‘Absolutely botched’: How the Red Sox-Devers breakup got so messy
AWAITING TAKEOFF ON the Boston Red Sox‘s charter flight early Sunday evening, Rafael Devers sat with his teammates playing cards. The trip to Seattle would take a little more than six hours, and games were a reliable way to pass the time, a carefree bonding exercise for a team coming off a sweep of the rival New York Yankees. This was going to be a good flight.
Before the Boeing 757 lifted off, Red Sox manager Alex Cora approached Devers with a solemn look on his face. He had news, and there was no easy way to say it: Devers had just been traded to the San Francisco Giants. Devers was gobsmacked. He gathered his thoughts and belongings, said goodbye to his teammates, strolled off the plane and into a cab, and rode off to the next phase of his life.
For months, the tension between Devers and the team had simmered. What started in spring training as a repairable mismanagement of Devers’ future — and his ego — by the Red Sox degraded into something far too familiar for the organization. Devers, according to a person familiar with his thinking, felt “lied to and betrayed” by the Red Sox. Cora, long one of Devers’ chief supporters and advocates, supported his expulsion. Craig Breslow, the Red Sox’s chief baseball officer whom Devers publicly badmouthed amid the hostility, played hatchet man. Red Sox ownership, which at first wanted to mend the relationship between the parties knowing that two years earlier it had guaranteed him $313.5 million to play a central role in a forthcoming resurgence, lost faith and greenlit the deal. And just like that, the last remaining member of Boston’s 2018 championship team, the kid who had signed with the team as a fresh-faced 16-year-old and a dozen years later had grown into a three-time All-Star and one of the best bats in the major leagues, was gone. The simmer had boiled over.
Devers wasn’t the only one blindsided. When the news broke, Red Sox fans did not believe it. They did not want to believe it. It was happening. Again. The package heading to Boston — left-handed starter Kyle Harrison, outfield prospect James Tibbs III, hard-throwing reliever Jordan Hicks and young pitcher Jose Bello — felt light for a player with the track record and productivity of Devers. It felt all too similar to the underwhelming return of the trade five years ago that sent future Hall of Famer Mookie Betts from the Red Sox to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Eighty-six years of failure leading up to their 2004 World Series win had calloused Red Sox fans and the organization alike. Even as the team became the most successful in the sport, with four titles in a 15-year span, dysfunction was never far from the surface. While winning those rings, the team suffered a historic collapse in 2011, last-place finishes in 2012, 2014 and 2015 — complete with made-for-tabloids drama about chicken and beer in the clubhouse — and the disastrous Betts trade. The one constant was an ugliness that personified the exits of some of the most prominent pieces of the Red Sox’s success.
Theo Epstein, a lifelong Bostonian and the architect of the curse-breaking 2004 team, grew so tired of his clashes with ownership that he quit on Halloween a year after his triumph and exited Fenway Park in a gorilla suit. He returned, only to later abscond for the Chicago Cubs. Terry Francona, the manager for the championships in 2004 and 2007, left alongside Epstein in 2011, was smeared anonymously for his usage of pain pills — he denied the allegations — and went on to win four division titles and go 921-757 in 11 years with Cleveland. Players were not spared the drama, either. Ace Jon Lester wanted to re-sign with the Red Sox, only to get lowballed; he followed Epstein to Chicago. Betts preferred to remain in Boston, but not at a discount — and the Red Sox shipped him out. Manny Ramirez offered perhaps the best description of life with the Red Sox a day before they traded him to the Dodgers in 2008, telling ESPN Deportes: “Mental peace has no price, and I don’t have peace here.”
The Red Sox have everything an organization could want — a rabid fan base, a gorgeous stadium, a successful television network, a history that dates to the turn of the 20th century — and still find themselves regularly salving self-inflicted wounds. Chaos is every bit as much the Red Sox’s brand as the Green Monster. The current iteration comes not from the detritus of a long-standing lack of success but an operating philosophy that better resembles plucky mid- and small-market teams than a financial leviathan. The Red Sox are big-market baseball in a funhouse mirror, a distorted reflection of what could be — and should be.
Breslow is not naïve to the chaos. He grew up in New England and spent five seasons pitching for Boston. Epstein hired Breslow in 2019 with the Cubs and entrusted in him the organization’s pitching program. The Red Sox poached him to replace Chaim Bloom in October 2023 with a specific mandate: Whatever it takes, remake the Red Sox to rekindle the early-century glory days. That’s even when it means trading the team’s best player.
RAFAEL DEVERS GREW up a Boston Red Sox fan in Samana, Dominican Republic. The Red Sox were the unofficial team of the small Caribbean island that had grown into the most fertile hotbed of talent in the world. The team’s biggest stars — David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez — were Dominican. Devers turned 8 three days before the 2004 championship. Nine years later, when the Red Sox were barreling toward their third title in a decade, he signed with them for $1.5 million.
At 20, Devers arrived in Boston as a hitting savant, his left-handed swing loaded with power, and stabilized a third-base position that had been a revolving door. In his first full year, Devers shook off an inconsistent regular season to drive in nine runs over 11 postseason games, capping a 108-win campaign widely regarded as the best in the team’s century-plus history.
After carrying the highest payroll in MLB in 2018 and 2019, owner John Henry tightened the purse strings. And when Betts was shipped out in 2020 and longtime shortstop Xander Bogaerts followed him west to sign as a free agent with San Diego for $280 million — $100 million-plus more than Boston’s final offer — the restlessness of Red Sox fans hit overdrive. Save for a surprising run to the American League Championship Series in 2021, mediocrity had become a Red Sox norm. The days of Papi and Manny and Pedro were nearly two decades in the rearview. Devers was their lone homegrown every-day player.
He represented an opportunity for the Red Sox to illustrate they remained dedicated to the now as much as the future. Making moves to mollify restless fans is a hallmark of bad organizations, but with declining viewership on NESN and empty seats at Fenway, ownership pushed to lock up Devers long-term. Multiple high-ranking officials in the baseball operations department opposed the idea. They were overruled. In January 2023, Devers agreed to a 10-year, $313.5 million contract extension that would begin in 2024.
It was the largest commitment in franchise history. Executives around the game questioned the wisdom of the deal. Yes, Devers had grown into a consistently excellent hitter — from 2019 to ’22, his OPS+ ranked 25th among the 247 hitters with at least 1,000 plate appearances. And, sure, in a market like Boston, where fandom is religion, placating the masses matters. But the questions, in their minds, outweighed those factors. How soon would Devers need to move off third base, where he was a below-average defender? How would his body, always squatty, age? How often did long-term contracts for one-dimensional players work out? Just because it was a deal that needed to happen didn’t make it a good one.
No signs of discord or regret surfaced until February. Boston’s recent aborted attempts at contending — team chairman Tom Werner famously said the Red Sox intended to go “full throttle” into free agency after the 2023 season, only for them to spend $50 million total and go 81-81 — had failed, but this year was going to be different. Amid all the losing, Bloom had drafted and developed a cadre of position-playing prospects. Breslow traded three, plus a hard-throwing right-hander, for ace Garrett Crochet in December. He signed World Series standout Walker Buehler to join Crochet in an overhauled rotation and veteran closer Aroldis Chapman to shore up the back end of the bullpen. And despite the presence of Devers, Boston found itself in the mix for third baseman Alex Bregman, whose free agency had lingered to the cusp of spring training.
