What a week it was for college football: There were numerous upsets, along with some very exciting endings for a couple of teams in our top 25.
After No. 3 Georgia took an early lead in the first quarter, No. 16 Ole Miss tied it up halfway through the first and kept that lead for the next three quarters, sending the Bulldogs home with their second conference loss of the season.
The Missouri Tigers pulled off a fourth-quarter comeback victory over Oklahoma, as we welcome them back to our list, along with Louisville and Tulane.
How did Saturday’s action affect our Power Rankings?
Here’s the latest top 25 from our college football experts, who provide their insight on each team’s Week 11 performance.
Previous ranking: 1
With only two games standing between the Ducks and an undefeated regular season after a 39-18 win over Maryland on Saturday, it’s difficult to see them falling out of the top 10 (let alone 25) even if they lose to either Wisconsin or Washington. The way Oregon is playing right now, no team has been able to match its level. The offense continues to get stronger behind quarterback Dillon Gabriel, while the defense remains as stingy as ever.
For the eighth game in a row, the Ducks scored 30 points or more while holding their opponent to fewer than 20. As the season has progressed, Dan Lanning’s team has only become more confident in its brand of football, and the results speak for themselves. During a season in which top teams are prone to losing on any given Saturday, Oregon has proved to be the opposite. — Paolo Uggetti
Previous ranking: 3
Jeremiah Smith broke Cris Carter’s Ohio State true freshman receiving records, as the Buckeyes cruised to a 45-0 win over Purdue. Smith caught six passes for 87 yards and a touchdown, propelling him past Carter’s 1984 mark for receptions and touchdown catches. Smith, who broke Carter’s receiving yards record the previous week, now has 45 catches for 765 yards and nine touchdowns.
Emeka Egbuka caught a touchdown as well against the Boilermakers, as he and Smith became the first FBS receiving duo to each haul in eight touchdowns this season. After struggling offensively two weeks ago against Nebraska, the Buckeyes, behind their revamped offensive line, are rolling again at the right time. — Jake Trotter
Previous ranking: 5
The Longhorns have been stymied by a lack of explosive plays in recent weeks, but they found their groove against Florida. Quinn Ewers threw for 333 yards and five TDs in just over three quarters as the Longhorns blew out the Gators 49-17. Ewers became the third player in Texas history with five TDs and zero INTs while completing 70% of his throws in a game, joining Sam Ehlinger (2020 vs. UTEP) and James Brown (1994 vs. Baylor).
According to ESPN Research, Ewers entered Saturday averaging 5.4 air yards per attempt, ranking 122nd out of 123 FBS quarterbacks. But on Saturday, he averaged 8.7 air yards per throw, the most all season. A healthy Isaiah Bond returned after missing Texas’ win over Vanderbilt on Oct. 26 and made a difference: His 44-yard run on an end-around was the Longhorns’ longest in SEC play. He also caught three passes for 55 yards and a TD. — Dave Wilson
Previous ranking: 9
The health of quarterback Nico Iamaleava looms large for the Volunteers with Tennessee chasing its first-ever playoff berth. The Volunteers rolled past Mississippi State Saturday, behind a career-best 149 rushing yards from Dylan Sampson, but the focus stayed on Iamaleava in the 33-14 victory after the second-year passer exited with an upper-body injury in the second quarter and did not return after halftime.
Tennessee coach Josh Heupel confirmed postgame that Iamaleava’s exit was a “cautionary measure,” telling reporters that he expects to have the former five-star passer back for the Volunteers’ Week 12 trip to Georgia next weekend. Sampson, the SEC’s leading rusher, helped Tennessee pull away from Mississippi State with his 33-yard, third-quarter score, and the junior running back was the key to the Volunteers’ 240-yard rushing effort, the program’s highest mark against an SEC opponent this fall. But Iamaleava’s status will remain the primary concern in Knoxville this week, particularly for an offense that has reached 30 points just once in SEC play. — Eli Lederman
Previous ranking: 6
The Hoosiers won their 10th game in a season for the first time in team history and improved to 10-0 overall after their first tight game of the season. The key is remaining in the College Football Playoff field until the very end. Indiana’s performance Nov. 23 at Ohio State ultimately will shape how many around the country will ultimately assess coach Curt Cignetti’s team. If the Hoosiers defend like they did Saturday against Michigan, allowing only one touchdown on a 34-yard drive and consistently stifling the run, they should hang with the Buckeyes at Ohio Stadium. If Indiana flat-lines on offense like it did in the second half against Michigan, when it produced only three points and 18 total yards, the Ohio State game likely will get ugly. Indiana needs to use its second open week to heal up and find the pass-run rhythm that helped the offense rise to No. 2 in scoring before Saturday’s struggles. — Adam Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 8
The Nittany Lions’ path to CFP selection involves doing what they’ve done for most of coach James Franklin’s tenure — win the games they’re supposed to.
