Power Rankings: Who ranks in the top 25 following a drama-filled Rivalry Week?
Well, Rivalry Week was nothing short of entertaining, as the last week of the regular season featured plenty of drama.
No. 2 Ohio State fell to Michigan on Saturday, ending the Buckeyes’ Big Ten title hopes. Looking toward the postseason, what can the Buckeyes change in their game to make sure another second-half shutdown doesn’t occur?
After a four-way tie at the top of the Big 12 going into Week 14, we now know that No. 16 Arizona State and No. 18 Iowa State will be playing for the conference title. After being picked last to finish in the Big 12 preseason poll, could Arizona State be the most surprising team in college football this season?
How did last week’s action affect our Power Rankings?
Here’s the latest top 25 from our college football experts, who provide their insight on each team following Week 14.
Previous ranking: 1
Rivalry Week was nothing but another pit stop for the Ducks on their way to an undefeated regular season — their first since 2010. Oregon (12-0) throttled Washington 49-21 in Eugene on Saturday, showcasing yet again why they have been the best team in the country throughout the season. The defense tallied a whopping 10 sacks while the offense scored 49 points and its much-improved offensive line allowed zero sacks with five rushing touchdowns. That unit’s development and improvement has been a surprise after it allowed seven sacks over the first two games.
Since then, it has allowed only five sacks over nine games. It has been night and day for the Ducks’ offensive line since they moved Iapani Laloulu to center in their fourth game of the season, allowing the offense to flourish and put Dan Lanning & Co. in position to be the favorites in the Big Ten title game as well as the College Football Playoff. — Paolo Uggetti
Previous ranking: 3
The 2023 Longhorns were a College Football Playoff team with a chance to win in the final seconds against Washington in the semifinals in the Sugar Bowl. Yet they still ranked 116th in pass defense, allowing an average of 254.4 passing yards per game. This year, they’ve taken a massive leap, leading the FBS in yards per play allowed and most notably, yards per pass attempt.
The difference was on display in Saturday’s 17-7 win over Texas A&M, in which the Longhorns denied the Aggies an offensive touchdown and held them to their fewest points at home since a 2002 loss to Virginia Tech. Texas (11-1) allowed just 102 rushing yards and constantly harassed Marcel Reed, who went 16-of-23 for 146 yards with an interception and a long of 27 yards. Their defensive dominance, coupled with a power running game that amassed 243 yards, allowed Texas to control an emotionally charged rivalry game from start to finish. — Dave Wilson
Previous ranking: 4
After beating USC 49-35 in the regular season finale, Notre Dame (11-1) is playoff-bound despite suffering a shocking loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2. Since that loss, Marcus Freeman’s team has become one of the most dominant in the nation, outscoring opponents 441-134. It’s no surprise to see the Irish’s defense dominating inferior opponents, but the offense has been just as good, especially the running game. Behind Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price, Notre Dame has its first top-10 rushing attack since 2017.
In each of the past five games, the Irish have surpassed the 200-yard rushing mark, which is tied for their longest streak in 20 years. On Saturday, Notre Dame scored 49 points or more for the sixth time this season — the most in program history. As bigger games await, the Irish haven’t just left behind that NIU loss, they’ve used it as fuel, as both sides of the ball are running on all cylinders. — Uggetti
Previous ranking: 5
Tyler Warren was an honorable-mention All-Big Ten selection last season. This year, the senior tight end has been one of the top playmakers in college football. Warren, who figures to be a first-team All-American, leads all Power 4 tight ends with 81 receptions and 978 receiving yards. Warren tied an FBS tight end record with 17 catches in a win at USC on Oct. 12. He now has five touchdown grabs, four touchdown runs and even a touchdown pass.
After beating Maryland 44-7 on Saturday, the Nittany Lions (11-1) take on Oregon in the Big Ten title game with a chance to earn a bye in the playoff. At worst, they’ll be hosting a first-round playoff game. Warren’s massive step forward in his final season is a major reason why. — Jake Trotter
Previous ranking: 6
The Bulldogs (10-2) again find themselves in the mix for a CFP national championship. Unlike 2021 and 2022, when they won back-to-back national titles, they’re doing it this season without an elite defense. Georgia’s offense figured to take a step back after losing All-America tight end Brock Bowers and receiver Ladd McConkey to the NFL. That has been the case, as quarterback Carson Beck struggled for a long stretch of the season when his offensive line failed to protect him and his receivers dropped too many passes.
