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New York Times
3 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Eagles OC Kevin Patullo has firm grasp of the bigger picture. Just ask Chan Gailey
On a taxing morning in the fall of 2008, Kevin Patullo walked into a staff room in which the whiteboards were all blank. The Kansas City Chiefs' offensive coaches, already reeling from a series of losses that would eventually stretch to 14, heard their offensive coordinator, Chan Gailey, pronounce the problem they never anticipated they'd need to solve. They'd lost their starting quarterback, Brodie Croyle, first to a bruised shoulder before a season-ending knee injury. They'd lost their backup, Damon Huard, first to a concussion before a season-ending thumb injury. They were down to their third-stringer, Tyler Thigpen, a former seventh-round pick who'd been a dual-threat quarterback at FCS-level Coastal Carolina. Advertisement Thigpen had only played one prior game for the Chiefs, in 2007 — and it'd only been for two drives. Patullo, then a 27-year-old offensive quality control coach, knew most of the playbook they'd prepared for the 2008 season was out. Gailey needed fresh ideas. 'All right,' Patullo recalled Gailey saying. 'We got to figure out a new offense for this week.' It's the sort of memory Patullo, a first-time NFL offensive coordinator, uses for reference in his first season as the Philadelphia Eagles' play caller. It's certainly not the most glamorous memory. No Hollywood producer is scrambling for a script about the mental fortitude of a Chiefs regime that was overhauled after losing the most games in team history. Few scribes at the time even noted Patullo's firing, or the young coach the Chiefs hired to fill Patullo's vacancy in offensive quality control … Nick Sirianni. But Patullo knows football is a game in which victors capitalize on lessons learned from losses. He knows that some of the game's biggest innovations came from coaches who chose creativity over apathy, even though they knew they were already damned. That describes Gailey, whom Patullo called his 'greatest influence' in football schematics. Indeed, the 2008 Chiefs were dreadful. However, the solutions Gailey and his staff drew on those blank whiteboards dramatically improved their efficiency on offense and popularized a concept the NFL hadn't yet explored: the pistol. 'Nobody knew what the pistol was in the NFL,' Patullo said. 'We were successful for the most part. We didn't win a lot of games, but we moved the ball with a bunch of guys that we didn't know really if we could do that with. So (Gailey) being able to show, 'Look, we do what we have to do to win, it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to look a certain way,' was huge.' Advertisement Thigpen, in his only season as a primary starter, lined up in a variety of shotgun alignments (including as a receiver in wildcat formations) during a 10-game stretch in which the Chiefs bumped their scoring offense from last in the NFL (12.5 points per game) to 19th (21.6) and their offensive EPA per play from 29th (-0.14) to 16th (0.07), according to TruMedia. Gailey later used similar concepts as head coach of the Buffalo Bills and offensive coordinator for the New York Jets. Patullo spent six seasons honing his craft as a problem-solver and game-planner with Gailey: three as an offensive quality control coach in Kansas City and Buffalo, one as the Bills' offensive assistant and assistant wide receivers coach and two as the Jets' quarterback coach. Patullo's variety of roles signaled his eventual rise. Some coaches are experts at certain positions. Some see the bigger picture. Gailey told The Athletic that Patullo 'was able to see the bigger picture better than some other people that I've been around. 'When you can see the big picture, you're able to solve the problems,' said Gailey, 73, who coached for seven NFL teams during his 46-year career. 'Because the biggest picture is how do we take what we have and defeat what they have? That's the big picture. And then once you see that and realize that, then you can start to cut it down to the smaller pieces of how do we get that done?' To compare the 2008 Chiefs to the 2025 Eagles incites amusement — perhaps an expletive in a Philly bar. Patullo has access to perhaps the most talented offense in the NFL. All but former starting right guard Mekhi Becton return from a Super Bowl LIX-winning lineup in which Saquon Barkley set the full-season rushing record behind a Pro Bowl-studded offensive line. That invited defensive attention the dual-threat Jalen Hurts exploited through the air with perennial 1,000-yard receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, plus tight end Dallas Goedert. And the Brotherly Shove remains legal. Advertisement Kellen Moore is now head coach of the New Orleans Saints because of his one-year management of the same talent pool. If the Eagles continue their offensive success under Patullo, he'll soon be a head coach himself. But he, like Moore, will be judged against the expectation for the Eagles to rewrite record books and win Super Bowls. He also knows talent alone offers no guarantees of meeting that standard. Patullo was the team's passing coordinator when Sirianni promoted former quarterbacks coach Brian Johnson in 2023 to replace Indianapolis Colts-bound Shane