When the prospect of Bregman going to Boston surfaced, Breslow assured Devers’ camp that nothing serious was afoot — and that if it were, he would let Devers know. Cora wanted to meet with Devers in the Dominican Republic during the offseason, but Devers did not respond to messages, which was not entirely surprising — he typically goes off the grid upon his winter retreat to Samana — but disappointed some in the organization. Though the Red Sox were simultaneously pursuing Bregman and St. Louis Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado, there wasn’t enough confidence in a deal being consummated with either to flag Devers.
Then Boston made its final offer to Bregman as negotiations with other teams wound down: three years, $120 million, with opt-outs after the first two seasons. Within an hour, Bregman accepted. Devers found out when the news broke. He was not panicked — Red Sox officials said privately they planned on using Bregman at second base — but the move registered as curious nevertheless.
When Devers showed up at spring training, the team broached the idea of him shifting to designated hitter. Their computer model said the best version of the 2025 Red Sox would feature reigning Minor League Player of the Year Kristian Campbell at second base, Bregman at third and Devers at DH. Devers was livid. A player’s position is part of his identity. He was a third baseman. Beyond that, though, was a breach in the trust implicit in a contract of Devers’ magnitude.
At the very least, if the Red Sox were intent on him moving positions, he wanted to ease into the new role. Play a couple times a week at third base and take the rest of his at-bats as DH. No, he was told. This was what was best for the team.
The front office’s tack reinforced the feeling in the clubhouse that the organization’s reliance on analytics for decision-making had come at the expense of productive interpersonal communication. At the same time, players acknowledged that Devers DHing probably would allow them to field their best lineup. After initially saying he wouldn’t DH, Devers wound up relenting. After Cora told him to not even bother bringing a glove to the spring training fields, he was comfortable that at least he could focus only on hitting.
Everything changed on May 2. First baseman Triston Casas suffered a season-ending knee injury. The internal options were limited. Breslow approached Devers about moving to first. Devers couldn’t believe it. He had already changed positions against his will once. Now the Red Sox were asking him to do it again. The disrespect galled him.
The team didn’t believe the ask was too much. They hadn’t asked him to be a clubhouse leader, a role for which he wasn’t particularly well-suited. They didn’t belabor his fitness or weakness in the field. This is what the money was for: to play where the team needed him to play and keep raking like one of the best hitters in the world.
He was holding up the latter part of that ask. Amid all of the consternation, Devers was evolving into perhaps the best version of himself yet. In the 73 games he played with Boston this season, he walked 56 times — just 11 short of his career best. He was still hitting for power and neared the top of the big league leaderboard for runs batted in. For a team trying to integrate Campbell as well as rookies Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer, Devers was a rock in the No. 2 hole. Teams in transitional phases like the Red Sox need players on whom they can rely, and Devers’ bat was nothing if not reliable.
His refusal to play first, though, coalesced ownership, the front office and the coaching staff. If they were going to build the sort of winning culture that permeated the organization throughout the 2000s and 2010s, what sort of message did it send that the team’s best player refused to do what they felt was best for the team? After Devers told the media he would not play first, Henry, Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy and Breslow flew to Kansas City, where Boston was playing, to speak with Devers. He met again with Henry for breakfast the next day, according to a source. Devers indicated he would prepare to play the position in 2026 if the team wanted to move him there full-time. While publicly the Red Sox deemed the meetings productive, they knew what was happening next.
Rafael Devers was getting traded, public consequences be damned.
EARLY IN BRESLOW’S tenure as chief baseball officer, he hired a consulting firm called Sportsology Group to assess Boston’s baseball operations department. The wide-ranging evaluation was something out of “Office Space,” an attempt to cut the fat accumulated while Boston cycled through heads of baseball ops. Ben Cherington took over from Epstein in 2011 and won a World Series in 2013. Two years later, the Red Sox hired Dave Dombrowski over him. Ten months after Dombrowski won a World Series, he was fired and replaced by Bloom, who lasted four years.
Any objective assessment would note that perhaps the problems originated with organizational instability — that the Red Sox had grown bloated, in part at least, because they so often made changes. Regardless of how it came to be, the recommendations included the elimination of jobs across multiple departments. Around 50 people were fired last year, sources said. The professional scouting department was gutted. Some of the positions wound up being filled, but it was clear to those who stayed and went: This was Breslow’s team, and now he would remake it in his own image.
Since the cuts, Breslow’s circle of trust has been small and his reliance on the team’s analytical model heavy, according to sources, leaving some longtime employees embittered. Breslow loyalists fear the consequences of that, with one saying: “There are definitely turncoats internally plotting against Bres.”
The Devers trade only heightened the palace intrigue. Front office officials from other teams mostly lauded the deal for Boston, looking at San Francisco’s willingness to take on the remaining $254 million over the next eight-plus seasons as a win for the Red Sox. But models exist to strip the emotion out of decision-making and use decades of history — and dozens of other inputs about players’ skills gleaned from the cameras that track their every move — to objectively analyze. There is no accounting for a fan base’s adoration of a player.
“Boston absolutely botched this entire Devers situation,” one rival official said, “and somehow it all resulted in them getting to dump what was both an underwater contract and a distraction while also getting a bunch of value back in return.
“It was like, ‘Oops, we overpaid for a decade of our bat-only star, pissed him off publicly, then continued to bungle every subsequent opportunity to get things right. Why don’t you give us a controllable midrotation starter and your first-round pick from last year and help us get out of it?’ “
At the same time, a rival general manager said, “These are the Boston f—ing Red Sox. You don’t trade your stars.”
It’s a fair point. The Red Sox’s competitive-balance-tax payroll topped out in 2019 at $243.7 million. Each of the past two years, they ran a CBT payroll that ranked 12th in the big leagues. The Devers trade puts them comfortably under the CBT threshold. Perhaps they reallocate the money at the trade deadline. Perhaps they don’t.
That the reinvestment is even a question is what really gnaws at Boston fans: They see with abundant clarity that the Red Sox did not learn their lesson from the failed Betts trade. In a market like Boston, financial flexibility is a red herring, playing for the future a false prophet. When the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets and New York Yankees and, yes, even the San Francisco Giants balance today and tomorrow, it has to be about now and the future. The plight of the large-market team in an uncapped sport is that it has zero excuses not to act like one.
Breslow’s investment in his process is wholesale; he believes, regardless of the opinion of outsiders or adversaries within, that he is the right person with the right plan to turn the Red Sox into champions again. He knows that the return for a player with more than a quarter-billion dollars owed will not add up to the quality of the player independent his contract — that the savings are regarded an asset every bit as important as Harrison or Tibbs.
The Miami Marlins made the same compromise when they shipped Giancarlo Stanton and the remaining $290 million on his deal to the Yankees for a pittance of talent — but what Breslow doesn’t understand is that this scenario likens one of the proud franchises in baseball to a bottom-feeder. An organization with Boston’s financial might should be the one acquiring superstars others can’t afford, and waving away that advantage is the truest waste of all, one that opens up the organization to criticism that no amount of championships over the past quarter-century can rid.
That’s why the Devers deal has unleashed such a poisonous recourse. With Boston fans frothing to consume any nugget that reinforces their belief in Breslow’s incompetence, the discussion around the Devers deal has devolved into falsehoods taking root. There are small ones, like Devers being mad at Campbell for volunteering to play first base — he wasn’t mad, multiple sources said — and bigger ones like the report claiming that a person who interviewed with the Red Sox for a baseball operations job went through five rounds of AI-only questions.
