job went to Weaver almost by default, and all he has done since is get hitters out. Since his first save Sept. 6, Weaver has thrown 18 innings, given up seven hits, walked four and struck out 33. His ERA is 0.50. He is not Mariano Rivera, but he’s doing one hell of an impersonation. And along the way, Holmes has righted himself: 14⅔ innings, nine hits, five walks, 13 strikeouts and 1.23 ERA — with nary a run scored in 6⅔ postseason innings.
Every championship team has its surprises, and the Yankees’ bullpen turning into a weapon — in similar fashion to Jose Leclerc and Josh Sborz having the October of their lives with Texas last season — qualifies. Yankees relievers have been so good that it might make a regular observer of baseball wonder: Can they really keep it up?
NOW THAT THE Yankees find themselves here, two wins from the World Series, six victories from a parade down New York’s Canyon of Heroes. And with their path to a title as favorable as they’ve had in years, it’s incumbent on them to finish the job. Beating a pair of AL Central teams is one thing. Doing it against a National League team that survived the gauntlet of the far better league will require something different altogether.
Sure, Judge hit a home run — but his previous 26 plate appearances left plenty to be desired. Weaver and Holmes have been the best relief duo this postseason — but Boone’s reliance on them surely has an expiration date, and pitching both in each of New York’s six playoff games runs the risk of overexposure, regardless of how good their stuff looks. The Yankees have won tight, hard-fought games. Their victories against Kansas City came by one, one and two runs, and their two wins against Cleveland are by three runs apiece. Despite being gifted a dropped pop-up and bobble in right field by the Guardians, New York needed Judge’s home run to provide a decent cushion in Game 2.
Carrying a 2-0 series lead into Cleveland helps allay fears. There will be at least one more game played at Yankee Stadium this year, and the Guardians see Game 3 as a must-win. Teams that start a seven-game league championship series with a pair of wins are 32-5. Only once has a team fought from a 3-0 deficit to take an LCS.
And that, of course, was the Boston Red Sox‘s famous comeback against the Yankees in 2004. Cleveland will be hard-pressed to find the same sort of magic against this Yankees team. They’ll need to beat Clarke Schmidt, who, when healthy, was a nightmare for opposing hitters. Particularly terrifying for Cleveland is that against the Guardians’ mostly left-handed lineup, Schmidt, who ditched his changeup this season, will rely heavily on his cutter to saw off Guardians hitters. And no team in MLB this year had a lower OPS on cutters thrown by right-handed pitchers than the Guardians’ .653.
Schmidt is the Yankees’ No. 3 starter, and he finished the season with a 2.85 ERA, and it’s just another sign that for all the lamenting that New York was simply a two-man team with Judge and Soto, that was never true. There is substance to these Yankees. They’re not here just to do something. They’re here to do something big, the only way they know how.
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Bradford Doolittle, ESPN Staff Writer
CLEVELAND — The Guardians will start right-hander Gavin Williams in Game 4 of the ALCS on Friday, making the matchup against the New York Yankees a pairing of two pitchers in their postseason debuts.
Making the announcement before Thursday’s Game 3, Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt offered a straightforward explanation for selecting Williams for what looms as the biggest start of the 25-year-old’s career.
“We need a starter for Game 4, and Gavin is ready to go,” Vogt said. “He’s been good for us all year, and we’re excited to give him the ball tomorrow.”
Williams went 3-10 with a 4.86 ERA during the regular season over 16 starts, his second campaign in the majors. He struggled at Progressive Field during the regular season, going 0-7 with a 6.55 ERA despite posting a much higher strikeout rate at home (11.5 per nine innings) than on the road (7.7).
“I’m grateful,” Williams said. “It’s an exciting time. Not many people get this opportunity. For them to trust me, to give me the ball for Game 4 is pretty special.”
Neither Williams nor his opponent, Yankees righty Luis Gil, has seen game action since the closing stages of the regular season. They have been staying sharp with simulated games and side sessions.
“I’ve felt really good,” Gil said through a team interpreter. “I felt sharp. The command of the pitches was there, and the execution and the movement of the pitches was there.”
Gil, a front-runner for AL Rookie of the Year honors, went 15-7 with a 3.56 ERA during the season.
The Yankees lead the ALCS 2-0 heading into Game 3.
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
CLEVELAND — The New York Yankees will field a different look against the Cleveland Guardians in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series on Thursday.
Jon Berti will start for Anthony Rizzo at first base, while Jose Trevino will get the nod over Austin Wells behind the plate.