While Beck has rebounded to play well the past three games, the biggest surprise has been Georgia’s porous defense.The Bulldogs rank ninth in the SEC in run defense (135.8) and total defense (332.1 yards) and seventh in scoring defense (20.5 points). That’s far below the standard that coach Kirby Smart has established at his alma mater. Missed tackles have plagued the defense throughout the season. The Bulldogs allowed 226 rushing yards in a 59-21 win over UMass and then 260 more in a 44-42 win over Georgia Tech that required eight overtimes. They’ll have to try to shore things up before Saturday’s showdown against Texas in the SEC championship game (4 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN+). — Mark Schlabach
Previous ranking: 2
The Buckeyes began the year with an offense that featured preseason All-American wideout Emeka Egbuka and running backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson, who had combined for 5,470 career rushing yards. And yet Ohio State’s most prolific playmaker has proved to be true freshman wideout Jeremiah Smith. The Florida native has 57 catches for 934 yards and 10 touchdowns, as he shattered Cris Carter’s Ohio State true freshman records set in 1984.
Strangely, the Buckeyes seemingly forgot about Smith in the second half of Saturday’s stunning 13-10 loss to Michigan. Smith had only one reception for 3 yards after halftime, with only two targets, both coming in the third quarter. In turn, Ohio State was shut out in the second half of a game for the first time in 13 years. The Buckeyes (10-2) will need to lean on Smith a lot more if they’re going to bounce back and make a run through the playoff. — Trotter
Previous ranking: 8
The Mustangs (11-1) likely punched their ticket to the playoff with a 38-6 win over Cal in the regular-season finale. They’ll take on Clemson in the ACC championship game riding a nine-game winning streak in which they’ve scored at least 33 points in eight of those games. Brashard Smith continues to be one of the most electric players in the country, rushing for 68 yards and hauling in another 66 through the air with two touchdowns. But overlooked has been a terrific SMU defense, which has held its past two opponents to just 13 total points. — David Hale
Previous ranking: 9
In closing the regular season with a 36-23 win over Vanderbilt on Saturday, a win that should lock up a playoff spot, the Vols (10-2) did what they’ve done for most of this season: play great defense. They held the Commodores to 212 total yards and allowed just two touchdowns on defense. The biggest surprise about this team is how the defense has become its backbone, giving up more than 19 points in only one game all season (its 31-17 loss to Georgia).
The offense, especially the passing game, has been spotty, but the good news for Tennessee is that quarterback Nico Iamaleava and his receivers hooked up for several explosive plays against the Commodores. Iamaleava had his most productive day against an SEC opponent with 257 passing yards, four touchdowns and an interception. The Vols will now wait and see whether they get a home playoff game when the final rankings are released on Dec. 8. — Chris Low
Previous ranking: 10
The Hoosiers (11-1) were full of surprises throughout a magical regular season, at least for everyone outside of coach Curt Cignetti’s locker room. Indiana didn’t just win 11 games for the first time in team history but did so in absolutely dominant fashion. The latest beatdown came Saturday in the Old Oaken Bucket game, as Indiana pulverized Purdue 66-0, holding the Boilermakers to 67 total yards. Quarterback Kurtis Rourke threw six touchdown passes to five different receivers, and running backs Justice Ellison and Ty Son Lawton both found the end zone as Indiana averaged 7.8 yards per play.
Linebacker Jailin Walker had an interception, a forced fumble, four tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks to lead a smothering defense. The win marked Indiana’s 10th by 14 points or more and seventh by 24 points or more. While many other CFP contenders survived several close calls en route to one- or two-loss seasons, Indiana consistently left no doubt in its wins and clinched a spot in the field of 12. — Adam Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 11
Behind yet another 200-yard performance from Ashton Jeanty to cap off an incredible regular season, the Broncos (11-1) crushed Oregon State 34-18 and took another step closer to a spot in the College Football Playoff. While Jeanty has been the toast of the town (and the country), quarterback Maddux Madsen has been a pleasant surprise for the Broncos. After beating out USC transfer Malachi Nelson for the starting job, Madsen has been exactly what the Broncos have needed. While Jeanty has been both the engine and the fireworks for the Boise offense, Madsen has guided the unit well, throwing for 2,556 yards with 21 touchdowns and, most importantly, only three interceptions in his sophomore season. Without Jeanty, the Broncos are not in their current position, but without Madsen, the road to 11 wins probably would have been far more difficult. — Uggetti
Previous ranking: 12
Is Arizona State the most surprising team in college football this season? With all due respect to Indiana and the other unexpected top-25 teams, let’s not forget the Sun Devils were picked to finish last in their first season as a member of the Big 12. Now they’re 10-2 and about to play for a Big 12 title and a CFP bid.
