We are now 11 weeks into the college football season, and only three undefeated teams remain: Georgia, Cincinnati and UTSA.
Just as we all predicted at the beginning of the year.
Saturday saw Michigan rally past Penn State, Oklahoma have its bid for perfection end at the hands of Baylor, a game-winning 62-yard field goal and a wild overtime game between Texas and Kansas that ended with a stunning two-point conversion.
All in all, our reporters make sense of Week 11 and what happens next.
Steve Sarkisian needs answers, fast
The Texas-Oklahoma rivalry has often been a game where legends are made and coaches’ legacies are defined. In this year’s version, as we all know by now, Texas took a 38-20 lead into halftime and Longhorns fans were celebrating their new coach’s arrival on the scene.
Thirty-eight days later, it appears that was the beginning of a freefall for Texas. Oklahoma stormed back to win, the first of four straight games in which Steve Sarkisian lost a halftime lead. On Saturday, during Texas’ fifth straight loss — the Longhorns’ longest skid since 1956, the year before Darrell Royal was hired — they added a new historic footnote, becoming the first Big 12 team to lose at home to Kansas since 2008. That’s not the legacy Sarkisian envisioned when he arrived in Austin and proclaimed back in July, “We’ve got a roster that is one that is more than capable of being competitive at a high level.”
First seasons are rarely predictable. Nick Saban went 7-6 in Year 1 at Alabama, losing to a 6-6 UL Monroe team in the process. But Saban had a track record, having already won a national championship at LSU. Sarkisian, unfortunately, does too. He went 5-7 in his first season at Washington, but that was taking over a team that went 0-12 the season before, so there was optimism. Since then, however, Sarkisian has never lost fewer than four games in a full season as a head coach at Washington or USC. Last year, Texas lost three games by a total of 13 points and Tom Herman got fired.
The Longhorns are making the wrong kind of history. They entered Saturday 79-0 as a favorite of at least 24 points since 1978 — Kansas was 0-100 as a 24-point underdog in that same span — and yet the 31-point underdogs pulled off the win in Austin. Then there’s the soap opera factor: Off the field, discussions of late have centered on an assistant coach’s pet monkey, a starting wide receiver’s argument with Sarkisian and subsequent departure, and players leaking videos of angry coaches.
It’s fair to say Texas has hit rock bottom. This is one school that doesn’t like being embarrassed. And right now it is. — Dave Wilson
Let’s do a little blind résumé comparison:
Team A is 9-1 with a 5-1 mark against FPI top-50 opponents (with a 12.2 points-per-game margin) and three wins vs. teams ranked at game time. Its lone loss came on the road by three points to a preseason AP top-10 team. Its ESPN Strength of Record is No. 6 nationally.
Team B is 9-1 with a 4-1 mark against FPI top-50 opponents (with a 10.6 points-per-game margin) and one win vs. a team ranked at game time. Its lone loss came at home by seven points to a preseason AP top-10 team. Its ESPN Strength of Record is No. 9 nationally.
So, which team would you have ranked higher?
Odds are, most folks would say Team A, though it’s certainly close. But when it comes to the AP poll, the coaches’ poll and, likely, the College Football Playoff committee’s ranking, it will be Team B that’s ahead by a significant margin.
This has a lot to do with the things we, as voters, fans and analysts, tend to notice most easily. Team A is Oklahoma State and Team B is Ohio State.
The Buckeyes seem incredibly impressive because they’ve routinely put up a lot of points. But against good teams their margin of victory is actually less than Oklahoma State’s. Against teams such as Rutgers, Akron and Maryland, however, they’ve won by an average of 42 points per game. The Cowboys, on the other hand, blew out TCU on Saturday, but played close games against Tulsa and Boise State in September, which helped frame the narrative that they are a team that has been more lucky than good.
