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STARKVILLE, Miss. — Former Mississippi State coach Mike Leach was a luminary and a larger-than-life character in college football. On Tuesday, his impact was spelled out in detail as friends, coaches and players shared personal stories of Leach’s humanity, his sense of humor and the deep curiosity that drove him to the highest levels of the sport.

Leach died on Dec. 12 at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson from a heart condition. He was 61 years old.

At Humphrey Coliseum on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, Mississippi State held a memorial for its departed head coach with some of college football’s most recognizable figures in attendance. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and USC coach Lincoln Riley were some of those who eulogized Leach.

Many of his protégés, including TCU coach Sonny Dykes and Houston coach Dana Holgorsen, traveled to Starkville for the memorial. Some of his competitors in the SEC, including Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin and Arkansas coach Sam Pittman, came to pay their respects as well.

As the service was about to begin, Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” played over the sound system. It was quickly apparent with every speaker who came on stage that Leach, who was born in California and raised in Wyoming, had carved his own path — from college rugby player to Power 5 head coach.

Many in attendance wore cowbell-shaped pins on their suit jackets. Inside the cowbell was a skull and crossbones, a nod to Leach’s nickname, Pirate.

Mississippi State president Mark Keenum recalled meeting Leach for the first time before he was hired as head coach in January 2020. Keenum said he was struck by Leach’s “intense curiosity.” Keenum said that not only did Leach want to learn about anything and everything, he wanted to share what he’d learned.

Keenum said Leach, who taught seminars and wrote a book about Geronimo, wasn’t satisfied with the College Football Playoff’s decision to expand from four to 12 teams. So he lobbied Keenum, the chair of the CFP board of managers.

“Mike wrote a plan for a 64-team College Football Playoff,” Keenum said. “For real, an elaborate plan.”

Laughter rippled through the coliseum. Keenum smiled and said they agreed to disagree.

“He was not the typical Power 5 football coach,” Keenum said. “But as we all know, Mike Leach was anything but typical.”

Sankey said there was no such thing as a brief, 15-minute conversation with Leach, and they never spoke about only one thing. Leach was informal, showing up to work often in cargo shorts and flip flops. Sankey said Leach spoke to him at SEC media days once and asked why neckties were still a staple of fashion when powdered wigs had fallen by the wayside.

Leach was rare in that he didn’t play college football. He got his undergraduate degree from BYU, his master’s degree from the U.S. Sports Academy and his Juris Doctor from Pepperdine. His first three jobs in football were offensive line coach at Cal Poly, linebackers coach at College of the Desert and head coach of the Pori Bears in Finland.

His big break came in 1989 when he connected with Hal Mumme at Iowa Wesleyan. Together, they’d create the pass-happy offense known as the Air Raid.

Leach followed Mumme to Valdosta State and then to Kentucky. He left to become the offensive coordinator at Oklahoma, and after one season, he got the head coaching job at Texas Tech.

At Texas Tech, Washington State and Mississippi State, Leach compiled a record of 158-107. Ten times his offenses led the FBS in passing. But his impact went far beyond the record books. His coaching tree features more than a dozen current and former college head coaches.

There wasn’t a subject Leach wouldn’t talk about. He had strong opinions on the existence of Bigfoot, which Halloween candy was best and who would win in a battle of college mascots.

Former Washington State quarterback Gardner Minshew said his favorite thing about Leach was his authenticity. It was part confidence, he said, and part not caring what anyone thought of him. Leach was unapologetically himself. Minshew, who spent less than a year with him in Pullman, said of Leach, “He changed my life.”

And it all started with the simple question, Minshew recalled, “Do you want to lead the country in passing?”

Minshew was a little-known junior college quarterback when Leach recruited him as a graduate student. Minshew wound up breaking the school record for passing yards in a single season (4,776) and was drafted in the sixth round by the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Former Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops called Leach a bold and innovative thinker. When Leach left his staff at Oklahoma to become head coach at Texas Tech, Stoops said the Air Raid began to “spread like wildfire” to all levels of football — high school, college and the NFL.

But what Stoops said few people got to see was how competitive and demanding he was. Stoops addressed the Mississippi State players in attendance and said how proud Leach would have been of their season and their decision to play in the bowl game.

“There’s a ball game going on right now in heaven,” Stoops said. “And can’t you just see Mike? It’s fourth-and-2, he’s on his own 40, and you know he’s going for it.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley recalled hitching a ride with Leach one day at Texas Tech when the actor Matthew McConaughey called. Leach got so lost in the conversation, Riley recalled, that he nearly sideswiped a truck on the road and didn’t notice.

Riley laughed, and a moment later he had to fight back tears thinking about Leach’s impact on his life and his family. Leach took a chance and gave Riley his start — first as a student assistant, then as a graduate assistant and finally as a receivers coach at Texas Tech.

Riley said Leach’s legacy will go beyond funny stories and an innovative offense. It was about the relationships he built and how he built them.

“He truly did invest in other people. And it’s a great reminder for us all,” Riley said. “Rest in peace, my friend. There will never be another one like you.”

Leach is survived by his wife, Sharon; his children, Janeen, Kim, Cody and Kiersten; and his three grandchildren.

Defensive coordinator Zach Arnett was promoted to head coach last week, agreeing to a four-year deal.

Mississippi State will play Illinois in the ReliaQuest Bowl on Jan. 2.

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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