Steichen. An offensive system that reached Super Bowl LVII stalled during a disastrous collapse, largely due to the absence of adaptations within Sirianni-led staff meetings. It can be argued that Moore benefited from two advantages Patullo lacks: 1) the cracks in the previous system were clearly defined for a schematic foreman hired specifically to attempt repairs, 2) opponents had no film on how the Eagles planned to use Barkley. Coaches who watched the Eagles crush defenses in 2024 while averaging the franchise's most rushing attempts per game (36.5) since 1978 will have spent a full offseason concocting ways to stop them. Patullo must stay a step ahead with adaptations that don't abandon strengths or create needless complexities that could compromise the controls within one of the most coveted cockpits in the NFL. 'You got to have some imagination,' Gailey said. If there's a succinct phrase that captures how Patullo intends to stay ahead, it's 'building on what our players do best.' He's not espousing the stick-to-the-hits approach that doomed the Eagles in 2023. Instead, Patullo, who on Wednesday spoke to reporters for the first time in his new capacity, articulated an expansion. The Eagles understand their fundamental strengths. Patullo said there will be 'core plays that you know you trust.' But an offensive staff with four new hires — including passing game coordinator Parks Frazier and quarterbacks coach Scot Loeffler — is bringing ideas to staff meetings that add 'other layers' and 'new wrinkles' to the system. They're also weighing the ideas against a 'checklist of things' they expect opposing defenses will attempt. 'We have to be ready to adjust,' Patullo said. He comes from an idea-generating routine in which Gailey would start post-draft staff meetings by asking his coaches if they'd seen anything on film — NFL, college, high school or otherwise — that they ought to try to develop themselves. 'That's where the ideas would come from,' Gailey said. Once in-season, Gailey said they never focused on attacking a defense until they'd figured out what they had offensively themselves. What players do we have available? What are their strengths? Their weaknesses? Then they'd figure out how they were going to run the ball against their opponent. ('That was always first,' Gailey said.) Then came the play-action game. Then, drop-back passes. Then, situational football. After 21 years of coaching, Patullo will implement his own routine. Among the things he wanted to remind himself as he began a play-calling role for the first time: 'Just be me.' His debut as an offensive coordinator will be met with two major questions. Do his six years with Gailey give him enough systemic deviation from the seven years he's spent with Sirianni to be creative? And, more importantly, will the first-time OC, at age 43, foster an effective idea-generating process as the leader of a group of veteran assistant coaches and players? 'If you've got to worry about something or think about something, don't lose sleep over that one,' Gailey said. 'Whether he's gonna be able to handle the room, run the show, do all that. That's a non-issue in my book.' 'Now I know how Jalen feels,' Jordan Mailata said. 'This is crazy.' A sixth play caller in six seasons? Mailata, the Eagles' starting left tackle, knows his quarterback has had it worse. Hurts has had 11 play callers dating to his college days at Alabama and Oklahoma. The ever-growing list is a worn-out fact that likely remains relevant so long as Hurts and Sirianni are together. Advertisement Continuity is elusive in the NovaCare Complex. And as the last two years proved, sometimes overrated. The Sirianni-era Eagles have experienced enough transitions to strike a balance between systemic overhauls and simply running it back. Sirianni, who officially promoted Patullo 10 days after Super Bowl LIX, aimed to address any shortcomings in the idea-generation department by hiring Frazier and Loeffler. The Eagles believe those hires complement Patullo's strengths in the management and implementation department, where he'll turn to the player relationships he has formed since joining the Eagles in 2021. None are more important than Patullo's partnership with Hurts. The disorder within the 2023 collapse created a disconnect between Hurts and Sirianni that was repaired in the orderliness that followed Moore's hiring. Hurts and Sirianni reached their communicative stride in 2024 with a series of phone calls during the Week 5 bye, and Hurts spent every Tuesday night on the phone with Moore as they put together the week's initial game plan. Patullo emphasized that he and Hurts are entering their fifth season together. He said they've already formed a routine in OTAs in which Hurts is 'willing to try anything and then we can have dialogue after and kind of go from there.' 'Everyone's in a good place,' Hurts said of his relationship with Patullo. 'Everyone's focused, and everyone cares about their duties and what they're supposed to do. And we've always had some type of communication in the past in (game) prep. So nothing really changes in terms of that. It's just kind of people with different titles.' As for the Patullo-led system, Hurts said, 'there's some nuances that are different.' Last year, Hurts said Moore's system was '95 percent' new. With no need for such a drastic overhaul this time, Hurts still stressed that the Eagles are still 'very early' in the development stage of how this year's offense will evolve. They know from their adaptation after last year's Week 5 bye how plans formed in the summer can require change. Hurts underlined how the Chiefs aimed to stop Barkley in Super Bowl LIX, which gave way to a performance by the quarterback that won him the game's MVP trophy. 