With one of the most impressive QB classes ever, the Pac-12 is going out passing
Written by Kyle Bonagura, Adam Rittenberg, Paolo Uggetti
The Pac-12 has been reduced to embers after college sports’ latest round of realignment, and there is a natural temptation to assign blame. There’s a lot to go around: terrible leadership, bad timing, regional apathy and a lengthy list of poor, pivotal decisions. The conference’s consistent lack of relevance in the College Football Playoff picture exacerbated things and its reputation suffered as a result.
Just don’t blame the quarterbacks.
Through all that went wrong, there is one problem the Pac-12 has never been credibly accused of having, and that is an inability to deliver a fantastically entertaining product on a game-by-game basis. In an era that rewards conferences for competitive inequity, the Pac-12 delivered parity. An unforgivable sin, as it turned out.
There are no good reasons to believe this won’t be the final season of Pac-12 football. If by some stretch of luck the conference finds a way to exist, it will be unrecognizable.
The cruel irony is that while the Pac-12 is a business failure more than anything else, the product it has going into 2023 should be as valuable as any in college football. There are good teams — five are ranked in the top 18 of the preseason AP poll — but the uniqueness is in the talented collection of quarterbacks.
The group features the reigning Heisman Trophy winner, last year’s NCAA FBS leading passer (yards per game), a two-time Pac-12 champion, a Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award finalist, a former Pac-12 Offensive Freshman of the Year, a former No. 1 overall QB recruit and two former Walter Payton Award finalists.
“It will make you pull your hair out,” Washington defensive coordinator William Inge said.
Not only does it project as the best group of signal-callers, few — if any — conferences in college football history have ever had a group as accomplished as this one going into a season.
For half a century, the conference has been a standard bearer for quarterback play. It helped launch the careers for a long list of future NFL stars, including John Elway, Aaron Rodgers, Troy Aikman, Warren Moon, Andrew Luck, Carson Palmer, Drew Bledsoe and many others.
So, like it has for so long, the Conference of Champions is going out passing.
The stats behind an impressive 2023 class
Let’s start with the obvious: USC quarterback Caleb Williams is set to become the ninth quarterback to play college football as the reigning Heisman winner.
During Williams’ incredible 2022 season, he led the nation in QBR and was second among Power 5 quarterbacks with 4,537 passing yards. No. 1? Washington’s Michael Penix Jr., who threw for 4,641 yards in one fewer game.
Penix tossed 31 touchdown passes — second in the Pac-12 last season behind Williams — but his 60 career touchdown passes rank just fifth among ESPN’s projected Pac-12 starters. Two of those players — Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders (70) and Washington State‘s Cameron Ward (94) — started their careers in the FCS before moving up a level. The other two are Williams (63) and Oregon‘s Bo Nix (68).
Notably behind Penix on the career TD passing charts: Cameron Rising (46), who has led Utah to back-to-back conference titles and was the All-Pac-12 first-team quarterback selection in 2021.
In all, nine quarterbacks have at least 20 career touchdown passes with Arizona‘s Jayden de Laura (53), Oregon State‘s DJ Uiagalelei (36) and Arizona State‘s Drew Pyne (24) all having previous stretches of success.
Collectively, and accounting for glaring inexperience at Cal, Stanford and UCLA, the conference averages 43.1 passing career touchdowns per projected starting quarterback to begin the season. That is, by far, the highest number of a single conference since 2005, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. Only three other groups came into a season averaging at least 33: the 2015 Pac-12, the 2008 Big 12 and the 2014 Pac-12.
“The thing I like about it is it’s not just a group of guys that threw for a bunch of yards and touchdowns,” USC coach Lincoln Riley said. “Most of these guys have won and a lot of them won double-digit games. So it’s success in terms of winning games too, not just statistical. You had a couple guys that came back that could have went to the NFL.”
Last year, Williams, Nix, Rising and Penix — along with since-departed UCLA QB Dorian Thompson-Robinson — made for one of the best top-five quarterback groups in recent years. Their average QBR of 84.1 ranks fifth among any single conference’s best five quarterbacks since 2005, and for four of them to return is unprecedented.
“They’re super talented and they’ve been coached by really good offensive minds,” first-year ASU coach Kenny Dillingham said. “So the combination of having really good offensive coordinators in this league attracts really good quarterbacks.
“I don’t think it’s by accident that you have all this talent.”
Added up, it comes close to warranting a hyperbolic question: Can this be the best collection of quarterbacks, ever? We’ll see.
A star-studded history
The Pac-12’s past is filled with quarterbacks who either produced historic college careers or went on to have storied seasons in the NFL. Or, in the case of several of them, both.
Allow Chip Kelly to give you a history lesson.
“That’s the one thing that’s always intriguing about this league is it’s always been great quarterbacks,” Kelly, now the head coach at UCLA, said at Pac-12 media day. “Going back to [UCLA’s] Gary Beban, [Oregon State’s] Terry Baker winning the Heisman trophies in the ’60s, and you go on to all the great quarterbacks USC had, and then Troy Aikman is the No. 1 pick of the draft. The Stanford quarterbacks from [Jim] Plunkett to [Andrew] Luck to the [Oregon QBs] Joey Harrington, Marcus Mariota, the list goes on and on.”