The team was concerned enough to release a statement Wednesday night shooting down the report, and three sources familiar with the team’s hiring practices said they use a company called HireVue, which uses AI to ask questions and record video, to screen prospective employees early in the hiring process. Other organizations around baseball use the same software.
Even so, the acknowledgment that it could be true speaks to the state of the Red Sox. The day after the trade, when Breslow and Kennedy held media availability, they acknowledged the flaws in their process — particularly Breslow needing to better communicate with players.
The handling of Devers was an easily avoidable mistake that devolved into a franchise-altering decision. Knowing your personnel is paramount, and whether it’s an unwillingness to meet Betts where he was or dealing Chris Sale to Atlanta only to see him win the National League Cy Young Award last year or moving Devers because of what comes down to a lack of communication, it screams for a self-audit.
Earlier this year, Carl Moesche, a Red Sox area scout in the Pacific Northwest, was logging off a Zoom and said, “Thanks, Bres, you f—ing stiff.” The comment was heard by those in the virtual room. Moesche was fired. His words were catnip to those aggrieved by the Devers trade. And if a low-level employee’s gripe can turn into a rallying cry for paying customers, it might be time for an attempt to eliminate chaos from the franchise’s playbook.
RAFAEL DEVERS IS going to play first base for the San Francisco Giants. Maybe not this weekend, when the Red Sox come to town, but it will happen soon. And as much as those in the anti-Devers camp point to the double standard, one person close to him said there’s another takeaway to glean.
“Sometimes it’s not the message,” he said. “It’s how the message is delivered.”
The message from the Giants was clear: We’re thrilled you’re here, and we see the importance of transparency. Buster Posey, the future Hall of Famer who took over Giants baseball operations over the winter, and manager Bob Melvin walked Devers through the state of the franchise. With Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman signed for six more years, the Giants see Devers as a first baseman and DH. San Francisco’s best prospect, Bryce Eldridge — whom the Red Sox initially targeted in discussions with the Giants before recognizing that the Giants would not budge from their position that he would not be in any Devers deal — plays first and is expected to debut in the major leagues this season. When that time comes, Devers will know.
Which is all he really wanted in the first place. The original sin of opacity spiraled into a mess of the Red Sox’s own making. Devers didn’t exactly acquit himself well, but the onus is on the franchise to create an environment in which players gravitate toward selflessness. Breslow and Kennedy said the lack of “alignment” between the organization and Devers — they used the word a combined 14 times in Wednesday’s news conference — left them with no choice but to trade him. They spoke of building a championship culture. But no player determines that culture single-handedly: It starts with ownership, filters down through management and manifests itself through players bought into ideals and values.
There is no clearer reminder than Devers’ willingness to play first base in San Francisco. The Giants did not care that Devers’ deal might not age well. After being spurned by Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani in free agency, they needed a middle-of-the-order bat to win now and gladly went underwater to capture it. Modern organizations are not defined by their models as much as their risk-reward matrices.
Assessing the trade on returns in 2025 alone is short-sighted, although it illustrates the push and pull between now and future. The Red Sox’s future remains bright, and in other regards they’ve made savvy decisions. In Crochet, they targeted a front-line starter, gave up tremendous prospect value and signed him to an over-market extension. In Carlos Narváez, Breslow acquired the Red Sox’s catcher of the present and future — from the Yankees no less — for Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz, a soon-to-be-22-year-old right-hander in High-A. While the eight-year, $60 million contract for Campbell has not paid dividends — he was optioned to Triple-A on Thursday after struggling for the past six weeks — evaluators remain bullish that he’ll mature into a middle-of-the-order force.
Until then, though, his demotion just adds a layer to the Devers story. If not for Boston’s belief in Campbell’s ability to succeed at the big league level in 2025, Bregman could have manned second base, Devers third — and he would still be wearing a Red Sox uniform instead of chatting up Barry Bonds behind the Giants’ batting cage. That image stuck in the craw of those pained by the trade. If Devers is going to talk shop with a legend, it should be David Ortiz.
But it isn’t. Ortiz lamented the trade — and Devers’ role in it — as much because Devers could have been, should have been, just like him: a Red Sox hero. Instead, he is a San Francisco Giant, ready to stand in against his former teammates, waggle his bat and do what too many have had to: find his peace somewhere other than Boston.
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Dan Murphy
The University of Wisconsin filed a lawsuit Friday claiming Miami’s football team broke the law by tampering with a Badgers player, a first-of-its-kind legal attempt to enforce the terms of a financial contract between a football player and his school.
The lawsuit refers to the athlete in question as “Student Athlete A,” but details from the complaint line up with the offseason transfer of freshman defensive back Xavier Lucas. Lucas left Wisconsin and enrolled at Miami in January after saying the Badgers staff refused to enter his name in the transfer portal last December.
In the complaint filed Friday, Wisconsin claims that a Miami staff member and a prominent alumnus met with Lucas and his family at a relative’s home in Florida and offered him money to transfer shortly after Lucas signed a two-year contract last December. The lawsuit states that Miami committed tortious interference by knowingly compelling a player to break the terms of his deal with the Badgers.
“While we reluctantly bring this case, we stand by our position that respecting and enforcing contractual obligations is essential to maintaining a level playing field,” the school said in a statement provided to ESPN on Friday.
According to the complaint, Wisconsin decided to file suit in hopes that “during this watershed time for college athletics, this case will advance the overall integrity of the game by holding programs legally accountable when they wrongfully interfere with contractual commitments.”
Representatives from the University of Miami did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pending case promises to be an interesting test of whether schools can use name, image and likeness (NIL) deals to keep athletes from transferring even though the players aren’t technically employees. Starting July 1, schools will begin paying their athletes directly via NIL deals.
The contracts between Wisconsin and their athletes give the school the nonexclusive rights to use a player’s NIL in promotions. Part of the deal, according to the lawsuit, prohibits an athlete from making any commitments to enroll or play sports at other schools. The lawsuit says Wisconsin had a reasonable expectation that Lucas would “continue to participate as a member of its football program” until the deal ended.
However, according to several contracts between Big Ten schools and their players that ESPN has previously reviewed, these deals explicitly state that athletes are not being paid to play football for the university. Since the school is technically paying only to use the player’s NIL rights, it’s not clear if a judge will consider it fair to enforce a part of the contract that dictates where the player attends school.
The Big Ten said in a statement Friday that it supports Wisconsin’s decision to file the lawsuit and that Miami’s alleged actions “are irreconcilable with a sustainable college sports framework.”
Darren Heitner, a Florida-based attorney who represents Xavier Lucas, told ESPN that Wisconsin did not file any legal claims against Lucas and declined to comment further.
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Eli Lederman
Four-star quarterback Bowe Bentley, No. 261 in the 2026 ESPN 300, announced his commitment to Oklahoma over LSU on Friday, landing with the Sooners less than 24 hours after longtime quarterback pledge Jaden O’Neal pulled his commitment from the program Thursday night.
Bentley, a 6-foot-1, 205-pound prospect from Celina, Texas, is ESPN’s No. 6 dual-threat passer in 2026. His recruitment skyrocketed earlier this year after Bentley broke out for 4,263 all-purpose yards and 63 total touchdowns last fall while leading Celina High School to a Class 4A Texas state title in his junior season. Bentley, who took official visits to Oklahoma and LSU earlier this month, told ESPN this week that the offensive vision of first-year Sooners offensive coordinator Ben Arbuckle was among his primary draws to the program.