Second-year coach Kenny Dillingham and his staff helped develop FCS transfer Cam Skattebo into a legitimate Heisman Trophy candidate and have executed one of the most impressive portal rebuilds in the sport. The Cinderella story continued Saturday with their fifth consecutive win, a 49-7 rout of rival Arizona. This program is way ahead of schedule and only going to get more dangerous under Dillingham. — Max Olson
Previous ranking: 16
Playoff hopes, surprisingly, remain alive in Columbia, thanks to the Gamecocks’ 17-14 win at Clemson — their second straight road win against the Tigers. LaNorris Sellers passed for 164 yards and rushed for 166 — the first power-conference QB to top 150 in both categories this year — and his second scrambling touchdown clinched the win with 1:08 left. Clemson quickly drove into field goal range in the final minute, but Demetrius Knight Jr. picked off an ill-advised Cade Klubnik pass, and the Gamecocks (9-3) prevailed. Sellers’ development has been a welcome surprise. Through six games, he ranked 89th in the nation in Total QBR, having averaged just 5.2 yards per dropback with 346 non-sack rushing yards. In the past six games, he ranks sixth in Total QBR, averaging 8.5 yards per dropback with 500 rushing yards. As he developed, so did South Carolina. — Bill Connelly
Previous ranking: 14
The maddening thing for Alabama (9-3) this season, assuming it doesn’t make the playoff, has been its inconsistency on offense, which is not necessarily what a lot of people saw coming in Kalen DeBoer’s first season in Tuscaloosa. In the Tide’s 28-14 win over rival Auburn on Saturday, they were as balanced as it gets with 256 passing yards and 201 rushing yards, and quarterback Jalen Milroe was a big part of that attack. He was 18-of-24 and also rushed for 107 yards and three touchdowns.
When he has been on top of his game this season, Alabama has been tough to beat. But in all three of the Tide’s losses, Milroe has struggled to find any rhythm and has also turned the ball over. It’s not all on him, but the up-and-down nature of the offense has cost Alabama, which was held to 17 points or fewer in two of its three losses (with only a field goal in its 24-3 loss at Oklahoma on Nov. 23). — Low
Previous ranking: 7
The Hurricanes (10-2) were the trendy preseason choice to win the ACC after making big moves in the transfer portal, most notably signing quarterback Cam Ward. But how the past month unfolded ended up being the biggest surprise. Miami may have won 10 games for the first time since 2017 — and that is generally something worth celebrating. But surprisingly, Miami failed to advance to the ACC championship game after a 42-38 loss to Syracuse gave the Canes a second ACC loss this season (the first was on Nov. 9 vs. Georgia Tech). The defense, which started the season with such an emphatic performance in a blowout win over Florida, regressed as the season went on and is the biggest reason why Miami might need help to make it into the College Football Playoff. The Hurricanes no longer control their own destiny. — Andrea Adelson
Previous ranking: 15
The Rebels finished 9-3 after Friday’s 26-14 victory over Mississippi State in the Egg Bowl, winning at least eight games for the fourth consecutive season under coach Lane Kiffin. But after going all-in on acquiring difference-makers from the transfer portal, the season has a little bit of a lost feeling to it. The Rebels (9-3) clobbered Georgia 28-10 at home on Nov. 9 to get into the CFP mix, but then they laid an egg in a 24-17 loss at Florida two weeks later. Ole Miss leads the SEC in scoring (37.5 points) and passing (343.6 yards), but it came up short when it mattered most in each of its three losses.
The Rebels went 1-for-10 on third down in a 20-17 loss to Kentucky. They went 3-for-6 in the red zone and had two turnovers in a 29-26 defeat in overtime at LSU Tigers. And then Ole Miss went 3-for-14 on third down and 0-for-3 in the red zone at Florida. As good as the Rebels were on offense this season, they ranked 14th in the SEC in the red zone, scoring touchdowns only 58% of the time. — Mark Schlabach
Previous ranking: 17
The biggest surprise for Iowa State, at least for outsiders, is that the Cyclones woke up on Dec. 1 with the first 10-win season in school history and a spot in the Big 12 championship game. The Iowa State running game has been a key to their turnaround. There’s Carson Hansen, who had 67 yards as a freshman but has four multiscore games this year, with 625 yards and 11 touchdowns. Abu Sama III, who broke out with 614 yards as a freshman, added 582 this year. Eastern Michigan transfer Jaylon Jackson had 400.
