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DURHAM, N.C. — Monday was judgement night for Clemson, and coach Dabo Swinney expects the jury will deliver a scathing verdict.

Clemson arrived in Durham ranked ninth in the Associated Press preseason poll and was an overwhelming favorite to beat a Duke team that hadn’t toppled a top-10 program since 1989.

The Tigers left Durham battered, bludgeoned and utterly baffled after a 28-7 loss that saw Clemson stumble through four drives inside the red zone that ended without points.

“That’s the weirdest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Swinney said. “I’ve been beat. I’ve had my butt kicked. But that’s the strangest game I’ve ever been a part of.”

Clemson had 12 more first downs, 48 more yards and both threw and rushed for 200 yards — a stat, Swinney noted afterward, that had correlated to a 108-0 all-time record for the Tigers before Monday night.

The downfall for Clemson was a woeful red-zone performance that saw two short field goals blocked and two fumbles by the offense following a first-and-goal at the 1.

In all, Clemson turned the ball over three times.

“It’s almost indescribable what I just saw,” Swinney said. “It’s incredibly frustrating when you had so much opportunity. … It’s routine stuff. The basics. The fundamentals. Basic, basic stuff.”

Quarterback Cade Klubnik threw for 209 yards and rushed for 34 more, but a scramble on fourth-and-7 midway through the fourth quarter ended with a turnover on downs when Klubnik slid short of the marker. A flag was thrown for targeting on the play, but officials still awarded possession to Duke, which Swinney admitted afterward was the correct call.

Swinney said the play would be a learning experience for Klubnik, who was making his second career start for Clemson after the Tigers’ Orange Bowl loss to Tennessee at the end of the 2022 season.

“He’s a gritty kid, a tough competitor, and I’m glad we’ve got him,” Swinney said. “Because I know how he’s going to respond.”

Swinney said he believed the same about the rest of his team, which he said won individual matchups but lost on mental mistakes.

“We’re not entitled to win,” he said. “You’ve got to go earn it. We had an opportunity to get control of that game on multiple occasions and we just didn’t. That’s how you get beat.”

Clemson lost its opener for the second time in three years and Monday was its worst ACC loss since 2014, but Swinney said none of that changes his expectations for this year’s team.

“People are going to see the score and judge this team,” Swinney said. “I love this football team and I see a lot of opportunity here. … A lot of people are probably going to give up on us and throw us away. But I ain’t throwing this team away. We’re going to bounce back.”

It was a sentiment echoed by Klubnik, who insisted the dreadful start to the 2023 season will only serve to make the ending that much better.

“This is just going to be such a sweet story,” Klubnik said. “That’s just the dream that I have and the dreams that our team has is to respond. That’s a decision we’ve got to make. Are we going to respond or are we going to let this linger? Ultimately our goal is to play in 15 games and finish 14-1. We can’t go undefeated now, but there’s a lot of games left.”

Klubnik noted that Clemson suffered a stunning loss to Pittsburgh in the 2016 season and still went on to win the national championship.

This loss, however, seemed more frustrating. While Swinney said he thought his team showed ample reasons for optimism, it marked the Tigers’ third loss in their past four games — something that hadn’t happened since 2011. Meanwhile, the new-look offense with Klubnik at the helm and new coordinator Garrett Riley calling plays often looked as stunted as the units that engendered so much frustration from fans over the past two seasons with DJ Uiagalelei at QB.

Swinney didn’t see it that way, however. He said the final score looked far worse than the actual performance on the field, and he said his expectations for this team haven’t changed because of the loss.

“The good news is, if there is any good news, you didn’t see a horrible football team out there,” Swinney said. “You saw a bad result. But you didn’t see a bad football team that can’t play the game.”

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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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