This is a sentence I never thought I’d type: Undefeated Vanderbilt is rolling into Tuscaloosa with playoff chatter starting to swirl. And yet, here we are.

The Commodores are 5-0, playing with confidence and looking nothing like the program we’ve come to expect. Across the field is Alabama; 3-1 and fresh off a statement upset over Georgia that reminded everyone that it is still a heavyweight, even if it looks a little different these days.

It’s the kind of matchup that makes you pause before firing a bet. Is Vanderbilt for real, or is it about to get a reality check? Is Alabama back, or still trying to figure out who it is?

Let’s break it all down: who these teams really are, how the matchup could play out, and where the smartest betting angle might actually be hiding.

All odds by ESPN BET

No. 16 Vanderbilt Commodores at No. 10 Alabama Crimson Tide
Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET, ABC

Line: Alabama -10.5
Money line: Alabama (-450), Vanderbilt (+340)
Over/Under: 56.5 (O Even, U -120)

Betting trends

Courtesy of ESPN Research

• Vanderbilt is 6-0 ATS as a road underdog since 2024.

• The Commodores have also covered in six straight road games against SEC opponents, one shy of tying their longest such streak over the last 40 years (seven straight from 2008-10).

• Vanderbilt is 7-3 ATS in its past 10 games as a double-digit underdog.

• Diego Pavia is 18-8 ATS in his career as an underdog (14-12 outright). He is 10-2 ATS and 7-5 outright as an underdog with Vanderbilt. He is 7-1 ATS and 4-4 outright at Vanderbilt when getting at least seven points, and he is 5-0 ATS and 3-2 outright when getting at least 10 points at Vanderbilt. Overall, Pavia has five outright wins as a double-digit underdog, tied with Clayton Thorson for the most in the last 20 seasons.

• This would be Vanderbilt’s narrowest spread in a road game against Alabama since being a 6.5-point underdog and upsetting Alabama in 1984. That was also the last time Vanderbilt beat Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

• Alabama is 7-6 ATS as a double-digit favorite under Kalen DeBoer (since 2024), but 6-2 when those games are at home.

• The Crimson Tide are 4-1 ATS against ranked opponents under DeBoer.

• Each of Alabama’s past six games against SEC opponents has gone under the total.

• Alabama is looking to cover the spread in six straight home games for the first time since a six-game streak from 2019 to ’20.

Why this is not your typical Vanderbilt team

For years, Vanderbilt has been the SEC’s gritty, disciplined underdog but rarely a real threat. That narrative might finally no longer apply.

At 5-0 for the first time since 2008, the Commodores could be proving they belong in the playoff conversation, and it’s not smoke and mirrors. This is a team built on a clear identity: balance, physicality, and relentless efficiency.

The offense has been the engine. Quarterback Diego Pavia is thriving in a system that blends power and tempo, completing over 70% of his passes while orchestrating one of the nation’s most balanced attacks.

Vanderbilt averages nearly 500 yards, fueled by a ground game that is first in the SEC in yards per carry. Not just gaining yards, Vanderbilt is finishing drives, leading the league in red zone touchdown rate.

Defensively, Vanderbilt has taken a leap, too. The Commodores are top 15 in pass rush grade complemented with a coverage unit that has been elite, while winning situational battles that used to cost them games.

Most importantly, Vanderbilt isn’t just beating the teams it is supposed to: It is dictating terms, controlling tempo and imposing its style of play. Dominance. This is a confident, complete football team capable of going toe-to-toe with anyone in the SEC. Vanderbilt, you have my respect. And it should have yours.

Does Alabama have an identity crisis or a new identity?

This Alabama team looks different under Kalen DeBoer.

Offensively, it has shifted from balanced and bruising to one-dimensional and pass heavy. Quarterback Ty Simpson is at the center of that shift. He has been steady and efficient, completing nearly 70% of his passes and guiding an offense that rarely turns the ball over. He’s not lighting up defenses with deep shots, and there’s still no true vertical identity, but he is doing enough to keep drives alive and convert once Alabama gets into scoring range. The passing game is clearly the strength here, and Simpson’s poise has been the steadying force behind it.