After another big-game disappointment last week against Ohio State, Penn State responded by pounding Washington 35-6 before a Whiteout crowd Saturday at Beaver Stadium. A Lions offense that did not score a touchdown against Ohio State had five Saturday, including on each of its first four possessions.
Do-it-all tight end Tyler Warren had two rushing touchdowns while Kaytron Allen had 98 rushing yards and a score and freshman Corey Smith recorded a 78-yard run, as Penn State started to show its big-play prowess again. If a defense that played well enough against Ohio State and held Washington to 193 yards continues to shine, Penn State should be punching its CFP ticket. The Lions close the regular season with Purdue (road), Minnesota (road) and Maryland (home). — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 7
Twice late in the fourth quarter against rival Utah on Saturday, it appeared the Cougars suffered their first defeat of the season. But on both occasions, there was a lifeline, giving BYU a chance to put together a last-minute drive to win on a 44-yard field goal, 22-21. With the win, BYU inches closer to locking up a spot in the Big 12 championship game and remains on course for a College Football Playoff appearance. The performance against Utah wasn’t convincing, but the Cougars will take the win after trailing 21-10 at halftime. — Kyle Bonagura
Previous ranking: 13
The Crimson Tide have looked like a far more complete team in their past two games — big wins over Missouri (34-0) and LSU (42-13) and should be favored in their final three games against Mercer, Oklahoma and Auburn. Alabama will need to keep building off its recent improvements, starting with its defense. After giving up way too many explosive plays earlier in the year, Alabama has given up a total of 13 points in its past two games.
The longest completion Garrett Nussmeier had on Saturday night was for 28 yards. The Tide also continues to be aggressive in taking away the ball, with five interceptions in the past two games. Meanwhile, the running game has shown up in a big way in the past two wins, as the Tide have rushed for over 200 yards in each game. Jalen Milroe has been a key reason. — Andrea Adelson
Previous ranking: 4
Miami’s defense had been a disaster waiting to happen for much of the season, and the dam finally broke against Georgia Tech. The Yellow Jackets ran for 271 yards and converted 9 of 14 third-down tries, while chewing up clock in a 28-23 win. Cam Ward and Miami’s offense couldn’t stay on the field (3-of-10 on third down, 1-of-4 on fourth) and Ward fumbled away a chance at a come-from-behind win late. Where does this leave the Canes? Right about where they started. They’re still the favorite to win the ACC, still in line for a top-four seed in the playoff, and still with big questions about whether the defense can get enough stops to allow Ward to work his magic. — David Hale
Previous ranking: 14
The Rebels and Lane Kiffin were looking for their first “signature” win of the season and really of Kiffin’s tenure in Oxford. They got it thanks to a 28-10 beatdown Saturday of Georgia in a game that was never close. What was most impressive about the win for Ole Miss (8-2, 4-2) was the way it controlled the line of scrimmage and relentlessly pressured Georgia quarterback Carson Beck.
