KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The roar of the Neyland Stadium crowd was still ringing in Tennessee coach Josh Heupel’s ears when he finally got home late Saturday night.
“And that’s a good thing,” Heupel told ESPN. “There’s always the next game, but a scene like that is something you don’t want to forget. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
He hopes to see a lot more like it, as does a suddenly recharged Tennessee fan base that is basking in Saturday’s 38-33 win over Florida, a game that, in typical fashion for this series, went down to the very end.
It was also a game, at least in the eyes of long-suffering Tennessee fans, that looked all too familiar in those final frantic minutes. Florida clawed back from a 38-21 deficit midway through the fourth quarter, and after recovering an onside kick, the Gators had one final heave by quarterback Anthony Richardson from the Tennessee 39-yard line to win it.
Tennessee defensive end Byron Young hit Richardson as he released the pass, and cornerback Kamal Hadden had an easy interception at the 6-yard line to seal the game.
Only then could Heupel or anybody wearing Tennessee’s shade of orange (Pantone 151) exhale.
“It’s like a punch-drunk fighter. You’re just waiting for that next blow to come,” said Tennessee fan Rusty Rathburn, who made the trip from Portage, Michigan, along with sons Luke and Max to see his alma mater accomplish something it has done only twice in the past 18 years — beat Florida.
“We’ve had so much misery against these guys. You’re waiting for us to screw it up. But this team is different.”
Similarly, Heupel spent all week hammering home to his players that this was a different team, different game, different year. And, yet, he was also keenly aware of how deeply the scars run among the Big Orange faithful when it comes to the Gators, who had dominated this rivalry back to the height of Phillip Fulmer’s successful tenure at Tennessee, when even some of his most talented teams didn’t have an answer for old nemesis Steve Spurrier.
So, yes, Heupel soaked up the moment with his players and the fans, most of whom remained in the stands covered in orange-and-white checkerboard for nearly 20 minutes after the game.
“I love the pride and the passion of our fan base, and I can promise you that our players feel every bit of it,” Heupel said.
Indeed, Neyland Stadium was electric, bursting at the seams, as the Pride of the Southland marching band played “Rocky Top” loud enough and long enough for it seemingly to be heard in every corner of the state, from Mohawk to Union City and all points in between.
It’s true this was hardly the best Florida team that Tennessee has faced over the years. After all, the Vols were 10½-point favorites, the most they’ve been favored in the series since the 1970s. Billy Napier is in his first season as Florida’s coach, and the Gators have some big holes to fill on their roster.
Still, it was Florida, and as Spurrier himself put it last week, “It just seems like a whole lot of good things always happen to the Gators in this game and a whole lot of bad things happen to the Vols.”
So who could blame the Big Orange Nation for partying like it was 1998, the year of the Vols’ last national championship? The party might continue for a while with Tennessee having a bye week this Saturday.
“It’s surreal, to be able to come here and really just experience this and see how it’s all changed from when I first got here until what it is now,” junior defensive tackle Omari Thomas said. “It’s something we want to keep building on, and honestly, get it better and better each week.”
Saturday’s postgame scene will be hard to match.
Former players from five different decades flocked to Heupel to hug him. They hugged current players, and they hugged each other. Heath Shuler was there. So were Al Wilson, Josh Dobbs, two generations of Colquitts (Craig and Britton) as well as Jabari Davis and Fred White, who weren’t bashful about lighting up victory cigars.
Arian Foster, a four-time Pro Bowler, was back at Neyland for the first time since he played his final game at Tennessee during the 2008 season.
“I can promise you that I will be back,” said Foster, who led the NFL in 2010 with 1,616 yards rushing.
Tony Vitello, Tennessee’s fiery baseball coach, had done his part to fire up the crowd before the game, and he was a buzz saw afterward. Earlier in the week, he said his biggest goal was to not get arrested.
It appears he achieved that goal and didn’t chest-bump any officials (or umpires), either. Vitello even joked on the set of ESPN’s College GameDay before the game that “if we win, everybody could go streaking.”
It was that kind of day on Rocky Top, a breakthrough of sorts for a football program that has wallowed around in a gator-infested wasteland for most of the past two decades. Entering Saturday’s game, the Vols had more coaches (six) than they had wins over the Gators (five) in the previous three decades.
Wilson, who was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last year, speaks for the entire Tennessee fan base when he says he still feels the pain of those Florida losses going all the way back to the 1990s.
“I lost five games my whole college career, and three of them were to Florida. I mean, come on. We were sick of losing to them and sick of hearing about everything that Spurrier said,” said Wilson, the heart and soul of Tennessee’s 1998 national championship team.