'Ultimately, we just have to find ways to play complementary football and continue to build off of what we've done,' Hurts said. 'But also knowing that it's only a template. It's only a reference in a sense, you know. And you gotta continue to grow from that and learn from the good references and the not-so-good references in a sense of what our success was. Just building that out, it'll evolve, it'll be what it'll be. Whatever it is, let's just find ways to win.' The dialogue between the Eagles' offensive coaching staff and players has ranged from combative to conducive. Mailata said Patullo's tenure in Philly 'makes it easy' for them to approach their new play caller with ideas. Mailata said he's already had conversations with Patullo about the system's terminology — 'something that we can clear up to make it easier for all positions.' The sixth-year left tackle has also approached his new play caller with schematic ideas. 'Because of our relationship, he can tell us, 'Yeah, that was bad. That's a bad idea. Here's why,'' Mailata said. 'But it's not just like, 'That's bad,' shut down. It's a why. And then I learned something that day. It's like, 'OK, great. Maybe I should just stick to playing online.'' Advertisement The rapid rotation of Eagles play callers reminds Patullo of the stakes ahead. Succeed, and he can become a head coach like Steichen and Moore. Fail, and he can be fired like Johnson. As Gailey said, Patullo always had a distinct grasp of the bigger picture. But as Patullo's debut as an NFL play caller approaches, he's reminding himself that he's prepared for this moment. 'To be honest, you're just kind of doing your job,' Patullo said. 'If you look at something like that big picture, I guess it could be overwhelming. But this is what I do. This is what I wanted to do. I've been wanting to do it, and I have an opportunity to do it, and like I said, I've got a great staff around me, great players, great organization — everything. So it'll be fun.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Biggest Question Mark Next Season Revealed
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Biggest Question Mark Next Season Revealed originally appeared on Athlon Sports. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers boasted one of the best offenses last season and return all 11 starters in 2025. Advertisement The team also has a new and unproven offensive coordinator in Josh Grizzard, who replaces Liam Coen, who took the head coaching job in Jacksonville earlier this offseason. While the defense struggled mightily last season, general manager Jason Licht made some wholesale changes in free agency and the draft, and head coach and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles says he's making adjustments to his scheme to improve the unit for the upcoming season. But it's the offense and more specifically, the wideout room, that's the biggest question mark for 2025 as Pro Football Focus noted. "After making the wild-card round, the Buccaneers made sure to retain important free agents and make compelling upgrades at multiple positions. And the team's first-round pick creates a fascinating wide receiver room. Tampa Bay brought back star Chris Godwin (85.7 PFF receiving grade) on a three-year, $66 million deal, but then also drafted Emeka Egbuka (82.4 PFF receiving grade) at 19th overall. On top of that, Mike Evans (90.2 PFF receiving grade) remains one of the league's best receivers, and former third-round pick Jalen McMillan came onto the scene with a 75.8 PFF receiving grade in the final five games of the year. Advertisement "Perhaps Godwin may not be ready for the start of 2025 following ankle surgery, but if he's ready to go, then Tampa Bay won't have an easy call for whom to put next to him and Evans." It's a good problem to have. The team has to figure out who its third-best wideout is among a room with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, Jalen McMillan and Emeka Egbuka, among others. If the defense improves as we all think it will and the offense can be what it was last season, then the Bucs could be looking at a sixth straight postseason appearance and fifth consecutive NFC South title. Related: Buccaneers' $84M Defender Predicted for Rebound Season Related: Buccaneers' Jalen McMillan Offers 3-Word Scouting Report On Emeka Egbuka This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Jun 2, 2025, where it first appeared.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Overacting to Juan Soto's hustle, Walker Buehler-Francisco Lindor drama, recent struggles
Mets have offensive issues, Steve Cohen says it will all be OK | Mets Off Day Live On Mets Off Day Live, SNY contributor Hannah Keyser and host of the New York, New York podcast John Jastremski join Chelsea Sherrod to discuss the issues the Mets have hitting with runners in scoring position, other concerns with the lineup, and Mets owner Steve Cohen sharing positive reinforcement on social media as the team struggles.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