The Rebels are playing their best football and have won three straight games by double digits. They lost a tough overtime game to LSU last month and blew a home game to Kentucky in September, but the win over Georgia puts Ole Miss right back into the playoff race. The Rebels also get a week off before traveling to face Florida on Nov. 23, which should help them get star receiver Tre Harris III back from an injury. — Chris Low
Previous ranking: 10
The Irish have not been tested since they played Louisville at the end of September, having beaten their past four opponents handily – including hapless Florida State 52-3 on Saturday night. Notre Dame has relied on a strong running game to power through to victories, but if there is one area where it has to improve to not only stay ranked but have a shot in the playoff is the passing game. Riley Leonard has not had to do much here – he actually leads the team in rushing – but in the only loss of the season to Northern Illinois, he struggled and threw two interceptions. On the season, he only has nine touchdown passes, and only twice in nine games has the longest completion of the game been more than 40 yards. — Adelson
Previous ranking: 11
It might be simple, but the Broncos’ strategy for success this season remains the same: give the ball to Ashton Jeanty and get out of the way. On Saturday against Nevada, Boise State found itself in a game where they needed more than the norm from Jeanty and he delivered. On 33 carries, Jeanty ran for 209 yards and added three more rushing touchdowns to his season tally (now at 23) on his way to leading No. 12 Boise to a 28-21 victory.
Every win counts for Boise, whose only loss is to Oregon at Autzen, as it tries not only to make the College Football Playoff, but perhaps secure a first-round bye. Getting the 12th spot in the first rankings bodes well for the perception of the Broncos as a team that nearly took down one of the remaining undefeated top teams in the country and belongs in the playoff. The margin of error is slim for a Group of 5 team and Boise can’t lose another game. But should the Broncos simply keep giving the ball to Jeanty, good things will ensue. — Uggetti
Previous ranking: 2
All of a sudden, Georgia has two SEC losses after Saturday’s 28-10 setback to Ole Miss on the road, and the Bulldogs (7-2, 5-2) have another tough game looming this coming weekend against Tennessee at home. SEC teams have beaten up on each other this season, so Georgia is still very much in the playoff picture, especially with the road win at Texas last month. What was so alarming about the loss to Ole Miss was the way Georgia was beaten up physically on the line of scrimmage. The Bulldogs couldn’t protect quarterback Carson Beck, who was sacked five times.
The other recurring issue is that Beck continues to turn the ball over. He has had multiple turnovers in five of his past six games. The Bulldogs don’t have the playmakers at the skill positions they’ve had on offense in recent seasons when they were in the midst of a 29-game winning streak. More of the pressure has been on Beck. Kirby Smart’s teams have almost always responded to adversity. Their backs are to the wall now. Another loss would likely kill their playoff chances. — Low
Previous ranking: 12
Staring down end-of-season matchups with Boston College, Virginia and Cal with their highest CFP ranking in program history, the Mustangs simply need to hold serve down the stretch.
SMU was off Saturday following its 48-25 rout of Pitt in Week 10. And given that the Mustangs’ lone loss came in September to unbeaten BYU, perhaps no program should have felt more snubbed by the committee’s initial playoff rankings than 8-1 SMU, which came in at No. 13 earlier this week, two spots behind two-loss Alabama.
But the Mustangs have figured out how to move the ball (446.1 yards per game) and they’re stopping the run as well as any team across the county this fall (90.0 opposing rushing yards per game). With the ACC’s eighth-toughest remaining schedule, SMU has a clear path to the ACC title game and playoff contention all the way to championship weekend if it can handle its business over the next three Saturdays. — Lederman
Previous ranking: 17
Army extended its nation’s-best 13-game winning streak with a 14-3 defeat of North Texas in Denton on Saturday. After missing last week’s game with injury, Army quarterback Bryson Daily was sharp, rushing for 153 yards and two touchdowns, while the Black Knights’ defense held UNT to 283 total yards and two turnovers.
