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IRVING, Texas — For the first time since the Pac-12 was gutted by realignment, the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick met Wednesday to discuss the future of the College Football Playoff in a meeting that was described as “cordial,” but with a backdrop of uncertainty still looming over the league leaders.

If the Pac-12 dissolves in 2024, as many expect it to, the CFP could change how it chooses the teams in the expanded 12-team format, which also begins in 2024. The current model includes the six highest-ranked conference champions plus the next six highest-ranked teams, which allows for five Power 5 conference champions, plus one Group of 5 champ. If the Pac-12 doesn’t exist, though, the CFP is considering changing the criteria to the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven highest-ranked teams. The group also discussed the option of 12 at-large teams.

No major decisions were made Wednesday, though, because the group is still waiting to see what happens to the four remaining Pac-12 teams — Cal, Stanford, Washington State and Oregon State. The ACC is expected to decide soon on potentially adding Cal, Stanford and SMU.

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips was expected to join them in person but told ESPN he didn’t because of travel issues in Charlotte, North Carolina, caused by Hurricane Idalia. He participated in the five-hour meeting by videoconference and didn’t provide the room any update on possible conference expansion, according to CFP executive director Bill Hancock.

“To the matter of conference realignment, we’re going to have to wait and see,” Hancock said. “We’re going to have to wait until the dust settles before making any decisions about how that might affect CFP. The fact is, we just don’t know yet. No one knows how conference realignment is going to wind up, and it would just be premature to make any decisions about it.”

American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco said his conference should know “fairly soon” if SMU is going to join the ACC, and that his league has “contingency plans.”

“We’re weighing how we’re going to deal with that,” he said. “We had a major meeting today with our ADs and presidents this morning. … It’ll get resolved pretty quickly. I don’t think it can go on too much longer. None of this is really healthy when it drags on, but we have a great relationship with SMU.”

Aresco said the Power 5 label is “all about branding.”

“When we heard Stanford and Cal have no place to go, well, that’s not true,” he said, “They had a place to go. They weren’t orphans. It’s the idea there’s this desperation now because of the P5 branding. … I understand the issue of money, it’s based on TV deal, but guys are willing to go for virtually nothing because they feel they need that branding. We’re seeing that play out now.”

Regardless what happens with realignment, Mid-American Conference commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said that moving forward, the principle of honoring conference champions should remain important.

“I think that’s a bedrock principle of what we are doing and what we’ve built into this,” he said. “I think it’s important that that is continued as we move forward. Depending on number of conferences we have, I think you can have a legitimate conversations about the number of champions that are set here, as well as the number of at-larges, but to me you start with the bedrock principle and I think it’s important we keep that in there. I felt good coming out of that conversation. Didn’t take any sort of hands, I just felt good about that conversation.”

It was the first time Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff was in the same room with his peers since Oregon and Washington decided to join USC and UCLA in the Big Ten, and Arizona, Arizona State, Utah and Colorado chose to join the Big 12. Kliavkoff has not spoken publicly since and declined to comment about realignment as he hurried past reporters in a meeting room lobby at the DFW Grand Hyatt.

As he walked briskly away, Kliavkoff smiled and said “it was good” to be in the room again with everybody and “nice to focus on everything in the future.”

When asked what his future is, Kliavkoff said, “I’m focused on this year. I’m just focused on us winning a national championship.”

Wednesday’s meeting was previously scheduled for the CFP’s management committee to dig into the nitty-gritty details associated with expanding the field to 12 teams in time for next season. While recent conference realignment obviously added another level to discussions, the focus remained on logistics. The group decided to continue to provide a $3,000 stipend for each of 125 players’ families to travel to all of the games in the playoff. They are also moving forward with a company to help manage lodging on all of the campuses for the first-round games.

“This meeting was set months ago because every one of us knows that to go to 12 teams in ’24, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who ran the meeting. “That’s what we did. … Did we talk about things have changed around us? Sure. Did that dominate the meeting? I don’t think it did. Everybody was friendly. It’s not the first time we’ve been through conference changes.”

While starting the season in Week Zero has been a topic of discussion in the past, it has yet to garner much traction, and wasn’t discussed Wednesday. But having recently returned from Dublin, Ireland, where Notre Dame kicked off the season against Navy in Week 0, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick was candid in his support for the idea of it in the future, saying he thinks Week 0 is “really good for the sport.”

“I understand the difficulties, but at a minimum, it always creates a two-bye year, and that’s good for the health of the student-athletes,” Swarbrick said. “Right now, we get a two-year bye every seven years. … If you’re around the locker room, and you see what they’re like by Game 9, 10, a second bye’s so helpful.”

The CFP’s management committee will meet again in September at the Big Ten’s headquarters in Rosemont, Illinois, and is hoping to have more answers in place about realignment by then.

“I think we have to have some clarity, and we don’t have full clarity right now,” Sankey said. “… I want to see what the circumstances are at some point.”

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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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