The running game, though, is a different story. It lacks consistency and physicality, with the third fewest rushing yards per game in the SEC, struggling to control tempo or close out games.

Defensively, the issues are harder to ignore. Alabama’s run defense is a real vulnerability, allowing 4.3 yards per carry and giving up 11 total explosive runs to Florida State and Georgia. The pass rush hasn’t been able to consistently collapse pockets, leaving the secondary under more pressure. The result is a defense that no longer dictates terms the way it once did.

The interesting wrinkle is how different the Tide look at home versus on the road. Away from Tuscaloosa, opponents are moving the ball and finishing drives, like FSU and Georgia. At home, Alabama has yet to allow a single red-zone trip and is slamming the door before offenses even reach the 20.

That makes them dangerous, but they’re no longer dominant. This version of Alabama wins differently, and that shift could decide how far they go.

Betting consideration: Alabama 1Q -3.5

Here’s how I got there. I can make a case for every full-game angle, which usually means the spread and total are efficient.

Alabama can cover the 10.5 because the home split is real under DeBoer. In Tuscaloosa it communicates, wins field position and has a brick wall outside the red zone. Its scripted offense is cleaner at home and the defense feeds off noise. That is the path to a comfortable margin.

Vanderbilt can cover, if not win, because its offense is balanced and efficient. It runs with success, throws it on schedule and finishes drives. If it stays ahead of the sticks, they can turn this into a four-quarter game. Alabama’s run defense has been a vulnerability dating back to last season, and if that shows up again, 10.5 is rich. But I’ve been making the point since preseason, that run-defense vulnerability tends to be more of a road-game factor.

The game can go over if Alabama’s passing game forces Vanderbilt to defend space for 60 minutes, as the Commodores have not seen this level of vertical threat and depth at receiver yet, so explosives plus red zone conversions can push this into the 60s.

The game can go under if Vanderbilt dictates pace with the ground game, shortens the game, and turns drives into eight- to 10-play marches. Fewer possessions, more clock bleed, tighter scoring bands.

That’s where Bama -3.5 in the first quarter comes in. The script and the venue are the most predictable edges on the board. Alabama has allowed zero first-quarter points at home this season and did the same thing last year on average: almost nothing at home, far more on the road. Plus, no red zone trips allowed at home this season, which is also in line with the seventh fewest touchdowns inside the 20 at home last year.

Offensively the Tide starts faster in Tuscaloosa — about two touchdowns per first quarter so far. Vanderbilt’s road starts have been slower — down 10-0 at Virginia Tech and only 7-7 at South Carolina.

That mix gives me a cleaner thesis. I do not need to solve 60 minutes. I need one or two Alabama stops, one efficient script drive and I cross -3.5. If Vanderbilt hits a haymaker early, I lose.

I can live with that.

Given the splits and the way both teams script, Alabama 1Q -3.5 is my favorite angle. It’s not a “lock,” but it’s one of those rare spots where the data, matchup context and historical tendencies all line up in the same direction. This wager is isolating the part of the game where Alabama has been most reliable and Vanderbilt has been most vulnerable.

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers began laying the path to quarterback Brock Purdy becoming the highest-paid player in franchise history roughly four years before it happened.

In the 2021 offseason, the Niners decided quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo was not in their long-term plans — just three years after they made him the league’s highest paid player ($27.5 million per year).

General manager John Lynch told ESPN last week that he and coach Kyle Shanahan combed through three-year projections from executive vice president of football operations Paraag Marathe, assistant general manager Brian Hampton and their staffs, showing them that the quarterback market was about to explode.

The 49ers also had multiple star players heading toward position-defining contracts, which, combined with Garoppolo’s injury history and limitations made the choice academic, according to Lynch.

It was time to move on to someone younger and cheaper.