With Daily hobbled, Army has proven it can win without 100% explosiveness on offense, but the Black Knights’ season will come down to whether or not they can take down Notre Dame in two weeks. Win, and they could zoom past Boise State in the College Football Playoff rankings; lose, and they’ll likely fall just short. Pulling an upset will likely come down to whether Daily is sharp, as he was on Saturday night, or downright awesome, as he has been for most of 2024. — Connelly
Previous ranking: 19
After falling behind 13-0 in the first quarter to Texas Tech, Colorado roared back to win, 41-27, behind another big game from quarterback Shedeur Sanders. Sanders completed 30 of 43 passes for 291 yards with three touchdowns as the Buffaloes overcame a poor night running the ball (they rushed for 60 yards on 27 carries). Next week’s game against Utah should provide a good test for the offense as the two former Pac-12 schools meet in Boulder. With four two-loss teams behind CU in the Big 12 standings, it has no margin for error the rest of the way. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: 15
After their best (a 15-point win over LSU) and worst (a 24-point loss to South Carolina) performances of the season, Texas A&M regrouped with a bye in Week 11. At 14th in the College Football Playoff rankings, the Aggies are in solid shape as far as the playoff is concerned, but they’ll have to win out to make it, which will require defeating Texas in Week 14. The most important thing they needed to search for in their off week is explosiveness.
Opponents make more big plays than they do — 6.2% of their snaps have gained 20-plus yards (92nd in FBS), while 6.8% of opponents’ plays gain that much (78th) — and when that’s the case it forces you to dominate from the perspective of efficiency and turnovers. South Carolina pulled away with big plays, and it can’t happen again over the final three weeks. — Connelly
Previous ranking: 21
The Cougars’ 49-28 win against Utah State was never in jeopardy as they improved to 8-1, and with New Mexico, Oregon State and Wyoming remaining on the schedule, things are falling into place for their first 11-win regular season in school history. QB John Mateer had an efficient night against the Aggies, completing 18 of 24 passes for 179 yards and four touchdowns.
Wayshawn Parker led the Cougars with 149 yards rushing on 11 carries as the Cougs rushed 303 yards as a team on 45 attempts. Their strength of schedule will likely prevent the Cougars from being a serious contender for a playoff spot, but it has been an impressive season, either way, for the Cougars as they’ve navigated the collapse of the Pac-12. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: 20
At halftime against Virginia Tech, Clemson was scoreless and trailing by a touchdown thanks to yet another blocked kick. It might’ve been a recipe for disaster, but Cade Klubnik finally found a spark in the second half, finishing the game by throwing for 211 yards and three touchdowns.
Phil Mafah ran for 128 yards, too, and the defense — much maligned after a dismal performance against Louisville — put together its best game of the year, holding the Hokies to just 40 yards rushing in a 24-14 win. The Tigers are playing to an inside straight, but with Miami’s Week 11 loss, the door is still cracked open for Clemson to make a run at the ACC title game. — Hale
Previous ranking: 24
South Carolina remained one of the hottest teams in college football with a 28-7 win over Vanderbilt on Saturday. The Gamecocks’ defense completely shut down Diego Pavia and the Commodores’ offense, allowing just 274 total yards, while both quarterback LaNorris Sellers (17 yards per completion) and Raheim Sanders (8.4 yards per carry) provided more than enough big plays to cruise to an easy win.
Since a frustrating 27-3 loss to Ole Miss in Week 6, South Carolina has been fantastic, nearly beating Alabama in Tuscaloosa and then winning three SEC games in a row by an average score of 36-12. To keep up this hot streak in upcoming games against Missouri and Clemson, the Gamecocks will have to keep making big plays on offense. The defense is disruptive and fun, but the offense is inconsistent and relatively inefficient. Keep showing signs of consistency, and they’ll have a shot at a 9-3 finish. — Connelly
Previous ranking: NR
Louisville is coming off a bye week and its remaining schedule is setting up nicely for a strong finish to get to 9-3. A road trip out to face Stanford – yes, Cardinal vs. Cardinals – is up next followed by games against Pittsburgh and Kentucky, which are both struggling at the moment. It’s tough to see a path to the conference title game, barring an extreme amount of chaos in the league race. But this team has an opportunity to achieve another 10-win season and continue building momentum to become a serious ACC contender year after year. — Max Olson
Previous ranking: 23
The Wildcats had the week off, but have been focused on rekindling their rushing attack. In an upset loss at Houston in the rain, Kansas State could not get its ground game going against a solid defense, rushing for 89 yards, fewest this season. Junior DJ Giddens had just 50 yards in that game, averaged 2.9 yards per carry, and had a long of 10 yards, an all season low. In the season’s first six games, he had four 100-yard games, including topping 180 against Colorado and Oklahoma State. But in the two games before Houston, he rushed for 57 against West Virginia and 102 (with a 54-yard run) against Kansas. Arizona State up next, allows 3.6 yards per carry, so this will be another test for the Wildcats. — Wilson
Previous ranking: 16
Brian Kelly repeatedly said after a 42-13 loss to Alabama that he has to do a better job getting his team ready to play, and that has to start on defense, where the Tigers have been unable to slow down running quarterbacks in their past two games – losses that have all but eliminated their playoff hopes. So making improvements defensively is where the Tigers have to start if they want to remain ranked in the Top 25 with games left against Florida, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma.
