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This week, Sports Renaissance Man had the opportunity to interview Alabama State head football coach Eddie Robinson Jr.

Read the full interview below.

The biggest reason your team had such a special season and went from 7 to 10 wins?

Robinson Jr: Well, I think it was definitely our offensive production. We went from 22 points per game to 40. So that’s probably the most obvious choice, and to have some explosive guys. Of course, you have to start with Andrew Body. He was the HBCU Player of the Year, so that was a big part of it. The offensive line played a lot better as well, but I just think, just overall, from an offensive standpoint, we executed at a high level, and we had some explosive guys.

How do you manage expectations from the fanbase now that you just won double-digit games the previous season?

Robinson Jr: Well, I don’t think you manage outside the room. You manage inside the room. And I think for us, you know, our expectation has been to win at a high level every year. So we expect it. We know the challenges that are involved to make it happen. You know, every win is a big deal. In college football, I tell my guys, half the teams in college football lost this weekend. So when you win, I don’t care who you’re playing. It’s something to appreciate and enjoy. And then on Sunday, you get back to work. So we have a motto about winning today. And so we just focus on winning each day, just getting like marginal gains, getting a little better every day at something. And I think if we keep having that approach, then at the end of the year, you look back and say, ‘Hey, this is what we accomplished.’ And for us, we focus on that. And then, you know, outside the building, the fans should expect to win a championship every year. I mean, that’s the expectation of what fans are. They’re fanatical. They’re supposed to expect to win, right? And it’s our job to deliver that.

What gets you most fired up about spring practice leading a program in 2026?

Robison Jr: I think you can be physical because you don’t play for another six months, and so the guys can really hit. Like, we can watch the guys tackle, and I’m trying to find the guys who are physical, who are tough, some violent guys, who can make people miss, and who can make tackles, who can make throws and catches under pressure. And we still kind of control it a little bit, but we won’t be this physical and violent once the season starts, OK. And so for right now, you can really kind of let them go and practice really hard and have some big collisions and contacts. And then, you knock on wood. You don’t want anybody to get hurt, but you know, to make a good omelet, you've got to break some eggs. So it’s just how it goes.

Does it change with the portal season and everything else? Do you change your install schedule here in this new age of college football? Or has it still been just about what it was when you first got there?

Robinson Jr: I think it’s about the same. I think without having a portal window this spring, it definitely helps us out just from a standpoint of, yeah, maybe a couple guys that you’re hoping to still bring into the program, you’re always recruiting. But at the same time, you’re not spending a whole lot of time concerned about, ‘Hey, this kid is having a great spring, will he try to take this tape and leave?’ You know, and I think that was the part that was just really crazy the last couple of years, when guys are going through spring, and I’m uncertain whether or not they’re going to stay. So now I can’t even really plan for next year because, yeah, I look really good at the defensive end spot, but I don’t know if two of those guys in their mind, they’re thinking that they’re going to leave, and they haven’t told me yet.

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Your offense led the SWAC in scoring last season, but was last in total plays in the SWAC. Was that kind of efficiency mostly due to the consistent chunk plays your offense produced?

Robison Jr: Well, I think it was two things. So I’m always looking at the different stats, comparing year to year, comparing with the conference champ and the top-25 teams in FCS did the year before, and what makes a successful team just from a stats standpoint, because you want to try to mimic those things. So I think more specifically for us, I don’t think of the intention, like every play you’re trying to score, right? But we had some very explosive guys who were taking a normal play and making two guys miss and going 30, 40, and 50 yards, and sometimes scoring. So that’s a good problem to have. So I don’t think you ever scale back from how fast we can score. I think the other part of that equation was that we were horrible in third-down efficiency. We were close to last in the conference. We gave up more than 50% on third down and fourth down. And so what was happening was we were scoring really fast, but then we couldn’t get off the field on third down defensively to get the ball back to the offense. So it was, it was, the success on offense, and I think the lack of being productive in third-down efficiency on defense. And so we understand what we have to be better at. You can be better on third down. And, of course, you want to still be explosive. But we always have a mindset of tempo and controlling the clock and those types of things. But I think that third-down efficiency on defense will allow the offense to have more opportunities to score, and hopefully, we can be just as efficient as we were last year.

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What’s the secret to improved third-down defensive efficiency?

Robinson Jr: First of all, you've got to know it’s third down. It sounds like a simple thing. So what we’re doing now, we’re getting into spring, we’re doing situational football. And the kids know my favorite day of the week during the season is Thursday because we really focus on situational football. You focus on two-minute, you focus on third downs, you focus on red zones. So now it’s more specific, we’re not just running plays 1st and 10 from the 30. We’re looking at, hey, it’s 3rd and 3, it’s 3rd and 5, it’s 3rd and 7. And so it sounds like an easy deal, but everybody on the team, especially guys on the field, have to know, ‘Hey, it’s 3rd and 3.’ And so the way you’re going to play cornerback or linebacker at 3rd and 3 is different between 3rd and 9 or 3rd and 10. So once you know the down the distance, then you can start getting to what’s the formation, anticipating the play, what’s my responsibility, et cetera, et cetera. Third down is my favorite down. That’s the money down. But then you have to execute once you get them into 3rd and long, and then you have to get them off the field. And I think the trend in college football is now to go for it on fourth down. So now we’re really having that mentality of if it’s 3rd and 9, we know if it gets to a 4th and 2 or 3, most offensive coordinators are going to go for it. That’s what happened against us. So we’re kind of preparing the kids. So we’re doing a lot of third and fourth down type things now, so we can be in that mindset of we’re going to have to stop an offense on third and fourth down.

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What’s next for Andrew Body’s development after such a dominant 2025 season?

Robinson Jr: Yeah, I tell him all the time. I mean, you can’t be a running quarterback. You have to be a quarterback who can run, and it’s a big difference. And so, and I tell them, you look at, you know, some of the guys, I go way back, not way back, but I played against them, so I don’t want to say I’m that old, but, you know, Johnny Five, you know, Donovan McNabb, you know, he was one of those guys who could run, but he ran on his terms. Even Mahomes, you know, Mahomes can run, but he’s not a running quarterback per se. And so I think for me, ultimately, you have to win in the pocket from the quarterback position, or you have to get out of the pocket, but eyes downfield to try to make explosive plays. But then, when you have to run, man, you can really punish the defense. So I think just going through that first, second, and third read, getting the ball out to the check down, like, be the point guard. And then when it’s time to take over, you take over when it’s necessary. But don’t force it. Let the game come to you.

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Thinking back to Year 1 as the head football coach at Alabama State to now, going into Year 5, how have you evolved as a leader and coach?

Robinson Jr: Yeah, so I think now I say what needs to be said, and I do what needs to be done. And so I think a simple way to look at that is like we had a practice. It was raining that morning. It was really one of those early spring mornings. It was really, really cold, and it was raining hard, so the team is anticipating and the coaches that practice will be canceled. But with me looking at my trusty weather app, I understand that the weather is about to clear up at 6:30, so we’ll be perfectly fine. So I’m getting in the car in the mindset of it’s going to be a cold, wet, rainy day, ready to practice, and I think everybody else had the mindset of practice will be cancelled, right? So, going through the first 20 minutes, you know I usually take my notes on the things I need to correct at the end of practice. I had five things in the first 20 minutes. I was like this is going nowhere fast. This is about to be a wasted day, and I think in my first year, I probably would have asked another coach, ‘Hey man, how do you think this is going, man? What do you think we need to do to get it going?’ I would have asked permission to be the head football coach. Well, this year I brought everybody up to the 50. A couple of expletives. ‘Like, hey, we’re going to, this thing is horrible. We’re going to start this practice over. I don’t like this tempo. This is not championship tempo. Even though it’s in the spring and we don’t play for six months, this is not a good practice. So let’s get it changed right now.’ And then it went on to be a pretty good practice. So, you know, right now I’m going to be more, I’m going to trust my instinct. I’m going to go with my gut. And maybe I’m wrong sometimes, but as the head coach, you get the right to be wrong. So it’s like, it’s one of those things I’m going to trust what I feel and not always ask permission. I think my first year, I probably would have asked permission to kind of have that same type of, you know, response.

Do you have a take on the Titans’ new uniforms?

Robinson Jr: You know, I’m going to reach out to my guy, Keith Bullock, and talk with him. He came and talked to our team last year. You know, I started off as a Houston Oiler. I was on the team with, you know, Warren Moon and all those guys. Ernest Givins, you know, Haywood Jeffires, all those guys. I mean, I’m a true-blue Houston Oiler, right? So, part of me loves the Columbia blue and red. That’s like, it’s like, man. And so, but part of me still likes the old Titan logo. So, to answer your question, I do like it because it merges both aspects of it. I think it... kind of gives that connection because there is still a lot of Oilers fans in Texas who still follow the Titans because they still have that connection because all of the franchise records, you know, the Robert Braziles, the Earl Campbells, the Warren Moons, they’re still with the Titans franchise, even though they were Oilers. So I think I love the connection of the Columbia blue and red to kind of tie those old guys in and I still go back when I’m able to when we have the reunion days, I still go back to Nashville for the reunion days because for the Oilers, it’s still and my old Oiler friends they show up for that and my Titans guys, so I like it. I’m thumbs up with it.

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Texas Tech football and Ohio State football have something in common right now. For the latter, winning lots of regular-season games has been the standard. The Buckeyes have lost more than one conference game just once since the start of the 2012 season. Since 2005, Ohio State has failed to win double-digit games twice. Of those two seasons, one was the COVID-shortened season. Funny enough, the one year the Buckeyes lost more than one Big Ten game for the first time in 2011, head football coach Ryan Day’s football team won the national championship. Last year, Ohio State went 8-0 vs. Big Ten teams, and they won by two or more scores in every single game. Last year, Texas Tech went 8-1 vs. Big 12 teams, and they won by two or more scores in every victory. Red Raiders fans are now in a shared place with Buckeyes fans when it comes to the college football regular season.

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Could you imagine telling college football fans in 2006 that Texas Tech was on a path to being just as consistently dominant in their conference as Ohio State has been in the Big Ten? If you take a look at the 2026 college football win total projections, you will find that Texas Tech’s projected win total sits at 11.5, which is what it has felt like at Ohio State for years and years. (Although the Buckeyes have an eyebrow-raising 9.5 win total this year. Traveling to Austin for your season opener can have that kind of effect, I suppose.) Texas Tech’s one blemish in conference play last year came on the road in Tempe against the Arizona State Sun Devils. This year, they get Kenny Dillingham’s team at home. BYU isn’t on their schedule next season. It would be a huge upset for the Red Raiders not to be favored in every game they play this upcoming season.

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It certainly seems like this is the new standard for Texas Tech. The Red Raiders were ranked No. 1 by On3 in their team transfer portal rankings last year. They were ranked No. 2 this latest cycle. Their big get last cycle was former Stanford edge David Bailey, and he had a fantastic lone season in Lubbock and projects to be a top-10 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. This cycle, you could argue it’s former Cincinnati quarterback Brendan Sorsby. You could argue it’s former Wake Forest defensive tackle Mateen Ibirogba or former Kansas State linebacker Justin Romine. Only time will tell, but the Red Raiders are rolling in a way similar to the Buckeyes, where it would be jarring to see Texas Tech not win double-digit games at the end of the season. Texas Tech fans are starting to experience the regular season like Ohio State fans have experienced it for decades now, where you expect to win just about every regular-season game you play. You know your team has more talent, more years than not, in your conference.

How soon before SEC fans start to view Texas Tech the way they have viewed Ohio State for years and years? The strength-of-schedule conversation isn’t going anywhere, especially with the SEC going to nine conference games this year. If Texas Tech finishes a perfect 12-0 this season and becomes a yearly lock to make the College Football Playoff, how does that change the conversation around them? In my 34 years on this planet, the Red Raiders have always seemed like one of the fun underdogs in the sport. That’s not who they are anymore, though. While it is impossible to know for sure how they’d fare in the SEC, the same as with Ohio State, it is going to be interesting to see how they are viewed by fanbases in SEC Country, particularly if they don’t make a deep run in the CFP sooner rather than later.

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If you’re an Arkansas football fan, you’re a bit jealous, right? You don’t have to squint too hard to envision an alternate world where you’re doing what Texas Tech is doing in the Big 12. A perfect world for Razorbacks fans is one where they remain in the SEC for every sport except football, right? The Hawgs have never won the SEC and don’t look to be particularly close to winning it in the not-too-distant future. A far more appealing future would be battling the Red Raiders atop the Big 12 every year and going to the CFP more years than not, right? Texas Tech is the kind of powerhouse in the Big 12 that Arkansas could be if it made the switch, right?

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For Ohio State fans, the high floor must be the best part of watching your beloved Buckeyes over the years, right? In the FBS, you can count on one hand the schools that have similar year-over-year floors to Day’s team. It includes Kirby Smart’s Georgia Bulldogs. It used to include Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide. It seems to include Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish and Dan Lanning’s Oregon Ducks. Tennessee fans have enjoyed the consistent high floors that Josh Heupel has created in Big Orange Country over the last half-decade.