Earl Brown and his wife, Judy, are some of the most dedicated Tennessee fans on the planet. Earl has been to 320 Tennessee football games in a row without missing one, a streak that goes back to 1996.
“There’s joy and relief,” Brown said. “There were a lot of years in there that we were the better team and didn’t win. I think this is the one that gets us back through that door of getting to where we all want to be again.”
The Vols (4-0) haven’t won more than eight games in the regular season since 2007, Fulmer’s next-to-last season.
Stephen Crutchfield hasn’t missed a Tennessee SEC game since 2007. He lives three blocks from Neyland Stadium in the Fort Sanders area just off campus. He said one of the reasons he moved there was to be closer to the Vols’ football cathedral.
“At the end of the day, people just want to win, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a defensive battle or the way we play now with a lot of offense,” Crutchfield said. “People don’t want to hear that you’re building anything or that you’re getting better or that you’re a class away. They just want to win, which makes a [win] like this so important.”
That’s why Rathburn, who graduated from Tennessee in 1987, didn’t mind making the eight-hour drive and a significant financial investment to be in Knoxville on Saturday. He paid $1,375 for three tickets in the upper deck and forked over $700 per night for a hotel room.
“This ranks up there with the ’98 Florida game with how crazy the place was,” Rathburn said. “I don’t remember it much louder. The Tennessee fans were hungry for this. There’s hope now, the kind of hope we haven’t had in a while. It’s amazing what Heupel has done in less than two years.”
Heupel’s demeanor is about as steady as it gets, and that steadiness has endeared him to his players. Tennessee fired previous coach Jeremy Pruitt after an internal investigation uncovered 18 Level 1 violations for impermissible recruiting benefits. Even with that NCAA cloud hovering, Heupel has steered the Vols to the No. 8 spot in the latest AP poll, their highest ranking since 2006.
“The guys play hard for Josh because he coaches unafraid,” said Scott Altizer, who returned as director of football relations last year after working for 20 years on Tennessee’s football staff beginning in 1994. “He preaches letting it all hang out and going out and having fun.”
Casey Clausen, the only Vols quarterback to have beaten Florida twice in his career (2001 and 2003), sees a version of Tennessee that he hasn’t seen in a while, a version that falls in line with Heupel’s go-for-broke, warp-speed offense.
“There’s a juice that’s back in the program, and for the younger generation of players, they don’t necessarily know about the past with Florida or anybody else, nor do they care or should they care,” said Clausen, who lives in California and still follows the Vols closely.
“Coach Heupel seems to have it back to, ‘It’s our team versus their team,’ and all the other noise doesn’t matter. You see that in the way this team plays, even when it doesn’t play its best football.
“The other thing is that he’s not playing with some of the same 4- and 5-star players a lot of the other SEC teams have, but he’s going to get there. You look at that offense and how fun it is to play in it, and why wouldn’t a big-time skill player want to come and play in that offense?”
This was a massive recruiting weekend for the Vols, as some of the top prospects on their board were in town.
Heupel made sure to practice what he preaches late Saturday night. Several of the former players, including Foster, were in the locker room after the game. And although nobody would say for sure, in the middle of that circle of 125 players dancing, Heupel might have been showing off a few moves of his own.
“If you can’t have fun in that environment, you can’t have fun anywhere,” said Heupel, who showcased his best vertical leap since his Oklahoma playing days and got in a few Tiger Woods-sized fist pumps after Jaylen Wright‘s 5-yard touchdown run gave his team a 38-21 lead midway through the fourth quarter.
Heupel typically has a large contingent of family in town for home games, and by the time he got home Saturday night after meeting with recruits and doing his TV show, he switched roles from coach to uncle with several nieces and nephews running around the house.
Finally, at the end of the night, he got to spend some quiet time with his wife, Dawn.
“Everybody had gone to bed, and we just looked at each other and said, ‘What a great day,'” Heupel said. “It was a huge moment for us as we continue to build this program and how much the players have invested. It’s really a lot of fun when you’re a part of the climb.”
But, as Heupel is quick to point out, the Vols are still in the early stages of that climb. After an open date, they play LSU on Oct. 8 and Alabama on Oct. 15, facing two of the past three national champions. That’s not to mention a game with No. 7 Kentucky on Oct. 29 and a trip to defending national champion Georgia on Nov. 5. The win over Florida was only the fifth Tennessee victory over Alabama, Florida or Georgia since the start of Fulmer’s final season in 2008, making the Vols 5-38 against those teams in that span.
That’s why Heupel was right back at the football complex at 7:30 Sunday morning meeting with recruits.
“There’s always another big game, another test right around the corner,” he said.