What has to be particularly frustrating for Kelly is the fact he overhauled his defensive staff in the offseason in an effort to improve the defense. But the same issues keep cropping up for a unit that has struggled to shut teams down. Though Garrett Nussmeier has had a good season, LSU has been unable to run the ball consistently and his mistakes have piled up. The Tigers have six turnovers in their past two games. — Adelson
Previous ranking: NR
The Tigers maintained their spot in the top 25 through Zion Young‘s scoop and score with 17 seconds remaining Saturday night, one of four touchdowns in the final 3:18 of Missouri’s 30-23 win over Oklahoma. The narrow victory came without starting quarterback Brady Cook, and despite Drew Pyne‘s second-half heroics, it’s clear that the Tigers will need Cook back under center in order to close strong this fall ahead of a final stretch that features trips to South Carolina and Mississippi State before a home finale with Arkansas.
If Cook can get healthy — along with Nate Noel, Mookie Cooper and Cayden Green — Missouri should have the firepower it needs to secure back-to-back 10-win seasons for only the third time in program history. — Lederman
Previous ranking: NR
Coach Jon Sumrall’s team isn’t generating as much attention as other Group of 5 CFP contenders, but none has been as consistently dominant since entering conference play as the Green Wave. After shellacking Temple52-6 on Saturday, Tulane has outscored its past seven opponents by a combined score of (312-119) during its win streak. Sumrall’s teams are known for defense and Tulane has really clamped down, allowing 10 points or fewer in three of its past five games.
To remain comfortably in the top 25 and on the fringes of CFP contention, Tulane simply must maintain its trajectory, as it prepares to face its two toughest AAC opponents in Navy (Nov. 16) and Memphis (Nov. 28). Makhi Hughes, who had 153 rushing yards and two touchdowns against Temple, is one of the nation’s most consistently productive running backs, and quarterback Darian Mensah continues to connect with Mario Williams and others. — Rittenberg
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.
Sports
‘It’s taken on a life of its own’: Inside the 48 hours torpedo bats launched into baseball lore
At 1:54 ET on Saturday afternoon, New York Yankees play-by-play man Michael Kay lit the fuse on what will be remembered as either one of the most metamorphic conversations in baseball history or one of its strangest.
During spring training, someone in the organization had mentioned to Kay that the team’s analytics department had counseled players on where pitches tended to strike their bats, and with subsequent buy-in from some of the players, bats had been designed around that information. In the hours before the Yankees’ home game against the Brewers that day, Kay told the YES Network production staff about this, alerting them so they could look for an opportunity to highlight the equipment.
After the Yankees clubbed four homers in the first inning, a camera zoomed in on Jazz Chisholm Jr.‘s bat in the second inning. “You see the shape of Chisholm’s bat…” Kay said on air. “It’s got a big barrel on it,” Paul O’Neill responded, before Kay went on to describe the analysis behind the bat shaped like a torpedo.
Chisholm singled to left field, and after Anthony Volpe worked the count against former teammate Nestor Cortes to a full count, Volpe belted a home run to right field using the same kind of bat. A reporter watching the game texted Kay: Didn’t he hit the meat part of the bat you were talking about — just inside where the label normally is?
Yep, Kay responded. Within an hour of Kay’s commentary, the video of Chisholm’s bat and Kay’s exchange with O’Neill was posted on multiple platforms of social media, amplified over and over. What happened over the next 48 hours was what you get when you mix the power of social media and the desperation of a generation of beleaguered hitters. Batting averages are at a historic low, strikeout rates at a historic high, and on a sunny spring day in the Bronx, here were the Yankees blasting baseballs into the seats with what seemed to be a strangely shaped magic bat.