This is a new world for Red Raiders fans, where they’re the school with the highest floor in their Power 4 conference more years than not. They are now a school where it’s expected that they win double-digit games every year. It’s a school where a 9-3 finish is a colossal failure. The Buckeyes have lived in this world for a long time, but look out, the Red Raiders are here now, too.

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The Atlanta Hawks continued their winning ways in Detroit on Wednesday night. The Detroit Pistons were without their star guard, Cade Cunningham, but the No. 1 seed in the East still gave Atlanta head basketball coach Quin Snyder’s team all it could handle.

With the victory, the Hawks would be the five-seed in the NBA Playoffs and would face the Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, rather than either the New York Knicks or Boston Celtics, who are both battling it out for the two-seed down the stretch of the 2025-26 NBA regular season.

The Hawks, who have now won fourteen of their last fifteen basketball games, made a statement on the road last night in their overtime victory over the best team in the East, a team they’d lost to in all three of their previous meetings this season.

Let’s dive into my three takeaways from last night’s victory.

Atlanta’s Backcourt Was Everything Last Night

Nickeil Alexander-Walker had 14 points in the first quarter. Both teams were on fire from everywhere on the floor to start the ball game. With around six minutes to go in the opening frame, the Hawks were shooting over 80 percent from the floor. It looked as though it was going to be another big scoring night for the NAW, but he only scored seven more points, including overtime, the rest of the game.

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It was the Hawks’ other backcourt starter, the veteran McCollum, who carried Atlanta to victory last night. He, like Alexander-Walker, started the game hot. McCollum connected on his first three attempts from deep. When McCollum and Alexander-Walker are rolling, particularly from deep, the Hawks are a really tough team to deal with, particularly because of how consistently good Jalen Johnson and Dyson Daniels are around them, with both being triple-digit threats every night out.

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But it was McCollum, late in the fourth quarter, and then in overtime, making one big shot after another. In the fourth quarter in particular, McCollum was hitting shots in a variety of ways. He was drilling shots from deep, sometimes on one foot with the shot clock winding down, hitting huge and-1 opportunities, and even some in the mid-range. The longtime NBA veteran is a delight to watch when he’s playing like he did last night in Detroit, and he was the biggest reason the Hawks beat the Pistons for the first time this season.

What The Heck Happened In The Third Quarter

The Hawks had a 92.7 percent chance of winning this basketball game with 52.9 seconds remaining in the second quarter when Atlanta led 69-50, per ESPN. The Hawks took an eighteen-point lead into halftime. It looked as though there was going to be a lot of garbage-time minutes in the fourth quarter, given where things were headed.

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Then the second half happened. The Pistons started the third quarter on a 16-0 run, and in less than half a quarter, the Hawks’ nearly 20-point lead had completely evaporated. They trailed at points in the third quarter. It was a jarring turn of events and a testament to J.B. Bickerstaff and his team for how they rallied at home after getting blown out in the first half.

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It was another veteran, not McCollum, who came up big for the Hawks in the third quarter, though – Gabe Vincent. He hit two huge threes in the third quarter and scored all of his points in this brutal frame for Atlanta. Without his jolt off the bench, that also included two steals, Atlanta might not have won this game. (Alexander-Walker also hit a huge pull-up three in transition late in the third quarter that felt huge at the time, too.)

Dyson Daniels And Jalen Johnson Were Great, Too

Johnson tied McCollum in most points scored for the Hawks last night at 27. However, it’s easy to recount all of the latter’s makes, while Johnson is so good and so efficient that he can coast to 27. He was two rebounds shy of another triple-double and played winning basketball all night long. He passed the ball, drew a lot of fouls, converted at the line, and continued to be the do-it-all star for Atlanta. But on nights where McCollum is hitting some of the shots he did, particularly late in the game, Johnson’s consistently elite play can be overlooked.

For Daniels, who continues to be the best watch for Atlanta, does so many things that impact winning, too. He nearly finished with ten offensive rebounds alone and finished with 13. He added two steals, assisted on two threes for the Hawks, and nearly had a triple-double when he took zero free throws and made zero threes.

Atlanta doesn’t have enough remaining games to catch the Cavaliers, New York Knicks, or Boston Celtics, but they will face the latter in two of their next three games. The first one is Friday night in Boston.

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The Tennessee Volunteers are headed back to the Sweet Sixteen for the fourth straight season under men’s head basketball coach Rick Barnes. The 6-seeded Vols beat the 3-seeded Virginia Cavaliers 79-72 to advance to the next round of the men’s NCAA Tournament, where they will face off against the No. 2 seed Iowa State.

Let’s dive into a few of my takeaways from Sunday night’s instant classic in Philadelphia, where the Vols were able to stay dancing.

The Free Throws Ended Up Being Huge

For a lot of this game, I wondered if Tennessee would run into a math problem against Ryan Odom’s Cavaliers. The Cavs were taking, and, well, making lots of threes early in this ball game. Virginia made five threes on eight attempts within the first eight minutes, which did not seem like a recipe for a Volunteer victory on Sunday night.

Tennessee weathered the hot shooting from deep by Virginia, though, and pounded the latter inside. There was a point late in the first half where Tennessee had outscored Virginia 14-4 in the paint, but, again, I wondered if this would ultimately spell doom for the Vols with Virginia’s three-point shooting and the Vols continuing to play with two bigs, even after JP Estrella picked up two early fouls in the first half.

However, the Vols and Cavs finished with 28 and 26 points in the paint, respectively. The Vols and the Cavs finished close in three-pointers made, with 8 and 12, respectively. The disparity in points came at the free-throw line, as Tennessee’s top two scorers, Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Nate Ament, combined to go 13-of-14 at the charity stripe. Ultimately, the Vols went 19-25 at the free-throw line, and it proved to be the key scoring difference for Tennessee, stealing one over the higher-seeded Cavaliers.

Bishop Boswell Had Himself A Night

The sophomore guard had himself a game, didn’t he? As worried as I was about Tennessee’s math problem against Virginia early, Boswell played a significant role in the Vols’ winning this game and advancing to the Sweet Sixteen. Boswell hit three first-half threes and another big one in the second half, as he went 4-of-10 from deep overall on the night.

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Tennessee needed every one of those first-half threes from Boswell. There was one possession where Boswell even passed up an open three-pointer to drive and kick to Gillespie for an even better look from deep, which the latter drained. Boswell made so many different winning plays for Tennessee in this game and even added nine assists for good measure.

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Boswell can shoot, and the Vols need him to remember that he can shoot against the Cyclones in the Sweet Sixteen. Spacing can be tight for the Vols in the halfcourt, so Boswell must fire those open threes when he gets those kinds of looks because he can make them, and Tennessee needs him to take them. Boswell doesn’t need to fire any midrange shots, and he doesn’t really need to try to finish at the rim.

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He has to continue a similar shot diet to the one he had Sunday night moving forward. That doesn’t mean he needs to take ten-plus threes a night – it all depends on the flow of the game and what opposing defenses are showing him. Still, the Vols need more three-point shooting like that from Boswell, and they’ll always need his ability to drive and find Ament or Gillespie open for three around the perimeter.

Tennessee Turnovers Didn’t Cost Them

I think every Vol fan was a tad nervous as the second-half turnovers really started to mount late, although some of them were the result of some questionable non-foul calls on Virginia. The Vols finished the game with ten turnovers, and had they not found a way to beat the Cavs Sunday night, that likely would have been the leading takeaway after the game as to why.

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It got wonky down the stretch, but there were a lot of positives, too. Gillespie was clutch from the charity stripe. Ament, too. Even after missing most of the game due to foul trouble, Estrella had two huge buckets inside, one with two guys on him, late in the second half. Tennessee even lost the lead late in the game, but they still found a way to close and advance.

The Vols’ toughest test awaits in Iowa State, but we don’t have to think about that match-up yet. Tennessee has reached its fourth consecutive Sweet Sixteen and is just one win away from three-straight Elite Eights. What a run by Rick Barnes. What a run.

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The Toronto Raptors are smack dab in the middle of the Eastern Conference. At 39-29, Toronto would be the No. 5 seed in the NBA Playoffs if the season started today. The Raptors are likely to finish with their best record since their 2021-22 squad that won 48 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The Raptors under Darko Rajakovic have gotten a little bit better each of the last three seasons. It’s a similar rise to that of former Raptors head coach Dwane Casey, who went on his first three seasons at the helm after replacing Jay Triano. Toronto went from 23 to 34 to 48 wins in those first three seasons under Casey. Interestingly enough, the Raptors’ Net Rating in Year 3 under Casey was +3.5, and it’s now +2.2, good for 12th in the NBA. Casey guided those Raptors teams in the mid-2010s to 48 or more wins for five consecutive seasons. Is history about to repeat itself in Toronto?

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The Raptors’ preseason win-loss projection was 39.5, and with 14 games remaining on their schedule, Toronto should clear that number with ease. Coming into the year, Toronto had finished the regular season with a winning record just once in the last six seasons. The preseason expectation was more in the Play-In Zone, but to Rajakovic’s credit, the team has exceeded preseason expectations and could certainly make it out of the first round in the East for the first time since 2020. Toronto is 6th in the NBA in defensive rating, and their Expected W82 is 47.4, so right at that 48-win total, the 2021-22 Raptors team hit.

Toronto had two players make the All-Star team this year in Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram. Barnes and Ingram, along with Jakob Poetl, Immanuel Quickley, and RJ Barrett, are all signed through next season. That’s important, as the five-man unit that’s totaled 647 possessions together is +10.7. In fact, Toronto’s top-6 lineups in possessions played all have positive plus-minuses. It’s a solid team across the board. The Raptors are a solid professional basketball team that is also having a very solid season in the NBA.

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It has to be a bit of a sigh of relief for Bobby Webster and Toronto’s front office that the Raptors are playing at the level of a team pushing for fifty wins in the East, per CleaningTheGlass. We already knew the team nailed the Scottie Barnes selection years ago. In three of the last four seasons, Barnes has been in the 80-plus percentile in Efficiency Differential. Barnes is a winning player in so many ways, but he is shooting 29 percent from three this season, his second-worst percentage in his young NBA career. However, he also has the best eFG% of his career this season. Through five seasons, his shot diet has never included enough threes to account for 30-plus percent of his overall attempts. Barnes is just a very unique best player to have on a very solid team in 2026.

It’s fair to wonder with this team if they can be the Detroit Pistons of next season. The Pistons won 44 games a season ago and sit at 50-19 with thirteen games remaining in the regular season. The key difference is the ceiling, particularly on offense, between the Pistons’ star Cade Cunningham and Barnes. So there are some obvious similarities and some key differences between the two franchises. The Raptors’ calling card is their defense. Both are top-10 defenses this year, but the Pistons are right on the line of having a top-10 offense. It’s imperative to be in the top 10 in both to be a serious contender, as the Raptors were fifth in both metrics when they won the title in the 2018-19 season. The biggest wonder this year has been if the Pistons could get into the top-10 in offensive efficiency, and I suspect the same will be true for Toronto if this season is the start of another great run in Raptors basketball. You know they can defensively, but, as of right now, you have to really squint to see a top-10 offense in their immediate future.

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Perhaps a lot of it comes down to the development of Ja’Kobe Walter, a 2024 first-round pick. Or maybe it’s their 2025 Lottery pick out of South Carolina, Collin Murray-Boyles. The latter has been a plus-player in the 5-man lineups he’s played the most with this season. He’s played with two five-man lineups that have amassed more than 100 possessions together this season to a final total of +13.6. Murray-Boyles’ shot chart is significantly different than Poetl’s and is likely a big factor in where Toronto’s offense can go in the next couple of seasons, particularly next to Barnes at the 4. Similarly, Walter’s development in the backcourt is also important. With a modern shot-chart diet of threes and shots at the rim, what he ultimately evolves into on the offensive end matters for Toronto. 61 percent of his shots this season are threes, and he’s shooting better than league average at 37 percent. He’s shooting a super-efficient 44 percent on corner 3s, too. RJ Barrett will be an expiring contract next season, so Toronto needs to find out what Walter is or could be sooner rather than later.

Early returns on Murray-Boyles and Walter have been good. The Raptors have seemingly advanced out of the Lottery for a while, which makes Murray-Boyles and Walter, too, extremely important over the next several seasons. Ingram has been a success story and an All-Star in Toronto. Quickley and Barrett have been excellent in their increased roles. Poetl’s a seemingly Forever Solid big. It’s been a surprise to see Toronto be firmly out of the Play-In conversation this season, but the Raptors are in the middle of the East now. It can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck there, just as it can get old fast for fanbases to be stuck in the Play-In. Toronto probably needs some development luck with Murray-Boyles or Walter to move out of the middle, or maybe it’s just Barnes reaching another unexpected level offensively. Either way, the Raptors are a good team that figures to be good for the next couple of seasons. There is nothing harder in sports than going from good to elite, and that’s now the big question that faces Toronto this season and beyond.

