Texas is No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 college football poll for the first time in 16 years, replacing Georgia on Sunday after the Bulldogs struggled to remain unbeaten.
The Longhorns moved up a spot from No. 2 and received 35 first-place votes and 1,540 points. The Bulldogs, who have been No. 1 since the preseason poll, received 23 first-place votes and 1,518 points.
Ohio State received five first-place votes and stayed at No. 3 during an off week. No. 4 Alabama and No. 5 Ole Miss held their places, and Tennessee moved up a spot to No. 6, flip-flopping with SEC rival Missouri.
The last time the Longhorns were No. 1 was the middle of the 2008 season, when they spent three weeks at the top of the polls before losing a memorable game at Texas Tech in early November. The Longhorns are likely to settle into the top spot for at least another week with a home game against UL Monroe up next, possibly with Arch Manning as the starting quarterback.
Manning, the nephew of Peyton and Eli Manning, stepped in Saturday night against UTSA when Quinn Ewers went out with an abdomen injury that coach Steve Sarkisian said was not serious.
“There’s nothing like being in the game. Playing in front of 105,000 people is not the easiest thing to do. I’m really proud of Arch,” Sarkisian said.
A week after the SEC became the first conference to hold six of the first seven spots, the league repeated the feat.
There was some shuffling at the back of the top 10, with No. 8 Oregon and No. 9 Miami each moving up a spot and Penn State slipping back to No. 10.
POLL POINTS
Winning and dropping from No. 1 is not unusual. This is the 94th time it has happened since the poll started in 1936 and first time since Georgia and Alabama swapped No. 1 back and forth for a few weeks in 2022.
The Bulldogs, who remained No. 1 in the coaches poll this week, needed a second-half rally to squeak by 13-12 at Kentucky — the same Kentucky team that was buried at home a week earlier by South Carolina. That was the fewest points scored by a No. 1 team in a victory since Alabama beat LSU 10-0 in 2016.
“I don’t know much about this team, but I found out more tonight than I’ve known to this point,” coach Kirby Smart told reporters after the game.
Georgia has dominated the top spot in the AP poll since 2021, with 39 appearances.
In its first season as a member of the SEC, Texas keeps No. 1 in the conference where it has resided for 50 of the past 52 polls, dating back to the start of the 2021 season. Only Michigan of the Big Ten in the final two polls of last season has interrupted the streak of No. 1 rankings by the SEC, which includes 10 appearances by Alabama.
Looking ahead, both the Crimson Tide and Bulldogs are off next week to prepare for a likely top-five matchup in Tuscaloosa on Sept. 28 that should have voters thinking about who’s No. 1 again.
IN AND OUT
Boston College joined fellow ACC member Georgia Tech in the brief-stay-after-a-long-drought club. The Eagles lost at Missouri and fell out of the rankings after moving in last week for the first time since 2018.
Arizona is also out for the first time this season after getting thumped by Kansas State.
Moving in for the first time this season was Illinois at No. 24. Texas A&M jumped back into the rankings at No. 25.
CONFERENCE CALL
The 18-team Big Ten matched a conference record (reached 11 times previously) with seven ranked teams.
No. 24 Illinois at No. 22 Nebraska (Friday): The last time the Cornhuskers hosted a game with both teams ranked was 2013, when No. 16 UCLA beat No. 23 Nebraska 41-21.
No. 6 Tennessee at No. 15 Oklahoma (Saturday): The Volunteers welcome the Sooners to the SEC, with ESPN’s “College GameDay” rolling out the welcome mat in Norman.
No. 11 USC at No. 18 Michigan (Saturday): The Wolverines welcome the Trojans to the Big Ten.
No. 12 Utah at No. 14 Oklahoma State (Saturday): The first big game between Big 12 teams that actually counts in the conference standings.
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays overcame an eight-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles12-8 on Wednesday night in the largest comeback in the majors this season.
Tampa Bay matched the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Rays also rallied from eight down in a 10-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18, 2012, and in a 10-9 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on July 25, 2009.
It tied the Orioles’ largest blown lead over the past 50 seasons. Baltimore last gave away an eight-run lead on April 28, 2017, against the New York Yankees. The Orioles led that game 9-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning before losing 14-11 in 10 innings.
Lowe has at least a hit and a run in seven consecutive games, the longest active streak of its kind in the majors. He is batting .464 (13-of-28) with two home runs, five RBIs and eight runs during that span.
Caminero had four hits and two RBIs for the Rays.
Entering Wednesday, teams were 0-134 when trailing by eight or more runs at any point this season.