An oasis of offense had formed on the horizon, and hitters — from big leaguers to Little Leaguers, including at least one member of Congress — paddled toward it furiously. Acres of trees will be felled and shaped to feed the thirst for this new style of bats. Last weekend, one bat salesman asked his boss, “What the heck have we done?”
Jared Smith, CEO of bat-maker Victus, said, “I’ve been making bats for 15, 16 years. … This is the most talked-about thing in the industry since I started. And I hope we can make better-performing bats that work for players.”
According to Bobby Hillerich, the vice president of production at Hillerich & Bradsby, his company — which is based in Louisville, Kentucky, and makes Louisville Slugger bats — had produced 20 versions of the torpedo bat as of this past Saturday, and in less than a week, that number has tripled as players and teams continually call in their orders.
Even though Saturday marked its launch into the mainstream, this shape of bat has actually been around for a while. Hillerich & Bradsby had its first contact with a team about the style in 2021 and had nondisclosure agreements with four teams as the bat evolved; back then, it was referred to as the “bowling pin” bat. The Cubs’ Nico Hoerner was the first major leaguer to try it — and apparently wasn’t comfortable with it. Cody Bellinger tried it when he was with the Cubs before joining the Yankees during the offseason.
Before Atlanta took the field Sunday night, Braves catcher Drake Baldwin recalled trying one in the Arizona Fall League last year (noting that his first impression was that it “looked weird”). Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor used it in 2024, in a year in which he would finish second in the NL MVP voting; Lindor’s was a little different from Volpe’s version, with a cup hollowed out at the end of the bat. Giancarlo Stanton swung one throughout his playoff surge last fall, but no one in the media noticed, perhaps because of how the pitch-black color of Stanton’s bat camouflaged the shape.
Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli saw one in the Twins’ dugout during spring training and picked it up, his attention drawn to the unusual shape. “What the hell is this thing?” he asked, wondering aloud whether the design was legal. When he was assured it was, he put it back down.
Baldelli’s experience reflected the way hitters have used and assessed bats since the advent of baseball: They’ll pick up bats and see how they feel, their interest fueled by the specter of success. Tony Gwynn won eight batting titles, and many teammates and opposing hitters — Barry Bonds among them — asked whether they could inspect his bats. The torpedo bat’s arrival was simply the latest version of that long-held search for the optimal tool.
On Opening Day, eight teams had some version of the torpedo bat within their stock, according to one major league source. But with video of the Yankees’ home runs being hit off unusual bats saturating social media Saturday afternoon, the phone of Kevin Uhrhan, pro bat sales rep for Louisville Slugger, blew up with requests for torpedo bats. James Rowson, the hitting coach of the Yankees, began to get text inquiries — about 100, he later estimated. Everyone wanted to know about the bat; everyone wanted to get their own.
In San Diego, Braves players asked about the bats, and by Sunday morning, equipment manager Calvin Minasian called in the team’s order. By the middle of the week, all 30 teams had asked for the bats. “Every team started trying to get orders in,” Hillerich said. “We’re trying to scramble to get wood. And then it was: How fast can we get this to retail?”
Victus produces the bats Chisholm and Volpe are using and has made them available for retail. Three senior players, all in their 70s, stopped by the Victus store to ask about the torpedoes. A member of Congress who plays baseball reached out to Louisville Slugger.
The Cincinnati Reds contacted Hillerich & Bradsby, saying, “We need you in Cincinnati on Monday ASAP,” and soon after, Uhrhan and pro bat production manager Brian Hillerich, Bobby’s brother, made the 90-minute drive from the company’s factory in Louisville with test bats.
Reds star Elly De La Cruz tried a few, decided on a favorite and used it for a career performance that night.
“You can think in New York, maybe there was wind,” Bobby Hillerich said. “Elly hits two home runs and gets seven RBIs. That just took it to a whole new level.”