From 2007 to 2012, Kelly patrolled the sidelines at Autzen Stadium as an offensive coordinator and then as head coach at Oregon, watching some of the best quarterbacks in the sport face the Ducks. There was, of course, Luck, who was one of the most prolific and efficient quarterbacks the conference had ever seen on his way to being the No. 1 overall pick in the 2012 NFL draft.
Down at USC, there was Mark Sanchez, who would go on to be the fifth pick in the 2009 draft, and Matt Barkley, who both followed in the footsteps of other USC elites like Matt Leinart, the 10th overall pick in the 2006 NFL draft and Heisman winner that year. And there was Carson Palmer, who took home the Heisman in 2002. The Trojans’ history extends well past those names, back to when Rodney Peete put up prolific numbers in the ’80s on his way to a Johnny Unitas award and All-American honors.
Across town and over the years, UCLA countered with not just Beban and Aikman, but with Cade McNown in the ’90s and Brett Hundley in the 2010s. Hundley held the record for most touchdowns by a UCLA quarterback until last year, when Thompson-Robinson broke the record.
At Oregon, Dan Fouts was a star for the Ducks in the 1970s (All-Pac-8 in 1972). He went on to lead the NFL in passing four times and was on the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1980s. Kelly eventually got his own elite quarterback, too, at Oregon. In his last year, his recruiting prowess paid off as the quarterback he brought in to Eugene from Honolulu burst onto the scene as a star. Mariota led the Ducks to a 12-1 record that season as well as a Fiesta Bowl win and a No. 2 overall ranking in the country. Mariota won the bowl game’s MVP award to cap off a remarkable freshman season that put him on the path toward being the Heisman winner in 2014 and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2015 NFL draft.
If Kelly’s first time coaching in the conference represented a peak in talented quarterback play, we’re now seeing it again, but the history books display an even deeper showcase of how much the conference and its teams have produced greatness at the position.
“The best indicator of the future is the past,” Oregon head coach Dan Lanning said.
For several Pac-12 quarterbacks, the success has continued as they have transitioned to the NFL, or in some cases, their success has come once they left college. After winning the Heisman in 1970 and being at the forefront of the pro-style offense revolution in what was then the Pac-8, Stanford’s Plunkett went on to win two Super Bowls with the the Raiders. Meanwhile, his fellow Cardinal John Elway won the Super Bowl twice with the Broncos after a largely unremarkable college career that is perhaps best known for “The Play” which Elway was on the losing end of in 1982.
UCLA’s Aikman won three rings with the Cowboys, Washington State’s Mark Rypien won his Super Bowl in 1992 while Cal’s Aaron Rodgers won his lone Super Bowl with the Packers in 2011. Even Nick Foles, who spent a year at Arizona, went on to get a ring of his own in 2018.
For a program like Washington, they may not boast a Super Bowl winner, but its pedigree may be just as good with quarterbacks like Warren Moon, Mark Brunell, Jake Locker and Brock Huard leading the Huskies at various times over the years.
“Every school has had [a great crop of QBs],” Kelly said. “It’s always been that way.”
Quarterback performances have also marked some of the conference’s greatest moments. The Pac-12’s After Dark affairs almost always were high-scoring, back-and-forth games where a quarterback has an out-of-body performance.
Take Connor Halliday for example. The Washington State QB may have peaked in Pullman on an October night in 2014 where he threw for a single-game record 734 passing yards on 70 passing attempts. Somehow his output and six touchdowns were not enough to get the Cougars the win because, on the other side, Cal’s Jared Goff threw for over 500 passing yards and five touchdowns himself, giving his team a 60-59 win. Five years later, Wazzu’s Anthony Gordon and UCLA’s Thompson-Robinson would combine for 1,077 passing yards and 14 touchdowns on their way to a historic 67-63 Bruins win in Pullman.
It’s not just the Elways, the Aikmans and the Leinarts. The Pac-12 has been a hotbed for more than just quarterback stardom, it’s been a home for quarterback phenomena, be it one for a single season, a single game or even a single play. Ask every Arizona fan what they remember about Khalil Tate, and they’ll likely mention the 2017 night when he came off the bench, ran for an FBS-record 327 yards, passed for 142 yards and scored five touchdowns. It’s why USC fans may recognize the school’s iconic quarterback history and still have a greater affinity for a single-season performance like the one Sam Darnold had in 2016 when he went from backup to Rose Bowl-winning starter. Or it’s why an ASU fan can wax poetic about Jake Plummer’s 1996 run as he led the Sun Devils to their only Rose Bowl appearance in the past 26 years or Brock Osweiler’s 4,000-yard season in 2011, too.
Still, despite the conference’s star-studded history at the position or its plethora of signature moments involving quarterbacks, this year’s crew, on paper, is on another level. For those who return, their success is also indicative of the offensive explosion the conference has experienced in recent years. Last year, the Pac-12 had six of the top 25 offenses (per offensive EPA per game) in the country, continuing a trend that isn’t so much about having bad defenses as much as it is having to deal with explosive offenses.
