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No. 3 Washington, No. 4 Florida State and No. 5 Oregon all moved up a spot in The Associated Press college football poll Sunday, giving the Pac-12 two top-five teams for the first time since the final ranking of the 2016 season.

Georgia remained No. 1 as the two-time defending national champions have been for 24 straight polls, dating back to the middle of last season. The Bulldogs received 52 of 62 first-place votes.

Michigan returned to No. 2 following a week at No. 3 and received 10 first-place votes after beating Ohio State 30-24 in Ann Arbor on Saturday.

The Buckeyes slipped from second to No. 6, clearing the way for Washington to reach its best ranking since finishing the 2000 season at No. 3 and setting up a top-five matchup with Oregon in the Pac-12 championship game Friday in Las Vegas.

The final Pac-12 championship game in the conference’s current form before 10 members leave for other Power 5 conferences will be its first matching top-five teams.

The last time there were two Pac-12 teams in the top five of the AP poll was 2016, when USC finished No. 3 and Washington No. 4. The last time it happened during the season was Oct. 6, 2013, when Oregon was No. 2 and Stanford was fifth.

No. 7 Texas and No. 8 Alabama held their places Sunday. Missouri moved up one spot to ninth and Penn State to No. 10.

The same eight teams have been the top eight in the country for five straight weeks, with the only loss among those teams during that span being Ohio State’s to Michigan.

The last time there was no team turnover in the top eight for that long was during Weeks 11-15 in 2008. That year, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, Alabama, USC, Penn State, Utah and Texas Tech held the top eight spots in some order for five weeks.

Among the top eight teams, there are only four losses, one each for Oregon, Ohio State, Texas and Alabama. Of those four losses, three have come to other teams in the top eight: Oregon lost to Washington, Ohio State lost to Michigan, and Alabama lost to Texas.

Texas’ loss came to No. 12 Oklahoma. Extend it out to the top 12 to include No. 11 Ole Miss and the only loss to a currently unranked team among that group is Oklahoma’s to Kansas.

MOVING IN; MOVING OUT

NC State and SMU made their Top 25 debuts this week, raising to 44 the total number of teams to be ranked for at least a week this season.

Falling out for the first time was Tennessee, which finished its regular season 8-4 with a victory over Vanderbilt after barely hanging on at No. 25 last week.

Kansas State also dropped out again after losing a high-scoring game in the snow to Iowa State.

CONFERENCE CALL

Five teams from non-Power 5 conferences in the AP Top 25 is the most since the final 2021 poll.

SEC: 5 (Nos. 1, 8, 9, 11, 13)
Pac-12: 4 (Nos. 3, 5, 14, 21-tie)
Big Ten: 4 (Nos. 2, 6, 10, 18)
ACC: 3 (Nos. 4, 15, 21-tie)
Big 12: 3 (Nos. 7, 12, 19)
American: 2 (Nos. 17, 25)
Conference USA: 1 (No. 20)
Sun Belt: 1 (No. 24)
Mid-American: 1 (No. 23)
Independent: 1 (No. 16)

RANKED vs. RANKED

No. 8 Alabama vs. No. 1 Georgia: SEC championship in Atlanta

No. 18 Iowa vs. No. 2 Michigan: Big Ten championship in Indianapolis

No. 5 Oregon vs. No. 3 Washington: Pac-12 championship in Las Vegas

No. 15 Louisville vs. No. 4 Florida State: ACC championship in Charlotte, North Carolina

No. 19 Oklahoma State vs. No. 7 Texas: Big 12 championship in Arlington, Texas

No. 25 SMU at No. 17 Tulane: AAC championship in New Orleans

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Baffert’s Rodriguez wins Wood, enters Derby field

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Baffert's Rodriguez wins Wood, enters Derby field

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.

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Nebraska transfer WR Gilmore dismissed from team

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Nebraska transfer WR Gilmore dismissed from team

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.

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What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB’s hottest trend

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What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB's hottest trend

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.

Read: An MIT-educated professor, the Yankees and the bat that could be changing baseball


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?

In addition to Stanton and Lindor, Yankees hitters Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt have used torpedoes to great success. Others who have used them in games include Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers and Toronto’s Davis Schneider. And that’s just the beginning. Hundreds more players are expected to test out torpedoes — and perhaps use them in games — in the coming weeks.


How is this different from a corked bat?

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.

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