And while the Vols have more points through four games (194) than any Tennessee team since 1915 (202), Heupel isn’t about to get ahead of himself. The Vols made the kinds of mistakes in their first two games against nationally ranked opponents (Pittsburgh and Florida) that usually result in defeat — blocked punts, fumbled punts, fumbles in the red zone and not recovering onside kicks.
What’s more, Tennessee has struggled mightily against the pass on defense, both in getting to the quarterback and especially at covering receivers. The Vols are also precariously thin at some key positions, including the offensive line and defensive secondary.
“There are so many things we can do a lot better and will have to do better as we go forward, but I go back to the resiliency of our players,” Heupel said. “Obviously, we didn’t finish that game the way we needed to, and you could sense that from the crowd a little bit when [Florida] got the onside kick. But what I love about our group is that they just keep playing.”
One of the Heupels’ traditions after games is gathering all the family members in town for a picture on the field.
Heupel and his wife were looking through those pictures together late Saturday night.
“We’re all standing there together and the stadium is still checkerboarded behind us, and this is still probably 20 minutes after the game had ended,” he said. “That’s going to be a cool background to that picture for us.”
Come December, Heupel wouldn’t mind having a few more pictures like that to admire.
Rodriguez led all the way to win the $750,000 Wood Memorial on Saturday, earning enough points to move into the 20-horse field for next month’s Kentucky Derby.
Breaking from the rail, the Bob Baffert-trained colt ran 1 1/8 miles on a fast track in 1:48.15 under Hall of Famer Mike Smith in light rain and 45-degree temperatures at Aqueduct in New York. Rodriguez won by 3 1/2 lengths.
The victory was worth 100 qualifying points for the May 3 Derby, potentially giving Baffert three entrants as he seeks a record-setting seventh victory in his return to the race from which he was banned for three years.
Later Saturday, Baffert was to saddle Citizen Bull, last year’s 2-year-old champion, and Barnes in the $500,000 Santa Anita Derby in California, where it was sunny and 82 degrees.
He sent Rodriguez to New York to split up his Derby contenders. The colt was sent off at 7-2 odds in the 10-horse field and paid $9.30 to win the 100th edition of the Wood. He is a son of 2020 Kentucky Derby winner Authentic.
“Bob told me this horse is probably quicker than you think,” Smith said. “He can get uptight pretty easy, and the whole key was just letting him alone out there. I don’t think he necessarily has to have the lead. He just wants to be left alone.”
Smith has twice won the Kentucky Derby. Rodriguez would be his first mount since 2022. At 59, he would be the oldest jockey to win.
“That’s up to all the owners and Bob,” Smith said. “I was glad they pulled me off the bench and I hit a 3-shot for them.”
Grande, trained by Todd Pletcher, was second. He went from having zero qualifying points to 50, which should get him into the Derby starting gate for owner Mike Repole, who is 0 for 7 in the Derby.
Passion Rules was third. Captain Cook, the 9-5 favorite, finished fourth for trainer Rick Dutrow, who hasn’t had a Derby runner since 2010 after winning the 2008 race with Big Brown.
The $1.25 million Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland was postponed from Saturday to Tuesday due to heavy rain and potential flooding in the region. That race and the Lexington Stakes on April 12 are the final Derby preps of the season.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska receiver Hardley Gilmore IV, who transferred from Kentucky in January, has been dismissed from the team, coach Matt Rhule announced Saturday.
The second-year player from Belle Glade, Florida, had come to Nebraska along with former Kentucky teammate Dane Key and receivers coach Daikiel Shorts Jr. and had received praise from teammates and coaches for his performance in spring practice.
Rhule did not disclose a reason for removing Gilmore.
“Nothing outside the program, nothing criminal or anything like that,” Rhule said. “Just won’t be with us anymore.”
Gilmore was charged with misdemeanor assault in December for allegedly punching someone in the face at a storage facility in Lexington, Kentucky, the Lexington Herald Leader reported on Jan. 2.
Gilmore played in seven games as a freshman for the Wildcats and caught six passes for 153 yards. He started against Murray State and caught a 52-yard touchdown pass on Kentucky’s opening possession. He was a consensus four-star recruit who originally chose Kentucky over Penn State and UCF.
The opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season was taken over by a surprise star — torpedo bats.
The bowling pin-shaped bats became the talk of the sport after the Yankees’ home run onslaught on the first Saturday of the season put it in the spotlight and the buzz hasn’t slowed since.
What exactly is a torpedo bat? How does it help hitters? And how is it legal? Let’s dig in.
What is a torpedo bat and why is it different from a traditional MLB bat?