We also tend to lean more heavily on offense than defense as a metric for success, and on that front, no one outdoes Ohio State. The Buckeyes lead the nation in offensive EPA. On defense, however, Ohio State is barely better than the FBS average. Oklahoma State, on the other hand, has one of the nation’s best defenses, holding every team it has faced to 24 points or fewer (Georgia is the only other team to do that). It’s the antithesis of the Mike Gundy teams we’ve come to know over the years, but that doesn’t make it any less talented.
None of this should serve as an indictment of Ohio State, which certainly appears to be a supremely talented team, perhaps one of the few that could truly challenge Georgia. But if we’re going to appreciate the Buckeyes’ ceiling we need to also consider the Cowboys’ accomplishments. Through 11 weeks only Georgia, Alabama and Notre Dame have won more games against FPI top-50 teams, and only Georgia has more wins against teams ranked at game time.
Let’s stop overlooking Oklahoma State. The Cowboys aren’t winning the way we might have expected, but they are winning, and at this point, they belong in the thick of the playoff conversation. They should be in serious consideration for the committee’s top four. — David Hale
Why isn’t Dave Clawson linked to more job openings?
The biggest surprise of the ACC season has been the 9-1 start by Wake Forest, which beat NC State 45-42 on Saturday. The Demon Deacons — who are a heartbreaking field goal against North Carolina away from being undefeated — are 6-0 in the Atlantic division and on a collision course to face Pitt in the ACC Championship Game.
Reshaping the culture of a team isn’t a foreign concept to Clawson, who has a reputation for building contenders at each of his previous stops. In 1999, he earned his first head job at Fordham, where he took the program from being winless to winners of the Patriot League and earning a berth in the 2002 FCS playoffs. He was excellent with Richmond and Bowling Green as well.
Now, at Wake Forest, he has infused plenty of energy into the city of Winston-Salem as the Demon Deacons are knocking on the doorstep of their first conference game appearance since 2006, when they defeated Georgia Tech 9-6 to collect their most wins in program history (11). A victory over Clemson next week would give them 10 victories and secure a chance to tie the single-season win total.
This begs the question: With so many programs searching for their next coach, why isn’t Clawson’s name being attached to more vacancies? Aside from a down pandemic-shortened 2020 season, the Demon Deacons have totaled at least seven wins each year since 2016. — Jordan Reid
The only time anyone dared to mention Ole Miss and defense in the same sentence a year ago was to talk about how bad the Rebels were on that side of the ball. Even earlier this year, after Ole Miss survived 52-51 against Arkansas, coach Lane Kiffin sounded anything but pumped about the Rebels’ defense.
“We stopped them on one play in the second half, so that’s a good thing,” said a shrugging Kiffin, whose Rebels gave up 676 total yards and 37 second-half points before the Hogs’ two-point conversion pass to win the game sailed incomplete.
Since then, Ole Miss’ defense has been one of the more improved units in the SEC, and the No. 10 Rebels (8-2, 4-2 SEC) are making a push to be the first Ole Miss team in school history to win 10 games in the regular season, with matchups remaining against Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.
In each of its past four wins, Ole Miss’ defense has given up 24 or fewer points, and it was the 31-26 victory at Tennessee the week after the Arkansas game that really showed the mettle of D.J. Durkin’s defense.
Kiffin told his players in the locker room after that game: “We’ve said for a long time when you go on the road in a hostile environment that you pack your run game and pack your defense. The defense showed up today and really won the game for us.”
Granted, nobody is comparing this Ole Miss defense to some of the better ones in the SEC, but the Rebels are tied for 66th nationally in scoring defense (26.2 points per game). That’s after finishing 117th nationally a year ago (38.3 PPG).
Kiffin told ESPN prior to the season that he would be pleased with a top-70 ranking in scoring defense, and Durkin & Co. have delivered. The Rebels have really helped themselves in turnover margin. They’re tied for second nationally at plus-12 and are second in the SEC with 19 forced turnovers.
Quarterback Matt Corral and the Ole Miss offense have still been the heart and soul of this team, but the defense has played well enough that the Rebels don’t feel as if they have to score 40-plus every game to win.