“Going into depth on the offense with Arbuckle was huge,” Bentley said. “It’s not just what he’s done this spring, but what Coach Arbuckle has done at Washington State and Western Kentucky. I got a strong understanding of where he got this offense from and how he approaches calling it.”
For Oklahoma, Bentley’s commitment marks the close of a drawn out recruiting process that began after the Sooners shifted their 2026 quarterback plan after Arbuckle arrived from Washington State in December in the wake of the Sooners’ disastrous SEC debut last fall.
O’Neal, ESPN’s No. 7 pocket passer, had spent nearly 12 months as the top prospect in the program’s incoming class prior to his decommitment. A frequent visitor on campus over the past year, he relocated from Southern California to Oklahoma’s Mustang High School this spring, where O’Neal will play his senior season roughly 30 miles north of the Sooners’ team facility.
But multiple sources tell ESPN that the relationship between O’Neal and Oklahoma became strained in the early months of 2025 after the Sooners shifted their focus to landing a 2026 quarterback with a similar skill set to John Mateer, the dual-threat transfer who followed Arbuckle to Oklahoma after exploding for 44 touchdowns last fall.
Bentley — who threw for 3,330 yards and rushed for another 933 yards in 2024 — fits that mold, and the Sooners made the fast-rising prospect a top priority this spring before ultimately landing his pledge Friday.
Bentley joins four-star wide receiver Daniel Odom (No. 242 overall) as one of two ESPN 300 prospects in the 2026 class. Behind Mateer, who will be eligible for the NFL draft after the 2025 season, Oklahoma’s current quarterback depth includes second-year passer Michael Hawkins Jr. and three-star 2025 signee Jett Niu.
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Bill Connelly
In their first year as actual conference rivals, Army and Navy joined forces to steal everyone’s thunder.
Heading into the 2024 season, the sports books had Army and Navy projected to win about 12 combined games. SP+ said 11.6. Both programs had slipped in recent years; blocking rule changes targeted the type of cut-blocking common with service-academy option attacks, and the liberalization of transfer rules opened up a new way for all non-service academies to supplement their rosters. Army had gone just 12-12 in 2022-23, while Navy had gone 16-30 from 2020-23.
This time last year, you could pretty easily paint a picture of college football leaving both programs behind. It’s a lot harder to do that now. Navy raced past AAC favorite (and CFP contender) Memphis, 56-44, in an early-season track meet on the way to a 6-0 start, and Army beat its first nine opponents by an average of 35-10. Both teams stumbled midseason when their QBs began hobbling around, but both rallied — Army blew out Tulane, 35-14, in its first ever AAC championship game, then Navy beat Army the next week. Not including the game against each other, the teams went 0-2 against national finalist Notre Dame and 21-2 against everyone else.
The success of the academies overshadowed all other stories in the AAC. Memphis and Tulane still won a combined 20 games, with each continuing to produce a level of depth and athleticism increasingly rare in the Group of 5. UTSA, ECU and USF all overcame slow starts — and, in ECU’s case, a coach firing — to finish strong. The conference’s lower-rung programs were awfully bad, but the AAC had enough depth to finish with the best SP+ average in the G5. It’s projected to do the same this season.
Will the AAC produce more surprise surges in 2025? And if so, who? Will the champ threaten to nab the G5’s playoff autobid from Boise State? And of the many new first-year coaches among last year’s lesser teams, who figures things out the fastest? Let’s preview the AAC!
Every week through the summer, Bill Connelly will preview another FBS conference, ultimately including all 136 FBS teams. The previews will include 2024 breakdowns, 2025 previews and team-by-team capsules. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West and Sun Belt previews.
2024 recap
In last year’s AAC preview, the projected order of finish at the top was Memphis-UTSA-Tulane-USF-ECU. Take out Army and Navy, and that was a pretty good read on things. Projecting Tulsa, Charlotte and Temple at the bottom was about right, too. But the academies threw off the balance of power. Now we get to find out if they can do so again.
Continuity table
The continuity table looks at each team’s returning production levels (offense, defense and overall), the number of 2024 FBS starts from both returning and incoming players — in some cases, including players who started games in 2023 but missed last season with injury — and the approximate number of redshirt freshmen on the roster heading into 2025. (Why “approximate”? Because schools sometimes make it very difficult to ascertain who redshirted and who didn’t.) Continuity is an increasingly difficult art in roster management, but some teams pull it off better than others.
The projections below are delightfully messy, and the continuity table gives us a pretty good sense regarding why. The defending champion, Army, is replacing its starting quarterback and plenty of others, and of course the Black Knights aren’t taking advantage of either the transfer portal or redshirts. Meanwhile, the best team per SP+, Memphis, lost almost its entire starting lineup, but it brought in a lineup’s worth of starters from other FBS schools. These resets open a door, and between Navy, Tulane and two of the “got hot late in the year” teams mentioned above (USF and UTSA), someone interesting and experienced could walk through it.
2025 projections
Tulane starts out in front with the best combination of 2024 quality and 2025 continuity. But four other teams are within 4.3 points in the SP+ projections, and USF isn’t particularly far off the pace either. That’s nearly half the conference with a semi-realistic path to the top of the standings. What more can we ask for from a title race?
Five teams with between an 11.7% and 16.6% shot at the title, plus three more between 5.8% and 7.7%. Ladies and gentlemen, the Big 12 of the Group of 5.
Five best games of 2025
Here are the five conference games that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under 10 points.
Army at Tulane (Oct. 18). At first glance, the AAC schedule is as balanced as the conference — of the 10 spots available in these five games, Tulane occupies three (including two on the road), while Army, Memphis and UTSA each occupy two and Navy occupies one. I wish we could have squeezed a USF game in here, too, but this is a pretty good list. And the first of the five big games is a 2024 AAC Championship rematch.
Tulane at UTSA (Oct. 30). This is one of the bigger Thursday night games on college football’s 2025 docket. Both Tulane and UTSA are projected favorites in all but one game before this one — UTSA is a Week 1 underdog against Texas A&M, while Tulane is a Week 4 underdog against Ole Miss — and the winner could head into November as the AAC co-favorite at worst.
Tulane at Memphis (Nov. 7). In a nine-day span, Tulane faces the top two projected AAC favorites not named Tulane. Both are on the road, too. That’s pretty rough.
Navy at Memphis (Nov. 27) and Army at UTSA (Nov. 28). Thanksgiving weekend gives us a pair of contests that could serve as either elimination games or previews of the AAC Championship. And it’s pretty noticeable that both of Memphis’ and UTSA’s games on this list are at home, while two of Tulane’s and both of Army’s are at home.
Conference title (and, therefore, CFP) contenders
Head coach: Jon Sumrall (second year, 9-5 overall)
2025 projection: 48th in SP+, 8.0 average wins (6.0 in the AAC)
When we casually talk about the sturdiest G5 programs in the country, we’re likely to start with Boise State, Memphis and Tulane. The Green Wave are an assumed power at this point. That’s pretty incredible considering that, as recently as 2021, the Green Wave were going 2-10. In the 23 seasons between 1999 and 2021, they averaged 4.2 wins per year, but over the past three seasons they’ve won 32 games with a roster that so clearly looks like something from a power conference that it’s erased a quarter-century’s worth of pass impressions. They even had enough depth and firepower to survive a coaching change (from Willie Fritz to Jon Sumrall in 2023) with minimal damage.