“We felt like if we got a quarterback on a rookie deal, we could put together a team that would be really hard to deal with,” Lynch said. “When you have that, it’s a lot easier to have a lot more stars across the rest of your roster. Not just stars, but high-end depth, which we’ve had for a long time.”

In today’s NFL, top-end quarterback contracts have become onerous enough that teams, like the 49ers, must begin planning years in advance for those cap-eating deals. It often requires a roster reset that includes sacrificing good players, a willingness to eat dead money to remove players who might not be producing equal to their deal and focusing on earning compensatory draft picks to have more shots at drafting talented, cost-controlled players to replace those who move on.

After Shanahan and Lynch decided to move on from Garoppolo, they drafted Trey Lance. The hope was Lance would develop into one of the highest-paid quarterbacks in the league.

While it didn’t quite pan out that way, the 49ers’ financial reckoning at quarterback still arrived this offseason in the form of Purdy, who signed a five-year, $265 million deal in April that includes $181 million in guarantees.

What resulted was one of the most dramatic roster resets in NFL history. The Niners said goodbye to nearly 20 players, 15 of whom landed deals elsewhere worth up to a maximum of $341.5 million.

To replace those departed contributors, the 49ers focused on the 2025 NFL draft and rebuilding their defense. It was a roster reimagining following a similar blueprint of the 2023 Los Angeles Rams and 2024 Buffalo Bills, both teams that Lynch says his staff spent time studying before the offseason began.

Those Rams traded cornerback Jalen Ramsey and receiver Allen Robinson, let linebacker Bobby Wagner, defensive end Leonard Floyd, nose tackle Greg Gaines and other starters go and then used 14 draft picks to replenish the defense. After a 3-6 start, those young Rams emerged in the second half, going 7-1 on the way to making the playoffs.

The 2025 Niners (3-1) expect to endure similar bumps after resetting on the fly but remain competitive enough to contend for playoff spots while their young players develop. They’ll put that to the test Thursday (8:15 p.m. ET, Prime Video) against the Rams (3-1) at SoFi Stadium.

“When you find somebody that is a top-10 quarterback who can help you continually win football games, then you have to make that decision,” 49ers owner Jed York said earlier this year. “And if you do that, it just comes with consequences, and you have to figure it out.”

Avoiding the “QB abyss”

As one of the longest-tenured general managers in the NFL, Les Snead has worked through nearly every kind of quarterback scenario for the Rams since 2012. He traded two quarterbacks taken No. 1 (Sam Bradford and Jared Goff), traded up to No. 1 to select one (Goff) and dealt for a proven veteran star in Matthew Stafford.

Snead knows what it’s like to have the franchise quarterback, what it’s like to be without one and how either scenario shapes the roster.

And though Snead has also overseen a roster reset that has yielded mostly good results, he wants it to be known that having a long-term plan at quarterback is better than the alternative.

“It is so awesome to be able to go to sleep, wake up and know that your QB, whether rookie contract or veteran, has proven he can help you win,” Snead said. “Anytime you go into the QB abyss, you jump in the deep end of the pool, and you can’t see the shore. You’re just swimming and hoping.”

For the Niners, the signs that Purdy would be the guy who helps Lynch and Shanahan sleep better revealed themselves early. Shanahan pointed to Purdy’s second NFL start, a December 2022 game in Seattle in which Purdy played through a rib injury on short rest to help clinch the NFC West, as the night he knew Purdy had what it takes to succeed.

Purdy further proved that in 2023 when he overcame a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right (throwing) elbow to lead the Niners to the Super Bowl, earn his first Pro Bowl nod and finish fourth in league MVP voting as he threw for a franchise-record 4,280 yards.

According to York, the decision to sign Purdy long-term was solidified about halfway through this past season with Lynch circling back to Shanahan once the 6-11 season concluded to ensure that was still the plan.