That’s a credit to Durkin and his guys for taking it on the chin a year ago (and taking some serious criticism) and coming back in Year 2 by doing their part to put the Rebels in a position to have a historic season. — Chris Low
Kansas looking to build on historic win
Before his team outlasted Texas in overtime on Saturday, Lance Leipold didn’t know Kansas had not won a Big 12 road game since 2008. The Jayhawks coach had only been part of this KU season and saw no value in looking back further.
What Leipold knew is a team that had accepted more than its share of change had been overdue for a win like Saturday’s. Leipold said the result can carry Kansas through the rest of the season and into 2022, when the team can realistically expect more.
“We made strides, we felt like we had, but it wasn’t showing up on the scoreboard,” Leipold told ESPN on Sunday. “We’re a long ways away from it right now, but if we ever want to play games in December, we have to play well in November. We’ve been selling that since the K-State game, and are going to keep emphasizing that.”
Kansas’ historic win featured plenty of surprising performances, none bigger than quarterback Jalon Daniels. The sophomore completed 70% of his passes for 202 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions, while adding 45 rush yards and a touchdown.
Daniels started six games as a true freshman in a hopeless situation last fall — he was only 17 years old for his first three starts. He only got the nod against Texas because of injuries to primary starter Jason Bean and reserve Miles Kendrick.
“He’s been through a lot, took a lot of hits last year, but he doesn’t flinch and he plays with extreme energy and confidence,” Leipold said. “That really sparked us. He can flush a bad play, but he didn’t have many, and statistically he did a lot of really good things for us.”
Leipold is the best coach to call Kansas home in quite some time. Those in coaching circles celebrated the hire Kansas made on the last day of April. Leipold understands player development and program development.
Kansas beat Texas with a third-string quarterback throwing to Jared Casey, a walk-on listed as a fullback who is actually Kansas’ fifth-string tight end (“because you don’t have many 5-9 tight ends in Power 5 football,” Leipold said). There are finally genuine reasons for KU fans to be excited.
“This group’s really accepted the change in the structure and the process that we’re expecting,” Leipold said. “We’ve been able to see a lot of differences in the small things that we’ve been doing, but it hasn’t correlated completely onto the field. To see them get this and complete a game and find a way to win it late, I’m really happy and proud.
“It also will help continue to build confidence within the program of what needs to be done on a daily and weekly basis.” — Adam Rittenberg
“I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not,” Schwarber said.
Ten days after lifting the National League to victory in the first All-Star Game swing-off, Schwarber keeps going deep. He hit a pair of two-run homers Friday night, with the first drive, his milestone hit, starting the comeback from a 2-0 deficit. He got the ball back after it was grabbed by a Phillies fan attending with his friends in Yankee Stadium’s right-center-field seats.
“I saw it on the video and then I see the dude tugging,” Schwarber said. “I’m like: ‘Oh, they all got Philly stuff on.’ That was cool.”
He met the trio after the game, gave an autographed ball to each and exchanged hugs. When he went to get a third ball to autograph, one of the three said he just wanted the potential free agent to re-sign with the Phillies.
“You show up to the field every single day trying to get a win at the end of the day, and I think our fans kind of latch on to that, right?” Schwarber said. “It’s been fantastic these last 3½ years, four years now. The support that we get from our fans and it means a lot to me that, you know, that they attach themselves to our team.”
Schwarber tied it at 2-2 in the fifth against Will Warren when he hit a 413-foot drive on a first-pitch fastball.
After J.T. Realmuto‘s three-run homer off Luke Weaver built a 6-3 lead in a four-run seventh and the Yankees closed within a run in the bottom half, Schwarber sent an Ian Hamilton fastball 380 feet into the right-field seats.
Schwarber reached 1,000 hits with eight more homers than McGwire. Schwarber has 36 homers this year, three shy of major league leader Cal Raleigh, and six homers in seven games since he was voted All-Star MVP. He has 33 multihomer games.