In a way, this sudden cachet has backfired. When power programs trust what you’re producing nowadays, they have no problem raiding your roster. Tulane lost eight starters to power-conference programs: quarterback Darian Mensah (Duke), running back Makhi Hughes (Oregon), tight end Alex Bauman (Miami), OLB Matthew Fobbs-White (Baylor), ILB Jesus Machado (Houston), cornerback Rayshawn Pleasant (Auburn) and even kicker Ethan Head (West Virginia) and punter Will Karoll (UCLA). Hell, even three backups — quarterback Kai Horton (Washington) and DTs Adonis Friloux (Baylor) and Parker Petersen (Wisconsin) — moved up the conference ladder.
This is a talent drain successful G5 programs are quickly having to get used to, but Tulane did what you have to do: strike back. Sumrall used Tulane’s brand name to land 20 transfers who started at least once for FBS teams last year. Among the most important were quarterbacks Kadin Semonza (Ball State) and Brendan Sullivan (Iowa), running back Zuberi Mobley (FAU), slot receiver Omari Hayes (FAU), All-Sun Belt center Jack Hollifield (Appalachian State), defensive tackle Derrick Shepard Jr. (UAB), edge rushers Santana Hopper (App State), Maurice Westmoreland (UTEP) and Jordan Norman (South Alabama) and cornerback LJ Green (Troy). He’s basically compiled a mid-major all-star team, and he grabbed a trio of smaller-school stars for the secondary, too: Corners Isaiah Wadsworth (Wofford) and KC Eziomume (Albany) and safety Tavare Smith Jr. (East Central) combined for six INTs and 25 pass breakups last season.
Combine this haul with talented returnees like blue-chip quarterback-turned-tight end Ty Thompson, all-conference offensive linemen Derrick Graham and Shadre Hurst, defensive tackle Kameron Hamilton, linebacker Sam Howard and safeties Bailey Despanie and Jack Tchienchou, and you clearly have one of the most talented rosters in the AAC. The quick-passing Semonza and dual-threat Sullivan both probably represent downgrades from Mensah, and such a massive amount of change will always introduce the possibility of a failed chemistry experiment. But between Sumrall’s recent prowess as a head coach (he won back-to-back Sun Belt titles at Troy before landing in New Orleans), Tulane’s recent prowess as a program and the sheer depth the Green Wave seem to have in the trenches, they are still one of the conference’s safer bets.
Head coach: Ryan Silverfield (sixth year, 42-21 overall)
2025 projection: 53rd in SP+, 8.7 average wins (5.9 in the AAC)
You could say that Memphis is the Ole Miss of the AAC. Like the Rebels, the Tigers peaked in the 1960s, faded into obscurity for most of three decades, perked up in the early-2000s, then bottomed out a few years later. Both rallied to respectability in the 2010s, however, and in 2024 both attempted to pounce on newfound opportunities, loading up in the portal and holding onto stars in the hopes of snagging a CFP bid.
Like Ole Miss, Memphis fielded a mostly dynamite product, but fell short of its goals. The offense finished in the SP+ top 20 for the seventh time in 10 years, and the defense improved, but breakdowns led to track-meet losses to Navy (56-44) and UTSA (44-36), and Memphis ended up with the most disappointing 11-win season in school history. And then basically every starter left: Left tackle Chris Adams and defensive end William Whitlow Jr. are the only full-timers returning.
This doesn’t sound like the start of a 2025 success story, does it? But as with Ole Miss — and Tulane, for that matter — Memphis used its cachet to reload in the portal. The big get was quarterback Brendon Lewis, who has thrown for 5,330 yards and rushed for 2,108 (not including sacks) over parts of five seasons at Colorado and Nevada; the senior should pair well with returning running backs Greg Desrosiers Jr. and as long as a retooled offensive line (six transfers, one JUCO) holds up, the run game should be dynamite. The passing game, however, will require success from a number of less proven transfers like Jadon Thompson (Louisville), C.J. Smith (Purdue), Ger-Cari Caldwell (NC A&T) and tight end Jerry Cross (Penn State). Returning youngsters Brady Kluse and Keonde Henry have upside, too.
With its history of success, and with Lewis in tow, the offense gets the benefit of the doubt. The defense, less so. Twenty-two defenders saw at least 100 snaps last year, and only three (Whitlow, tackle Mond Cole and safety Kourtlan Marsh) are still on the roster. Not surprisingly, Ryan Silverfield tried to load up in the portal, adding five linemen, six linebackers and 10 DBs. It’s a fun mix of former star recruits looking for more playing time (Indiana tackle Marcus Burris Jr., UNC linebacker Crews Law, Michigan corner Myles Pollard, Florida State safety Omarion Cooper, Arizona State nickel Kamari Wilson), mid-major stars (WMU tackle Isaiah Green, UAB linebacker Everett Roussaw Jr., Nevada linebacker Drue Watts), JMU corner Chauncey Logan, Akron corner Joey Hunter) and smaller-school stars (Incarnate Word tackle Chase Carter, Chattanooga corner Beni Mwamba, Harding safety Jeremiah Jordan). Jordon Hankins’ first season as defensive coordinator saw an uptick in aggression and turnovers and a few too many big plays. If he can mold this new set of talent into something decent, Memphis will again contend in the AAC.
Head coach: Jeff Traylor (sixth year, 46-20 overall)
2025 projection: 63rd in SP+, 7.8 average wins (5.5 in the AAC)
Sometimes a coach’s poor timing is a school’s great timing. With his immense Texas high school ties and his immediate success at UTSA, Jeff Traylor has been linked to basically every power-conference opening (or rumored opening) in the state of Texas in the 2020s. None of the supposed moves came to fruition, however, and after winning 32 games from 2021-23, it looked like Traylor’s moment as a high-profile promotion candidate had come to an end when UTSA, with a rebuilt roster, began last season 3-5. After three straight SP+ top-60 finishes, the Roadrunners were 97th entering November.
Everything clicked late, however, and they charged back to finish 64th. The offense had begun to ignite in mid-October, the defense joined the party, and by the end of a 44-15 blowout of Coastal Carolina in the Myrtle Beach Bowl, UTSA had capped a rousing turnaround. And after rallying to 7-6, the Roadrunners enjoy some of the best continuity in the AAC.
Most of that continuity comes on offense, where Owen McCown (3,424 yards, 25 TDs) is among nine returning starters and is the No. 2 returning QB in the AAC in terms of Total QBR.
Actually, including two 2023 starting linemen who were hurt last year, the Roadrunners actually sort of return 12 starters on O.
McCown and running back Robert Henry will line up behind the league’s deepest line, one that returns four starters, plus two 2023 starters who were injured last fall (left tackle Venly Tatafu and center Luke Lapeze) and Georgia State tackle transfer Trevor Timmons. Plus, five players with at least 28 catches are back, led by big-play man Willie McCoy, tight end Houston Thomas and sure-handed slot David Amador II. This could easily be the fifth straight season that UTSA finishes with a top-40 ranking in offensive SP+.
As with Memphis, the defense has far more questions to answer. It has been UTSA’s weaker unit for four straight seasons, and of the 19 players with 200-plus snaps last year, only six return. Granted, that includes a pair of studs in defensive tackle (Brandon Brown, one of the most active and disruptive 300-pounders in the country) and nickel Owen Pewee (14 run stops and two INTs last year) and a potential breakout star in edge rusher Vic Shaw. But depth could be tenuous unless a number of transfers breaks through. There’s certainly potential in the portal haul, which includes both former blue-chippers (Baylor defensive tackle Kaian Roberts-Day, TCU outside linebacker Shad Banks Jr., Maryland safety Brandon Jacob) and smaller-school stars (Tennessee State defensive tackle Cameron Blaylock, East Texas A&M linebacker Brandon Tucker).