4 Early Trade Targets For Brewers To Boost Anemic Offense
The Milwaukee Brewers very clearly need some offensive upgrades in 2025 after not making any over the course of the offseason. Willy Adames departed for San Francisco, and he took with him his 31 home runs and 112 RBIs. To replace that production in the order, the Brewers Durbin, an infield prospect who had yet to make his MLB debut at the time and is hitting just .187 since being promoted to the majors a few weeks ago. Advertisement After being shut out four times already in the month of May, the Brewers are going to be searching for offense sooner rather than later. So who are some additions they could trade for this season? © David Richard-Imagn Images 1. Angels 3B Yoan Moncada Yoan Moncada was a veteran free agent that was available on the market late into the winter that the Brewers opted not to sign when they chose to roll with their group of young infielders to answer the hot corner question. Moncada instead signed a one year, $5MM deal with the Angels to get everyday opportunities and rebuild his value. The Angels signed Moncada likely with designs on flipping him during the season for prospects as they continue their rebuild process. That plan is working out perfectly so far. Advertisement Moncada is having a strong bounce-back season, slugging a pair of home runs with an .873 OPS and is on pace to have his best season since 2019. When healthy, Moncada has the ability to provide a major spark offensively. Health has been the question for him in recent years, and he's already missed some time on the IL this year. But he's healthy now and he could be an inexpensive target for the Brewers to boost the left side of their infield without blocking any of the young players Milwaukee is excited about long-term. 2. Nationals 2B/3B Amed Rosario Amed Rosario is another veteran that signed a one year, free agent contract this offseason that the Brewers passed on. Rosario signed a $2MM deal with the Nationals this winter that he's providing tremendous value for. Advertisement Rosario's hitting .293 with a .752 OPS and that kind of production is something the Brewers could sorely use in their infield. He can play all over the infield with Milwaukee likely needing the most help at third base, but his ability to play shortstop is also useful given the struggles of Joey Ortiz to start the season. Like Moncada, Rosario is likely a flip candidate at the Trade Deadline this year as the Nationals aren't going to be serious contenders in a loaded NL East. The Brewers can jump in and even though it may take some convincing to get Rosario from the Nationals this early in the season, it won't cost them anywhere near as much as when they jumped for Quinn Priester, so even an "overpay" still wouldn't be a high price here. 3. Rockies 3B Ryan McMahon The Rockies are a dumpster fire and the only title they'll be in contention for anytime soon is being the worst team in baseball history. They're already 20 games back in the NL West and still have just single digit wins. Ryan McMahon is a good talent wasted on a bad team. If they had any sense as an organization, they'd trade McMahon to help rebuild. Advertisement McMahon has two and a half years left on his contract. He's getting paid $12MM this year and will get $16MM in each of the next two seasons. It's some longer-term control for the Brewers to acquire, so the price will be a little higher, but McMahon should certainly be available. His numbers this year haven't been great, hitting just .214, but still with a .739 OPS. Of course, when the entire team is losing so much, that can contribute to dragging down your stats and McMahon could very well benefit from a change of scenery to a more winning culture, something the Rockies clearly lack. The Rockies are clearly going to be sellers this summer, they might as well make some sales earlier and perhaps the Brewers could convince them. 4. Blue Jays SS Bo Bichette This would be a dream target for the Brewers to get to spark their offense, but they'll have to wait a little bit longer for it to potentially become a reality. The Blue Jays are going for it in Bichette's last year and they've signed Vlad Guerrero Jr to an extension. The front office there needs to see success on the field and they won't trade Bichette unless they're out of the hunt. Advertisement Presently, the Blue Jays sit in the middle of the pack in the AL East. They're in a similar position as the Brewers where they're not finding the success they want and are hanging around .500. For this to happen, the Blue Jays would need to fall out of the race entirely and admit defeat on the season while the Brewers would have to keep punching up and be in a strong position when the deadline comes around. It'd be a two month rental of Bichette, but he'd likely be the best bat available that would fit the Brewers needs and since he's not a long-term solution, the prospect price would be more tolerable and Milwaukee wouldn't be blocking any of their upcoming infield prospects. Related: 2025 Milwaukee Brewers Top 50 Prospects Ready to join the community? Follow Athlon Sports on YouTube, Facebook, and X to join in on the conversation. You can also follow Site Publisher David Gasper at @dgasper24 on X.