“You don’t burden your head coach until the season’s over and you say, ‘Hey, now comes the real big decision. Are we going for this? Is Brock our guy?'” Lynch said. “And understanding that with that, we’re not going to be able to keep the rest of our guys. That’s just the reality in our league.”

The three-year window

The Niners began financially preparing to pay their franchise quarterback as far back as 2022, according to Lynch. Since Shanahan and Lynch arrived in 2017, they’ve worked closely with Marathe and Hampton to plan for the future in three-year windows.

Marathe, Hampton and their staffs regularly work on future projections, including the anticipated rise of the salary cap and what the cost of top players at each position might be. It helps the 49ers budget for forthcoming contracts and determine how that player might fit.

Built into those conversations is the idea that there’s a difference between what Shanahan calls the “A” players and those who might not quite reach that level. Performance, injury, other players already on the roster or some combination of the three factor into those discussions.

Some choices are easy and it played out in real time this offseason when the Niners re-signed tight end George Kittle and linebacker Fred Warner, perhaps the two defining players of this era of 49ers football.

“We go to lengths to define who we are as a team, who we want to be, and those guys check every box in terms of our mission statement on who we want to be as the Niners” Lynch said. “Where do you draw the line? That’s where it gets a little tougher.”

The result of those projections came during March’s mass exodus when the Niners said goodbye to players such as receiver Deebo Samuel, guard Aaron Banks, running back Jordan Mason, linebacker Dre Greenlaw, cornerback Charvarius Ward and safety Talanoa Hufanga, all of whom had played at or near a Pro Bowl level at some point with the Niners. They also released established veteran defensive tackles Javon Hargrave and Maliek Collins and end Leonard Floyd.

All of them signed the type of middle or upper middle class deals that no longer fit the Niners modus operandi, a tacit admission that they still have good football left in them.

“We broke the NFL record for the most money in the NFL leaving our building and signing with other teams,” Shanahan said. “It shows you how good the players who left our building [were]. They weren’t just old guys that it was time to move on from. They were dudes who could really help other teams win. When you do that, that’s not the most fun thing for a coach.”

Cleaning up the cap

After the 49ers’ loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LVIII, Lynch, Shanahan and the team’s other top executives sat down to plan for 2024, but the conversations that happened after that defeat took on a decidedly different tone than after previous deep postseason runs.

According to Lynch and Shanahan, the Niners considered getting ahead of the forthcoming roster shake-up immediately after the Super Bowl defeat. “There were a lot of internal conversations,” Lynch said. “But we felt like our team was so primed and ready and you have to take a hard look at things.”

The Niners opted for one last stand with their core group but with an eye toward the future. It didn’t work. Their season fell apart quickly and, even as 2024 unfolded, Lynch and Shanahan knew exactly how painful the 2025 offseason was going to be.

“But even then, you can’t prep for it until you’ve been through it,” Lynch said. “There were times that you’d go home in a foul mood because of it, but you knew that it was something we had to do.”

That pain would come not just from losing key players but in eating the dead salary cap space that many of them still carried. Releasing or trading players with remaining guarantees or a prorated signing bonus on their deals results in all that money accelerating to the cap immediately.

Much like the 2023 Rams, the Niners had to be willing to absorb that dead money and once they got started, they decided to eat as much of it as possible in one fell swoop to clean up the cap for 2026 and beyond.

As of this week, the 49ers have a league-leading $99.2 million in dead money and still rank third in cash spending ($328.1 million) because of the deals for Purdy, Kittle and Warner. The dead cap is even more than the Rams ate in 2023 when they dropped to last in the NFL in cash spending ($185.9 million) while eating nearly $80 million in dead money.

That offseason, Rams president Kevin Demoff sent a letter to season-ticket holders asking for patience as they cleaned up their books for what Snead referred to as a “remodel” rather than a rebuild.

One method for offsetting all of their losses in personnel and cap space? Compensatory draft picks. That isn’t complicated but it does require patience and makes for plenty of handwringing when free agency starts and players leave without replacements coming in.