The idea of the torpedo bat is to take a size format — say, 34 inches and 32 ounces — and distribute the wood in a different geometric shape than the traditional form to ensure the fattest part of the bat is located where the player makes the most contact. Standard bats taper toward an end cap that is as thick diametrically as the sweet spot of the barrel. The torpedo bat moves some of the mass on the end of the bat about 6 to 7 inches lower, giving it a bowling-pin shape, with a much thinner end.
How does it help hitters?
The benefits for those who like swinging with it — and not everyone who has swung it likes it — are two-fold. Both are rooted in logic and physics. The first is that distributing more mass to the area of most frequent contact aligns with players’ swing patterns and provides greater impact when bat strikes ball. Players are perpetually seeking ways to barrel more balls, and while swings that connect on the end of the bat and toward the handle probably will have worse performance than with a traditional bat, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make for the additional slug. And as hitters know, slug is what pays.
The second benefit, in theory, is increased bat speed. Imagine a sledgehammer and a broomstick that both weigh 32 ounces. The sledgehammer’s weight is almost all at the end, whereas the broomstick’s is distributed evenly. Which is easier to swing fast? The broomstick, of course, because shape of the sledgehammer takes more strength and effort to move. By shedding some of the weight off the end of the torpedo bat and moving it toward the middle, hitters have found it swings very similarly to a traditional model but with slightly faster bat velocity.
Why did it become such a big story so early in the 2025 MLB season?
Because the New York Yankees hit nine home runs in a game Saturday and Michael Kay, their play-by-play announcer, pointed out that some of them came from hitters using a new bat shape. The fascination was immediate. While baseball, as an industry, has implemented forward-thinking rules in recent seasons, the modification to something so fundamental and known as the shape of a bat registered as bizarre. The initial response from many who saw it: How is this legal?
OK. How is this legal?
Major League Baseball’s bat regulations are relatively permissive. Currently, the rules allow for a maximum barrel diameter of 2.61 inches, a maximum length of 42 inches and a smooth and round shape. The lack of restrictions allows MLB’s authorized bat manufacturers to toy with bat geometry and for the results to still fall within the regulations.
Who came up with the idea of using them?
The notion of a bowling-pin-style bat has kicked around baseball for years. Some bat manufacturers made smaller versions as training tools. But the version that’s now infiltrating baseball goes back two years when a then-Yankees coach named Aaron Leanhardt started asking hitters how they should counteract the giant leaps in recent years made by pitchers.
When Yankees players responded that bigger barrels would help, Leanhardt — an MIT-educated former Michigan physics professor who left academia to work in the sports industry — recognized that as long as bats stayed within MLB parameters, he could change their geometry to make them a reality. Leanhardt, who left the Yankees to serve as major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins over the winter, worked with bat manufacturers throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons to make that a reality.
When did it first appear in MLB games?
It’s unclear specifically when. But Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton used a torpedo bat last year and went on a home run-hitting rampage in October that helped send the Yankees to the World Series. New York Mets star Francisco Lindor also used a torpedo-style bat last year and went on to finish second in National League MVP voting.
Who are some of the other notable early users of torpedo bats?
Corking bats involves drilling a hole at the end of the bat, filling it in and capping it. The use of altered bats allows players to swing faster because the material with which they replace the wood — whether it’s cork, superballs or another material — is lighter. Any sort of bat adulteration is illegal and, if found, results in suspension.
Could a rule be changed to ban them?
Could it happen? Sure. Leagues and governing bodies have put restrictions on equipment they believe fundamentally altered fairness. Stick curvature is limited in hockey. Full-body swimsuits made of polyurethane and neoprene are banned by World Aquatics. But officials at MLB have acknowledged that the game’s pendulum has swung significantly toward pitching in recent years, and if an offensive revolution comes about because of torpedo bats — and that is far from a guarantee — it could bring about more balance to the game. If that pendulum swings too far, MLB could alter its bat regulations, something it has done multiple times already this century.
So the torpedo bat is here to stay?
Absolutely. Bat manufacturers are cranking them out and shipping them to interested players with great urgency. Just how widely the torpedo bat is adopted is the question that will play out over the rest of the season. But it has piqued the curiosity of nearly every hitter in the big leagues, and just as pitchers toy with new pitches to see if they can marginally improve themselves, hitters will do the same with bats.
Comfort is paramount with a bat, so hitters will test them during batting practice and in cage sessions before unleashing them during the game. As time goes on, players will find specific shapes that are most comfortable to them and best suit their swing during bat-fitting sessions — similar to how golfers seek custom clubs. But make no mistake: This is an almost-overnight alteration of the game, and “traditional or torpedo” is a question every big leaguer going forward will ask himself.