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So, which fanbases should be excited about these early odds? Which fanbases should be concerned? Which fanbases, honestly, should have no idea what to think?

Let’s dive in.

Who Should Be Excited?

Let’s start positively. Tennessee fans should be excited that their win total is up to 7.5 from 6.5, where it was when the projections came out a few days ago. With a redshirt freshman or true freshman under center, I’ve long maintained this offseason that the goal, or hope rather, is eight wins for the Volunteers. Young quarterback, new defensive coordinator, new strength & conditioning coach, thirty-plus true freshmen, compounded with nine conference games and a real road test at Bobby Dodd Stadium against the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. If the Vols reach nine wins, Tennessee head football coach Josh Heupel is your Coach of the Year in the SEC. If the Vols reach eight wins, I suspect it will look and feel very different than Tennessee’s eight wins last season.

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Another school with a projected win total of 7.5 is Florida. If you are a Gators fan, you should be really excited about that number. Florida, Auburn, LSU, Arkansas, Ole Miss, and Kentucky all will have new head football coaches this fall, and only the Bayou Bengals go into next fall with a higher projected win total than the Gators at 8.5.

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Florida was able to pry Jon Sumrall away from Tulane, where he went 20-8 and made the College Football Playoff last season. Across his four seasons as a head football coach in the FBS, Sumrall has gone 7-1 in conference play every year. He’s won at multiple stops, has played in this conference at Kentucky, where he was the Wildcats’ leading tackler in 2004, and hired a heck of a staff around him. Buster Faulkner as offensive coordinator and Brad White as defensive coordinator is a strong duo, particularly the former.

The Gators retaining star tailback Jadan Baugh could prove to be a huge offseason win for Sumrall’s staff, with the Jackets under Faulkner sitting in the top-10 in yards per carry on the ground in two of the last three seasons, per CFBStats. Like Tennessee, the Gators have a true quarterback competition on their hands between Aaron Philo, who followed Faulkner from Atlanta, and roster holdover Tramell Jones Jr, a Jacksonville native. Whoever wins the QB1 battle will have a star tailback behind him and a litany of playmakers out wide to throw the ball to in Dallas Wilson, Vernell Brown III, and Eric Singleton Jr.

Outside of Kiffin at LSU, no fanbase that hired a new coach this offseason in the SEC should be more excited than Florida fans.

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Who Should Be Concerned?

This will probably be a yearly deal for Kalen DeBoer, unfortunately. Even if he wins a championship at Alabama this year or next, the pressure never ceases at a place like Alabama. That’s both a blessing and a curse for the head football coach and the fans. Georgia and Texas are tied atop the win-total projections at 9.5 wins. Alabama is right below them, tied with Texas A&M and LSU. Those five schools should be the favorites to make the CFP this season out of the conference. If you're a Bulldog fan, you feel the best out of this group, but if you’re a Crimson Tide fan, you’re already a little anxious about next season.

You would like to be at the 9.5 win total where the Longhorns sit alongside the Bulldogs. You missed the CFP last season, and there is all sorts of pressure in Tuscaloosa for that not to happen in back-to-back seasons. However, Ryan Grubb is back for Year 2 as offensive coordinator, so that continuity should help on the offensive side of the ball. It’s unlikely the Tide could run the ball any worse than they did a year ago. Ryan Coleman-Williams, Lotzeir Brooks, and Rico Scott at wideout have lots of potential with two young, blue-chip wildcards behind them in Derek Meadows and Cederian Morgan.

Like Tennessee and Florida, there is a real quarterback competition happening in Tuscaloosa. The floor for the Tide is safer than the Vols or the Gators if the wrong quarterback wins the job to start the season, but if you’re a fan of the Tide, you hope the right guy wins and runs with it, whether that’s Austin Mack or Keelon Russell. While the latter is still just a redshirt freshman, the CFP expectations will remain whether he or Mack wins the competition. If Alabama bests its projected win total in March, that still may not be enough to reach the CFP at 9-3. It’s a march to double-digit wins, with a new quarterback and a nine-game conference schedule that includes trips to Knoxville, Baton Rouge, and Nashville, along with Georgia and Texas A&M coming to town.

Who Should Have No Idea What To Think?

Several schools fit the bill here: LSU, Ole Miss, Oklahoma, and Vanderbilt.

For the Tigers, 8.5 is a nice first-year number for Kiffin, but the school also just brought in the No. 1-ranked transfer portal class, highlighted by a big-time, win-now quarterback in Arizona State transfer quarterback Sam Leavitt. In four of Kiffin’s final five years in Oxford, he won double-digit games every season except one. With more talent in Baton Rouge, you feel great, but it’s still Year 1, and you aren’t sure what the fairest expectations are for Kiffin this fall. It’s probably just make the 12-team field, something LSU has not done yet, and go from there.

Assuming star quarterback Trinidad Chambliss is under center for the Rebels, 7.5 seems awfully low. Sure, Kiffin is gone, and Pete Golding is in. The latter was awesome in the CFP under brutal circumstances, but Ole Miss will have a different offensive coordinator with John David Baker coming in from East Carolina. Like Kiffin and LSU, the Rebels reeled in another elite transfer portal class on paper. How Syracuse transfer wideouts Darrell Gill Jr. and Johntay Cook come in, and mesh matters a great deal, and you still have five-star, in-state product Caleb Cunningham waiting in the wings behind Deuce Alexander.

Oklahoma broke through and made the CFP with arguably the toughest schedule in all of college football last year. Heisman hopeful John Mateer is back. And yet, Sooners fans see their win total at 7.5, alongside the Gators and the Vols. The Sooners were 79th in offense last season in scoring. Ben Arbuckle is back for his second season in Norman. The passing game in particular has to have more juice if the Sooners are going to hit the over and expect to win multiple games in the CFP. Isaiah Sategna III is back as Mateer’s safety net, and transfers Trell Harris and Parker Livingstone need to be plug-and-play guys right away.

The defense finished 7th in scoring defense last year, and under Brent Venables calling the shots, it’s hard to see a major drop-off there, so their floor is high. The offense has to click across the board a lot better, so OU is in one of the stranger spots in the conference.

Finally, the Vanderbilt Commodores. They won double-digit games last season, led by a quarterback who probably deserved the Heisman. Even though they missed the CFP, Vandy fans watched their school trounce the Volunteers in Neyland. They beat LSU and Missouri at home. They trounced South Carolina and Kentucky. They fell to the Longhorns on the road by three. A whole lot went right for Clark Lea’s team in Nashville last year.

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Now, Diego Pavia is out, and true freshman Jared Curtis is in. Across the state, rival Tennessee is dealing with the same dramatic shift, going from Joey Aguilar to either George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon. Like Tennessee, though, there is a belief in the ‘Dores with a young quarterback under center. You should feel good about the 6.5 if you’re a Vanderbilt fan, but you have to wonder what the offense will look like with such a dramatic change from Pavia to Curtis, even with offensive coordinator Tim Beck back. It’s already going to be weird to see Curtis in black-and-gold after being a longtime Georgia commit the Commodores flipped late in the process, but how will last year’s success and offensive dominance shape Vanderbilt fans’ likely up-and-down nature of this year’s team?

I can’t wait to watch how it all plays out, in, well, six months.

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Well, FanDuel released its early 2026 SEC win total projections this week. That obviously included the Tennessee Volunteers, who now sit at 7.5 wins, a number shared by fellow SEC rivals Ole Miss, Oklahoma, and Florida. Interestingly enough, this will be the third straight season Tennessee’s preseason win total projection has fallen from the previous season. In 2024, it was 9.5 wins. Following Nico Iamaleava’s stunning spring departure the following season, it was 8.5 wins. With an additional conference game and an early road game on The Flats against Georgia Tech this season, it’s down to 7.5 wins.

Even with the additional conference game on the docket, and no Joey Aguilar or big-time, veteran transfer quarterback under center, that 7.5 total feels about right. 6.5 was too low, but 8.5 would have been too high. Head football coach Josh Heupel has won fewer than eight games just once at Tennessee. Even with so much change this offseason, particularly on defense and the defensive coaching staff, along with the uncertainty at quarterback, Heupel has earned the benefit of the doubt.

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However, one of the major worries I have about Tennessee’s schedule next season is the long wait before the first bye week for the Vols. Whether it’s redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon under center, they will face Texas, Auburn, Arkansas, Alabama, and South Carolina before that first bye week. What makes the slate a bit easier – although easier feels like the wrong word there – is that the games against the Longhorns, Tigers, and Crimson Tide all take place in the friendly confines of Neyland Stadium. It’s fair to project that Arkansas and South Carolina, the two road games for Tennessee during that stretch, will be the weakest of the bunch amongst that group this fall.

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It’s a better year to get Arkansas, South Carolina, Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech on the road. The Hawgs will look vastly different under new head coach Ryan Silverfield, with a projected win total of 4.5. The Gamecocks are already dealing with brutal injury luck on the offensive line with a projected win total of 5.5. The Commodores will go from a 24-year-old Heisman-worthy player at quarterback in Diego Pavia to an 18-year-old true freshman in Jared Curtis with a projected win total of 6.5. The Yellow Jackets lost their brilliant offensive coordinator, Buster Faulkner, to Florida, and their three-year starter at quarterback, Haynes King, who exhausted his eligibility with a projected win total of 6.5. This is not to say that I expect the Vols to beat all of these teams on the road this fall. However, outside of Tennessee’s visit to College Station on November 14 against Texas A&M, it’s not all that crazy to envision a world where Heupel’s team is favored in the majority of these ball games.

Tennessee will certainly have its hands full in Knoxville, though. Texas, LSU, and Alabama all have College Football Playoff aspirations and expectations. All might be favored the week they travel to Knoxville. One of the stranger aspects of Tennessee’s 2025 season was how the Vols fared at home. After not losing a home game in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 seasons, the Vols went 1-3 at home against conference foes in 2025. Their lone home win against SEC competition was a one-score win over Arkansas. If you’re a glass-half-full person, you point to the Georgia loss in early September as to how advantageous playing in Neyland against big-time competition can still be, even in a down year. Is there a Tennessee fan or analyst who would have predicted before the season that the Vols’ best showing at home last year would be against Kirby Smart’s Bulldogs?

I suspect not, but that’s what happened. Sure, the result was not what any Vol fan hoped for, but for the first time in the Heupel era, Tennessee gave the Dawgs fits for four quarters. Aguilar tossed four touchdown passes and threw for nearly 400 yards. Chris Brazzell II had his breakout game against the back-to-back SEC champions with six catches for 177 yards and three scores. Yes, Tennessee did not win the ball game, but the Vols throwing all over the Dawgs for the first time in the Heupel vs. Smart series was an important development both for the team and the fanbase.

Before that ball game in September, Heupel had beaten Alabama twice. He had beaten Florida twice. He led the Vols to the College Football Playoff. He finished a season with the No. 1 scoring offense in FBS. He just hadn’t pushed Smart’s Bulldogs for four quarters. Of course, the Dawgs ultimately prevailed with a fourth-down throw for the ages, but the Vols were right there, in Neyland Stadium, to beat the team that would ultimately win the SEC once again.

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Iamaleava did not lose a home game at Tennessee. Sure, the 2026 home slate is a lot tougher than the 2024 home slate, but it is workable. The Longhorns nearly fell to Kentucky and Mississippi State last season. LSU went 0-4 on the road in SEC play last season, albeit with a different coach. Lane Kiffin has been really good on the road in SEC play the last couple of seasons at Ole Miss, 5-3 overall, but winning on the road in this conference is hard. The Crimson Tide has traveled to Knoxville three times in the Heupel era, and they’ve lost all three ball games. Neyland Stadium is going to be rocking, particularly early, when Arch Manning and Texas visit Knoxville on September 26 to begin SEC play. That matters for those coin-flip, one-score games.

I don’t think the CFP is in the cards for Tennessee in 2026, but I do think the schedule is more workable than it might appear after a first glance. The Vols catch some teams on the road at a good time. The Vols catch some teams at home at a good time, too. The grind before the first bye week is a bit worrisome, but the Vols, particularly with Jim Knowles installed as the team’s new defensive coordinator, should hover around the eight-win mark this fall. A nine-win season with a nine-game conference schedule and a freshman quarterback would be dynamite, no question, but it’s a march to eight wins in the regular season for me, and while that would match last year’s disappointing final win total, the context could not be more different. Eight wins in the regular season this year would be a whole lot different than eight wins in the regular season last year.

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SRM: Biggest reason the South-Doyle job was the right job for you for right now?