New York Times
6 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
How college baseball learned to stop worrying and lean into the long ball
College baseball has spent much of the last three decades bouncing between offensive extremes, from the gorilla ball to the dead ball and back to a bombs-away mentality. The latest swing in the state of play has produced an unprecedented four-year run of power hitting. Unlike some of the other recent fluctuations, the latest uptick in offense has those in the game less worried about the balls and the bats and more focused on the guys using the equipment and how. Advertisement 'I just think teams are a lot bigger and a lot stronger than they used to be,' said Arkansas coach Dave Van Horn, who has led his teams to nine College World Series appearances in 36 years as a head coach. 'They're a lot older than they used to be.' According to NCAA records dating back to 1970, there have been four seasons in which Division I teams averaged a home run per game: 1998 and the past three seasons. Heading into the NCAA regionals, this season is on pace (1.06 homers per team game) to be the fifth overall and fourth straight. Instead of fretting about the abundance of dingers, the game's leaders see it as a natural evolution brought about by a combination of mostly positive developments. 'I think the college game's in a great spot,' UC Irvine coach Ben Orloff said. The college game's first brush with the outer limits of recognizable baseball came in 1998, the same year the pursuit of the MLB single-season home run record captivated the big leagues. Division I records for runs (7.12) and home runs (1.06) per team per game were set. Former LSU coach Skip Bertman was credited with coining the term 'gorilla ball' to describe the state of the college game at the time. The punctuation came at the College World Series, when USC beat Arizona State 21-14 in a championship game that featured nine home runs. At least one team reached double-digits in runs scored in seven of the 14 games in Omaha. The NCAA and college baseball leaders decided it was time to cool off the bats, in the name of bringing balance back to the game and protecting the players most likely to be injured by close-range line drives. Working with sports scientists, they sought to devise a way to measure how fast the ball was coming off the bat and ensure non-wood bats performed no better than the best-performing wood bats. Advertisement '(Non-wood bats) have what is known as a trampoline effect,' said Alan Nathan, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois who has done extensive research on bat-to-ball physics. 'So when the ball hits the surface of the bat, the bat itself, which is hollow, the surface of the bat can compress and then spring back much, much like a trampoline, and you get a bigger kick to the ball. So you get higher exit velocities that way.' Ball Exit Speed Ratio (BESR) testing was introduced after the 1998 season, and home runs and runs steadily dropped for about 10 years, but they ticked up in 2008. By 2010, home runs were again approaching one per game, and runs were up near 7.0. Again, safety became part of the conversation. A new standard for measuring how the ball comes off the bat called the Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) was implemented in 2011. Again, adjusting the bats worked — too well. Offense cratered. In 2014, home runs were down to 0.39 per team per game. Runs per game hit levels last seen in college baseball when wood bats were still being used in the early 1970s. The switch to aluminum bats came in 1974. At the 2014 College World Series, UC Irvine coach Mike Gillespie told The Associated Press the bat change was a 'nightmare.' TCU coach Jim Schlossnagle added, 'It's just a travesty what we've done to college baseball.' Only three home runs were hit over 16 CWS games. Vanderbilt won it, with a homer in the deciding game providing the winning run in a 3-2 victory against Virginia. The Commodores finished that season with 22 homers over 72 games. This time, the ball took the fall. The next season the NCAA began using a ball more similar to what is used in the Major Leagues, with flattened seams that allow it to cut through the air with less drag. 'When you lower the seams on the ball, the ball isn't coming off the bat any faster,' Nathan said. Advertisement Once again, the adjustment worked. Long balls increased immediately and steadily climbed for a few years. In 2019, Vanderbilt won another national championship, and Commodores outfielder JJ Bleday blasted 27 homers by himself. In 2022 there was another surge in homers (1.03 per game) to near 1998 levels. That set the stage for a record-breaking number of homers in 2023 (1.14 per game) and another in 2024 (1.16). This time, though, no adjustments were made. And things have already ticked back down, though compared to historical norms, home runs are still flying out of college ballparks at a rate akin to the gorilla ball days. There is a distinct difference between the two eras. 