Few G5 teams will look more like a power-conference team than UTSA, with 340-pounders on the offensive line, 310-pounders on the defensive line, athleticism on the edges and, of course, a McCown at quarterback. After a half-season setback, Traylor appears to have crafted another deep and exciting team, and the Roadrunners are projected favorites in 10 games.
Head coach: Brian Newberry (third year, 15-10 overall)
2025 projection: 68th in SP+, 7.9 average wins (5.7 in the AAC)
With both Tulane and Memphis flipping so much of their rosters, you might lean toward UTSA as the safer bet in the AAC race. Or maybe you could just go with the team that knows how to win big when it has a star QB. From Ricky Dobbs to Keenan Reynolds to Malcolm Perry, Navy produced a run of great option quarterbacks under Ken Niumatalolo, and after stagnation to start the 2020s, Niumatalolo’s successor Brian Newberry combined a semi-modernized attack and brilliance from Blake Horvath to charge back to 10-3 last fall. Both the offense and defense produced their best SP+ rankings since the 11-win campaign of 2019, and perhaps most intriguingly, despite a lack of redshirting and threats from the portal, both units return quite a bit of last year’s production.
On offense, that of course starts with Horvath. His rushing explosiveness (1,298 non-sack yards, 7.8 yards per carry, 17 touchdowns) was reminiscent of Perry’s, and his 1,353 passing yards were the third-most for Navy since the mid-1990s. Newberry has attempted to open up the offense a bit, and under new coordinator Drew Cronic last season, the Midshipmen lined up in the shotgun 45% of the time; Perry and the 2019 offense did so only 10% of the time. Stretching defenses out evidently produced more big-play lanes for Horvath and slotback Eli Heidenreich, who combined 65 rushes with 39 catches and gained 1,115 yards from scrimmage (10.7 yards per touch) with nine TDs. They’re both back, as are primary fullback Alex Tecza and Brandon Chatman (7.7 yards per touch), another fun weapon on the edge. The line is a question mark, as Navy deployed a tight rotation of basically seven guys and four are gone. But guard Ben Purvis is all-conference caliber, and Navy’s track record up front is solid. I’m guessing it will perform as required.
Navy’s defense has been sound since Newberry’s arrival as defensive coordinator in 2019. They’ve averaged a 65.2 defensive SP+ ranking in that span, and their No. 53 ranking last fall was their best since 2015. This is a bend-don’t-break unit — they ranked 72nd in success rate last season but 22nd in yards allowed per successful play — and that can work awfully well when you rank in the top-30 in both turnovers (24, 17th nationally) and red zone touchdown rate allowed (53.5%, 29th).
There’s more turnover to deal with on defense, but the Midshipmen still return 13 of the 20 players with 100-plus snaps, including four of the six players with at least five tackles for loss (tackles Landon Robinson and Griffen Willis, linebacker Luke Pirris and nickel Jaxson Campbell). The secondary has a couple of dynamite play-makers to replace in corner Dashaun Peele and safety Rayuan Lane III, but it still has solid experience on its side.
Head coach: Jeff Monken (12th year, 82-57 overall)
2025 projection: 67th in SP+, 7.6 average wins (5.5 in the AAC)
My favorite part about the simultaneous Army-Navy surges is that, offensively, they came about in completely different ways. Navy tried to modernize its option attack a bit, while Army did the exact opposite, bailing on a renovation and going back to basics. And both approaches worked! With a slightly more experienced quarterback, Army ended up succeeding slightly more. Bryson Daily rushed for 1,677 non-sack yards and 32 touchdowns — he topped 115 yards in 11 of 13 games — and while the offense slowed as he battled a midseason injury/illness, he rushed for 126 yards and four TDs in the AAC Championship, then hit 127 yards and three scores in his final game, an Independence Bowl blowout of Louisiana Tech. Navy was able to shut Daily and the Black Knights down, but they finished the year with their best offensive SP+ rating in 28 years, and their defense finished in the top 40 for the third time in five years. Just a brilliant season all around.
If the new starting quarterback — most likely: senior Dewayne Coleman — can match Daily’s level, Army will have the pieces to contend again. But wow, is that a high bar, one that Coleman didn’t quite clear in 111 snaps last season. Regardless, the Black Knights still return a dynamic pair of slot backs in Noah Short and Hayden Reed (combined: 157 carries and catches, 1,157 yards, 7 TDs) and two all-conference linemen in center Brady Small and guard Paolo Gennarelli. Three starters are gone up front, but quite a few returnees saw 100-plus snaps, at least. The components are solid as long as the QB play is where it needs to be. We’ll see.
Nate Woody’s defense has an excellent track record, and while the Black Knights only return eight of the 18 defenders with at least 200 snaps, they’re used to turnover in a redshirt-free environment. Among the returnees are an ultra-disruptive duo in linebacker Andon Thomas and safety Casey Larkin (combined: 10 TFLs, 14 run stops, six interceptions, five breakups) and a solid corner in Justin Weaver. Up front, junior tackle Kody Harris-Miller has a hell of a motor: He made tackles on 11.7% of his snaps, more than anyone but the starting inside linebackers, and he’s 301 pounds!
Army had averaged just 2.9 wins per year and had bowled just once in the 17 seasons before Monken’s arrival. But in the past nine years, the Black Knights have averaged 8.4 wins, have hit double-digit wins three times and have finished ranked twice. They’ve won conference titles in 100% of the years they’ve been in a conference. (OK, fine, one of one, but still.) We’ll see how AAC foes adapt with more familiarity, and replacing Daily is not going to be easy. But Monken has earned epic benefit of the doubt — Army’s a contender until proven otherwise.
A couple of breaks away from a run
Head coach: Alex Golesh (third year, 14-12 overall)
2025 projection: 77th in SP+, 6.2 average wins (4.9 in the AAC)
After winning four total games in three years, USF won seven games in Alex Golesh’s 2023 debut, playing well on offense and improving from historically awful to merely bad on defense. The Bulls ranked high in returning production heading into 2024, too, which made me wonder if they had another huge surge in them.
SP+ was more reserved, projecting the Bulls 76th with an average win total of 6.7. They went 7-6 and ranked 79th. Always trust the numbers over my gut.
Heading into 2025, USF again ranks highly in returning production, and I’m again trying to rein in expectations while SP+ again projects another holding-the-fort season. Maybe my gut’s right the second time?
Last year’s offense overcame a season-ending leg injury to sophomore quarterback Byrum Brown and ended up surging late behind another sophomore, Bryce Archie. They were terribly inefficient overall (116th in success rate) — which is terrible when you’re one of the few remaining offenses attempting to move at a mach-speed tempo — but they balanced that with massive rushing explosiveness. Both Archie and Brown are back; if Brown is truly 100% healthy, he’s the more explosive runner and a slightly less error-prone passer, but Archie was pretty good by the end of 2024. The QB of choice will have a wonderfully experienced line in front of him, but the skill corps has lost its top three RBs and top two WRs. Sophomore wideout Keshaun Singleton has big-play potential, and Golesh added two transfer RBs (Charlotte’s Cartevious Norton and Oklahoma’s Sam Franklin) and four mostly unproven pass-catchers.