In a key game against Kansas State, Rocco Becht went 13-of-36 for 137 yards, but Sama and Hansen combined for 141 yards, an average of 5 yards per carry, allowing Becht room to throw 15- and 9-yard TD passes to Jayden Higgins and Jaylin Noel, while the always tough Cyclones defense did its part to seal the win. — Wilson
Previous ranking: 19
After playing its way into the CFP conversation with a 9-0 start, BYU’s back-to-back losses to Kansas and Arizona State will keep the Cougars out of the Big 12 title game despite a 30-18 win against Houston in the regular-season finale. As a whole, the season represents a significant step forward for the program, which is now all but assured to land in the final AP Top 25 for the first time since 2021. It was the type of performance that would have been easy to celebrate before the season began, but after being ranked as high as No. 6, recalibrated expectations will leave the Cougars (10-2) with a feeling about what could have been. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: 13
The Tigers backed into the ACC title game, but they’ll take the invite anyway. Less than 30 minutes after Clemson thought its playoff hopes had evaporated with a Cade Klubnik interception off a tipped pass, sealing its loss to South Carolina, Miami breathed life back into those hopes with its loss to Syracuse. The Tigers (9-3) head to the ACC title game without anything approaching a signature win, but a victory over SMU would still put them into the 12-team field. Doing that will require the offense to figure out a way to muster some big plays — something utterly lacking in losses to the three high-caliber teams they’ve played so far. — Hale
Previous ranking: 21
After going its entire existence without being ranked in the AP poll, UNLV cracked it for the first time ever this year and will head to its second consecutive conference championship game as a Top 25 team. In coach Barry Odom’s two years in the desert, he has delivered the best two-year stretch in school history. As the Rebels punched their ticket on Saturday, RB Jai’Den Thomas and QB Hajj-Malik Williams both rushed for over 100 yards and a score as the team amassed 352 yards on the ground in a 38-14 win against rival Nevada. UNLV’s trip to Boise State on Friday for the conference title could also be for a playoff ticket, which makes the contest the biggest football game in school history. — Bonagura
Previous ranking: 23
Mizzou fans got their money’s worth this season. For the fifth straight home game, the Tigers won with dramatics on Saturday, beating Arkansas 28-21 in quarterback Brady Cook‘s final home game as a Tiger. Cook went just 10-for-20 for 168 yards as a pregame snow storm drastically altered conditions, but he got 90 yards and two touchdowns from Marcus Carroll, plus a 70-yard catch-and-run from Theo Wease to set up a Carroll TD early in the fourth quarter.
With the game in the balance, Cook raced 30 yards for the go-ahead score and completed a two-point pass to Luther Burden III. Arkansas advanced to the Mizzou 32 in the final minute, but Joseph Charleston and Sidney Williams broke up two end zone passes, and the Tigers moved to 9-3. — Connelly
Previous ranking: 25
The 2023 season featured only four wins for the Buffaloes, but heavy doses of drama. Nearly every game carried a good amount of tension, given Colorado’s individual talent but more obvious flaws. Colorado not only became a more legitimate team in coach Deion Sanders’ second season, but the surprise is how dominant CU has been at times. The Buffs’ 52-0 shutout of Oklahoma State to cap a 9-3 regular season marked their sixth win by 14 points or more.
The home finale for Heisman Trophy favorite Travis Hunter, quarterback Shedeur Sanders and others was never competitive, as Colorado’s defense responded from a poor performance against Kansas to blank Oklahoma State and allow only 77 yards through three quarters. Colorado still has its warts — Sanders was sacked six times and often held the ball too long — but the improvement on defense under first-year coordinator Robert Livingston has made winning more frequent, and easier, this fall. — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 24
When Illinois won eight games in 2022, it did so with defense, a stout run game and an offense that eclipsed 26 points only four times and hit 40 points just once. The Illini scored more than 30 points just twice last season. But this season, offense has largely carried coach Bret Bielema’s best Illinois team, which finished the regular season at 9-3 after scoring 38 points for the third straight week in a win against Northwestern at Wrigley Field.