“It makes games fun,” Williams said. “I’ve been in those moments where you try and dominate and play your best and when you got someone on the other side, you don’t dive into their game too much, but you do know that the other person is over there.”
Fun isn’t necessarily how a defensive coordinator would describe it.
“It’s exciting,” Oregon defensive coordinator Tosh Lupoi said. “We’re possibly going to line up every single week and be competing against an NFL quarterback in this conference. … I love it. Wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Kelly is part of the group that’s ushering the next crop of great Pac-12 (er, West Coast) quarterbacks again. The Bruins have one of the most intriguing freshman QBs not just in the conference, but in the entire country in Dante Moore.
The Michigan product has yet to play a snap in the college game, yet talk of him starting under center for the Bruins is rampant. UCLA is one of the few teams in the conference that doesn’t have an established quarterback, but is boasting a competition at the position that runs four quarterbacks deep who could all take the field come the opening game.
Whoever takes the field for Kelly’s team may not matter when people look back on this upcoming season of the Pac-12. It will likely be remembered for being the last full season of the conference’s 12-team constituents, but once things kick off in late August, what could transpire on the field in the next four months could be historic for quarterback play alone.
For a conference that’s been defined by that position, it would be a fitting finish.
Scouting this year’s QBs
This year’s Pac-12 quarterback class stands out not only for its overall production but its diversity in styles and strengths. The main connective tissue is the transfer portal, as eight of the league’s virtually guaranteed starters began their college careers elsewhere, including Williams (Oklahoma), Penix (Indiana), Bo Nix (Auburn) and Cameron Rising (Texas).
Several made their moves with familiar coaches in mind. Williams played for Riley at OU in 2021. Penix and Nix linked up with coaches who had previously been their offensive coordinators in Kalen DeBoer (Indiana) and Dillingham (Auburn). Sanders followed his father from Jackson State to Colorado. Ward went with Eric Morris from Incarnate Word to Washington State, where Morris served as OC for a year before becoming North Texas’ coach.
“They’re all a little different, of course, and the offenses all fit them well,” Cal coach Justin Wilcox said. “There’s no square peg into a round hole. Penix is so accurate, and Nix gives you a little bit of everything. He does a lot at the line of scrimmage. He can get out of trouble, he can run it and he can throw it. Caleb won the Heisman trophy. So, so calm in the pocket, got such command and he’s very good when things are on time. And then if he needs to extend the play, he can because he’s got the athleticism.”
If Williams has his way, however, it’ll be less running and more passing.
“I don’t want to run at all,” he said. “That’s what we went and got recruits for and more running backs and more wide receivers and more O-linemen. So I can do my job and just stand back there … my job is to get it to ’em. Their job is to make special things happen with it.”
The Pac-12’s biggest names need no introduction, but the league’s layers of quarterbacks — and how they approach the game — are worth reviewing as the season nears. Here are quick scouting reports of the projected starters for the league’s top teams, and a look at the best of the rest.
Caleb Williams, USC
ESPN recruiting rating: No. 1 dual-threat QB, No. 16 overall recruit in 2021 class
Original school: Oklahoma
2022 stats/accolades: Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, AP Player of the Year, Pac-12 Offensive Player of the Year; set USC single-season records for total offense (4,919 yards), passing yards (4,537), passing touchdowns (42), completions (333) and other categories.
NFL draft outlook: Projected No. 1 overall pick
Scouting report: Williams came into the Pac-12 with plenty of buzz, following Riley from Oklahoma to USC after replacing starter Spencer Rattler with the Sooners as a true freshman in 2021. Although he put together the best statistical passing season in USC history, a program rich in elite quarterback play, Pac-12 coaches were especially impressed with his ability to extend plays. Williams finished second nationally in completions of 20 yards or longer (69). A Pac-12 defensive coordinator described Williams capitalizing on “non-normal plays,” where he would buy enough time for coverage to loosen than attack for big gains. Another Pac-12 defensive coordinator noted that USC’s offensive line could be better in 2023 than 2022, which would allow Williams to operate more in the pocket while maintaining his ability to create.
Michael Penix Jr., Washington
ESPN recruiting rating: Three stars, no national rating, No. 40 pocket passer in 2018 class
Original school: Indiana
2022 stats/accolades: AP Comeback Player of the Year, second-team All-Pac-12, Manning Award finalist; led the FBS in passing average (357 ypg) and ranked second in passing yards (4,641), while setting single-season team records for passing yards and total offense.
NFL draft outlook: Day 3 because of injury history while at Indiana
Scouting report: Penix’s breakout season at Washington wasn’t surprising to Big Ten coaches who watched him help Indiana to a No. 12 AP finish in 2020. He ultimately needed a system fit and got it with DeBoer, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb and even tight ends coach Nick Sheridan, who followed DeBoer as OC at Indiana. Penix also needed protection because of his injury history. Washington defensive coordinator William Inge, who also was with Penix and DeBoer at Indiana, told ESPN that Penix reached out about coming to the Huskies with the plea: “Coach, all I need is some protection, with an offensive line.” Penix took only five sacks in 2022 despite 554 pass attempts, No. 4 nationally. He will have top tackles Troy Fautanu and Roger Rosengarten back this fall. Pac-12 coaches say Penix can destroy defenses with a clean pocket. “You need to get him uncomfortable,” a Pac-12 defensive coordinator said.