The Yankees, up 2-0 in the series, will face the Guardians’ Matthew Boyd — the first left-hander to start against New York this series — and manager Aaron Boone said the changes came down to typical splits — Rizzo and Wells are left-handed hitters; Berto and Trevino are right-handed.
There were other factors, however.
Rizzo, for one, has two fractured fingers on his right hand, an injury he suffered Sept. 28. After missing the AL Division Series, he went 3-for-8 with a walk in the first two games of the ALCS. Berti, who will bat sixth Thursday, went 2-for-7 with a walk in two ALDS games and played strong defense at first base after never having played the position in a regular-season or playoff game in his career.
“Just loved how he looked in the division series. Love the dynamic he brings to the table,” Boone said of Berti. “Now, Riz is giving me pause just with how good he’s looked, but I still want to be mindful of what he is playing with and through and feel like a lot of this is the confidence I have in Jon, too, and what he can bring to the table here.”
Wells, meanwhile, has struggled at the plate over the past six weeks after a strong summer put him in AL Rookie of the Year contention. He is batting just .104 with a .369 OPS in 109 plate appearances since Sept. 1. He’s 2-for-24 with 10 strikeouts and two walks in the playoffs.
“I think he’s locked in and has obviously struggled a little, but I really don’t think he’s feeling that, necessarily,” Boone said. “I think he’s still playing at a really high level. I think he’s been amazing behind the plate and, even going through this, I still have a ton of confidence that he’s going to bring the right at-bat in a big situation.”
Trevino, an All-Star in 2022, lost the starting catching job to Wells after going on the injured list in July with a strained left quad. He hasn’t appeared in a game since the Yankees’ regular-season finale Sept. 29. He went 3-for-27 in eight starts in September.
Week 8 is here as we look toward multiple exciting conference matchups on Saturday’s slate of games. With how this season’s matchups have been panning out, these are ones you won’t want to miss.
No. 5 Georgia takes on No. 1 Texas in Austin as the Bulldogs look to hand the Longhorns their first loss of the season. The Bulldogs know it’ll take a complete effort to take down their top-ranked opponent, especially in Longhorns territory, but what exactly does Georgia need to focus on to win Saturday?
No. 11 Alabama will take a trip to Neyland Stadium as the Crimson Tide play No. 7 Tennessee in another exciting SEC matchup. Both teams are 5-1 (2-1 in SEC play) on the season, and as we’re at the midseason point, the stakes are even higher with the playoff not too far away. Could this game determine who might be out of the playoff picture?
It’s a touchdown celebration that you might have seen throughout college football and in the NFL this season. It gained national attention when Miami QB Cam Ward hit the celebration after a touchdown, but it didn’t start with Ward. So where did it come from?
Our college football experts preview storylines and big matchups to know about ahead of Week 8.
What each team needs to capitalize on to win
Texas: The Longhorns’ passing game will need to keep Georgia off balance. Quinn Ewers returned last Saturday vs. Oklahoma, his first game since getting injured against UTSA on Sept. 14. He threw for 199 yards and struggled early, with Texas gaining just 13 first-quarter yards before the Longhorns started chipping away. The difference was when Ewers had time. The Sooners got pressure on 12 of his 32 dropbacks, and he went 3-of-9 with an interception on those attempts. But when he wasn’t pressured, he was 17-of-20 for 191 yards and a touchdown. Oklahoma also shortened the field: 18 of his 29 pass attempts were thrown within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage, and he averaged a career-low 1.7 air yards on his completions, according to ESPN Research. By keeping the chains moving, the Longhorns were able to get production at running back from Quintrevion Wisner, who ran 19 times for 72 yards (3.8 yards per carry) in the Longhorns’ first three games but has averaged 7.9 yards per carry and totaled 206 yards over the past two games, including a career-high 118 against Oklahoma. — Dave Wilson
Georgia: Kirby Smart talked this week about his desire for the No. 5 Bulldogs to play a complete game, which they haven’t done since their 34-3 rout of Clemson in the season opener. Georgia got off to slow starts at Kentucky and Alabama, then struggled to put away Mississippi State in the second half at home last week. There’s no question it’s going to require a complete effort to take down No. 1 Texas on the road on Saturday. The Bulldogs need to generate turnovers (five in six games, second fewest in the SEC) and cut down penalties (71.5 yards per game, third most in the league). The defense needs to tackle well — the Bulldogs are averaging 9.6 missed tackles per contest — and do a better job on 50-50 balls. Offensively, Georgia has struggled to get its running game going, which won’t be easy against a Texas defense that is allowing only 103.7 yards rushing per game. Quarterback Carson Beck has played well at times but needs to cut down on his interceptions and not force throws into tight windows. Georgia has already played on the road twice and might be more battle-tested than Texas. It’s probably not a CFP elimination game given the Bulldogs’ schedule strength, but losing in Austin would surely leave them no margin for error the rest of the way. — Mark Schlabach
Zombieland celebration
For weeks, the touchdown celebration that Cam Ward ushered into the national spotlight was surrounded with so much mystery, even he demurred when asked for a deeper meaning.
