The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.
Good morning! We’re doing some more reflecting today — on you, specifically. Inside:
- 🎁 The Athletic, wrapped
- 📊 Top Pulse stories of 2025
- 🏆 CFP schedule
Goodbye, 2025: Welcome to The Athletic’s year in review
Allow me to start today with gratitude. The Pulse is settling in for its fifth New Year’s Eve tonight and already thinks the fireworks are too loud. Five years is a long stretch. Thank you for allowing me to be with you all this time.
Here’s what we looked like back then, by the way:
On that Dec. 31, we were talking about Becky Hammon’s hire in Las Vegas — she’s won three titles with the Aces since — and Cincinnati’s College Football Playoff appearance against Alabama. The Group of 5 debate still rages, but nearly everything else about the Playoff has changed (Cincinnati’s not even a G5 team anymore).
It just shows how quickly the sports world moves.
Behind the scenes here at The Athletic, our editors and data analysts compiled all the relevant stats to share about our 2025. We’re going to sprint through some lists here:
Most-read stories:
- Katie Strang’s story about Ole Miss student Mary Kate Cornett, whose life was “destroyed” by lies amplified by ESPN’s Pat McAfee, among others. Read that here.
- Our news story on Turning Point USA, the group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, announcing a competing Super Bowl halftime show. Read it here.
- The follow-up report on Sherrone Moore’s shock firing at Michigan. Read it.
Most-commented:
- Charlie Kirk’s death draws reaction from across the sports world (3,100+ comments)
- Team USA’s anger at getting booed by the Canadian crowd at the 4 Nations Face-Off. (2,900+)
- Why Canadians are stung by Wayne Gretzky’s silence in the 4 Nations run. (2,600+ comments)
Other stories we spent the most hours reading:
- The vanishing of Oscar Pistorius
- Inside Brian Kelly’s last days at LSU (yikes)
- Details on Bill Belichick’s UNC dysfunction
That all tracks to me. We are moved and engaged by regularity, of course, but it is the shocking/surprising/tragic stories that garner the most interest. Also notable: We all combined for over 50 million hours reading on the site this year.
Quick news break before we get to your most-read Pulse stories:
News to Know
Diggs accused of strangulation, assault
Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs faces charges of felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault stemming from an alleged incident on Dec. 2. According to an incident report, a woman said she had been working for Diggs and that he slapped and choked her amid a disagreement over payment. In a statement, Diggs denied the allegations. Read our full story.
More news
Goodbye, 2025 Pulse: You, wrapped
Lance King / Getty Images
We love lists, right? That’s what I take away from everyone clicking the NFL Power Rankings every week, at least. The numbers from above were about The Athletic’s sitewide data; I want to talk about this specific space now.
To start, The Pulse’s top three most-clicked stories of the year:
- Sherrone Moore fired. Yep, a big day.
- Best college football stadium rankings. Geaux Tigers, Geaux Pulse?
- NFL QB Tiers. It’s like ribeye winning a steakhouse power ranking list.
Finally, let’s look at the entire year via the highest-clicked story of each month. Consider this our scrapbook:
January: CFP quarterfinal recap. Feels prescient.
February: Myles Garrett trade proposals. Remember when that was a thing?
March: LeBron James’ confrontation with Stephen A. Smith. Eyeroll, but I get it.
April: Pat McAfee and the Ole Miss student story from above. Still worth a read if you missed.
May: The CBS interview with Jordon Hudson and Bill Belichick. We were so young then.
June: Letters from Steelers fans about players attending a Trump rally. Almost forgot about that.
July: McAfee’s apology about the aforementioned story. Nothing more to add there.
August: NFL QB Tiers. Yes.
September: Rory McIlroy and the fan verbal abuse at the Ryder Cup. Still embarrassing.
October: College football stadium rankings. Feelings involved.
November: The best catches in college football history, inspired by Indiana’s Omar Cooper. A fun read still.
December: Sherrone Moore, again.
Whew. I can’t wait to see what awaits us in 2026. Thank you for reading. Stick with us for another year, will you?
Watch Guide
Today should be a full college football day for any fan. The schedule is stacked:
📺 Iowa vs. Vanderbilt
Noon ET on ESPN
The Reliaquest Bowl features what may be the last appearance for Commodore quarterback Diego Pavia, unless the 23-year-old wins another year of eligibility.
📺 Arizona State vs. Duke
2 p.m. ET on CBS
Tune in for some serious 2026 narrative formation here in the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl, as freshly extended coach Kenny Dillingham leads the Sun Devils against QB Darian Mensah and Duke, who will garner plenty of Playoff headlines with Mensah returning to school next year.
📺 Michigan vs. Texas
3 p.m. ET on ABC
Bryce Underwood against Arch Manning. Need some more narratives? We’ll leave this Cheez-It Citrus Bowl overloaded.
📺 Nebraska vs. Utah
3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
What a lovely, weird bowl game. Matt Rhule and the underperforming Huskers take on a Utah team that just politely parted ways with a program legend who then upgraded his job at Michigan. Nebraska’s star quarterback is in the transfer portal, too. I have no idea what will happen here.
📺 Miami vs. Ohio State
7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN
The first of the College Football Playoff quarterfinals is here. The Hurricanes pulled off an impressive road upset over Texas A&M in the first round, but Ohio State has a legitimate claim to being the second-best team in the country — and maybe the most talented. The Buckeyes are favored by 9.5 points, according to BetMGM.
As Cameron Teague Robinson wrote, the Buckeyes lost 14 NFL Draft picks off last year’s national title winner and still might’ve improved. Tune in tonight, either for drama … or early draft prep.
Get tickets to games like these here.
Pulse Picks
Sabreena Merchant zoomed out this week, picking the defining women’s basketball moments of the last 25 years. Progress inside.
Jayson Stark has crowned his Strange But True player of the year: Paul Skenes. Jayson argues, with stats of course, that Skenes should’ve gone 30-2 this year. Fun read.
In recent years, sex workers have increasingly used European soccer clubs as sort of a brand boost on social media. Katie Whyatt spoke to five who’ve been successful at it and came away with a super interesting story.
Steven Louis Goldstein detailed the best athlete TV cameos of 2025, from “Landman” to “Abbott Elementary.” See his list.
Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Jourdan Rodrigue’s fantastic profile of new Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon.
Most-read on the website yesterday: NFL Week 18 Power Rankings. Fitting.
📫 That’s all for now! Say hello at thepulse@theathletic.com, and check out our other newsletters.