Bo Nix, Oregon
ESPN recruiting rating: No. 2 pocket passer, No. 23 overall recruit in 2019 class
Original school: Auburn
2022 stats/accolades: Maxwell Award semifinalist, honorable mention All-Pac-12, Johnny Unitas Golden Arm award finalist; set Oregon single-season record for completion percentage (71.9) while ranking second on the team chart in completions (294) and leading FBS quarterbacks with 14 rushing touchdowns.
NFL draft outlook: Day 2. Could work way into second round with strong 2023 season
Scouting report: Nix enters his second year as Oregon’s starter and fifth in the Power 5. He has played under three head coaches and will be on his fifth offensive coordinator in Will Stein, but he clearly thrives in the fast-paced, big-play-heavy system Oregon employed in 2022. Nix’s vast experience and knowledge gives him more freedom than most college quarterbacks. “There’s no limit to what Bo is able to check if he understands the situation,” Lanning told ESPN this spring. The subplot at Oregon could be how much control the coaches give to Nix, and how Stein incorporates his ideas without adding unnecessary complexities. “In the past, he just had to run what people wanted him to run,” a Power 5 coach said. “If he doesn’t like what’s going on offensively, he will go to the head coach and make sure it’s stuff he likes.”
Cameron Rising, Utah
ESPN Recruiting rating: No. 11 pocket passer, No. 215 overall player in 2018 class
Original school: Texas
2022 stats/accolades: Semifinalist for Davey O’Brien Award and Maxwell Award, and honorable mention All-Pac-12 (first team in 2021); had career highs in passing yards (3,034), touchdowns (26) and completions (249), while adding 465 rushing yards and six touchdowns; nine games with 200 pass yards or more and eight with multiple touchdown passes.
NFL draft outlook: Undrafted free agent (ACL injury doesn’t help his stock)
Scouting report: Rising has shined in the biggest moments during Utah’s back-to-back Pac-12 title runs, especially in two wins against USC last season (725 pass yards, no interceptions, 78 rushing yards, nine total touchdowns) and two against Oregon in 2021. His numbers and traits don’t jump out as much as some of the other returning quarterbacks, but coaches respect his toughness and efficiency. Rising isn’t a volume runner, but his ability to move stood out in wins over USC and Oregon State last season. The immediate concern is his response from a torn ACL sustained in Utah’s Rose Bowl loss to Penn State. The Utes have the league’s toughest opening schedule with Florida (home) and Baylor (road). Rising’s availability and performance will be watched in those games before league play begins.
DJ Uiagalelei, Oregon State
ESPN Recruiting rating: No. 1 pocket passer and No. 43 overall in 2020 class
Original school: Clemson
2022 stats/accolades: Recorded career highs in passing yards (2,521), passing touchdowns (22), rushing yards (545) and rushing touchdowns (7), while helping Clemson to an ACC title; eclipsed 200 passing yards in each of his first seven games.
NFL draft outlook: Day 3 or undrafted free agent depending on 2023 performance
Scouting report: After losing the starting job at Clemson, Uiagalelei saw Oregon State as a place to learn a more sophisticated offense in a less-pressurized environment, where he can better prepare himself for the NFL. Coaches have taken note of his size, arm strength and emergence as an effective runner at Clemson. But a defensive coordinator who faced Uiagalelei in the ACC questioned how he’ll absorb Oregon State’s pro-style scheme, telling ESPN, “Clemson has the easiest offensive system. If you can’t succeed there, you ain’t gonna succeed anywhere.”
Elsewhere in the Pac-12 quarterback ranks, Arizona brings back de Laura, and Ward returns to Washington State. De Laura, the Pac-12’s Offensive Freshman of the Year at Washington State in 2021, is one of the more captivating players in the league, displaying a fearlessness that leads to both big plays and mistakes.
Ward, who averaged 357.5 pass yards in 2021 for FCS Incarnate Word, tries to build on a solid but not spectacular first season at Washington State, where he completed 64.4% of his passes for 3,231 yards and 23 touchdowns. Pac-12 coaches think a second year at the FBS level will help, although he’s working with a new coordinator in Ben Arbuckle, who arrived from national passing leader Western Kentucky.
“The de Laura kid is a playmaker, the Ward kid has tools,” Grubb said. “Those are guys nobody’s talking about. You’ve still got to line up. I sat up in that box and called the Arizona game and I’m like, ‘Dang, this kid [de Laura] is slinging it. He’s running around and it’s amazing.'”
Similar things could be said about Sanders, who shined at FCS Jackson State the past two seasons, before following his father Deion to Colorado. Coaches expect Colorado’s high-tempo offense under coordinator Sean Lewis to help Sanders’ transition.
Dillingham has an intriguing quarterback room at ASU featuring a veteran holdover in Trenton Bourguet, Notre Dame transfer Drew Pyne (10 starts in 2022), BYU transfer Jacob Conover (ESPN’s No. 109 overall recruit in 2019) and freshman Jaden Rashada, ESPN’s No. 31 overall recruit.