Big plays continued to propel the Illini, who received runs of 64 and 30 yards from Aidan Laughery, who finished with 172 rushing yards and three scores. Pat Bryant Jr. added a 43-yard receiving touchdown and Zakhari Franklin and Collin Dixon also had receptions of 43 and 38 yards, respectively. Illinois was outgained by Northwestern but averaged 7.2 yards per play. Although the Illini had a few low offensive outputs, the explosive play has added an element they lacked previously under Bielema. — Rittenberg
Previous ranking: 22
Following a bruising loss to Notre Dame on Nov. 23, Army handled its business against UTSA on Saturday, using a pair of Bryson Daily touchdown runs to erase a fourth-quarter deficit and win 29-24. The Black Knights moved to 10-1 and will host next week’s AAC championship against Tulane. Daily has been one of the brightest surprises of the season; after rushing for 147 yards and throwing for a season-high 190, the senior now has 1,348 rushing yards, 860 passing yards and 33 combined TDs out of Army’s retro option offense.
After attempts at modernization failed last season, the Black Knights shifted back to their old-school option ways and just won double-digit games for the first time since 2018 and the third time under Jeff Monken. And in their first season back in a conference since an ill-fated seven-year run in Conference USA, the Black Knights are 60 minutes away from their first conference title. — Connelly
Previous ranking: NR
First-year coach Fran Brown had high hopes for Syracuse this year, particularly after bringing in Ohio State transfer quarterback Kyle McCord as part of a top-rated portal class to go with some key returning players — including LeQuint Allen, Oronde Gadsden, Trebor Pena, Justin Barron and Marlowe Wax. But it is probably safe to say even the offense exceeded its high expectations. McCord delivered in every way, becoming the first player in school history to throw for over 4,000 yards in a season — surpassing that mark in a 42-38 win over Miami. McCord also set the single-season school record for touchdown passes and helped Syracuse upset a top-10 team for the first time since 2017. The Orange (9-3) have nine regular-season wins for the first time since 2018. — Andrea Adelson
Previous ranking: 20
First-year coach Mike Elko had plenty to fix when he agreed to take over Texas A&M, and it’s clear he made real progress during his debut season back in College Station. But a promising 7-1 start fell apart in November with losses in each of the Aggies’ past three SEC games. Marcel Reed emerged as a pleasant surprise as its QB1 ahead of Conner Weigman, but injuries — particularly at running back — and inconsistency made it tough for this offense to reach its full potential during the stretch run. That was never more apparent than on Saturday night against rival Texas, when the Aggies’ offense got stopped on three fourth-down attempts and failed to score any offensive points in a 17-7 loss that sent the rival Longhorns to the SEC title game. Elko bluntly called it a physical annihilation. It was a tough night that ought to serve as motivation as the 8-4 Aggies’ attention turns to building up a more competitive contender in 2025. — Olson
Sports
Inside the Red Sox’s plan to revolutionize hitting — and the three young stars at the center of it
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Inside the batting cages at the Boston Red Sox‘s spring training complex, where the future of hitting is playing out in real time, the best trio of position prospects in a generation blossomed.
Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer have spent hundreds of hours in the building, rotating around its 10 tunnels, though their best work always seems to happen in Cage 4, right inside the main entrance. When they walk through the door, underneath a sign with a Ted Williams quote in big, capital letters — “WE’RE GOING TO LEARN HOW TO DO TWO THINGS … WE’RE GOING TO HIT IT HARD AND WE’RE GOING TO HIT IT IN THE AIR” — they enter a hitting laboratory. Every cage is equipped with a HitTrax that gives them real-time batted-ball data. Trash cans house an array of training bats — overweight and underweight, long and short, skinny. A Trajekt robot, capable of replicating every pitch thrown in the major leagues over the past half-decade, is joined by a dozen other standard pitching machines. Exit velocity leaderboards dot the walls.
Here, Campbell, Anthony and Mayer are in the middle of everything, appropriate for what their future holds. They’re learning modern hitting philosophy, applying it in an array of competitions that aim to turn their tools into skills, jamming to Bachata and Reggaeton and rap and rock, talking immense amounts of trash. On a small desk inside Cage 4 sit two binders outlining the Red Sox’s hitting philosophy: one in English and one in Spanish. These binders outline what the organization’s hitting coaches refer to as its Core Four tenets: swing decisions, bat speed, bat-to-ball skill and ball flight.