'The home run was prevalent by those that could really hit them,' said ESPN college baseball analyst Chris Burke, a former major leaguer and 2001 first-round draft pick out of Tennessee. 'But nobody was necessarily teaching the (swing) path that produced that result. There was still a lot of old-school teaching around that era of the game, and so while the equipment was really designed for a bunch of home runs the instruction was not nearly as intentional as it is today.' The rise has been driven by the top conferences. While the ping of a metal bat making contact was once a trademark of college baseball, carbon-fiber composite bats are now far more common. Generally, composite bats offer larger barrels while feeling lighter when swung because of how they are proportioned. They can crack and break like wood bats — though not as easily — and unlike aluminum bats, they perform better when broken in. Composite bats can also be altered to improve how the ball springs off them (the so-called trampoline effect) and surpass the NCAA standards that have been established (and re-established) over the past 25 years. The most common ways are called shaving and rolling, and a simple online search will produce plenty of bat doctors, selling services and bats that will supposedly put some extra juice on your fly balls. Advertisement Shaving requires removing the end cap of a bat, which can be difficult to do, and shaving down or thinning out the inner wall of the barrel. That makes the bat more springy. Rolling is less involved and is designed to replicate heavy usage. A rolling machine breaks down the bat evenly and produces an accelerated break-in. Getting doctored bats into a game, though, is not so easy. NCAA rules require bats to be tested using a three-step protocol that includes the use of a bat compression tester. Bats that pass are labeled with a tamper-proof sticker. and only stickered bats can be used in games. This season the NCAA changed its rules to require bat testing before every game. Previously, bats were tested before every series, though the ACC and SEC both switched to day-of-competition testing last season. Is the system foolproof? Is anything? There have been no verified cheating scandals in college baseball recently, and coaches don't seem to be particularly worried about an epidemic of doctored bats undermining their sport. But baseball being baseball, skepticism and suspicion come with the territory. The Vanderbilt-Tennessee rivalry got spicy in 2022 when Vols slugger Jordan Beck had a home run against the Commodores waved off by umpires because it didn't have the appropriate sticker. Vandy coach Tim Corbin implied that it might not have been an innocent mistake. Sometimes suspicion can lead to teammates accusing teammates. After the 2024 college baseball season, a player at a Power 4 school alleged some of his teammates were using — for at least part of the season — doctored bats, attorneys working with the player have told The Athletic. The attorneys brought the allegations and supporting evidence to the conference office, which directed attorneys to share what they had with the school. A few months later school officials told the attorneys they had found no wrongdoing in their baseball program. A school official told The Athletic a thorough investigation was done that involved interviewing players and coaches. Advertisement 'The only reason you could slide an illegal bat under the radar is because you have humans testing them,' Clemson coach Eric Bakich said. 'And those humans are usually representative of each institution, so it's not like a neutral third-party, like an umpire is testing. But I think that's probably the next evolution of bat testing. But I don't think it's a problem. I haven't seen it be a problem.' Bakich added, 'My assumption is that that feels pretty reined in just the amount of testing that goes on with those bats every day.' Nick Smith, deputy director of Washington State's sports science lab, which has worked with the NCAA on setting the standards for non-wood bat performance, said the lab will send bats out to rolling services and test them. What they generally find is the bats still remain within the testing standard upon return. Charging customers for bats that can't pass inspection is probably not great business, Smith said. So if a bat is doctored to accelerate the break-in period and improve its performance, but that performance still falls within the rules, is it cheating? Smith also said bat manufacturers are now designing bats in ways that mitigate the effects of rolling. 