ESPN’s top two recruits in the 2023 class are quarterbacks headed to Pac-12 schools (for now, at least). USC’s Malachi Nelson will wait behind Williams, but UCLA’s Moore, who initially committed to Oregon, could be a Day 1 starter. A true pocket passer, Moore isn’t the typical Kelly quarterback but boasts an arm a Power 5 coach described as “elite, elite.”
“Every team that you play, they have a quarterback who is dynamic, who is athletic, and who is premier,” Inge said. “When we were looking through the schedule, it’s like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ There’s gonna be seven games where the quarterbacks, everybody knows who they are. It’s not, ‘Well, they run the ball all the time.’ No. The ballgame goes through the hands of the quarterback.”
Raising the caliber of QBs for all of college football
There is a giant game of musical chairs being played by quarterbacks in college football. Talented backups in the past were forced to wait their turn, now they are free to find an open seat, and even follow their former coaches who have found new gigs.
In theory, this relatively new dynamic should raise the caliber of quarterback play across the sport, as it has done for the Pac-12.
“You look at it from a defensive perspective and what we saw last year, and the jump that happened from even the 2021 season, it’s pretty obvious,” DeBoer said. “Even just looking at the statistics, of how many more passing yards there were, and the total offense. If you compare stats, I think there were six teams that were offensively at more yards per game than the top offense the year before. To me, that’s a big indicator of your quarterback play.”
From that standpoint, the Pac-12 is ahead of the national curve, and in an ordinary season, that would be a point of conference pride. A positive sign to show the conference is back on the ascend.
Instead, this season feels more like the start of a encore at the last concert before a band breaks up. It’s bittersweet. What’s about to come should be very special, but it represents the end.
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Dan Hajducky
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — It’s the top of the 11th inning of an early March baseball game at North Carolina. With a runner on first and two outs, a Coastal Carolina batter laces a single through the right side of the infield. The Tar Heels’ right fielder bobbles the ball, then slips. The runner barrels around third toward home, where catcher Luke Stevenson awaits.
The relay throw naturally takes Stevenson to the third base side of home plate, into the path of the runner diving headfirst. Stevenson slaps a tag between his shoulder blades, shows the umpire the mitted ball and erupts into a fist pump. The game remains tied. In the bottom half of the inning, UNC wins on a sacrifice fly.
The Tar Heels went on to claim an ACC title, where Stevenson was named MVP. They hosted and won an NCAA tournament regional, rose to No. 1 in Division I, then fell at home to Arizona in a super regional and missed returning to the Men’s College World Series for the second consecutive year. Days later, Stevenson, a draft-eligible sophomore, reported to Phoenix for the MLB combine. Depending on who you ask, Stevenson is the first or second-best pure catcher and a consensus mock top-35 pick for the 2025 MLB draft, which begins July 13 (6 p.m. ET on ESPN).
Stevenson and other catchers with MLB potential have long been evaluated on how well they manage pitchers, frame pitches and lead a team’s defense — including directing positioning and keeping runners from stealing and scoring. But MLB general managers and player personnel say dual-threat backstops such as Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, an AL MVP favorite, now rank as the standard bearers for players in the pipeline to baseball’s major leagues. The gap between a catcher with All-Star potential and one who could hold down the position at a replacement level is glaringly obvious.
What might not be so obvious, however, is just how much MLB’s 2023 rules changes are now influencing how the position is being taught, played, coached and scouted at all levels of the game — and just how much of a premium is being placed on the offensive abilities of catchers such as Stevenson or Coastal Carolina’s Caden Bodine, another likely early draft pick.
From high school and youth ball to college and the minor leagues, a shift has already begun. In fundamental ways, the value of the position itself is being reframed — and Stevenson is a fitting avatar for catchers joining the professional ranks at a time when their livelihoods are in flux, their success most likely dictated by their capacity to adapt to this new reality.
“I don’t want to say it’s a dying position, [but] the bar for a being a good catcher offensively is so low,” said one MLB director of amateur scouting. “You could be an everyday catcher if you hit .210 with 10 home runs. [But] if you hit .210 with 30 home runs and a Platinum Glove? You’re a superstar.”
Jim Koerner, USA Baseball’s director of player development, said it’s still imperative for catchers to wield “middle-infield hands” and a strong arm to be an MLB starter.
“[But] in five years,” he said, “once they institute robo umps, I think it’s going to be completely an offensive position.”
AHEAD OF THE 2023 MLB season, at the behest of on-field consultant and former Chicago Cubs and Boston Red Sox president Theo Epstein, the league instituted a slew of rule changes intended to energize a purportedly staling sport. Baseball banned defensive shifts, instituted a pitch clock, limited mound disengagements to two per plate appearance and widened the bases from 15 inches to 18 inches — all changes first tested in the minor leagues.
The dividends were immediate. In 2023, runners stole 3,503 bases and upped it to 3,617 last season, the most in 109 years and the third most in any MLB season. The average game time fell to 2 hours, 36 minutes in 2024, the quickest in 40 years. Attendance and television engagement records were set in 2023 and broken in 2024.