Gibson: I think the biggest part of this job that made it so appealing to me is the rich tradition that they have there, and knowing that football matters to that community and to that school, and that the administrative team, the staff and faculty, and especially the kids and their families that are a part of the program right now, they are absolutely starving for success. I’ve seen first-hand coaching against them, what those teams look like, and what they can do, and the same kids have still went to the same hallways out there, and football still matters just as much now as it did five, ten, fifteen years ago, and there is no reason that it can’t happen. I think that’s really, really important to look at when you look at the big picture of how much does football really matter to a school and to a community, and South Knoxville is definitely one of those around here.

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SRM: How did your time at Powell prepare you for this spot?

Gibson: I cannot, and I’ve told a lot of people, I cannot thank Matt Lowe, the head football coach at Powell High School, enough for preparing me, not only for this, but just for so many other situations as a man to face and to learn how to handle the right way. He did a great job at teaching me all the ins and outs trying being a successful head football coach and all the things that a lot of people don’t see on the surface because there’s a lot more to it that comes to than just playing football games and winning football games. You’re running a business when you do it the right way, and being sure that you know how to interact with people and treat people the right way, and be sure things are done with respect and dignity all the time. That, and then the administrative team at Powell, too, and people that I’ve worked with one-on-one, the teachers, faculty, staff, everybody from the cafeteria staff, everybody over there, has just been so wonderful to me and my family and such a blessing at teaching me how to grow up as a 24-year-old coach when I first got over there to a 34-year-old man now just trying to keep things rolling the right way and everything they’ve taught me I’m so thankful for.

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SRM: What is the biggest difference between you as a football mind, coach, temperament, personality than Coach Lowe?

Gibson: Oh man, that’s a really good question, because Matt Lowe and I were alike before we started working together, but then after working with somebody for eight years and being side-by-side with them, hand-in-hand with everything that’s been going on I’ve become a lot more like him than I think some people realize which has been good, but I would say Matt Lowe is a lot more patient than I am. I think a lot of that comes from his experience — there’s not a lot that Matt hasn’t seen in his time being a head coach. I think this is coming up on Year 20-ish, somewhere like that, for Matt being a head football coach, and so, again, the landscape of high school football has changed a lot since Matt’s first year, but he’s done a great job of evolving with it and being sure that he’s adaptable and flexible and things like that. And so there’s not a lot that comes up that Matt either isn’t prepared for, hasn’t seen, or doesn’t know how to handle or can’t get a grip on. And I think just his patience with a lot of that stuff is something that I’m trying to be a little more like on my end because I have a tendency to not be quite as patient as he does sometimes.

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SRM: Best advice you got from Matt Lowe after you got the job at South-Doyle, and the best piece of advice you got during your time working under him at Powell?

Gibson: I would say since I’ve gotten the job, the best advice from Matt is just take it one day a time. He knows how I’m wired, I’m a ‘go, go, go’, ‘now, now, now’ type of person, and that’s just not realistically for the program or for me, how it’s going to happen. I know it’s going to take some time, and like I just said, I know I need to be patient with some of that stuff. As long as we keep chipping away at it the right way, going the right direction, which I feel like that we are with the kids in the program, the coaching staff coming together, and the people that support the program I think that’s definitely happening so far it’s just I’ve got to be patient to know that it’s not going to happen overnight. Working for Matt, no doubt, the best advice and best lesson that I’ve learned from him that I keep telling people and will always tell people is be sure your people are taken care of. Your coaches, your kids, your support staff, the people in the building, everybody that helps the program, like I said, it’s running a business when you do it the right way everybody that helps keep that business efficient and afloat and trending the right way doing things the right way to compete at a high level all the time, be sure that they’re seen, that they know that they’re seen, that they know that their voices are heard, and that they’re respected. Because at the end of the day, this is all a people business, and if you don’t treat your people right, you’re not doing anything right.

SRM: Do you have a rigid offensive philosophy or will it evolve later this spring and summer when you get a better feel for your personnel?

Gibson: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. So with me, obviously, working with Matt for the last eight years, and I was really fortunate to work with Ron Gray at Halls for four years before that, and just kind of blending all that together, I kind of have an idea of what the system looks like, and I know what’s effective and what’s not, things like that. Especially for the two years that I worked on the offensive side of the ball with Matt and the one year that I worked on the offensive side of the ball with Coach Gray at Halls, has helped me grow, but at the same time, kind of like with just the landscape of high school football you have to stay on the cutting edge all the time. You can have your identity, and know what your structure is, and what the bones are going to be, but if you are not keeping up with the Joneses, then you’re going to get left behind — you can get outdated and lapped in a hurry.

SRM: How to succeed as a defensive coordinator with how modern high school offenses function now is what?

Gibson: Yeah, absolutely, especially around here with some of the offensive minds that we see in our region and on our schedule. I would definitely say, one, the preperation part of it, I take a lot, a lot, of pride in how I prepare, how the assistants prepare, and then how we transfer all of that information over to the kids, so that they get what they need, that they can learn easily and then not only learn it but then apply that in a fast way, when the lights come on on gameday. Then the other part of it is, it’s another lesson I learned from Matt Lowe, I’m not trying to trick or outsmart the 40-year-old coach on the other sideline all the time, that is part of it, you’ve got to be sure your ducks are in a row on that, but I’m trying to manipulate and take advantage of and trick the 16-year-old that just had a math test that afternoon and then he’s got to worry about buying prom tickets on Saturday and all this other stuff that teenagers have going on. That’s the person that if you can figure out how to make it hard on the kids, then that’s where you’re going to have your real success.

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SRM: Money is no object. Where are you going for Spring Break?

Gibson: I’m going to Destin, Florida, with my family, and I’m sitting on the beach where it’s hopefully quiet, with white sand, and clear water, and it’s about eighty degrees, and there’s not a cloud in the sky, and I get to go to all of my favorite restaurants for about five or six days and then watch Hudl on my phone while my son goes to sleep.

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No. 25 Tennessee has had an odd 2025-26 season. Barring a major surprise, the Volunteers will go into the Men’s NCAA Tournament with their lowest seed since the 2020-21 season. Tennessee got upset as a five-seed versus a twelve-seed, Oregon State, in the first round of the tournament that year. Tennessee could make it to the Sweet Sixteen, or they could get upset in the Round of 64 — neither would be all that surprising. One of the key, perhaps overlooked, players who will play a big part in Tennessee’s postseason success is Felix Okpara.

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Okpara has had a bit of an odd final season in Knoxville. Offensively, his usage rate is close to what it was a season ago. As brilliant a lead guard as Ja’Kobi Gillespie has been for the Volunteers this season, No. 6 in overall BPA per EvanMiya, the former Greeneville High School star is a stark contrast to former Vols great lead guard Zakai Zeigler. The Lob Connection, in particular, between Zeigler and Okpara was stronger and more comfortable. And yet, Okpara’s usage rate, his scoring, his rebounding, his field goal percentage, etc., mostly mirror the former Ohio State Buckeye’s first season in orange.

Some of Okpara’s metrics are quite different than last season at Tennessee. His offensive rating is 124.5, the highest of his four-year college career. His defensive rating is 103, also the highest of his four-year college career. He’s also playing really good basketball for the Vols over the last month. He’s averaging eight boards a night over the last month, to go along with three games where he scored 15 or more points. He has seven blocks over his last four SEC games. Okpara was just named to the SEC All-Defensive team, too.

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Tennessee is 15th in defensive rating, per KenPom, its lowest mark since the 2020-21 season. Tennessee’s scoring droughts can be frustrating at times, but the Vols falling out of the top-10 defensively is more of the reason this year’s team is staring a five seed in the NCAA Tournament. It’s not just the defensive drop-off that has plagued Tennessee at times this year — part of it is bad injury luck, part of it is being a bit too thin in the backcourt, and part of it is that it’s really hard to sustain the elite level of success head men’s basketball coach Rick Barnes has had over the last four seasons.

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If the Vols are going to push for three-straight Elite Eights, Barnes’ bigs are going to have to dominate more than just on the offensive glass. The Vols miss Cade Phillips’ physicality inside, and you wonder what Barnes’ rotation inside would have looked like over the last month or two had he been healthy and available all season. You have seen flashes from Jaylen Carey and DeWayne Brown. JP Estrella has scored 20 points in back-to-back games and has had four fouls or more in a game only once since February 1. Barnes has needed Okpara to be his steady Eddie, and he has been that for him for the majority of this season. Without Phillips and without Zeigler leading the point of attack on offense and defense, Okpara has had a lot more on his plate to make it all work for the Vols.

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You can see it in his NET rating, and you can see it when opposing players make the mistake of challenging him at the rim. Okpara continues to be Barnes’ most reliable big man and his defensive anchor this season. You wonder where the Vols’ defensive rating would be without him, but it’s fair to project that it’d be far lower than 15th nationally.

Okpara doesn’t shoot threes, he doesn’t demand the ball inside, he’s not going to account for a lot of assists, but he’s been a winning player for Tennessee once again this season. He’s also playing his basketball at the best time for Tennessee, something the Vols and the rest of the bigs around him need as Tennessee starts its SEC Tournament journey this afternoon against Auburn.

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Let’s dive into my three key takeaways from last night’s win for the Hawks.

Dyson Daniels makes a huge impact all night long

Daniels started the game strong for the Hawks, dishing three assists and scoring two buckets at the rim in the first quarter. Outside of a Jalen Johnson floater or a Nickeil Alexander-Walker corner three, there is not a shot or look I feel better about for Atlanta than Daniels fighting his way through traffic inside. He’s either going to find a trailing Johnson for a dunk as he did late in this game, find somebody open on the perimeter, or he will lay it in for two easy points.

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Daniels impacts the game in so many different ways for the Hawks night in and night out. A common thing I write down on my trusty yellow notepad during games is whenever Atlanta looks out of sorts for any significant stretch of time, Daniels probably isn’t in the game. He played 36 minutes last night, and those 12 minutes he was off the floor were glaring. Only Oneyka Okongwu, who was fantastic in the first and fourth quarters tonight, had a higher plus-minus in this game than Daniels at +25 to +20, respectively.

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Daniels had a huge contest, stopping Marvin Bagley Jr. at the rim in the fourth quarter. The Hawks had forced 12 Mavericks turnovers with 6:54 left in the third quarter, with Daniels playing a large role in that. Overall, he flirted with a triple-double, posting a 14/7/10/3 line on the night. Daniels had the highest AST% of the night at 30.3% for the Hawks. That percentage fell in the 94th percentile on average, per CleaningTheGlass.

He did go 0-for-2 from three-point land, and while the Hawks broadcast encouraged Daniels to take those open threes, at 13% on the season now, I think it’s more of a Giannis Antetokounmpo situation from deep, where he should probably not ever shoot any threes, at least not for the remainder of this season. He’s too good at too many other things and doesn’t have to make any threes to be one of the Hawks’ best players every night out.

Nickeil Alexander-Walker’s Hot Shooting Continues

Alexander-Walker led the Hawks in scoring with 29. He was five-for-eight from three-point land overall, and drained two threes late to put the Mavericks away for good. I’ve written a lot about how good Alexander-Walker has been in his increased role with Atlanta this season, and this was another game where he was fantastic once again for the Hawks.

Alexander-Walker has been a big reason why the Hawks have won seven straight basketball games. Over his last three games, Alexander-Walker is 14-of-26 from deep. He’s scored 23 or more points in each of the last three games. Since the Hawks’ loss to the Miami Heat on February 20, Alexander-Walker has been hot from deep.

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When Alexander-Walker, along with Daniels, has nights like this to support the team’s All-Star forward Jalen Johnson, it’s a really fun and exciting team.

As the Detroit Pistons have swept the Hawks 3-0 in their season series, you hope the wins keep coming for Atlanta so they can avoid a first-round date with Cade Cunningham’s club. If Alexander-Walker keeps shooting like this from deep for a while longer, the Hawks just might be able to do that.

Hawks withstand vintage Klay Thompson and Khris Middleton Performances

I have watched Klay Thompson and Khris Middleton play a lot of basketball over the years—a lot of basketball. So, it was both exciting and frustrating to watch as two all-time great No. 2s on NBA championship teams continued to give Atlanta’s perimeter defenders all sorts of problems for most of the night in 2026.

In the third quarter in particular, Thompson and Middleton shot four of five from three-point land and six of seven from the field overall. The Mavericks stayed in the game largely due to what Thompson and Middleton were able to do in that third quarter against the Hawks. It can be a bit disorienting to watch both guys at this stage in their careers – where DID the time go, that sort of thing – but it felt like 2015 again watching multiple Hawks wings try and hang with the future Hall Of Famer on the perimeter to no avail in that third quarter.

Next up, the Brooklyn Nets come to State Farm Arena as the Hawks try to push their current win streak to eight games.