A few days after the Yankees’ explosion, Aaron Leanhardt, who had led New York’s effort to customize its bats as a minor league hitting coordinator before being hired by the Marlins as their field coordinator, was in the middle of a horseshoe of reporters, explaining the background. “There are a lot more cameras here today than I’m used to,” he said, laughing.
Stanton spoke with reporters about the simple concept behind the bat: build a design for where a hitter is most likely to make contact. “You wonder why no one has thought of it before, for sure,” Stanton said. “I didn’t know if it was, like, a rule-based thing of why they were shaped like that.”
Over and over, MLB officials assured those asking: Yes, the bats are legal and meet the sport’s equipment specifications. Trevor Megill, the Brewers’ closer, complained about the bats, calling them like “something used in slow-pitch softball,” but privately, baseball officials were thrilled by the possibility of seeing offense goosed, something they had been attempting through rule change in recent years.
“It’s all the rage right now, given what transpired over the weekend,” said Jeremy Zoll, assistant general manager of the Twins. “I’m sure more and more guys are going to experiment with it as a result, just to see if it’s something they like.”
That personal preference is a factor for which some front office types believe the mass orders of the bats don’t account: The Yankees’ recommendations to each hitter were based on months of past data of how that player tended to strike the ball. This was not about a one-size-fits all bat; it was about precise bat measurements that reflected an individual player’s swing.
“I had never heard of it. I’ve used the same bat for nine years, so I think I’ll stick with that,” White Sox outfielder Andrew Benintendi said. “It’s pretty interesting. It makes sense. If it works for a guy, good for him. If it doesn’t, stick with what you got.”
As longtime player Eric Hosmer explained on the “Baseball Tonight” podcast, the process is a lot like what players can do in golf: look for clubs customized for a player’s particular swing. And, he added, hitting coaches might begin to think more about which bat might be most effective against particular pitchers. If a pitcher tends to throw inside, a torpedo bat could be more effective; if a pitcher is more effective outside, maybe a larger barrel would be more appropriate.
That’s the key, according to an agent representing a player who ordered a bat: “You need years of hitting data in the big leagues to dial it in and hopefully get a better result. He’s still tinkering with it; he may not even use it in a game. … I think of it like switching your irons in golf to blades: It will feel a little different and take some adjusting, and it may even change your swing subtly.”
Two days after the home run explosion, Boone said, “You’re just trying to just get what you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit. 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. 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.”
“I’m kind of starting to smile at it a little more … a lot of things that aren’t real.”
Said the player agent: “It’s not an aluminum bat with plutonium in it like everyone is making it out to be.”
Reliever Adam Ottavino watched this all play out, with his 15 years of experience. “It’s the Yankees and they scored a million runs in the first few games, and it’s cool to hate the Yankees and it’s cool to look for the bogeyman,” Ottavino said, “and that’s what some people are going to do, and [you] can’t really stop that. But there’s also a lot of misinformation and noneducation on it too.”
Major league baseball mostly evolves at a glacial pace. For example, the sport is well into the second century of complaints about the surface of the ball and the debate over financial disparity among teams. From time to time, however, baseball has its eclipses, moments that command full attention and inspire change. On a “Sunday Night Baseball” game on May 18, 2008, an umpire’s botched home run call at Yankee Stadium compelled MLB to implement the first instant replay. Buster Posey’s ankle was shattered in a home plate collision in May 2011, imperiling the career of the young star, and new rules about that type of play were rewritten.
The torpedo bat eruption could turn out to be transformative, a time when the industry became aware how a core piece of equipment has been taken for granted and aware that bats could be more precisely designed to augment the ability of each hitter. Or this could all turn out to be a wild overreaction to an outlier day of home runs against a pitching staff having a really bad day.
On Thursday, Cortes — who had been hammered for five homers over two innings in Yankee Stadium — shut out the Reds for six innings.
In Baltimore, Bregman, who had tried the torpedo bat earlier this week, reverted to his usual stock and had three hits against the Orioles, including a home run. Afterward, Bregman said, “It’s the hitter. Not the bat.”
This story was also reported by Jeff Passan, Jorge Castillo, Jesse Rogers and Kiley McDaniel.
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