Just as quickly, it became harder for catchers to stop runners from stealing. Catchers faced an increase of nearly 12 and 14 more stolen base attempts a season in 2023 and 2024, respectively, than in 2022. Exchange times and pop times increased exponentially to compensate, as did the speed at which catchers throw on steal attempts. But runners are faster and — owed to new limited disengagements rules for pitchers — closer to their would-be stolen bases than ever.
From 2016 to 2022, the lowest average caught stealing percentage for a single season among qualified catchers was 22.28% in 2021. In 2023 it was 17.43% and, last season, it was 18.78%. Through July 7, MLB runners have stolen 1,947 bases, on pace to eclipse 2024’s total. The Minnesota Twins stole an MLB-low 65 bases in 2024; 14 teams already have more in 2025.
Jerry Weinstein, a Chicago Cubs catching consultant, said pitchers get the ball to the plate in the 1.3-second range, and catchers’ pop times are between 1.8 and 2.0 seconds.
“There’s nothing we can do to improve that, that’s a staple,” Weinstein said. “The average runner runs 3.35, one-tenth of a second for the tag … it’s a math problem. If the baserunner is perfect, and the catcher and pitcher are perfect based on those parameters, the guy’s going to be safe most of the time. Which is exactly what we’re seeing.”
But one MLB director of player development said even with the rise in stolen bases’ effect on strategy, the best batteries still control how efficiently they get outs.
“From an analytic standpoint, swinging the count in your favor is more valuable than defending the stolen base,” the player development director said. “Ninety feet matters in certain situations, [but] some teams don’t even care. They’d rather have a guy execute his stuff: High leg kick, deliver the stuff, go for the punch out.”
Behind the plate, he said, there’s a different catching archetype than there was 25 years ago. They’re now bigger, taller and can get under the ball with a one-knee-down stance behind the plate. But, unlike the days when an offensive juggernaut catcher was a rarity — Mike Piazza and Carlton Fisk, or dual-threats like Johnny Bench, Ivan Rodriguez and Yogi Berra — now an adept offensive catcher can separate himself from a logjam.
“If you can’t hit,” he said, “you’re going to have a hard time sticking around.”
From both 1991-1998 and 1999-2007, there were eight MLB catchers (at least 50% of games at catcher) with three or more .800 OPS, 10-home run, 50-RBI seasons. From 2008-2015, that number fell to five. From 2016 through 2024, there were three.
“The offensive product is incredibly low, the physical demands very high, and what we value in catching has changed so much and is on the precipice of changing again,” said a director of amateur scouting. “We put so much value on catchers being able to frame pitches and get extra strikes … and the minute that goes away, that drastically changes how we evaluate amateur and professional catchers.”
When organizations find offensive-minded catchers who are capable behind the plate, they tend to hold onto them.
“It’s getting harder and harder to find those guys that are really offensive, they’re few and far between,” a director of amateur scouting said. “You name one, then I’ll name one. I guarantee it’s going to be a short list.”
Another director of amateur scouting said part of what makes some catchers in this year’s draft so valuable is that they can catch and potentially be a standout offensive performer.
“You don’t want [a catcher you draft in the first round] to have a position change a year and a half down the road,” the scout said. “You’re going to move him to first base or left field, and now the offensive bar is so much higher there.”
Which is why some MLB scouts are high on Stevenson and think he can handle the adjustments the position now requires. He was steady behind home plate for North Carolina, a great blocker but below-average receiver. But it’s what the 6-foot-1, 210-pound, left-handed hitting All-America catcher did with his bat that has drawn the attention of MLB scouts: Among Division I catchers who have caught 90 games since 2024, Stevenson ranked second in home runs (33), third in runs (104) and sixth in OPS (.960). He drew 29 more walks (107) than any other catcher while having the second-best chase rate (17.2%) and second-most pitches per plate appearance (4.09).
Although some MLB scouts and player development personnel have raised questions about Stevenson’s glove and whether he could thrive behind the plate at the sport’s top level, others say his power and discerning eye come at such a premium that defensive concerns are secondary and correctable. One director of amateur scouting said Stevenson’s floor is backup catcher at the MLB level.
One executive of a team with a top-10 draft pick said Stevenson is in the mix that high because his defensive technique is easily adjustable, but an eye and bat like that at a position such as catcher is too rare to pass up.
“You could be an outstanding defensive catcher, but if you can’t hit a lick, it’s hard to make a roster as an everyday player,” he said.
“Hardest position to evaluate,” another director of amateur scouting said, “amateur catcher.”
He compared the predraft evaluation to college quarterbacks trying to play in the NFL: “Can you transition? With edge rushers, you have less than three seconds to get rid of the ball — same for a catcher, you want him to be better than two and to be able to throw it on the bag. Guys that are 1.78, 1.83, 1.85? They can get away with a higher throw, but the 2.0 guys have to be perfect. It takes a special human being to do it and do it for many years.”
Steve Rodriguez, Stanford University’s catching coach, was Trevor Bauer and Gerritt Cole’s catcher at UCLA before spending six seasons in the Atlanta Braves and Arizona Diamondbacks organizations. He lauded Stevenson’s prowess with a bat and said he is underrated behind the plate.