It’s no coincidence that the Rams and Niners both rank among the top six all time in compensatory selections and nobody has garnered more than the Niners’ 14 comp picks over the past three years. Over the Cap projects San Francisco to get the maximum four more comp picks through the formula in 2026, too.

As Snead is quick to point out, even when the Rams were making big trades for star players such as Ramsey and Von Miller, they were still making plenty of selections to restock the roster.

“Even in that whole ‘F them picks era,’ we probably had the third most draft picks of anyone,” Snead said. “People said we were top heavy but when you’re top heavy, you’ve really got to rely on those right players on their rookie contract to play key roles.”

“Is it worth doing all this?”

Like Snead and the Rams, Shanahan and Lynch avoid using the word rebuild. There are too many star players on the roster with what Lynch calls “pelts on the wall” to blow it up and concede.

It’s why Shanahan gathered veterans such as Kittle, running back Christian McCaffrey, left tackle Trent Williams, Warner, defensive end Nick Bosa and fullback Kyle Juszczyk at his house for an offseason dinner. He wanted not only to share the plan, but for them to take ownership in helping that wave of youth learn.

“The cool thing about this is we still have a bunch of those other players that we didn’t have when we started this,” Shanahan said. “But we do have to develop these guys and make them turn into the types of guys who just went other places.”

In one more way, the Niners followed the Rams blueprint: most of their offseason was centered on rebuilding the defense, especially upfront, while maintaining continuity on offense.

In 2023, the Rams spent two of their first three picks on pass rushers Byron Young and Kobie Turner. They followed in 2024 by using their first two picks on linemen Jared Verse and Braden Fiske. Snead says that was by design because the Rams value the defensive line.

Like the Rams, the Niners also put a premium on the defensive line with Lynch often citing advice that former Colts, Browns and Giants general manager Ernie Accorsi once gave to John Elway about focusing on getting a quarterback and guys who knock the quarterback down.

That, combined with the rising costs of defensive linemen, left the Niners to spend three of their first five picks on end Mykel Williams and tackles Alfred Collins and CJ West. All of their first five selections were defenders.

When the 49ers opened the season on Sept. 7, they had eight new starters from 2024’s opening night. Coordinator Robert Saleh, whom Kittle calls the team’s biggest offseason addition, wasn’t sure what to expect in the opening weeks from his revamped defense.

Through four weeks, the 49ers’ offseason roster reset has yielded a 3-1 record, albeit with plenty of visible warts. In many ways, that, too, was something the Niners saw coming.

For this season to be a success, much will depend on whether the remaining stars can be healthy and produce until/if those young players ascend. Much of that also falls into the lap of the quarterback the Niners planned to pay long before they even had him on the roster: Purdy.

“You’ve got to ask yourself, is this quarterback worth doing all this?” Lynch said. “And in our case, it’s not a burden because you have your franchise quarterback and we all know how important that is to your team.”

The 2025 MLB division series matchups are starting to take shape after the Los Angeles Dodgers became the first team to advance out of the wild-card round.

L.A.’s sweep sets up a division series showdown with the Philadelphia Phillies starting Saturday in Philadelphia.

What have we learned about each team so far? What does each remaining team need to do to move on to the league championship series? Which players could be October difference-makers? And which favorites should be on upset watch in the round ahead?

ESPN MLB experts Jorge Castillo, Bradford Doolittle and David Schoenfield are here to break it all down as every division series matchup is set.

Key links: Mega-preview | Bracket | Schedule

Jump to a matchup:
LAD-PHI

NLDS: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Philadelphia Phillies

Upset forecast: (Dodgers win more simulations) Why no number in that parenthetical information? We’d have to use too many decimals! The Dodgers did win more sims, but their edge was four — out of 10,000 runs of the forecasting machinery. In that sense, there can’t possibly be an upset in this matchup between, quite possibly, the two strongest teams left in the bracket.