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This season, the North Dakota State Bison will play in the Mountain West Conference. A wild sentence to both write and, for longtime college football fans reading this, to read, too. Indeed, the longtime FCS juggernauts, winners of 10 FCS titles since 2011, are the latest storied program to move up from the FCS ranks into the FBS. It’s a new challenge for the Bison, and it will be interesting to see how head football coach Tim Polasek guides his team into uncharted waters next season at the next level. However, you may have missed another storied FCS program, the Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens, winners of six titles at the FCS & Division-II level, made this same leap to FBS last season. In his fourth season as the head football coach at his alma mater, Ryan Carty led the Fightin’ Blue Hens to seven wins and a 68 Ventures Bowl victory over Louisiana.

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The Delaware football program has been mighty successful for a long time now. Carty is 33-17 in his four seasons, which includes two nine-win seasons back-to-back in 2023 and 2024. Temple head football coach K.C. Keeler was a longtime coach and former player at Delaware and won the 2003 FCS national championship over then-undefeated Colgate, 40-0, at Finley Stadium in Chattanooga. Overall, Keeler went 86-52 as the head man of the Fightin’ Blue Hens. Before Keeler, legendary Delaware coach Tubby Raymond won 300 games and three national championships. In between Keeler and Carty, the Fightin’ Blue Hens wandered the wilderness a bit, going 40-46 across those nine seasons.

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Under Carty, Delaware football is rolling again. It’s easy to forget that even though Keeler went 15-1 and won a national championship in 2003, where Carty was the backup quarterback, he only won nine or more games one other time in his first five seasons in Newark. Carty has averaged eight wins a season over his first four. Keeler averaged eight wins a season over his first five seasons as well. The Keeler-Carty Connection has proven time and time again to be a consistent winner at Delaware.

One of the major reasons for the Fightin’ Blue Hens’ success in their first season in FBS stemmed from their lethal passing attack. Delaware passed for 293 yards per game, good for sixth in all of FBS. To put that into context, Josh Heupel’s electric passing attack with Joey Aguilar in 2025 was one spot ahead of Carty’s Blue Hens. There were only seven teams in the FBS that attempted more than 40 passes per game, and the Fightin’ Blue Hens were one of them.

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How have the Fightin’ Blue Hens been such a thorn in the side for opposing defenses through the air?

“It’s been something we’ve always been able to do successfully,” Carty told me in an interview on Thursday afternoon. “I think we’ve always been one of the better passing teams in the country. I think it’s just a product of what the scheme looks like and the variety of it. It’s also how we recruit the right people.”

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It also has to do with the quarterback play under Carty, a former quarterback himself. You’re not going to have a prolific passing attack without a prolific passing quarterback.

Carty noted that one of the perhaps more overlooked aspects of Delaware’s success through the air is the amount of time his quarterbacks who play for him have spent in his system. “It’s been a long time since I played somebody who was a true freshman or a true transfer right away. It matters in our system. It does. You’re going to be better when you’ve been in it for a little bit because there’s so much nuance and there’s so much install. We do drop back [to] pass more than most teams in the country. It’s not just an RPO operation or a quick-game operation. It’s mainly drop-back pass, and we run Four Verticals a lot. We do things some other teams don’t do as much.”

That prolific offense was on full display early in the 2025-26 season for Delaware when the Fightin’ Blue Hens stunned the Connecticut Huskies and Jim Mora at home in their third game as an FBS program. Led by quarterback Nick Minicucci, in his third season at Delaware under Carty, threw all over the Huskies for an efficient final line of 23-for-34, 265 yards, one touchdown, and no interceptions. Best of all, Minicucci won the game for the Fightin’ Blue Hens in overtime with a quarterback scamper that went for six in walk-off fashion.

Minicucci finished sixth in FBS in total passing yards last season and threw for 250-plus yards in 10 of Delaware’s thirteen ball games. The Fightin’ Blue Hens played in six games decided by one score or less and went 4-2. So Carty and his Fightin’ Blue Hens were just a couple of plays away from winning nine-plus games for three consecutive seasons.

Carty is used to winning. He won as a player for Keeler at Delaware in the early 2000s. He won as a coach under Keeler at Sam Houston State. He’s won since returning to Delaware as the Fightin’ Blue Hens head football coach. It stands to reason he would like to win a lot more in Newark.

It was a huge achievement for the program to go bowling in its first season in the FBS. Now, how does Carty get his guys ready to build off that success in Year 2? Carty told me, “What I said after the season, I mean, and I would say it again right now. Not one person came to this place, the University of Delaware, to go 6-6. I understand that makes us bowl-eligible, and I understand that’s a huge feat. Don’t get me wrong, how excited we were to be in a bowl was unbelievable. The invitation that we got and the experience that we had was amazing. The fact that we got a chance to go down there and compete and win it was outstanding and so good for our program, so great for our players, our guys deserved it. This department and this university and this community deserved it because of the support that we’ve had in this transition.”

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Carty has been a part of championship-winning teams both as a coach at Sam Houston State and as a player at Delaware. He knows what it takes to win at the highest level wants to win at the highest level in Newark. Carty continued, “But it’s not what I got into coaching for. It’s not what, you know, I took the head-coaching job at the University of Delaware for was not to be .500. And so, you know, I don’t think there’s a person in our building that thinks that way, and so that means we have to work at it because winning is really hard and winning takes what it takes. There’s no choosing how hard you want to work on a day. There’s choosing if you want to win on Saturdays in the fall or Wednesdays or Thursdays, or Tuesdays or whenever we’re playing. That’s what you’re choosing. And so each day as we lead up to this that’s the message is, ‘Are we doing enough today to beat, you know, the teams that we’re are going to play on Saturdays in September, and Wednesdays in October and then in Championship Month in November?’ because, you know, that’s what we need right now is to kind of level up and continue to grow and continue to develop and every part of our offense and defense and special teams and every phase we need to get better. And so, we need to get better as coaches, we need to get better as players, we need to get better as support staff, there’s nobody that’s ever resting in Newark, Delaware.”

Carty made the transition from FCS to FBS look a whole lot easier than it is last season at Delaware. He won more games than he lost in his first season as an FBS head football coach. The same was true in each of the three seasons before when he was an FCS head football coach.

James Madison first played FBS football in 2023, and they made the College Football Playoff two seasons later. Could Carty guide the Fightin’ Blue Hens to similar heights in the next couple of seasons in Newark? Only time will tell, but history suggests it wouldn’t be wise to bet against the young, rising coaching star in the C-USA. Similar to what former Dukes head coach Curt Cignetti told folks when he first arrived in Bloomington, he wins. Google him.

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The Detroit Pistons fell on the road to the San Antonio Spurs last night. The team has now lost back-to-back games for the first time in 2026 and just the third time overall this season. The Pistons are tied with the Boston Celtics for second in point differential at +8, only trailing the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder. Detroit can only lose six more times the rest of the way to reach the 60-win threshold. The team that lost sixty-plus games two seasons ago may very well win 60-plus this season. The Pistons haven’t won over 60 games in the regular season since the 2005-06 team that made it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Pistons won fifty or more games for seven consecutive seasons between 2001 and 2008. Every Pistons fan is hoping for a similar run this season as the team closes in on fifty-plus wins.

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With so much attention on the NBA’s tanking problem of late, it’s easy to overlook all the great stories around the Association this season. Charlotte Hornets fans should be overjoyed about both their present and future. Toronto Raptors fans should be pleasantly surprised. New York Knicks fans should be thinking about a championship. In a season that hasn’t included one minute of Jayson Tatum, the Boston Celtics are still bona fide contenders, in what fans may have assumed might be a gap year. Out West, the aforementioned Spurs have arrived. The Phoenix Suns are eight games over .500 in mid-March. The Houston Rockets are still a top-4 seed without Steven Adams. The list goes on and on. There are great stories in so many places around the NBA.

But none better than the Pistons. Particularly if you’re a fan of the team. Former No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham looks to be a lead guard who will push to be in the MVP conversation for years to come. Another former lottery pick, Jalen Duran, made his first All-Star team this season. This franchise’s Expected W82 was 18.3 two seasons ago, but it skyrocketed to 59.7 this season. As of this writing, the Pistons are No. 2 in defensive points per possession, per Cleaning The Glass. If that number holds, it’d be their best team defense since the ‘07-08 Pistons. That run of excellence in the early 2000s was defined by Detroit being a consistently top-10 defensive team. With a defensive nucleus of Duren, Ausar Thompson, Isaiah Stewart, Cunningham, and Ron Holland II, you don’t have to squint too hard to see head coach J.B. Bickerstaff maintaining this level of defensive production in the years to come. When the Pistons won the 1990 NBA Finals, the team was second in defensive rating. They were second the last time they won the NBA Finals in 2004. They’re second in the NBA right now in defensive rating.

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The Cade Cunningham part of the equation is fascinating. His offensive scoring numbers are down, but the team has never been better. His 50.4 eFG% is in the 43rd percentile in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. However, he’s in the 96th percentile in assist percentage for his teammates in the NBA, per CleaningTheGlass. He’s been a league-average shooter from deep and at the rim, but he’s still distributing the basketball at an elite level. Cunningham is in the MVP conversation at 24 years old, despite not being a super-efficient scorer. His season-long plus-minus of +415 is sixth-highest in the NBA, where he’s surrounded by winning basketball players like Derrick White, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, etc.

The pressure is on teams like the Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the East. The Pistons haven’t won fifty-plus games in nearly 20 years. Knicks and Cavs fans saw this season as the year to get out of the Eastern Conference if they were ever going to do it, with no Tatum, or so they thought, and Tyrese Haliburton standing in the way. The Knicks made a coaching change and seemingly have the most pressure to break through of the bunch. The Cavs traded for James Harden ahead of the 2026 NBA Trade Deadline. Donovan Mitchell has been excellent in Cleveland for a while now. How do Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen fare this postseason? And yet, the Pistons sit atop the conference, in a prime position to spoil the party for both franchises.

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This is not to say the Pistons fanbase won’t get antsy in the years to come if they are winning fifty-plus games but never reaching the NBA Finals. However, Detroit has a lead guard who can be the best player on a championship team. The Hornets and Raptors are great stories, but they don’t have a player like that. Most teams in the League do not. Their ceilings don’t feel the same as Detroit’s with Cunningham and Duren. Some Detroit fans, I’m sure, hope this season ends with a championship, and it very well might, but the hope is that this is just the first of many runs atop or near the top of the Eastern Conference. They can dream about another seven-year run like the team enjoyed in the early 2000s. New York and Cleveland fans are thinking about the now. Boston fans have been there, done that. Detroit fans haven’t been here in twenty years.

Detroit is the party-crasher in the East this season, and it’s the best play to be for any fanbase in the NBA right now.

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That’s baseball is a common expression that every baseball fan knows all too well. The Atlanta Braves won the NL East fourteen years in a row and won one World Series. That’s baseball. The Tennessee Volunteers had the most dominant regular-season college baseball team this century and didn’t make it out of the Super Regionals. That’s baseball. The San Diego Padres have tried and tried to win the NL Pennant over the last half-decade, but no dice. That’s baseball. Unless you’re a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, all 29 other fanbases understand that this sport, particularly the postseason format, is unpredictable. Ultimately, you want to be in the mix more often than not and let the chips fall where they may.

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Interestingly, that seems to be how New York Mets owner Steve Cohen sees things. ESPN’s Jorge Castillo wrote a really good piece on the Mets and all of their offseason changes. At the end of the story, Cohen is quoted as saying the following:

“The longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve realized that all I can do is commit the resources, allow my baseball people to pick the places, and a lot of it goes year-to-year,” Cohen said. “It’s dependent on injuries, it’s dependent on a lot of things. And it’s really hard to predict the future.”

Cohen is completely correct, of course. Not only is he completely correct, but he also showed that he has the best attitude an owner can have in sports. The best three things a team owner can do are provide the resources necessary to compete, hire the right people, and let it all play out. You can do all the right things as an owner, but a bad injury here or a bad match-up there can pop up at any turn. The Mets smartly pried Juan Soto away from their crosstown rival last offseason, and they missed the playoffs. New York missed the postseason last year for a litany of reasons, most of which Cohen and the front office hope don’t repeat themselves in 2026 with so many offseason changes.

But you never know.

Indeed, Cohen and the Mets’ front office don’t know for sure if all of these changes will lead to the results they’re ultimately after. You can only continue to spend some money, take smart swings at the plate, and see what happens.

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It was Seneca who once said, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” The Dodgers needed some luck last year to beat the Toronto Blue Jays in the World Series. The latter needed some luck to get by the Seattle Mariners in the ALCS. The Braves needed some luck from role players Jorge Soler and Eddie Rosario to win the 2021 World Series. The Philadelphia Eagles won a Super Bowl the same season their franchise quarterback was injured in Week 14 of the 2017 NFL season and was lost for the entire postseason run. If you simulate the Atlanta Falcons’ 28-3 collapse in Super Bowl LI against the New England Patriots 100 times over, how many versions end with the Falcons still losing the game?