“[With] his ability and size to be light on his feet and his knees … I watch him and he can scrape the dirt with that knee down so easily: That means his balance and flexibility is at a high level,” Rodriguez said. “When you’re able to do that with the skill set he has with his hands, you have a pretty phenomenal player.”
Stevenson said UNC catching coach Jesse Wierzbicki, a former UNC starting catcher who played in the Houston Astros minor league system, hammered receiving and blocking drills all season — footwork, transfers to second base, stealing strikes. He also had inspiration at home.
“You’ve got eight guys staring at you, being a leader on that field, directing traffic,” Stevenson said. “I was probably 8 years old — my mom caught, so I was always wearing the gear — when I fell in love with it. It’s what I wanted to do.”
ON A FRIGID Tuesday morning in March, more than 50 high school boys in full uniform took the field at the USA Baseball Complex in Cary, North Carolina, with Jim Koerner in the stands. Koerner develops on-field programming and curriculum for USA Baseball’s 13- to 17-year-old teams and is one of amateur American baseball’s most important barometers. His son, Sam, 18, catches for Pro5 Academy’s Premier team, an elite developmental academy.
Scattered around the diamond were players committed to Old Dominion and NC State, Virginia Tech and UNC, Ohio State and Tulane. Haven Fielder, the San Diego State-bound son of Prince Fielder, is Pro5’s designated hitter. Sam committed to Division I Radford University in Virginia. Almost all of them take remote classes and rarely, if ever, attend high school in-person.
The elder Koerner said it’s a moment of extreme change, both for the beloved sport that has long been his livelihood and the position his son fell in love with. From a young age, Sam showed a natural lean toward catching, but Jim said he urged Sam toward the position he thought would provide the best chance of a prosperous baseball life.
Now he’s not so sure.
Twenty years ago, Jim Koerner said, catchers were as still as possible; now, framing and throwing are more important than blocking, and passed balls are skyrocketing.
His son, like Stevenson, is a left-hitting catcher. Sam is just shy of 6 feet and defensively gifted with a plus-arm. He also hits well for contact. He situationally adapts his catching stance: one knee down if the bases are empty, traditional with runners on. Sam said, even with the position under siege, it’s easier to throw out of that. Anything to tip the scales.
“[Sam] has aspirations, like a lot of young kids,” Jim Koerner said. “It’s hard to tell young kids, ‘Hey, man, you’re a really good receiver … but in five years, that might not matter. Just focus on your arm and hitting.'”
Sammy Serrano, Sam’s catching coach and a second-round draft pick in the 1998 MLB draft, said he isn’t worried about Sam or how he’ll adapt to rule changes. Serrano said Sam has an extremely high baseball IQ and he “just happens to be the catcher.”
During a game this spring, Sam Koerner took a relay from right field, swiped his mitt across the plate and waited: Runner out. Seconds later, he was in the dugout asking Serrano, what he could do to improve his timing and technique. It was a good play, but Sam isn’t interested in only good.
“He always wanted to [be a catcher],” his father said. “Two or three years old, he’d squat down in front of the TV and I’d be like, ‘Hey Sam … whatcha doin’?’
“He’d just point at the catcher on TV.”
DAVID ROSS’S WARM laugh spilled through a cellphone speaker when asked how well he would fare as a catcher in today’s MLB.
“I probably wouldn’t have a job,” he said. “I hit .180 my last year in Boston and I laughed: I got a two-year deal. I had a couple of deals on the table. That would’ve never happened early in my career when framing wasn’t a thing.”
Ross’s career was extended by his proclivity in the margins.
“When I was coming up, you had holds, hold pick, pitchouts, slide steps, four or five different signs from coaches that would help you manage the running game,” he said. “Well, that turned into nobody wanted to run anymore because the percentages didn’t match up. Now you see all these teams building with legit base stealers and athletes.”
After retiring following their 2016 World Series victory, Ross became a special assistant with the Cubs, then worked as an ESPN analyst before becoming the Cubs’ manager from 2020 to 2023, the first season under the rule changes. He is torn on some elements of the changes and changes that still might come, such as the Automated Ball-Strike system already implemented in MiLB that MLB tested this spring training.
“As a player, it’s a hard job, mistakes cost games, so, I love the challenge system because you’re going to keep the beauty of the game,” Ross said. “I don’t think we’ll get away from — you’re still going to be teaching kids about receiving, blocking, throwing, calling the game, the little intricacies of baseball. I don’t think that’s going to go away. Even with all the analytics, you still need a sense of feel back there.
“But offense has won out.”
Two-time All-Star catcher Jonathan Lucroy was an offense-first catcher out of college who became an analytic darling of the mid-2010s for his ability to frame pitches.
A mid-2000s ESPN feature on Lucroy pointed to then-Cubs general manager Epstein’s savvy in being an early adopter to the framing movement, which included the signing of Ross. Ironically, it’s the same aspect of the game Epstein might undo if an ABS system is implemented.
“Framing will be so devalued because of the advent of the ABS system and they’ll be prioritizing the offensive side of the position even more,” Lucroy said. “I’m biased, but I’ve experienced it firsthand.”
Lucroy predicted that the bedrocks of the position will remain.