“I don’t know if the world’s ready for that right now,” he said with a laugh a few weeks ago.
After some gentle prodding, though, he relented.
“You have to ask my old OC, Ben Arbuckle, at Washington State,” Ward explained.
Challenge accepted.
Arbuckle chuckles when asked about the celebration that Ward has brought to life — across college football and into the NFL.
“The Zombieland,” Arbuckle says. “It’s a national treasure now.”
Arbuckle arrived as the offensive coordinator at Washington State in 2023 after serving as co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Western Kentucky. In order to familiarize Ward with the offense he wanted to run, Arbuckle showed him cut-ups from his time with the Hilltoppers.
It was during one of those sessions that Ward noticed a player doing a unique celebration after scoring a touchdown. He placed his left hand over his face mask and flopped his right arm straight in front of him. Intrigued, Ward asked Arbuckle, “What is he doing?”
Arbuckle told him about Zombieland. Ward said simply, “I’m going to start doing it.”
That player Ward noticed? Western Kentucky receiver Daewood Davis. But what exactly does Zombieland mean? Arbuckle said his players told him it meant they were telling their opponents, “You stink like a zombie.”
In a phone interview with ESPN, Davis explained the original meaning. During fall camp in 2022, Davis said one of his teammates, a defensive back named Upton Stout, first did the celebration after a pass breakup. “It came out of nowhere,” Davis said. Then he decided to do it after scoring a touchdown. He remembers defensive back Kahlef Hailassie doing it, too. Before long, the entire team used it as its signature celebration.
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Daewood Davis hits Zombieland celebration after hauling in 44-yard TD for Western Kentucky vs. Indiana
Daewood Davis hauls in 44-yard TD for Western Kentucky vs. Indiana
Now it needed a name. The players came up with “Zombieland” because zombies are unstoppable and hard to kill. Davis proudly proclaimed he was the first player to do the celebration on national television, when he did it following a touchdown catch against Indiana in 2022.
Soon, the Hilltoppers started attaching different meanings to Zombieland, including a jab at their opponents for well, stinking like a zombie. Davis said they tried hard to make the celebration go viral in 2022 but had no luck. The first time he saw Ward do it, he was so shocked, he turned to his wife and said, “He’s doing our celebration!”
“I didn’t even know how he knew about it,” Davis said. “I forgot our old OC went to Wazzu.”
Ward actually started doing it at Washington State in 2023, as he promised Arbuckle he would. The first time he did it in a game was against Oregon State last September. Ward threw a 63-yard touchdown pass to Kyle Williams on the second play of the game.
“Cam got hit when he threw it, but he stayed on his feet. So he drifted over to the far sideline and he gave [then-Oregon State coach] Jonathan Smith the Zombieland right in his face,” Arbuckle said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my god.'”
Ward knew he would continue doing the celebration once he transferred to Miami. “I didn’t invent it, but I’m going to blow it up. The whole country is doing it now.”
Earlier this season, Washington State faced San José State and former Wazzu quarterback Emmett Brown. “He threw like four touchdowns and he hit the celebration every single time,” Arbuckle said. “I was like, ‘Oh, we’re getting Zombied right now.'”
Davis was watching when Deebo Samuel and the San Francisco 49ers hit the celebration a few weeks ago against Seattle, and he made sure to let the world know on social media where it all began.
“It’s surreal,” Davis said. “To see NFL players hitting it, Cam hitting it, there’s some other college players hitting it, man, it’s like we really set a trend. We left our piece of us in football. When I see someone do it, I can be like, ‘That’s me right there.'” — Andrea Adelson
Could Alabama-Tennessee be an elimination game from the playoff?
This version of the Third Saturday in October sets up as much more than just one of the SEC’s most storied rivalries, a rivalry that has been dominated by Alabama over the past two decades. The Crimson Tide have won 16 of the past 17 games in the series and reeled off 15 in a row until Tennessee won a 52-49 thriller the last time Alabama ventured to Neyland Stadium in 2022.