As pitchers have leveraged baseball’s sabermetric revolution into designer offerings and a sportwide velocity jump, hitting has fallen behind. Batting average and weighted on-base average (a metric that measures productivity at the plate) are at low points over the past half-century. Pitchers regularly flummox hitters. The Red Sox believe they can bridge the gap. And the new big three — a nickname that was originally given to Mayer, Anthony and Kyle Teel, the catching prospect at the heart of the trade that brought ace Garrett Crochet to Boston over the winter — are the philosophy’s beta test.
“The training environment is the biggest thing with us,” said Anthony, a 20-year-old outfielder. “We push each other so much, and it’s always that competitive — friendly, but competitive — environment we set in the cage. We talk crap to each other. We really try to get the best out of each other and really beat each other in training. And I think it makes us better when we take the field.”
There, their results are undeniable. Mayer, 22, is a smooth-fielding, left-handed-hitting shortstop who fell to the Red Sox with the No. 4 pick in the 2021 draft, weathered injuries and saw his exit velocity spike and strikeout rate dip last year. Anthony, who signed for a well-over-slot $2.5 million bonus after Boston chose him with the 79th pick in the 2022 draft, is widely regarded as the best hitting prospect in the minor leagues. The 22-year-old Campbell, a fourth-round pick in 2023 as a draft-eligible redshirt freshman, was a revelation last season, the consensus Minor League Player of the Year who went from unheralded to a prospect coveted even more than Anthony by some teams despite an unorthodox swing.
All three will be in the major leagues sooner than later — for Campbell, perhaps by Opening Day. They’ll bring with them a shared experience they believe will transfer to the big leagues. When they eventually face Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, they’ll have a sense of what to expect, not just because they stood in against him on the Trajekt but because coaches took his best fastballs (100 mph at the top of the zone), added an extra half-foot of rise to them and challenged the kids to hit it.
“You want to be surrounded with the best,” Anthony said, “because it makes you want to become the best.”
IN SEPTEMBER 2023, after the minor league season ended, the Red Sox gathered their minor league prospects at their spring training complex for a two-month offseason camp. Boston’s staff assesses every hitter to form an action plan, and Campbell’s was clear. He made excellent swing decisions and had elite bat-to-ball ability, both of which manifested themselves as he hit .376 with 29 walks and 17 strikeouts over 217 plate appearances in his lone season at Georgia Tech. While the 6-foot-3, 210-pound Campbell swung the bat hard, the Red Sox saw room for improvement. Ball flight represented the biggest area of need after his average launch angle during 22 postdraft pro games was just 2 degrees.
Inside the complex’s cafeteria one day in camp, Campbell was surveying his options when Red Sox hitting coordinator John Soteropulos meandered by. Soteropulos had joined the team after three years as a hitting coach at Driveline Baseball, the Seattle-based think tank where philosophies have pervaded the game over the past decade. Soteropulos noticed shepherd’s pie on the cafeteria’s menu and alerted Campbell.
“You need to eat that,” Soteropulos said. “It’s got bat speed in it.”
“I hope it has ball flight, too,” Campbell said.
While Mayer entered the MLB ecosystem as a top prospect and Anthony a tooled-up could-be star, Campbell was different. Taken with the compensatory pick the Red Sox received when longtime shortstop Xander Bogaerts signed with the San Diego Padres, Campbell signed for less than $500,000. His swing was janky. He needed work. Soteropulos, director of hitting and fellow Driveline alum Jason Ochart and assistant farm director Chris Stasio were empowered by Red Sox management to implement their new systems in hopes of extracting the best version of later-round picks like Campbell — and if it worked, he would represent the proof of concept.
From the moment he arrived in the organization, Campbell impressed the staff with his desire to learn. And challenging players beyond the perfunctory repetitions hitters take — the same soft flips in the batting cage, the same 60 mph batting practice before every game — is at the heart of Boston’s philosophy.
Professional baseball players, the thinking goes, are elite problem solvers. Giving them complex problems drives them to adapt. If they train in environments that don’t take them outside of their comfort zone, improvement is negligible. Challenging hitters, whether with the Trajekt or with machine balls that fly only when struck on the sweet spot or with slim bats that emphasize barrel control or hundreds of other ways, forces that adaptation. And it’s those changes that take a nonexistent or atrophied skill and give it heft.
“I really wanted to go to a team that could develop me into a great player and that will take the time to help me because I feel like I’m really coachable and I listen,” Campbell said. “I just need the right information. And if I don’t know what I’m doing, it’s hard for me to correct and change things.”