Defensive improvement has been slow but steady under coordinator Todd Orlando. His 2024 defense was aggressive against the run and hunted turnovers, but it also gave up all the big plays you expect with that approach. If experience produces fewer breakdowns, the Bulls could be in good shape — 13 of 20 players with 200-plus snaps return, and 10 of 12 incoming transfers are juniors or seniors. Mac Harris, Rico Watson III and North Texas transfer Chavez Brown should form one of the more disruptive linebacking corps in the G5, and the secondary has lots of veterans. If the defense complements an increase in offensive efficiency by allowing fewer big plays, the Bulls are in business.
Head coach: Eric Morris (third year, 11-14 overall)
2025 projection: 92nd in SP+, 6.8 average wins (4.3 in the AAC)
You can’t accuse North Texas of being boring.
Chart translation: The Mean Green offense was perfectly average from an efficiency standpoint but had the most successful successful plays in the country. Wideout Damon Ward Jr. averaged 18.4 yards per catch. Running backs Shane Porter and Makenzie McGill II averaged 6.4 yards per carry. When freshman quarterback Drew Mestemaker took over for veteran Chandler Morris in the First Responder Bowl, he completed passes of 42, 46 and 57 yards and ripped off a 70-yard TD run. (He also threw two picks and took three sacks in a 30-28 loss.) Eric Morris’ offense goes for it frequently on fourth downs — their 44 attempts led the nation — lives by chunk plays and occasionally perishes from a lack of them.
If you’re looking for pure, bonkers entertainment, UNT is almost always there for you. In two years and 25 games under Morris, the Mean Green have scored at least 35 points 14 times and allowed at least 35 points 15 times. Granted, there’s heavy margin for error in playing this way — they’re 1-10 when they don’t score at least 35 — but they’re here to entertain us, and I appreciate it.
If they’re here to actually win games, well, it’s pretty clear where the improvement needs to start. UNT has only ranked better than 100th in defensive SP+ once in the past 11 years; Morris must hope that a Bearkat transplant makes a huge difference. Coordinator Skyler Cassity moved over from Sam Houston and brought a number of Bearkat stars with him — tackle Richard Outland Jr., end Briceon Hayes, linebacker Trey Fields, corners David Fisher and Da’Veawn Armstead. Considering SHSU ranked 46th in defensive SP+ last year, these players immediately become the most proven UNT defenders.
The offense will be fine with either Mestemaker or former Albany star (and then Miami backup) Reese Poffenbarger running the show and distributing the ball to backs McGill and Missouri State transfer Jayden Becks and receivers Dalton Carnes, Miles Coleman, Sam Houston transfer Simeon Evans and any number of explosive smaller-school transfers like Tyrese Hunt-Thompson (Ferris State). The offensive line is facing some turnover, but … the offense will be fine.
Head coach: Blake Harrell (first full year, 5-1 overall)
2025 projection: 90th in SP+, 6.0 average wins (4.2 in the AAC)
College football gives us a tiny sample of games, but we still have time for epic plot twists. ECU fired Mike Houston after a 3-4 start last year — his Pirates had gone just 5-14 since the start of 2023 and were 96th in SP+, and signing up for half a season with an interim is basically confirming you’ve got a lost season on your hands.
Under interim Blake Harrell, however, ECU then won four games in a row by an average of 19 points. Some of that had to do with the schedule (three of the victims were Temple, FAU and Tulsa), but the offense shifted into a new gear, and the defense stopped getting torched. The Pirates fell to Navy in the regular season finale but beat NC State in a bowl thriller (complete with the bloody, late-game brawl that we would expect from ECU-NC State). They finished 8-5 and 74th in SP+, a nice turnaround and anything but a lost season.
Naturally, Harrell got the full-time gig. And his first official Pirates team is an absolute mystery to me.
On one hand, there are stars here. Quarterback Katin Houser was explosive (and occasionally interception-prone) after taking over in the starting lineup, and two of last year’s most explosive wideouts, Anthony Smith and sophomore Yannick Smith, are back along with some former high-profile recruits like Jaquaize Pettaway (Oklahoma) and Tyler Johnson (Penn State). The defense returns nice edge attackers — namely, end J.D. Lampley and OLBs Ryheem Craig and Samuel Dankah — and added two of my favorite smaller-school transfers in corners Key Crowell (Indianapolis) and Jordy Lowery (Western Carolina). They combined for 11 INTs and 18 pass breakups last year.
On the other hand, star running back Rahjai Harris and virtually every pass catcher not named Smith are gone, as are three OL starters and 15 of the 20 defenders with 200-plus snaps. It wouldn’t surprise me if the offense was strong again, but it also wouldn’t surprise me if the defense took a solid step backward. ECU isn’t too far away from contending in the AAC and isn’t too far away from the large pack of mediocre teams below it, too.
Just looking for a path to 6-6
Head coach: Trent Dilfer (third year, 7-17 overall)
2025 projection: 112th in SP+, 4.6 average wins (2.8 in the AAC)
The most confusing hire of 2023 has thus far been one of its least successful. Instead of sticking with Bryant Vincent, who was solid as a full-season interim following Bill Clark’s unexpected retirement, UAB attempted a home-run swing, bringing in Trent Dilfer. The former Super Bowl winning quarterback and ESPN analyst had only coached at the high school level. To put it diplomatically, this felt like a massive risk.
Risks frequently go unrewarded. After averaging 8.3 wins per year under Clark and Vincent, the Blazers have won seven games in two seasons under Dilfer. Alex Mortensen’s offense has been pretty solid, but the defense has been a disaster. Dilfer’s been caught on camera screaming at his assistants. Not great.
Dilfer’s third season is basically a do-over, complete with a new defensive coordinator (former Air Force DC Steve Russ) and almost entirely new lineup. Quarterback Jalen Kitna, left tackle JonDarius Morgan and safety Sirad Bryant are back. I just listed all the returning starters.
Among the 30 incoming transfers who will be asked to save Dilfer’s job are some pretty fun players. Receivers AJ Johnson (ETSU) and Evan McCray (Wingate) each averaged over 15 yards per catch last year, and end Jamichael Rogers (Miles College) had 18.5 TFLs in Division II. There aren’t many proven FBS entities here, but if they were proven, they probably wouldn’t have come to UAB. Still, Dilfer found some play-makers, and Mortensen seems like a genuinely solid OC. We’ll see if that’s enough to turn things around. With just two games as a projected favorite, UAB will have to overachieve by quite a bit to make something of 2025.
Head coach: Zach Kittley (first year)
2025 projection: 115th in SP+, 4.6 average wins (2.6 in the AAC)
After winning big under Lane Kiffin, FAU decided it was a place for head coach reclamation projects. It has since hired former Florida State head coach Willie Taggart and former Texas head coach Tom Herman. They went a combined 22-35 in five seasons.
It was time for a new approach. Zach Kittley, still only 33 years old, was a miracle worker in one season as WKU’s offensive coordinator and was solid in three years at Texas Tech. He and defensive coordinator Brett Dewhurst will try to breathe life into a program that has averaged an offensive SP+ ranking of 99.2 over the past five years and a defensive SP+ ranking of 92.5 over the past four.