'That's a form of bat doctoring that's very easy for us to replicate, and it's now part of our standard test. So I think there are probably other ways people can cheat and gain an advantage,' said Smith, whose father Lloyd invented the compression testing device used by schools to measure the BBCOR of bats. 'I think rolling is one where they're unlikely to gain any advantage beyond placebo.' The offensive uptick hasn't prompted calls for change or increased scrutiny because there are plenty of organic contributing factors. Wake Forest coach Tom Walter, whose program has been at the forefront of the long-ball craze with 465 homers over the past four seasons, said baseball has a long history of players looking for any advantage they can find. Advertisement 'Do I think there are programs out there that are probably pushing that envelope there? There are, I'm sure they are,' Walter said. 'And if they're not doing it as a program, there's probably individual kids that are trying to figure that out and figure out how to beat the system. I think that we're always going to be dealing with that. And I think college baseball has done a good job of reacting to the times.' In 2020, as the pandemic disrupted high school, college and professional baseball seasons, MLB shortened its draft to five rounds from its usual 40. The next year, in conjunction with the contraction of Major League-affiliated minor league baseball, the draft was permanently cut in half to 20 rounds. Meanwhile, the NCAA chose not to count 2020-21 participation toward athletes' eligibility clocks, creating a horde of fifth-, sixth- and even seventh-year college athletes in recent years. Add those two pandemic ripple effects together, and it's been a crowded few seasons in college baseball. 'We've got a couple guys on our team that are 24, about to turn 25,' Bakich said. 'Just having a lineup with 22-, 23-year-old guys in your lineup is the new normal for a lot of programs. There's less and less 18-year-old, 19-year-old freshmen. As kids continue to develop, power is usually one of the things that comes last.' And while baseball players aren't generally receiving the high six-figure or even seven-figure deals football and basketball players are getting, there is money to be made in college, and the quality of life is often better than in the minor leagues. 'College baseball is the best farm system for Major League Baseball,' Bakich said. 'The tippy-top of college baseball usually has a Double-A or Triple-A facility and is giving these kids the big-league treatment in terms of travel, accommodations, food, et cetera. So these kids, they go to summer ball, it's a letdown. They go to Single-A and it's a letdown.' Just like in 1998, the offensive environment in college baseball echoes what is happening in Major League Baseball. Strikeouts have been steadily climbing against pitchers who have more tools, technology and data at their disposal than ever before to improve velocity and movement. Depending on a team to string together hits — or even contact — to score multiple runs in an inning against pitchers with nasty stuff is a hard way to win. Advertisement It's all about launch angle and exit velo. Lift the ball and hit it hard. 'The data shows that we want our guys kind of living in that 12- to 18-degree launch angle range,' Walter said. 'And I get why, because some of your misses are home runs, and then some of your misses are hard ground balls, right? So you want guys to live a little bit higher launch angle because your misses are more productive.' Walter, whose program has prided itself on being at the cutting-edge of baseball's tech and data revolution, also said the strike zone is shrinking because of ball-tracking technology used to evaluate umpires. Pitches barely on, or in many cases slightly off, the outside part of the plate that were frequently called strikes aren't anymore. 'These umpires are getting evaluated on TrackMan every single game, and I think they've learned that if they want a good score, they've got to keep it on the plate,' he said. Add in an uptick in hitter-friendly parks around the country and sprinkle on top of that a little climate change — warm temperatures help baseballs fly farther — and conditions have never been more conducive for homers. And these days, that's just fine. Ratings for the last two College World Series have set new highs for ESPN and the college game is continuing to fill in the developmental gap left by minor-league contraction. While scoring remains high compared to historical norms (teams are combining for a little under 14 runs per game overall), why mess with a seemingly good thing? 'I do think the best time for college baseball is ahead of us,' said Craig Keilitz, the longtime executive director of the American Baseball Coaches Association. 'As good as we are right now, I think we got a brighter future, so I'm really excited about the future of our game.'