This feels like a matchup that the bullpens will decide, and even that is a toss-up. The Dodgers led the majors in blown saves during the second half, but their bullpen numbers are better than Philadelphia’s since the start of September. Maybe it’s as simple as this: When in doubt, pick the team that has Shohei Ohtani.

Phillies concern level: Nonexistent. Look, the Phillies know who they are playing. But with Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Trea Turner, Cristopher Sanchez and Jhoan Duran on their side, this is not a team that is going to fret about anything. They will just wait for the adrenaline to flow. — Doolittle

Los Angeles Dodgers

What impressed you most about them in the wild-card round?

The Dodgers haven’t really run out their “A” team for most of the season as they babied their starters for much of the season, but now we can see how good this team can be with a healthy rotation. Blake Snell was dominant in the first game until finally tiring in the seventh. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the seasonlong ace for the Dodgers, was solid in Game 2, escaping a bases-loaded no-outs jam in the sixth. The Dodgers were confident enough in those two that they saved Ohtani for what would have been Game 3 — and now is Game 1 of the NLDS. Oh, Ohtani can hit a little, too. Remember, the Dodgers won it all last season with Ohtani having a good-but-not-great postseason at the plate. After his two-homer game in Game 1, watch out.

Why will/won’t it continue against the Phillies?

The Dodgers certainly have to love where they are. Ohtani slowly worked his way up to a normal workload and pitched six innings in his final start, throwing 91 pitches. He allowed just one run over his final four appearances and surrendered just three home runs in 47 innings. Thanks to having three potential off days to play five games in this series, Ohtani could start Game 5 on six days of rest.

After his initial one-inning appearances in June, Ohtani was given at least six days off between starts, and his three starts in September came with eight, 10 and six days of rest, and he will have 10 days before his Game 1 NLDS appearance. The Dodgers will worry about the NLCS if they get there.

Which one player must deliver for L.A. to move on?

This is clearly about players, plural — as in relief pitchers. The sketchy Dodgers bullpen didn’t ease the confidence of Dodgers fans — or Dave Roberts — with a poor showing in Game 1 against Cincinnati, when the Dodgers had a 10-2 lead only to see the bullpen start walking everybody and the Reds load the bases and have the tying run on deck. Who Roberts trusts in the highest-leverage situations — and can deliver — remains a question. — Schoenfield

Philadelphia Phillies

What carried the Phillies to an October bye?

The starting rotation and a monster season from Kyle Schwarber. The rotation led the NL in ERA and led the majors — by 51 innings — in innings pitched. Cristopher Sanchez led the way with an absolute monster season of his own — in fact, it was Sanchez, and not Paul Skenes or Tarik Skubal, who led the majors in Baseball-Reference WAR. Meanwhile, Schwarber led the NL with 56 home runs and 132 RBIs, including setting a major league record with 23 home runs as a left-handed batter against left-handed pitchers.

Will it continue against the Dodgers?

Of course, a large part of that rotation success was Zack Wheeler, but he’s out for the postseason. Ranger Suarez had a terrific season but wasn’t great his final three starts, allowing 12 runs and four home runs in 14⅓ innings. And the fourth starter after Jesus Luzardo is either Aaron Nola, who doesn’t exactly inspire confidence given his 6.01 ERA and mediocre postseason results in his career, or Walker Buehler, who was signed at the end of August after the Red Sox released him. In other words: There are at least some slight concerns here for a rotation that was so good.

As for Schwarber: He has proved before he’s a tough out in October, and coming off his best season, he’s primed for a big postseason.

Which one player must deliver to put Philadelphia in the NLCS?

Trea Turner feels like the key guy here. Schwarber and Bryce Harper have been clutch playoff performers throughout their careers, but the Phillies will need offense from more than just those two — and that’s been a problem the past two postseasons. Turner had his best season with the Phillies but missed most of September with a hamstring injury, returning only for two at-bats in the final game of the regular season. He sets the table for Schwarber and Harper. If he’s getting on base, that’s a very good thing. — Schoenfield