September tells you who’s good. October shows you who’s awesome.
It’s the month when hot starts are tested, soft schedules end, and sample sizes get big enough to matter. Across all of FOX Sports’ biggest franchises, October is when the season stops being a preview and starts counting down.
In MLB, the postseason is underway, with the division series set to begin on Saturday, October 3rd. Every pitch matters more now than any other point in the season, and the World Series will be decided before the end of the month.
In the NFL, October is a month of validation. September success can be deceiving, but if a team can sustain it, a showdown could feel like a postseason preview. The month brings the first 49ers-Seahawks game and potential Super Bowl appearances like the Bills at Rams and Chiefs at Seahawks.
In college football, October is when seasons can be made or broken, and games include Ohio State-Indiana, Florida-Texas and Alabama-Tennessee. The College Football Playoff landscape will begin to take shape in a real way, and the true Heisman Trophy winners will begin to emerge.
Here’s what our writers are looking at and what October will reveal.
For six months, Major League Baseball has been building toward October.
The order has been deleted. Cinderella stories are born. Evil empires are despised. Every pitch is consequential; there are no mulligans. This is when forgotten bench players have a chance to become postseason legends. Only the most ruthless will survive.
The 12-team field is set and the usual suspects are here. The Dodgers are back, looking to become the first team to three-peat since the 1998-2000 Yankees. Two-way icon Shohei Ohtani is once again carrying the weight of high expectations heading into the postseason.
The Yankees are back, too, and they’re forced to start the playoffs without their three-time MVP, Aaron Judge. His numerous injuries limited him to just 66 games this season. The Red Sox managed to turn around their disastrous season in late June and made a surprising push to qualify for a Wild Card Series game against their rival Yankees.
The Padres return to the postseason for another October season. San Diego is still chasing its first World Series championship in franchise history. (Photo by Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)
The Padres, playing a hot gun in elite closer Mason Miller, return for another October run. San Diego is still chasing its first World Series championship in franchise history. The Brewers enter as the National League’s top seed with a lot to prove, especially if they are actually able to beat the Dodgers this time around. Meanwhile, the Phillies and Braves kick off October with a win-or-go-home Game 3, another dramatic episode of a division rivalry that has become an October staple.
Then there are the teams trying to change their place in baseball history. The Guardians are back after another late season push. The Cubs hope their success during the regular season, where Chicago had the top scoring offense, will translate on the biggest stage. The Rays are undefeated at home. The White Sox, who finished the 2024 season with a modern-day record-breaking 121 losses, are an underdog showing the world why they believe they can win it all just two years later.
Beyond the bracket, each contender understands one thing. Whatever happened before the playoffs only matters as much as the players let it. That’s the magic – and the cruelty – of this month.
Pitcher Erick Fedde and his Chicago White Sox won the franchise’s first postseason series since 2005, beating the Astros in the AL Wild Card. (Photo by Alex Slitz/Getty Images)
A dominant regular season can disappear in just three games. A spray formation can catch fire at just the right time. Beginners can become heroes. Superstars can spend an entire series looking for a big swing. A single step, a single moment, can change an entire franchise.
The Wild Card Series kicks off the mayhem before the calendar officially flips to October. Next comes the Division Series, the Championship Series and, finally, the Fall Classic. By the end of October, baseball will have its answer.
One team will survive it all. Everyone else will be left wondering what could have been. – Deesha Thosar
Time to prove that September was not a fluke
What does October mean in the NFL?
It is a month of confirmation. September’s success may be short-lived, but stick it to Halloween and it’s not a costume.
Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers are undefeated, but their October schedule includes the Seahawks. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
It’s an in-between month, not as hot as early September at 1pm in Florida, not as cold as December in Buffalo or Green Bay. Baseball is winding down, hockey and basketball are just starting, but football finds itself in October.
A big game in September is a throwback to last year’s playoffs, but an October showdown can feel like a postseason preview. October brings us the first 49ers-Seahawks game and potential Super Bowl appearances, like the Bills at Rams and Chiefs at Seahawks. A year ago, the Patriots and Broncos were regular 2-2 teams when October came, but were 6-2 contenders when it ended.
Denver coach Sean Payton is an ordinary coach in September, with almost a winning record in his career, but in October, he is 54-17, winning 76% of his games for the best mark in NFL history. October was Tom Brady’s best month – 28 more touchdowns, 17 fewer interceptions than he would have in December, and yet his teams had a better record in December. This can turn into coldness and cold treatment from experience.
What will we learn in October? How many undefeated teams will survive the month and how many winless teams will still be that way? Which struggling teams, already written off, will come off the mat?
November opens with the Chargers at the Rams in this year’s Super Bowl site — a month ago, you might have seen this as a postseason preview, but that seems far-fetched now. Will Bears-Seahawks on Monday, Nov. 2, end up being the massive prime-time game it appears to be right now? October will let us know. – Greg Auman
CFP, Heisman Contenders and Pretenders come out
For college football, October has become a tree-shaking month in a sport that counts undefeated as an easy metric to consider.
It’s more than a third of the way through the season and every team worthy of being in the College Football Playoff conversation has begun playing conference games — many against ranked opponents that have managed to go undefeated or suffer just one loss.
Josh Hoover and Indiana aim to defend both the Hoosiers’ Big Ten title and their national title. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images)
October 17 may be the most important Saturday in sports, with Associated Press poll– ranked No. 5 Ohio State and No. 6 Indiana playing to prove who is the best team in the Big Ten this season. In SEC, No. 8 Florida faces No. 1 Texas for a resurgence for the former and conference dominance for the latter, and both No. 7 Alabama and No. 17 Tennessee faces what could turn out to be a de facto CFP elimination game.
And thinking about all of that comes before Ohio State travels to No. 18 USC and Florida to play No. 2 Georgia on Oct. 31 for what are sure to be games that will impact not only the CFP, but the coaches’ legacies. especially Lincoln Riley’s.
Yes, October is a harrowing time in college football. Let’s see who will leave and who will stay.
As important as this month is to create something of a good pencil sketch for the 12-team CFP picture, it’s also the first month when Heisman Trophy frontrunner in September they begin to fade, and the latecomers make a move to the front of the race. In the Big Ten, all eyes are on it Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith — a surefire front-runner for the Biletnikoff Award, given to the nation’s top receiver, and a Heisman Trophy away from sports immortality. For two years, I’ve written and said that Smith is the best player in the sport. With three of Ohio State’s four games in October coming against top-25 programs, he will once again have a chance to prove it. – RJ Young
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