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For whatever reason, the word ‘luck’ has a negative connotation oftentimes in sports, but it shouldn’t. The Mets need some luck to get where they want to go this season after their roster overhaul, as the Dodgers do with so many of their key pieces well into their 30s now. Atlanta lost their entire opening-day starting rotation last season. What were the chances of that ever happening? A great owner understands this, but they then continue to provide the necessary resources when Lady Luck forgets to smile on them. They continue to employ the right people. They continue to trust in the preparation.

Then you hope some luck finds your team.

For Cohen, if he can maintain that mindset, there is nothing more a Mets fan can ask out of their owner. In 2023, Buck Showalter was the team’s manager and Billy Eppler was the team’s general manager. That feels like forever ago now. The Dodgers were sold in 2012, but the team did not win its first World Series with their stacked ownership group until 2020, nearly a decade later. Before the last two seasons, Los Angeles had won one championship in their first twelve seasons under this new vaunted ownership group. It may or may not take that long for the Mets to win their first championship under Cohen. They may never win one, too, but that’s baseball.

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I came across a brutal statistic on the recent futility of the University of South Carolina athletics yesterday. The post came from Inside The Gamecocks on X, who highlighted just how bad things have been for Gamecock football, baseball, and men’s basketball since the first day of 2025. In baseball, the Gamecocks are 7-5 with losses to Army, Northern Kentucky, Queens, and just lost two of three in the Palmetto Series against in-state rival Clemson. After finishing tied for second in the SEC standings in men’s hoops in the 2023-24 season, the men’s basketball program has won five SEC games over the last two seasons and is quite likely to finish last in the conference in back-to-back seasons. After just missing the College Football Playoff in the 2024-25 season, the football program went 1-7 in the SEC in 2025-26 and finished fifteenth in the conference.

That’s tough.

That last line of that first paragraph stuck with me, though. The Gamecocks under head football coach Shane Beamer nearly qualified for the CFP two seasons ago. South Carolina finished that season fifteenth in ESPN’s FPI and was ninth in defensive efficiency. Only Texas and Tennessee had better defenses versus SEC competition than the Gamecocks two seasons ago, per CFBStats. BCFToys’ model liked Beamer’s team a bit more than ESPN’s, as his team finished No. 11 in FEI. The defense was playoff-worthy, but even with LaNorris Sellars’ emergence that season, the Gamecocks finished 42nd OFEI in stark contrast to that No. 8 finish in DFEI.

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South Carolina has had two completely different seasons over the last two years. For Beamer’s team to get back to the 2024-25 version, the addition of Kendal Briles as offensive coordinator needs to be one of the best coordinator hires of the cycle. ESPN’s Bill Connelly released his final 2025-26 SP+ rankings, and the Gamecocks finished in familiar territory – the defense much higher than the offense at 31st and 86th, respectively. Briles will be the third offensive coordinator in the last three seasons under Beamer. The latter has now had four different offensive coordinators since arriving in Columbia in 2021. Under Briles as offensive coordinator last season, the TCU Horned Frogs had a top-10 passing offense, per CFBStats. In fact, the Horned Frogs had a top-10 passing attack in each of the last two seasons. Even with Spencer Rattler and Sellers, the Gamecocks’ passing offense has never flirted with a top-10 finish in FBS under Beamer. The Briles-and-Sellers pairing is one of the more fascinating SEC storylines to monitor over the six months.

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The Gamecocks may have had a no-good-and-quite-terrible season in 2025-26, but over the last four seasons under Beamer, the team has bounced back twice after disappointing seasons. After smacking Tennessee and Clemson to close 2022 with some momentum, the Gamecocks went 5-7 the next season and didn’t make a bowl game. Then Beamer’s program went on to win nine games the following season. With a returning quarterback projected to potentially go as high as No. 1 in the 2026 NFL Draft, the Gamecocks went 4-8 and won just one conference game.

So Sellers is back. If he and Briles recreate some of that 2024-25 magic in Columbia, the Gamecocks could potentially have two first-round picks in Sellers and edge Dylan Stewart in next year’s draft. The Gamecocks’ biggest transfer portal addition came at a position of need at offensive tackle in former NC State offensive lineman Jacarrius Peak. Last season, left tackle Josiah Thompson struggled mightily in pass protection as he finished the season with a 46.6 PFF grade in pass-blocking snaps. With the Wolfpack last season, Peak registered a strong 84.1 PFF grade in pass-blocking snaps. How Peak fares in South Carolina’s nine conference games is of paramount importance for Beamer’s team next season.

There are a lot of questions at the skill-positions on offense once again for South Carolina, though. Outside wideout Nyck Harbor is back, along with solid slot guys in Jayden Sellers and Mazeo Bennett. Nitro Tuggle, formerly at Georgia and Purdue, is back in the SEC as a Gamecock. Does he make a move and start alongside Harbor on the outside? After last season’s Rahsul Faison debacle, you don’t really know what South Carolina has at running back, either. If the offensive line improves and a receiver and running back or two hit, you don’t have to squint too terribly hard to see a bounce-back year for the Gamecocks.

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On the schedule front, South Carolina has a 2026 schedule that should excite the fanbase. There is a very real chance this team is 4-1 when they head to Gainesville on October 10. They get Tennessee, Texas A&M, and Georgia all at Williams-Brice Stadium. Traveling to Death Valley to close has never looked more winnable. It’s a schedule where one could see the Gamecocks reaching the eight-win threshold.

The pressure will be on this football program in 2026, though. The men’s basketball program and baseball program might both have new head coaches this time next year. For Beamer, he made a needed change at offensive coordinator. He retained Sellers and Stewart, and his schedule looks conducive to a nice bounce-back season. This fanbase has watched a lot of losses pile up over the last calendar year, though, and the pressure will be on for Beamer to flip the script next season.

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New President of Football Matt Ryan, along with new general manager Ian Cunningham, did not draft Michael Penix Jr. They did not trade for Kirk Cousins. However, they did take jobs where they knew they would be inheriting both quarterbacks.

Early in the offseason, many folks wondered if the Falcons would roll with Cousins for one more year, given how well the team played down the stretch this past season. That will not be the case as Cunnninham reportedly informed Cousins he will be cut from the team on March 11.

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So now what in Flowery Branch?

It’s obviously a huge offseason for Penix Jr. Given how loaded the 2027 NFL Draft is at the quarterback position, it’s fair to project next season as a make-or-break season for the former Washington Huskies star, fair or not. The Falcons will likely be a trendy pick to win the NFC South once again, as the franchise looks to host their first playoff game ever inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Over his two seasons in Atlanta, Falcons fans have seen eye-popping darts from the southpaw mixed in with some back-breaking turnovers. It seems hard to imagine anyone, even Ryan or Cunningham, could have a strong lean one way or the other on Penix Jr. going into next season with a new offensive coaching staff.

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There has already been some talk about who the Falcons should bring in to either replace or compete with Penix Jr. this offseason. Some analysts have suggested trying to trade for former Georgia Bulldogs star Stetson Bennett, who is currently Matthew Stafford’s backup quarterback in Los Angeles. Others have reported on the scuttlebutt, which centers more on Joe Flacco or Tua Tagovailoa. With no first-round pick in their arsenal in this year’s NFL Draft and only five picks overall, reaching for a quarterback the new Falcons’ brass might like seems unlikely, especially when you take a gander at the names who all could be available in next year’s draft.

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If the Falcons’ brass believes that Penix Jr. has shown enough in his 14 games played in the NFL thus far, a player like Flacco makes the most sense to join Atlanta’s quarterback room next season. If they’re on the fence about Penix Jr., Tagovailoa makes more sense as a way to throw more darts at the dartboard if the Miami Dolphins do release the former Alabama star this summer. If neither pans out, well, Atlanta has their 2027 first-round pick to potentially use to take another quarterback in what could be an all-time great draft for teams who need a new signal-caller. In fact, the Falcons have all of their picks in 2027 and 2028 outside of a seventh-rounder in 2027.

As of this writing, Atlanta only has five picks in the 2026 NFL Draft, two of which are sixth and seventh-round selections. Perhaps Cunningham and Ryan stick with their five, or maybe they find interesting ways to accumulate another pick or two by trading back or trading a player on the roster we’re not even thinking about right now for additional picks in this year’s draft.

It’s no secret that the Falcons need to address a few different positions in the 2026 NFL Draft. In no particular order, it would not be a surprise to see Atlanta take a wide receiver, center, defensive tackle, cornerback, and running back with their five selections. If Atlanta is not sold on Penix Jr., couldn’t one argue that taking a flier on a quarterback would not be the worst idea in the world? The Falcons could still address multiple positions of need while still taking a shot on a quarterback in this draft. If Penn State’s Drew Allar or Arkansas’ Taylen Green are available when the Falcons are on the clock in the fourth round, would it not be worth a swing on a quarterback with the physical tools and the size those two former Power 2 quarterbacks possess?

If I were an NFL general manager, I would always lean towards taking a quarterback if I didn’t think I currently have a franchise quarterback on my roster. It’s the most important position in sports, so if you’re Atlanta, why not take a mid-round or later chance on a guy like Allar or Green? If Penix Jr. proves not be the guy this fall, along with an Allar or Green, who cares? You took a couple more swings, and you’ll be in a great spot to swing for a third time in one of the best quarterback drafts in years.

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Ultimately, if the Falcons replace Cousins with another veteran like Flacco, I would understand. Penix Jr., to me, has shown enough to see what he can do with this new staff for at least this season. I would also understand it, though, if the Falcons were to take a surprising flier on a high-ceiling, low-floor quarterback in the middle-to-late rounds of the 2026 NFL Draft.

Finding a franchise quarterback is extremely difficult, but the best way to find them is through the NFL Draft. If Atlanta is not sure about Penix Jr., take another quarterback this year. If neither proves to be the answer, take another next year, only this time in the first round. Atlanta should keep taking quarterbacks as long as they’re not sure they have a franchise quarterback.

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Sure, it’s only mid-February, but that does not mean that it is too early to be thinking about Tennessee football position rooms going into next season. The quarterback room looks a lot different. The defensive line looks a lot different. The secondary looks a lot different.

Let’s dive into how I feel about each position room at this point in the offseason.

Wide Receiver

This time last year, lots of folks were nervous about this position room. It wasn’t due to a lack of talent, but rather a lack of proven production and, really, a lack of adequate bodies. The Vols were fortunate in more ways than one with this room, as Chris Brazzell II broke out as the lone returning upperclassman, and Braylon Staley proved to be the best all-around slot man head football coach Josh Heupel has had at Tennessee. The Vols earned the benefit of the doubt with this room, particularly with so many blue-chippers in this room that include two returning starters in Staley and Mike Matthews. Since this position group does not rotate like the Vols do on the defensive line, for this to be an elite unit again in 2026, one of Radarious Jackson, Travis Smith Jr., or freshman five-star Tristen Keys needs to pop. I feel pretty good that with how talented all three blue-chip players are, at least one will make it work alongside Staley and Matthews to form a dangerous and fun trio out wide in Knoxville this fall.

Guard & Center

Wendell Moe Jr., Sam Pendleton, and Jesse Perry are all back for the Vols this fall along the interior of the offensive line. The biggest return of that group is Moe, who transferred in from Arizona last season and showcased his versatility at both left and right guard. Moe was the 37th-best guard in FBS last season, per PFF. Pendleton didn’t have quite the debut season in Knoxville after transferring in from Notre Dame, but as a four-star transfer who played a lot of snaps in a very different system than what they run in South Bend, it’s fair to assume a jump there. Perry, who can play tackle or guard, has been a fantastic recruting success story for Elarbee. He more than held his own at right tackle with David Sanders out last year, but the hope this year is that he sticks at right guard or right tackle. Then you still have Sham Umarov, who played a lot of snaps last season back and brought in West Virginia transfer Donovan Haslam for even more proven depth along the interior of the offensive line. We might not know who will be Tennessee’s best five starting offensive linemen just yet, but there is a lot more depth along the interior than at offensive tackle.

Cornerback

Ty Redmond was thrust into action as a true freshman last season due to the injuries ahead of him on the depth chart. It looks to have paid dividends for the talented former Milton star sophomore. He finished the season with a 78.2 PFF coverage grade and snagged three interceptions. Across from him, you have a multitude of options that include a multi-year starter at Auburn in Kayin Lee. It could also be Jadais Richards, who transferred in from Miami, or even a wildcard returning young player like Tre Poteat or Tim Merritt. It’s a nice mix of talent with one sure-thing, a couple of intriguing veterans, and a couple of intriguing underclassmen. Again, with how little this room has rotated in the past, Tennessee’s depth here is just fine.