“The most important part of the position is the game management and leadership,” he said. “There’s a lot of psychology that goes into it: How different guys communicate, how they receive information, take it in, apply [it]. You can’t take a paint brush and swipe it across and everyone does it the same way.”
Lucroy got to know his pitchers, learn about their families, how they respond to constructive criticism.
“How do you go out and speak to them properly to reel them in? Get them to change stuff up, change their thought process?” Lucroy said. “Are they a hand-hold guy? Do you have to tell them everything’s good, breathe, slow it down? The majority of guys are like that. On the flip side, a guy like Max Scherzer you can go out and yell at him, insult him a bit, and he responds positively.”
Lucroy said Jason Kendall once told him that the best catchers were also the best communicators, that their job is to make the pitcher look as good as possible.
‘”Make them more important than you,'” Lucroy recalled. “You want them to trust you and believe in you, like any other relationship. ‘Cause 99% of the time, guys don’t feel the best when they go out and play.”
Lucroy said catchers will adapt to the rule changes, because they always do. Lucroy said he thinks once an ABS system is instituted, catchers will go back into a more traditional stance, which means they’ll block balls better and throw out more runners.
But having experienced an analytics revolution himself, he worries about coming into an MLB transitioning between eras.
“The game is always shifting, always evolving,” Lucroy said. “If you go back and look at 2016, remember how the Cubs had Willson Contreras back there? And they put in David Ross. Why? Because David Ross is a veteran who ended up being a future manager who knows what the heck he’s doing and how to handle guys in big situations.”
Lucroy said he doesn’t think that’s an accident.
“Framing is important, to a certain extent,” he said, “but the best framers in the world aren’t catching in the World Series — the better offensive guys are. Even the years when I was one of the top framers in the league, I think I made the playoffs once.”
SAM KOERNER’S PRO5 TEAM took on a Canadian baseball academy at a minor league stadium in Holly Springs, North Carolina. The bases were wider — Sam called them “pizza boxes” — than those at the USA Baseball complex, so they stole more often here.
Sam was one of three catchers on the roster that day, and the only one committed to a college. He didn’t play until the eighth inning, and when he finally got to bat, he cranked the first pitch over the right field wall. It nearly hit a car on the adjacent NC 55 roadway.
His dad rushed to pull the video — it was Sam’s third in-game home run ever — but the camera was off.
In the press box afterward, Sam said he’s taking a gap year. He’ll enroll at Radford in the fall of 2026 and play with Pro5 until then, maximizing his growth literally and technically.
Sam doesn’t have to contend with new MLB-type rules yet, but if aspiration meets opportunity, he soon will.
“It’s already a challenge trying to hold runners on [even] though the rule changes aren’t affecting me,” Sam said. “I don’t know what else [catchers] could do. I’m just tryin’ to be as fast as I can to second base, on the bag.”
In working with thousands of players and coaches across the U.S., Jim Koerner said MLB’s rules changes haven’t been adopted at the youth levels, which means they haven’t directly altered how youth ball is played — yet. But for Sam and his peers, and even younger players, making it to an NCAA baseball team and eventually to MLB are the goals.
“The way pro evaluators are going to look at the catching position is going to start to change now,” Koerner said. “But on the flip side, when you value the guy on the mound as much as he’s valued now at the professional level, they still need to trust the guy catching. There’s still a confidence, a comfort, a leadership aspect.”
It’s the aspect Sam prides himself on most and what Lucroy said was invaluable.
“Building good relationships with my pitchers, always having their back,” Sam said. “It makes them perform better knowing they have a guy behind the plate where they can, even as simple as 0-2, they can spike a brick in the dirt and know I’m going to pick ’em up and block it and throw the guy out at first.”
At lunch in between his game and a weightlifting session, Sam inhaled a Philly cheesesteak. He buzzed while breaking down the catching techniques of Cincinnati’s Jose Trevino and San Francisco’s Patrick Bailey. He also acknowledged that during a game earlier, his middle finger got caught asking for a curveball and he took a 90-mile-per-hour fastball in the chest plate.
Jim said it’s just how Sam is; there is no version of him absent of catching.
“When he was 7 or 8, he’d get back there and see these big guys come to hit and … he’d be excited but he’d look at me like…” Jim said, his eyes going wide.
“I was scared to death,” Sam said.
“But he eventually warmed up to it,” Jim said, smiling.
They fell into a cadence, starting and finishing each other’s anecdotes. They’ve chosen a baseball life, devoid of free time. Jim wishes he were home more often, and Sam might as well live in catching gear. Recently, they tried to game-plan on a rare, shared day off. They couldn’t decide what to do. Eventually, Jim pitched batting practice to Sam.
“[At a] concert the other day, one of the guys was tellin’ a story about fishing, being out there with his daughter and she’s thinking, ‘We’re going fishing?’ The guy says, ‘It’s not … just fishing,'” Jim said.
“When I ask Sam, ‘Hey, do you wanna hit? You wanna go lift?’ For him, it might be just baseball.”
Suddenly, a knock came on the press box door to vacate. Sam and Jim turned in their chairs and shared a glance.
“Well, for me,” Jim said, packing up, “it’s not just baseball.”
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