As is frequently common, Kittley flipped the roster in his first year: Right tackle Alex Atcavage is the only returnee who started more than seven games last season, and 35 transfers are on their way to Boca Raton. A pair of WKU transfers, quarterback Caden Veltkamp and receiver Easton Messer, will be key to a fast start, though they’ll obviously need lots of help. Kittley landed a couple of smaller-school stars on defense — linebacker Paul Tangelo (St. Francis) and corner Terez Reid (Grand Valley State) — but he brought in a lot of younger, less proven transfers as well. That signals to me that he’s thinking long-term. (In hiring a 33-year old, the school probably was, too.) A Kittley offense will score points, and the schedule features five opponents projected 112th or worse in SP+, so there could be some encouraging results. But the 2025 season will probably be more about gearing up for 2026 and beyond.
Head coach: Scott Abell (first year)
2025 projection: 121st in SP+, 4.1 average wins (2.5 in the AAC)
When Rice hired Mike Bloomgren in 2018, it made lots of sense. The former Stanford assistant had been part of major nerd-school success in Palo Alto, and becoming Mid-Major Stanford seemed like a good thing.
Rice didn’t become Mid-Major Stanford as much as Stanford became Power Conference Rice.
Rice, 2018-24: 26-54 (.325 win percentage)
Stanford, 2019-24: 20-46 (.303 win percentage)
Bloomgren had one decent offense and two decent defenses but never built much momentum. It was time to get creative, and Rice did exactly that.
Say hello to your new favorite offense. Scott Abell went 47-28 at Davidson, reaching the FCS playoffs three times and never finishing below .500. He runs a shotgun spread option attack that averaged 315.6 rushing yards per game in 2024 and resembles almost nothing at the FBS level. (Navy might be the closest comparison?) That’s great news for a potentially excellent pair of returning running backs; junior Quinton Jackson and sophomore Taji Atkins combined to average 6.0 yards per carry as backups last year.
Transitioning from Bloomgren’s more pro-style attack could still take a while, as whoever wins the starting quarterback job — junior AJ Padgett, sophomore Chase Jenkins or redshirt freshman Drew Devillier — was recruited to run a very different offense. The line is relatively inexperienced, too. Jon Kay, a Bloomgren holdover, will coordinate a defense that defended the pass quite well but has to replace three of its top four pass rushers and four starting DBs. Linebacker Ty Morris is dynamite, and end Michael Daley was a small-sample star, but the best news for the defense would be if the offense scored more points and gave it less weight to carry.
Head coach: Tre Lamb (first year)
2025 projection: 120th in SP+, 3.9 average wins (2.4 in the AAC)
At only 35, Tre Lamb has already proven quite a bit as a head coach. He led Gardner-Webb to FCS playoff appearances in 2022 and 2023 and lifted ETSU from 3-8 to 7-5 in 2024; his best offenses have been balanced and explosive, and he’s brought in former North Greenville offensive coordinator (and big-play seeker) Brad Robbins as OC. They’ll try to create momentum in a way Kevin Wilson couldn’t. Wilson uncovered lots of exciting young offensive talent but couldn’t hold onto any of it, and Tulsa went just 7-17 in his two seasons.
I like the offense’s potential. Quarterback Kirk Francis and holdover receivers Grayson Tempest and Zion Steptoe will be joined by three exciting power-conference RBs — Dominic Richardson (Baylor), Sevion Morrison (Kansas) and Ajay Allen (Miami) — and a big batch of receivers including Calvin Johnson II (Northwestern) and Mekhi Miller (Missouri). Eight transfer linemen will certainly provide plenty of options up front, too.
Defense was Wilson’s biggest issue, and it’s a mostly clean slate on that side. Twelve transfers join a two-deep that does feature good size up front (particularly that of returning tackles Tai Newhouse and Joe Hjelle) and potential play-makers in linebacker Chris Thompson and sophomore corner Elijah Green. Incoming linebacker Ray Coney was one of ETSU’s best players last season, and Lamb was able to sign six transfer linemen who started at least one FBS game last year, led by tackles Tim Hardiman (Arkansas State) and Nahki Johnson (Pitt).
Tulsa has regressed for four straight seasons, so the idea of a quick turnaround is probably foolish. But I like Lamb’s initial roster-building moves, and I like the athleticism on both sides of the ball.
Head coach: K.C. Keeler (first year)
2025 projection: 126th in SP+, 3.8 average wins (2.2 in the AAC)
When things fall apart, it can happen almost overnight.
Temple, 2015-19: 43-24 (.642 win percentage), 55.6 average SP+ ranking
Temple, 2020-24: 13-42 (.236 win percentage), 119.0 average SP+ ranking
After steady, encouraging progress throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Temple has quickly reverted back to its 1990s form in the 2020s. In three seasons in charge, Stan Drayton went 3-9 three times and couldn’t generate progress on either offense or defense.
This is looking like an increasingly hard job, but K.C. Keeler might be up for the challenge. The 65-year old won FCS national titles at both Delaware and Sam Houston (17 years apart, no less), and he oversaw a 9-3 surge in SHSU’s second season in FBS. No one is guaranteed to succeed, especially at Temple, but the hire made all sorts of sense.
I like a lot of Keeler’s initial roster moves. He brought in Gevani McCoy (Oregon State) and Anthony Chiccitt (Robert Morris) to compete with holdover Evan Simon at quarterback, and running back Jay Ducker (SHSU) and receiver Colin Chase (St. Thomas) could spruce up a shaky skill corps. Defensive end Charles Calhoun III (Gannon), linebacker Ty Davis (Delaware), corners Jaylen Castleberry (Youngstown State) and Dontae Pollard (Samford) and safety Pooh Lawton (Slippery Rock) all produced excellent disruption numbers at smaller schools, and linebacker Jalen Stewart was one of UMass’ better defenders last season. The less said about the offensive line, the better, but the defense might be in position to improve a decent amount out of the gate. And hey, the bar’s low, too — win four games, and Keeler will already have done something Temple hasn’t done since the 2010s!
Head coach: Tim Albin (first year)
2025 projection: 133rd in SP+, 2.9 average wins (1.8 in the AAC)
The common theme among these last few teams: “Things have really fallen apart for [school], but I really like the hire of [coach].”
That’s certainly true for Charlotte. The 49ers have yet to finish higher than 100th in SP+ in 10 FBS seasons, and like UAB, the school made a risky/unique hire heading into 2023. Biff Poggi, hedge fund millionaire and former Jim Harbaugh righthand man, leaned heavily into the transfer portal in his two years in charge, but he went just 6-16. Now the reins go to Tim Albin, who got a veritable Ph. D in Culture Building as Frank Solich’s longtime offensive coordinator at Ohio and won 30 games in his last three years succeeding Solich.
Albin’s Bobcats established a physical identity and played far above their recruiting rankings and NIL spending levels. And like so many others down in this part of the preview, Albin’s first offseason featured a nearly full roster flip: Center Jonny King, linebacker Reid Williford and safety Treyveon McGee are the only returning starters.
Either Grayson Loftis (Duke), Conner Harrell (North Carolina) or Zach Wilcke (JUCO) will take over at QB — Loftis appears most likely — and running back Don Chaney Jr. (Louisville/Miami) and receivers Javen Nicholas (LSU), Jayden McGowan (Boston College) and Ta’ir Brooks (Northern Arizona) will be asked to make big contributions quickly. There are loads of transfers everywhere else, too: five offensive linemen (plus three JUCOs), seven defensive linemen (plus two JUCOs), six linebackers, five DBs. The linebacking corps has major promise, with Shay Taylor (Ohio) and Kadin Schmitz (Ohio) joining Gavin Willis (Bucknell). I like the Albin hire, and I like his initial moves. But someone’s still going to lose games in the AAC, and Charlotte seems as likely as anyone to do that in 2025.
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