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Linebacker

Can a position room have too much depth? We’re going to find out with the linebacker room at Tennessee. With the surprise return of Arion Carter to the room, along with Penn State transfer Amare Campbell, how linebackers coach William Inge handles the rotation behind the two projected starters will be one of the most fascinating things to watch this offseason. The Vols will also return Jeremiah Telander, Edwin Spillman, Jadon Perlotte, Jaedon Harmon, Ben Bolton, and bring in two more freshman blue-chippers in Brayden Rouse and T.J. White for good measure. The cliche is that this is a good problem to have, particularly in the transfer portal era, to have so much talent stacked behind one another. You still have to develop these guys, though, and there just won’t be enough snaps to go around if this is a healthy group this fall, even with how much Inge likes to rotate. I feel good about this room being the best it’s been in a long time at Tennessee, but who that includes after Carter and Campbell could not be less clear here in mid-February.

Tight End

It’s Ethan Davis’s moment in tight ends coach Alec Abeln’s room in 2026. The former Collins Hill star athlete is The Guy at tight end. Davis finished strong for the Vols down the stretch last season, particularly in the passing game. If he’s able to stay healthy and DaSaahn Brame evolves as a run and pass-blocker to pair with his elite receiving skillset, this room could prove to be one of the best rooms on the team next season. Davis racked up fifteen targets in the final two regular-season games for the Vols and made the most of his increased role. He brought in 12 receptions for 157 yards and a score. He graded well in pass-protection last year, per PFF, and is quietly due for a special season in 2026.

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Quarterback

Quarterback can never be too far down the list under Heupel. It’s certainly a room defined by its uncertainty, but like we saw at wideout last year, that’s not inherently a negative. Whether it’s George MacIntyre or Faizon Brandon under center, the Vols have two former five-star recruits in the fold who will spend the next six months in a real, old-school competition. Would this room be a bit higher if the veteran in the room weren’t Ryan Staub? Sure, but it was always going to be hard to add a higher-profile veteran to this room, same as it was in 2024 with Nico Iamaleava. That didn’t prove to matter then, either, as the Vols won double-digit games and made the College Football Playoff.

Running Back

This, I would suspect, is the biggest shock to most Vol fans who read this piece. Yes, it’s great to get DeSean Bishop back for another season in Knoxville. The former Karns legend has been an awesome hometown story, and he had his best season yet for the Vols last season as the team’s top tailback. It’s what’s behind him that’s more of the worry. Former Oakland standout Duane Morris figures to be the new No. 2 behind Bishop, but he didn’t get the same kind of snaps as a true freshman that Jaylen Wright got in 2021 or Dylan Sampson got in 2022. I’d feel better about this position room overall had Morris played more last season, particularly with Peyton Lewis, who transfered to Virginia this offseason, never getting comfortable in the offense across two seasons. Last offseason, you added a veteran, one-year transfer in Star Thomas. This offseason, you didn’t take a tailback in the high school ranks, and your transfer addition, Javin Gordon, was a true freshman at Tulane last season. The Vols also return former Buford star Justin Baker, too. Tennessee threw the football a lot more than usual in 2025, with a redshirt freshman or true freshman likely under center in 2026, you would think the Vols would like to get back to a more balanced attack and run the football more. I’m just not sure that’s plausible, particularly if this room deals with any injury issues.

Defensive End & LEO

It’s been a while since we’ve been this uncertain about Tennessee’s LEOs and defensive ends. Last year, it was depth along the interior of the defensive line that was the worry for Rodney Garner’s unit. This year, that’s still the case, but with Joshua Josephs and Dominic Bailey off to the NFL along with Jordan Ross and Caleb Herring hitting the transfer portal, there are lots of unknowns every on the Vols’ defensive line in 2026. Penn State transfer LEO Chaz Coleman and Tulane transfer LEO Jordan Norman could certainly be more productive than Herring or Ross would have been at the LEO spot for Tennessee next season, but we just don’t know. Marion Dye and Christian Gass are still in the fold as two former big-time blue-chippers at DE and LEO, respectively. I could envision a scenario where this position room rises in my rankings fast next season, depending on how Coleman and Dye perform early for the Vols.

Offensive Tackle

This is another one of those spots where Elarbee deserves the benefit of the doubt. Even without true freshman star recruit David Sanders to start last season Perry thrived in the former’s absence. In 2022, he made it work with JJ Crawford and Gerald Mincey opposite of Darnell Wright. There are a lot of unknowns and not a lot of depth at this spot in 2026, though. Sanders was good at right tackle last season, but he’s moving over to the left side against a tougher SEC schedule this year as a true sophomore. On the opposite side, is it LSU transfer Ory Williams? Is it Perry? Bennett Warren transferred to Minnesota. Lance Heard transferred to Kentucky. If Sanders, Williams and Perry are healthy, it’s not a huge concern, but, you do not have to squint too hard to see a scenario where things get dicey in a hurry if this position room has any sort of bad injury luck in 2026. Shaky tackle depth with a redshirt freshman or true freshman at quarterback is not where you want to be when you’re trying to have a bounce-back season.

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I really didn’t know where to place this room in the rankings. There is just so much turnover here both with who is coaching the room now in Anthony Poindexter, but also the projected starters in TJ Metcalf and Dejuan Lane. There is absolutely a scenario where Edrees Farooq beats out Lane to start alongside Metcalf, but there is just so much unknown on the back end of this in mid-February. You also have Kansas State transfer Qua Moss in the nickel spot now, too. I think this room will be better than last year’s room, but, man, it’s so hard to project in mid-February with so much change.

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Defensive Tackle

I very much hope I’m wrong here. I think two things can be true: 1) This is an extremely talented room that I would project as one of the best for Tennessee next season and 2) This is an extremely inexperienced room that I project to be one of the worst for Tennessee next season. There are so many high-quality blue-chip players in this room that includes Isaiah Campbell, Ethan Utley, JJ Finch, Dereon Albert and Darryl Rivers, among a few others. Tennessee’s biggest miss this transfer portal cycle was not adding one more experienced veteran to pair with Penn State transfer Xavier Gilliam along with Daevin Hobbs and Nathan Robinson. Hobbs is the safest bet to be the best player in this room this year, and they need him to be a gamewrecker, particularly rushing the passer. Gilliam was solid in 379 snaps last season in Happy Valley, but he had just one sack and 12 tackles overall. Tennessee really needs him to take a leap alongside Hobbs and Robinson to take the pressure off the Vols’ talent young guys behind them. A lot of is riding on Hobbs and Robinson being able to stay healthy, particularly early on to keep the pressure off Gilliam and the young guys. If they’re healthy, Gilliam takes a step, and one of Campbell or Utley breakout this group can be really good really fast. I could also see this being the shakiest this position room has been in the Heupel era in Knoxville.

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It felt like the game was already over when the Atlanta Hawks jumped out to a quick 7-0 lead against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night at State Farm Arena. Head coach Quin Snyder’s team, with its new starting five, started the game the way it needed to. The Hawks began the fourth quarter with a 36-point lead, but with so much garbage time in the final frame, the final score of 119-98 did not paint a good picture of how the game went.

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Even with All-Star forward Jalen Johnson leaving the game early with roughly 7:00 minutes remaining in the first quarter and never to return, Atlanta did not miss a beat. Key starters Nickeil Alexander-Walker, Oneyka Okongwu, and Dyson Daniels registered a collective in-game plus-minus of +69 in the blowout win over the Wizards.

With Johnson not returning to the ball game, forward Mouhamed Gueye got the start in the second half and took advantage. There was one sequence in the third quarter where Gueye had a steal, one of two he forced on the night, and then dunked it on the other end. In all, he added 11 boards, a couple of steals, and was a solid +3 in his 18 minutes for the Hawks in Johnson’s absence.

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Jonathan Kuminga, who was acquired by the Hawks along with Buddy Hield at the NBA Trade Deadline in a deal that sent Kristaps Porzingis to the Golden State Warriors, made his debut for the Hawks. The man who wears No. 0 could not have started his Atlanta Hawks career on a higher note than the show he put on against the Wizards last night. Kuminga had 27 points in just over 24 minutes, was 9-of-12 from the field, and 3-of-4 from deep. Kuminga flashed in transition, made several great passes, and showcased his elite athleticism by slamming home a couple of dunks.

Kuminga’s 27 points did not feel forced. He, along with every other Hawk, moved the basketball well all night as Atlanta racked up 33 assists. Atlanta leads the NBA in team assists per game at 30.4, and it’s easy to see why on nights like last night. The Hawks are perfectly content to eschew a good shot for a great shot when the moment calls for it. Five Hawks had three or more assists in this game. You wonder what that final assist tally might have been last night had Atlanta shot the ball better from 3, as the Hawks were a frigid 12-50 from three-point land.

Dyson Daniels continues to be a really interesting player to watch. One of my favorite things about him as a basketball player is how often he successfully drives into the paint. He’s a winning basketball player in many ways, as his AST% ranks in the 99th percentile, per Cleaning The Glass. The bizarre three-point shot stuff does not matter because he’s so good everywhere else on both ends of the floor. 51 percent of his shots come at the rim, which is in the 95th percentile in the NBA, per Cleaning The Glass, and although he needs to improve at his overall makes there, he’s solid enough. He’s an elite offensive rebounder for his position and is fifth in steals per game. It’s never a surprise when he has the highest single-game plus-minus for the Hawks, like he did last night against the Wizards.

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Outside of Daniels doing all the little things well and Kuminga scoring from everywhere on the basketball court, I thought about something: Is Alexander-Walker’s corner three the best look the team can have on any given offensive possession? Alexander-Walker splashed two in the third quarter. You knew the second both shots went up, they were going down. The former Minnesota Timberwolves guard is shooting 46 percent on corner threes this season. He shot 47 percent from three in the corner last year, so the increased usage and role haven’t affected him in the slightest from that area of the floor. Of course, the answer is still any shot by Jalen Johnson. Still, I maintain there is no look I feel more confident about with the Hawks than an open Alexander-Walker corner three.

But the biggest takeaway was what Kuminga did in his debut. (And maybe how much every team in the NBA could see a Justin Champagnie off the bench who was 4-of-6 from three for the Wiz.) It’s going to be fascinating to see how Snyder manages his minutes and what lineups he inserts Kuminga into down the stretch here. When he’s shooting like he did last night, you can envision a lot of minutes at the three. Zaccharie Risacher certainly looked more comfortable and energized coming off the bench in that first quarter. He was solid overall, particularly on the glass and on defense, but he’s shooting 28 percent from deep over his last ten games. I wonder how Snyder experiments with Kuminga, Risacher, Corey Kispert, and even Daniels at the three, the rest of the way.

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The New York Yankees made it all the way to the World Series in 2024. They won 94 games last season. Aaron Judge led all Major League Baseball players in Total War at 10.1 last season. New York has won at least 90 games four out of the last five seasons. The team has made the postseason nine out of the last eleven seasons. In a loaded AL East, Fangraphs’ projections give the Yankees the edge to win the division. The Seattle Mariners are the only AL team in Fangraphs’ projections to have a better chance of winning the World Series. There is no question that the team general manager Brian Cashman has put together for 2026 should be another great one that could return to the World Series for the second time in the last three seasons.

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Still, when it’s the Yankees, you always have to wonder if Cashman and company did enough.

It will be a 20-year title drought if the Yankees don’t win another championship within the next four years. The last title drought that went for this long in New York ran from 1979 to 1996. In fact, with the Los Angeles Dodgers being the Los Angeles Dodgers, it is not at all unfeasible that the Yankees will eclipse their longest championship drought since they became the Yankees all the way back in 1913. There is only one other period in the team’s history with a comparable championship drought from 1963 to 1977. The Yankees haven’t won a World Series since 2009, and have only been to one since. The Yankees have won at least 90 games in seven of their last nine seasons, and that’s including the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

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The biggest item of business that Cashman took care of this offseason was re-signing star outfielder Cody Bellinger. After losing Juan Soto to the New York Mets the previous offseason, history did not repeat itself for the Yankees, and the team was able to retain the 2019 NL MVP award-winner. Had Bellinger signed elsewhere, the feeling and tenor in New York would be quite different. When the Yankees lost out on Soto to the Mets, it was a major gut punch to the fanbase. Had they lost Bellinger in a similar fashion in back-to-back offseasons, winning 94 or more games for the third consecutive seasons would have seemed almost inconceivable. However, the Yankees re-signed Bellinger to a five-year, $162.5 million deal in late January. Only Judge is projected by Fangraphs to produce a higher WAR in the everyday starting lineup for the Yankees next season. Over his last three seasons, Bellinger has averaged a WRC+ of 123. You could lose Soto and still be OK, as the Yankees found last season, but you could not lose Bellinger, too, in back-to-back offseasons.

The Yankees’ lineup, particularly at the top of the order, should be very good once again. It’s a very strong 1-6, with some wildcards at the tail end of it in Ryan McMahon and Anthony Volpe. The latter is still young, and it’s uncertain what he’ll ultimately evolve into at the plate. The former has hit 20 or more home runs in five consecutive seasons. If he can get to around 100 WRC+ in his first full season in New York and keeps mashing, you love it in the bottom third of the order. Giancarlo Stanton is 36 now, though, and played in 77 games a season ago. Even more concerning is that this came after four consecutive seasons where he gave you at least 100 games played. Still, the Yankees are just 1.2 batting WAR away from being projected to have the second-best offense in MLB this season.