As we move into the second half of the college football season, the stakes get higher in terms of the playoff. The loser Saturday might not necessarily be out of the playoff picture, but it will find itself very much on the fringes. Alabama and Tennessee are both 5-1 and 2-1 in the conference, and both teams still face tough tests on the road. Alabama travels to LSU on Nov. 9, and Tennessee travels to Georgia on Nov. 16. Another way to look at it is that both teams would still have chances for marquee victories even if they were to lose this weekend. Either way, a three-loss team making the playoff in the first year of the 12-team format seems unlikely.
In a lot of ways, Alabama and Tennessee mirror each other this season. They both lost to unranked teams on the road, the Tide to Vanderbilt and the Vols to Arkansas. Alabama’s defense is trying to shore up the holes after allowing 90 points in its past 10 quarters. Tennessee’s offense is trying to find some pop after failing to score more than two touchdowns in regulation in each of its past three games. If that’s not enough, the two coaches — Alabama’s Kalen DeBoer and Tennessee’s Josh Heupel — are both from South Dakota.
This will be DeBoer’s first taste of the rivalry after replacing Nick Saban this season. Both fan bases came into this season fully expecting to be in the playoff. It won’t be an enjoyable offseason at either locale if the season ends without a playoff appearance. But for DeBoer to miss the postseason in Year 1 after Alabama has played in either the BCS title game or the playoff in 10 of the previous 13 years would send Tide fans into a frenzy, especially if two of the losses were (gasp) to Tennessee and Vanderbilt. — Chris Low
Five surprises from teams as we approach the midseason point
1. Vanderbilt 40, No. 1 Alabama 35
We have a long way to go in this 2024 season, but this game going down as Upset of the Year seems like a lock. Vanderbilt engineered one of the greatest upsets in SEC history on Oct. 5, stunning the top-ranked Crimson Tide one week after they’d taken down Georgia. Diego Pavia‘s squad made this game thrilling to watch from start to finish, achieved the program’s first win over Bama in 40 years and got to watch Vandy fans carry a goalpost all the way down Broadway to the Cumberland River.
2. Jeanty’s dominance
Boise State‘s Ashton Jeanty was really good last season, so his emergence as the best running back in college football isn’t totally surprising. But 1,248 rushing yards and 18 total touchdowns through six games? Legitimately challenging Barry Sanders’ single-season rushing record? Heisman Trophy front-runner? It has been a wonderful surprise to watch the Broncos back become one of the biggest stars in the sport.
3. The rise of Indiana
Curt Cignetti called his shot back in December: “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.” Indiana’s new head coach has done nothing but win since he arrived in Bloomington, and he’s making it look easy. He inherited a 3-9 team, flipped the roster with a ton of transfers and has rolled to a 6-0 start, climbing to No. 16 in the AP poll. He’s not the only first-year head coach who’s thriving at midseason. Texas A&M, Syracuse, Duke and UL Monroe all deserve praise as well for achieving 5-1 starts with new coaching staffs.
4. The fall of Florida State
It’s still hard to fathom that Florida State, just 10 months removed from nearly reaching the College Football Playoff, is 1-5 with little hope of becoming bowl eligible. The preseason No. 10-ranked Seminoles needed to replace 10 NFL draft picks but looked ready to reload and remain a contender in the ACC. Instead, it has been a brutal season in every way. Eight more teams from the preseason AP Top 25 are currently unranked: Utah (No. 12), Oklahoma (16), Oklahoma State (17), Arizona (21), Kansas (22), USC (23), NC State (24) and Iowa (25).
5. Unexpected QB struggles
Florida State going with DJ Uiagalelei as its new QB1 obviously did not work out, but he’s far from the only big-name quarterback who has had a tough season so far. Michigan has tried using three different QBs. Oklahoma benched former five-star recruit Jackson Arnold after four starts. UCF‘s KJ Jefferson and SMU‘s Preston Stone lost their starting jobs as well. Utah’s Cameron Rising, Florida‘s Graham Mertz, Wisconsin‘s Tyler Van Dyke and North Carolina‘s Max Johnson were all lost to season-ending injuries. Arizona’s Noah Fifita and Kansas’ Jalon Daniels have thrown more interceptions than touchdowns. At this point, the teams that haven’t gone through some hard times with their quarterback this season should feel fortunate. — Max Olson
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