“I don’t know where we’d be without him,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said. “Comes up with big hit after big hit after big hit. It’s just — it’s amazing.”
Schwarber, 32, is eligible for free agency this fall after completing a four-year, $79 million contract. He homered on all three of his swings in the All-Star Game tiebreaker, and when the second half began, Phillies managing partner John Middleton proclaimed: “We love him. We want to keep him.”
“He’s been an incredible force all season long,” Realmuto said. “What he’s meant to his team, his offense, it’s hard to put in words.”
A World Series champion for the 2016 Chicago Cubs, Schwarber has reached 35 homers in all four seasons with the Phillies. He’s batting .255 with 82 RBIs and a .960 OPS.
He also has almost as many home runs as singles (46).
Schwarber had not been aware he topped McGwire for most homers among 1,000 hits.
“I had no clue. I didn’t even know it was my 1,000th, to be honest with you,” he said.
Nick Kurtz of the Athletics became the first rookie in Major League Baseball history to hit four home runs in a game, part of a spectacular Friday night for the 22-year-old that will go down as one of the greatest offensive displays the sport has seen.
Kurtz also matched the MLB record with 19 total bases in the 15-3 triumph against the Astros in Houston.
“It’s arguably the best game I’ve ever watched from a single player,” Athletics manager Mark Kotsay said. “This kid continues to have jaw-dropping moments.”
Kurtz didn’t make an out all night, going deep in the second, sixth, eighth and ninth innings. He also doubled — a 381-foot drive that would have been out in six major league ballparks — and singled on his 6-for-6 night to equal Shawn Green, who had four homers, six hits and 19 total bases for the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 23, 2002 at Milwaukee.
Kurtz and Green are the only players with six hits in a four-homer game.
“It’s hard to think about this day being kind of real, it still feels like a dream,” Kurtz said in a postgame television interview. “So it’s pretty remarkable. I’m kind of speechless. Don’t really know what to say.”
It was the 20th four-homer game in major league history and second this season. Arizona’s Eugenio Suárez did it on April 26 against Atlanta. No player has ever hit five home runs in a game.
Kurtz finished with eight RBIs and six runs scored.
The 6-foot-5, 22-year-old slugger has 23 homers in 66 games this season. The fourth pick in last year’s amateur draft out of Wake Forest, he made his major league debut April 23 and hit his first homer May 13.
He is the youngest player with a four-homer game. Pat Seerey of the Chicago White Sox was 25 when he homered four times on July 18, 1948.
“This is the first time my godparents have been here, so they probably have to come in the rest of the year,” Kurtz said. “My parents flew in today. They’ve been here a bunch, but it was cool to have some family here for that.”
On Friday, Kurtz homered off each of the Astros’ four pitchers: Ryan Gusto, Nick Hernandez, Kaleb Ort and outfielder Cooper Hummel, who worked the ninth with the game out of hand. His longest drive was his third, a 414-foot solo shot off Ort in the eighth.
For his fourth homer, Kurtz hit an opposite-field line drive to the Crawford Boxes in left field on a 77 mph, 2-0 pitch from Hummel. The three-run shot made it 15-2.
“With a positional player on the mound, I’m just trying to move the ball forward,” Kurtz said. “You don’t want to be the guy that strikes out. That’s only my second at bat ever off a positional player, so I don’t know. Just trying to move the ball forward and get something that I can touch, and I hit another one.”
Kurtz’s double in the fourth inning hit just below the yellow line over the visitor’s bullpen, narrowly missing what would have been a fifth homer.
“Everybody was just like, laughing,” A’s shortstop Jacob Wilson said. “How is he doing it? This is not normal. He’s playing a different sport than us right now. It’s not baseball, it’s just T-ball what he’s doing right now.”