Over those two months, the Red Sox didn’t overhaul Campbell’s swing as much as they found the best version of it. Thirty years ago, Coop DeRenne, a professor at the University of Hawaii, ran a study on overload and underload training that showed it significantly improved bat speed. The industry has mostly ignored its findings, but Driveline embraced them and brought them to the Red Sox. Campbell trained two days a week with bats that were 20% heavier and 20% lighter than standard 31-ounce bats. Though he whipped his bat through the zone with a preternatural ability to stay on plane — the angle of the bat meeting the angle at which the pitch arrived at home plate — delivering the barrel with greater force reinforced a tenet Red Sox coaches preach repeatedly: “The bats do the work for you.”
The bigger challenge was adulterating Campbell’s swing to hit the ball in the air. Williams, who wanted to be known as the greatest hitter who ever lived, long advocated for ball flight because he understood a hard-hit ground ball is typically a single while balls struck in the air produce the vast majority of extra-base hits. Pulling the ball in the air is particularly important. The longer a bat takes to make contact, the more speed it generates. Meeting a ball in front — which typically allows a hitter to pull — maximizes the capacity for damage.
Rather than overhaul Campbell’s swing, the Red Sox preferred to let his natural athleticism guide him toward a solution. Instead of moving his hand position or getting rid of his toe-tap, Campbell altered where he wanted to strike the ball, reminding himself with every rep to do something counterintuitive: Swing under it.
“For me, it’s just a feeling,” Campbell said. “You got to know where your barrel is at all times. It was in an odd spot because I was trying to get more elevation on the ball than normal. So I feel like I have to swing under the ball to hit it in the air. And I really was on plane because I’ve been so on top of it all these years.”
Campbell’s barrel aptitude improved by taking reps with a fungo bat or a slim 37-inch bat (3 to 4 inches longer than the standard bat), which forced him to meet the ball farther in front of the plate. The skills learned in doing so eventually meld with a hitter’s’ regular bats, and variations of drills — offsetting standard pitching machines to the side, mixed-pitch Trajekt sessions — allow them to be applied in new, challenging environments. In the cages in Ft. Myers, coaches pitted Campbell and his fellow prospects against one another to see who could hit the ball hardest or most consistently. Winners gloated — “Marcelo talks s— 25/8,” Anthony said — and those who didn’t win returned the next day intent on revenge.
When last winter’s offseason sessions ended, the Red Sox were hopeful they would translate into a breakout season for Campbell. Even they could not have predicted what transpired over the ensuing months. Campbell said he came into 2024 hoping to hit five home runs — one more than in his lone college season. He started the season at High-A Greenville and hit his fifth home run May 9. Less than a month later, with three more home runs on the ledger, he ascended to Double-A, where he spent two months and whacked eight more homers. He was promoted to Triple-A for the final month and added another four, finishing the season hitting .330/.439/.558 with 20 home runs, 24 stolen bases, 74 walks and 103 strikeouts in 517 plate appearances.
“I remember the first time I saw him hit, I was like, ‘The hell is this?’ ” Mayer said. “He’s in the cage with the weirdest swing I’ve ever seen, and he’s got his long bat, and I’m like, ‘What?’ Next thing I know, he’s hitting .380.”
When Red Sox shortstop Trevor Story first saw Campbell on a rehabilitation assignment in Triple-A, he was taken by his ability “to self-organize and learn how to solve problems.”
“He has a special talent for moving the bat,” Story said. “His bat speed is just violent. When you hear it, you’re like, oh, s—.”
“It’s controlled violence,” Campbell said. “You got to make sure you see the ball. And then whenever you make a decision to swing, you got to put your fastest, hardest, best swing on it and make sure you stay somewhat under control while that ball is going on so you can hit the ball as well as possible.
“Every swing really can’t be the same. The way pitches move and how good everybody is nowadays, if you take the same swing every time and only can hit certain pitches, that’s a mistake. You’ve got to be able to adjust to different things, different pitches, different locations.”
DURING THE FIRST week of this year’s spring training, before the full Boston squad reported, Red Sox Hall of Famer Dwight Evans stood outside of Cage 4 and admired what he was seeing. Evans spent two seasons as a hitting coach, in 1994 with Colorado and 2002 with the Red Sox, and he recognizes baseball’s evolution. The game changes, and even if all the technology isn’t his cup of tea, he isn’t going to argue with the results.
In Campbell, Mayer and Anthony, he doesn’t see prospects. Without an at-bat to their names in MLB, they remind Evans — who spent 20 seasons in the major leagues, 19 with Boston — of his peers.