“It’s a tough game,” Orioles manager Tony Mansolino said. “It really hurts. But tomorrow, we’ll have to bounce back and try to figure out how to win a game.”
Three teams came back from eight runs behind last season in the majors. Pittsburgh was the most recent team to rally from more than that, erasing a nine-run deficit in a 13-12 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 23, 2023.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
NEW YORK — The good news for the Yankees on Wednesday was they scored a run after 30 consecutive scoreless innings. The bad news was they again didn’t score enough to win.
The Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 to extend their season-high losing streak to six games. The Angels will look to complete a four-game sweep Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, whose lead in the AL East has shrunk to 1½ games, will look to emerge from an offensive funk that has produced seven runs in seven games.
“That’s baseball,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “We know what we signed up for. You’re going to play 162. You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up. You can’t mope about it. You just got to show up the next day and you got to be ready to play.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr. ended the Yankees’ scoreless innings streak in the second inning with a moonshot solo home run down the right-field line, giving New York its first run since the ninth inning Saturday against the Boston Red Sox. Two innings later, Cody Bellinger launched another solo shot to give the Yankees their first lead since last Thursday when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 1-0.
But the Yankees mustered only one other hit — a ground ball from Bellinger in the sixth inning that was ruled a single after it bounced off Trent Grisham as he ran to second base for the inning’s second out. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed his team’s at-bats Wednesday were better than they were Tuesday — when he said he noticed his players pressing — and pointed to four walks as progress.
But the Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and are 5-for-48 (.104) with 12 strikeouts, four walks and three RBIs in such situations over their past seven games.
“We just got to break through now like we’re capable of offensively,” Boone said.
Judge, the two-time AL MVP who is a heavy favorite to win a third this season, has gone 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts, two intentional walks and a home run over the past five games. He went 0-for-4 on Wednesday with two strikeouts, a 94.7 mph groundout and 107.9 mph flyout.
“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” Judge said. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”
The Angels broke through to retake the lead in the eighth inning Wednesday without a hit when, after three walks, shortstop Anthony Volpe mishandled a ground ball on what should’ve been a routine, inning-ending double play. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner in 2023, was charged with his ninth error of the season, the second most among shortstops across the majors.
“Right off the bat, I got to be aggressive, go get the ball, make the play,” Volpe said. “As far as that, that’s all it is. It’s the first read off the bat.”
The lack of execution trickled to the offensive side in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees appeared ready to mount a rally when Jasson Dominguez walked and Oswald Peraza was hit by a pitch to begin the inning. But they were left stranded as Grisham, who was given the green light to swing away with one strike after failing to drop down a bunt, popped out, before Judge flied out and Bellinger popped out to extinguish the threat.
“When we’re not scoring a lot of runs, we got to execute on the highest level on the little things,” Boone said. “And we haven’t done that this week a handful of times when we had some opportunities.”
Latin singer Nezza said that she is “super proud” of performing the national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night and that she has “no regrets.”
Her surprising 90-second rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ game against the Giants — and a behind-the-scenes video she shared on social media of team representatives discouraging it beforehand — quickly went viral. It has become a flashpoint for Dodgers fans frustrated by the team’s lack of vocal support for immigrant communities impacted by the deportation raids across the U.S., including numerous neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles.
“This is my moment to show everyone that I am with them, that we have a voice and with everything that’s happening it’s not OK,” Nezza, 30, told The Associated Press. “I’m super proud that I did it. No regrets.”
Nezza said she hadn’t yet decided whether to sing in English or Spanish until she walked out onto the field and saw the stands filled with Latino families in Dodger Blue. Before that, as shown in the singer’s TikTok video, a Dodgers employee had told Nezza, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t transferred or if that wasn’t relayed.”
The Spanish-language version Nezza sang, “El Pendón Estrellado,” is the official translation of the national anthem and was commissioned in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Peruvian American composer Clotilde Arias.
Nezza says her manager immediately received a call from an unidentified Dodgers employee saying their clients were not welcome at the stadium again, but the team denied that in a statement to the AP.
“There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” the Dodgers said in the statement. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”
Despite the Dodgers’ statement, Nezza said she does not think she will return to the stadium but said she hopes her performance will inspire others to use their voice and speak out.
“It’s just shown me, like, how much power there is in the Latin community,” Nezza said. “We’ve got to be the voice right now.”
The Dodgers have not gone on the record regarding the arrests and raids made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the areas just a short drive from Dodger Stadium, but player Enrique Hernández posted about it on Instagram over the weekend.
“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” Hernández posted in English and Spanish. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”