It’s the pitching that is the biggest wonder for New York in 2026. When does Gerrit Cole return? When does Carlos Rodon return? The Atlanta Braves are in a similar boat with Spencer Schwellenbach and Hurston Waldrep. Both teams are projected to win their division in late February, but you would also feel a lot better about their title chances with both starters back in the fold and pitching well. For both teams, it’s unlikely their early-season absence will cost them in late September, but if all four arms were healthy and available in late March, who wouldn’t like the Yankees and Braves chances to win 94-plus games and the pennant?

In Queens, the New York Mets had an offseason only Tobias Funke could love. With so much roster turnover and so much money spent in New York, the gap between the Mets’ and Yankees’ payrolls in 2026 at No. 2 and No. 3 is the largest in the sport at $56 million, per Fangraphs, the pressure and angst should primarily fall on the Mets. The Mets collapsed and missed the postseason entirely last season after signing Soto away from the Yankees. The Bronx Bombers did the opposite, bringing back Bellinger, Trent Grisham, and Paul Goldschmidt. They avoided arbitration with Jazz Chisholm Jr. Is there another level Ben Rice gets to for the Yankees at first base and at the dish?

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If the lineup mashes, Cole and Rodon both return a couple of months into the season, or even into the summer, the Yankees could certainly win the AL Pennant. The AL East figures to be a juggernaut this season, but among the top-3 favorites, the Yankees are sure to be the safest pick to be the last team standing from the division once again. Toronto has made the playoffs in back-to-back seasons twice in my nearly 35 years on this planet. The Baltimore Orioles might need to have a 20-win jump from last season to this season to win the division. The Yankees may not have done enough to be the overwhelming favorite in the AL, but they have done enough to be one of the favorites once again, something fans should never take for granted.

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There are many different ways to view Tennessee’s impending quarterback competition over the next six months. With Joey Aguilar seemingly out of the starting quarterback picture after his failed preliminary injunction bid last week in Knox County, the Vols are likely to turn to redshirt freshman George MacIntyre or true freshman Faizon Brandon as the Big Orange’s starting quarterback this fall.

On one hand, you certainly knew what you had in Aguilar, but on the other hand, with MacIntyre and Brandon, you have two complete unknowns. It’s important to remember that unknowns are not inherently negative, and this quarterback battle between two big-time former blue-chip recruits could certainly result in the Vols finally securing their first multi-year starter through the high school ranks under head football coach Josh Heupel.

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One of the biggest reasons Tennessee fans have been so concerned about going with either MacIntyre or Brandon in 2026 rather than Aguilar is the daunting schedule, at least ostensibly, that lies ahead for the Vols. However, think of how quickly one team’s fortunes can change on a dime in this sport. It’s never been harder to project how most teams will replicate what they accomplished the previous season.

That game at Bobby Dodd Stadium might look scary early against Georgia Tech, but star quarterback Haynes King is gone, and head football coach Brent Key will be breaking in a new offensive coordinator on The Flats. The Yellow Jackets could be in for a mighty step-back in 2026. Vanderbilt, who embarrassed you at Neyland Stadium last fall, will, in all likelihood, be working through the ups and downs of playing their own true freshman quarterback in Jared Curtis. Texas has had an impressive offseason, sure, but this team also should have lost to Mississippi State and Kentucky last season. LSU was expected to be a CFP team in 2025. Instead, the wins never came, and Brian Kelly was fired. You get Alabama at home, who you haven’t lost to inside Neyland Stadium under Heupel.

In all, there are four first-year coaches at their new school on Tennessee’s schedule, all within the SEC. This 2026 schedule appears to be more daunting than the last two seasons, but once the season gets rolling, these sorts of things can change in a hurry.

The Vols also lost five games last year. They weren’t because of Aguilar, but the team made seismic changes this offseason to ensure the same result does not happen again.

So Tennessee hired defensive coordinator Jim Knowles and strength & conditioning coach Derek Owings. After losing the most games since his debut season in Knoxville in 2021, Heupel took two big-time swings that could and should pay major dividends around his new quarterback, whoever that ultimately turns out to be this fall.

In all five losses last season, the Vols’ defense gave up thirty or more points. They gave up 30-plus points in eight of their 10 games against P4 competition on the whole last season. In 2024, the year Tennessee made the CFP, with a redshirt freshman under center, the Vols gave up thirty-plus points twice and lost both games to Georgia and Ohio State. The Vols had a top-10 scoring offense for the first time since 2022, and they still lost five games. For the second time under Heupel, Tennessee was the only P4 team to finish in the top-10 in scoring offense and not win ten-plus games. The Vols were 91st in 2025 and 90th in 2021, the two seasons where the offense finished in the top-10 in FBS, and they did not win double-digit games. Quite simply, the effect that Knowles and Owings have on Tennessee over the next six months is a much bigger deal for the Vols’ 2026 outlook than who is under center.

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The returning offensive production around either MacIntyre or Brandon also matters. While former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava did have the benefit of a star workhorse tailback in Dylan Sampson behind him to help him along as a redshirt freshman starter, he did not have the weapons at wideout and even tight end that either MacIntyre or Brandon will have at their disposal. With two returning, productive wideout starters in Braylon Staley and Mike Matthews, in addition to the return of Ethan Davis and Da’Saahn Brame at tight end, and incoming five-star freshman Tristan Keys, a Second-Team All-SEC tailback in DeSean Bishop, and as many as five returning starters across the offensive line, the offensive cupboard isn’t bare for either of the two talented freshman.

Timing is everything in life and in sports. The timing of hiring strength & conditioning coach Owings away from Indiana, who just won the national championship, in the same offseason that you have 31 incoming true freshmen and 21 incoming transfers, should matter a great deal. The other is a huge change in who is calling the defense for the Vols this fall. Had you thrown either MacIntyre or Brandon into the fray with a scoring defense in the 90s, that would have felt like a recipe for disaster. Instead, the duo will go into next season with an experienced and proven defensive play-caller who should raise the floor for what that unit can be in 2026. I don’t think it’s fair to expect 2024-levels of production, but even with Penn State’s 2025 implosion, which led to an in-season firing for James Franklin, the unit still finished in the top-30 and gave the Nittany Lions a huge opportunity to upset Indiana in Happy Valley at one point in the year. The previous two seasons in Columbus, Knowles’ scoring defenses finished No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. It would be a major surprise if Tennessee’s scoring defense does not improve to a large degree next season.

There is a precedent within this own conference of freshman and redshirt freshman quarterbacks thriving, too. DJ Lagway went 5-1 as a starter in 2024, his only blemish being a loss to the Georgia Bulldogs, a game where he left with the lead. Marcel Reed went 7-3 in the regular season as a redshirt freshman in 2024. LaNorris Sellers’ best season as a Gamecock came in 2024, as a redshirt freshman. You can look over at the Big Ten, where Michigan has found success sticking with their young, in-house blue-chippers in J.J. McCarthy and Bryce Underwood. Drew Allar went 10-3 as a starter his sophomore season at Penn State. Demond Williams Jr. went 9-4 as a sophomore and threw for over 3,000 yards at Washington.

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Tennessee is not in uncharted waters here — even better, they have two blue-chip quarterbacks to compete for one spot. In 2021, Joe Milton beat out Hendon Hooker for the QB1 job to begin that season. Milton, of course, did not play well out of the gate and got hurt, which opened the door for Hooker to take the job and run with it. The same could happen between MacIntyre and Brandon, where whoever wins the job in fall camp doesn’t hold the job once the actual games start and the bullets start flying. That’s the beauty of recruiting well and stocking multiple extremely talented, high-upside guys like MacIntyre and Brandon. Their talent is obvious, and every Tennessee fan should feel good about Heupel and his offensive staff finding their long-term solution at quarterback this fall. It may not have worked that way with Iamaleava, but there is a great chance and a great opportunity for the Vols to check one of those final boxes in the Heupel era in Knoxville – develop an in-house, multi-year starter at quarterback with a high ceiling. The only thing better for Tennessee fans if either prospect flourishes this fall for the Big Orange is how much better everybody would then feel about 2027 and 2028.

I don’t know who will be QB1 after the dust settles in Knoxville this fall, but it’s a good bet that whoever it is will have not only earned it but also fought through a mighty tough schedule and is now better off for it in 2027 and beyond. There’s nothing more exciting as a football fan than finding your long-term answer at quarterback.

Not a thing.

With Aguilar out and either MacIntyre or Brandon in, Tennessee is in a fantastic spot to provide fans with that very feeling this fall.

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A.J. Preller was named the San Diego Padres' general manager nearly 12 years ago. It’s been a tale of two halves for the team’s long-time general manager. In the first five seasons, the team won around 70 games yearly. Over the last five seasons, the team has won around 87 games yearly. The Padres have made the MLB playoffs four out of the last six seasons. It’s been the most successful run in the team’s history, and Preller has overseen it all.

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This week, it was announced that Preller had agreed to a multi-year extension with the team. Preller trails only New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman in being the longest-tenured shot-caller for his team. It’s another well-deserved extension for one of the best general managers in the sport. It’s also well-timed, as the PECOTA & Fangraphs projections don’t exactly love the Padres this season. This could be a ballclub that hovers around .500 this season, or worse.

The Padres have been real contenders for half a decade now, and San Diego has had a payroll that has fallen somewhere in the top-11 every year since 2021. Their projected 2026 payroll ranks 9th, per Fangraphs, which would be the lowest since the COVID-shortened 2020 season. With a projected win total of roughly eighty wins and the worst farm system in baseball, you can see where the wind is blowing in San Diego this year and beyond.

If the bottom starts to fall out after six years of contention, Preller has more than earned the opportunity to be the chosen executive to lead the reboot. After all, he built this team that has won 90-plus games in back-to-back seasons. Before these last two seasons, that had never been done in San Diego. The Padres have never won at this level and with this kind of consistency as a franchise, dating back to 1969. Sure, the team hasn’t made the World Series during this run, but that is such a silly way to remember this era of Padres baseball. Preller built a sustainable, real contender year after year for six years now, regardless of what happened in the postseason.

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You also can’t talk about the Padres without talking about the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s easy to overlook San Diego’s success because of Los Angeles, a team that has won back-to-back championships with the highest payroll in the sport. However, the two teams Preller has assembled over the last two seasons have won 183 games in the regular season – the Dodgers have won 191. Eight more wins than the Padres across two seasons, just eight. Preller and the Padres haven’t blinked as the Dodgers continue to build the biggest juggernaut of all juggernauts. Preller has rewarded fans who stuck with him during those tough first five seasons with the club with a contention window that has now lasted over half a decade. If San Diego competed in the NL Central the last six seasons, how does the rest of baseball view this run by Preller and the Padres?

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All of this winning has come at a cost, though. The Padres now have the worst farm system in baseball, per ESPN. This was an inevitable result for San Diego at some point. Preller has continued to be aggressive, trying to get over the hump in the postseason. When you trade for Blake Snell, Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove, Juan Soto, Josh Hader, and Mason Miller during your six-year contention window, the farm system takes a hit. You wonder if this season starts to go sideways in San Diego, that Preller, now with his extension, elects to re-stock the cupboard and trades Miller, Fernando Tatis Jr., Michael King, Nick Pivetta, Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts, and many other possibilities. Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill might be the only under-30 players in the everyday lineup this season on a team that could win fewer than eighty games.

It could also go the other way with so much veteran talent, sprinkled in with young stars like Tatis Jr., Merrill, and Miller. With so many questions about the 2027 MLB season, I like that Preller is willing to see how things shake out with this group and take fliers on guys like Ty France, Walker Buehler, Griffin Canning, Miguel Andujar, etc. The San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks certainly aren’t sure things in 2026. The Atlanta Braves and New York Mets both missed the postseason last year. It’s baseball, you never know.

Everyone needs a little bit of luck in this sport. The Diamondbacks have made the postseason just once since San Diego vaulted into contender status and then made it all the way to the World Series, losing 4-1 to Texas. The Snakes made one postseason appearance and won the NL pennant. The Padres made the postseason four times, but did not win the NL pennant once. It has to be a bit frustrating for Preller to see two different NL West teams make the World Series for three straight seasons now, and your team not included. The Padres needed some postseason fortune like the Diamondbacks found in 2023. Perhaps that’s 2026 for San Diego as a wild-card team. Perhaps not.

Preller has continually assembled a team that has needed Lady Luck to smile on his ballclub in the postseason, just once, and everyone might view this era of San Diego baseball, and Preller for that matter, quite differently. That could happen this year, even with the tepid preseason projections for Preller’s club. That’s when it happened for the D’Backs in 2023. Preller has done a really good job for a really long time now in San Diego, but 2026 feels like the last chapter in the most successful run for the Padres, and I can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

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