With the baseballs from his last two homers inside a plastic bag at his locker, Kurtz signed scorecards from all four A’s broadcasters and a lineup card. One of the scorecards and a bat were bound for the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Kurtz has been the best hitter in the majors in July, ranking first in batting average (.425), on-base percentage (.494), slugging percentage (1.082), runs (22), doubles (13), homers (11) and RBIs (27).
He extended his hitting streak to 12 games, and his 23 home runs are the most for an A’s rookie since Yoenis Céspedes in 2012 and fourth most in franchise history.
Kurtz entered Friday as a -325 favorite at ESPN BET to win American League Rookie of the Year. His odds moved to -2500 after Friday night.
Information from ESPN Research and The Associated Press was used in this report.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — The Yankees on Friday acquired third baseman Ryan McMahon from the Colorado Rockies in exchange for minor league pitchers Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz, the teams announced.
The Yankees assumed the remainder of McMahon’s contract, which includes approximately $4.5 million for the rest of 2025 and $32 million over the next two seasons, a source told ESPN.
An All-Star last season, McMahon, 30, was batting .217 with 16 home runs, a .717 OPS and a National League-leading 127 strikeouts in 100 games for Colorado in 2025. After a dreadful start to the season through April, he has been significantly better, with a .246 batting average, 14 home runs and an .804 OPS. He hit home runs in the first two games after the All-Star break and another Tuesday. He is on pace to keep his four-year 20-homer streak alive.
Defensively, McMahon is a Gold Glove-caliber third baseman whose four Outs Above Average is third in the majors this season. He joins a Yankees club that has been marred by sloppy defense. On Wednesday, the Yankees committed four errors against the American East-leading Toronto Blue Jays.
“He has had some ups and downs offensively this year,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of McMahon. “I know, over the last month, he’s really swinging the bat well, but he’s a presence, and he can really defend over there at third and has for a number of years. So, we’re excited to get him.”
Arizona Diamondbacks third baseman Eugenio Suarez, who began Friday with 36 home runs and an MLB-leading 86 RBIs, could be the best hitter moved before the July 31 trade deadline, but the Yankees were not particularly aggressive in pursuing him, a source told ESPN’s Jeff Passan.
Though McMahon’s offensive production resulted in a 92 OPS+, which suggests he has been 8% worse than the average major league hitter this season, he’s still a significant offensive upgrade at third base for New York. The Yankees have had Oswald Peraza, one of the worst hitters in the majors, playing third base nearly every day since the club released DJ LeMahieu, another former Rockies player, earlier this month and moved Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base.
Peraza, though a strong defender, is slashing .147/.208/.237 in 69 games this season. His 24 wRC+ ranks last among the 310 hitters with at least 160 plate appearances this season.
McMahon has played his first eight-plus seasons with the Rockies. They selected him in the second round of the 2013 draft. He debuted four years later and became a regular in 2019. By then, the Rockies were descending to the bottom of the NL West. This year, they’re 26-76 and could finish with the most losses in major league history.
He leaves that environment for New York’s pressure cooker and a club with World Series aspirations, a change the Yankees hope can help McMahon.
“Hopefully, the environment is a great thing for him, that he falls into that and doesn’t have to be the guy,” Boone said. “Go do your thing. Go find the role. But it’s our job — my job, staff, coaches, players — to make sure they’re welcomed and get them as comfortable as possible.”
The price for McMahon — and his team control over the next two seasons — was a pair of pitchers who have not reached Double-A.
Herring, 22, has a 1.71 ERA in 89⅓ innings across 16 starts between Low- and High-A this season. He was a sixth-round pick out of LSU in the 2024 draft.
Grosz, an 11th-round pick in 2023, had a 4.14 ERA in 87 innings over 16 games (15 starts) for High-A Hudson Valley this season.
With third base addressed, the Yankees will seek to acquire pitchers to bolster their rotation and bullpen. Luis Gil‘s return should help. The right-hander, who has been out all season because of a lat injury, made his third rehab start Wednesday. Boone said there’s “a good chance” Gil gets another start in the minors before making his season debut.