“It’s almost like they’ve been around 10 years in the big leagues,” Evans said. “They just have it. They know what they’re trying to do.”
The Red Sox believe this is just the beginning for Campbell, Mayer and Anthony and that their approach to hitting will create a pipeline of prospects to join a core that includes the trio alongside All-Stars Rafael Devers, Jarren Duran, Alex Bregman and Story, and the young and talented Triston Casas and Ceddanne Rafaela. Buy-in at all levels is paramount, and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow, assistant general manager Paul Toboni and farm director Brian Abraham are leaning into the work done by Ochart, Soteropulos and Stasio. Breslow hired Kyle Boddy, who founded Driveline, as a special adviser. Five other former Driveline employees dot the player development, baseball science and major league staffs, and Stasio was promoted over the winter to director of major league development, a new role in which he will apply the development philosophies to the big league club and maintain the continuity for prospects who ascend to Fenway Park.
Campbell is in line to be the first — of many, the Red Sox hope — to crack the big league roster. He’s in competition for the second-base job this spring, a testament to the organization’s belief in him. If he wins it, Bregman will play third and Devers — who has received MVP votes five of the past six years and signed a franchise-record $313.5 million contract — will move to designated hitter, a role he said unequivocally he doesn’t want to play.
The Red Sox see Campbell as worth the potential drama. Perhaps it’s a function of five playoff-free seasons in six years since their 2018 World Series title, but it’s likely simpler: Campbell is too good to keep down. Mayer and Anthony won’t be far behind. The competition fostered in Cage 4 — and the work ethic it demands — isn’t going anywhere.
Even before Campbell’s arrival, Mayer and Anthony had grown close through late-night, postgame hitting sessions. Both have beautiful left-handed swings, more traditional than Campbell’s in which he waggles the bat, pointing it almost directly toward the sky at the swing’s launch point. Starting from a better place than Campbell hasn’t kept either from reaping the benefits of Boston’s program.
“I don’t know if I’m hitting the ball harder because it’s necessarily bat speed or because I’m working in the gym, but both together could only help,” Mayer said. “So over the years, I feel like I’m hitting it harder, I’m moving the bat quicker. I have a better understanding of my swing. So all those things tie in and play a big role and lead to success.”
Knowing which prospects will find major league success is impossible, though in an era defined by objective data, the misses aren’t nearly as frequent. There was no bat-speed data when Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas and Wil Myers were all top-10 prospects for Kansas City in 2010. Trajekt was a dream machine when Arizona had Justin Upton, Chris Young and Carlos Gonzalez in 2007. Exit velocity was the domain of rocket ships in 2004 when Rickie Weeks, Prince Fielder and J.J. Hardy were coming through the Milwaukee system.
It’s a whole new baseball world, and it is on full display in Cage 4, where Campbell, Mayer and Anthony have spent so much time working with their instructors that they joke that Soteropulos might as well sleep there.
“It’s pretty cool to think about how many spring trainings we’ve been in there,” Anthony said. “Looking back at it and being on the big league side, just appreciating guys like John and guys on the minor league side that take so much time out of their days to get us better.”
For all the struggles hitters around baseball have faced, the Red Sox believe in their system — and in this first generation that will serve as a litmus test to its efficacy.
“I’m committed to the game,” Campbell said. “I want to be the best player I can be every day. I want to bring whatever I can to Boston. Once I knew they drafted me, I was like, ‘That’s the team I’m going to debut with. That’s the team I’m going to play with. I want to play with the team for a long time.’ I just knew that I’m going to give all I have to this team that took a chance on me. I’m going to make sure it’s worth it for them and me.”
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts says three-time MVP Shohei Ohtani will make his first spring training appearance of the year Friday night against his old team, the Angels.
Ohtani, 30, will be the designated hitter. Roberts has not given a timetable for Ohtani’s return to the pitcher’s mound other than to say he hopes it would be “sooner than later.” Roberts has ruled Ohtani out for the March 18-19 season-opening series in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs.
Ohtani injured his left shoulder sliding into second base during the World Series, when the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games. He did not pitch last season, his first with the Dodgers, while recovering from surgery to repair a ligament in his throwing elbow.
Playing exclusively as a batter, he hit 54 home runs with 59 stolen bases — the first person in the major league 50/50 club — and won his third unanimous MVP award.
As a pitcher, Ohtani is 38-19 with a 3.01 ERA, including a 10-5 record and 3.14 ERA in 2023 before he was injured that August.
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