Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Eddie King Jr. drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the ninth inning that gave Louisville a 7-6 victory over Oregon State on Tuesday and knocked the Beavers out of the College World Series.

The Cardinals (42-23) avenged a 4-3 walk-off loss to Oregon State last Friday and advanced to the Bracket 2 final. They must beat Coastal Carolina on Wednesday and again Thursday to reach the best-of-three CWS finals.

Just like Oregon State (48-16-1) on Friday, Louisville squandered a late lead only to come back and win.

“It’s the value of being the home team,” Cardinals coach Dan McDonnell said. “Sometimes people act like it’s not that big a deal. It’s amazing when you get the last three outs and you get to walk somebody off. So, very fortunate that we were in that situation today.”

Kellan Oakes faced the top of the Louisville lineup to start the bottom of the ninth. Alex Alicea walked and Lucas Moore was awarded first base on catcher’s interference when his bat nicked Wilson Weber’s mitt as he fouled off a pitch. The Cardinals loaded the bases when Matt Klein put down a bunt that Oakes (5-1) booted, the Beavers’ third error of the day and eighth in three CWS games.

That brought on freshman Zach Edwards to face Jake Munroe, who got caught looking at strike three.

“I struck out on a call I didn’t like,” Munroe said. “I was upset about it. Did a little 360, saw Eddie, and I said, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re good.’ That’s kind of the special thing about this lineup.”

King fouled off a pitch and took two balls before he sent a fly to center. Alicea tagged up from third, and Canon Reeder had no chance to make a throw home.

King was mobbed behind first base, with teammates squirting their water bottles at him and fans chanting “Edd-ie! Edd-ie!”

“Just hearing chants like that in a moment like that, it warms my heart,” King said. “And I’m so glad that it could be for Louisville.”

Cardinals pitchers repeatedly worked out of trouble until they couldn’t in the top of the ninth.

“Right there at the end, we probably shocked the heck out of everybody,” Beavers coach Mitch Canham said. “They bring guys in, we’re finding ways to get on base — hit by pitch, base hit, what have you.”

Aiva Arquette homered to left-center on Wyatt Danilowicz’s first pitch, and Gavin Turley, Weber and AJ Singer reached to load the bases with no outs.

Oregon State tied it 6-all when Tyce Peterson’s slow roller glanced off Alicea’s glove at shortstop and into the outfield grass, allowing two runs to score. Tucker Biven (5-0) struck out Jacob Krieg, and Carson McEntire got Reeder to pop out.

“You knew they were going to make a rally there late,” McDonnell said. “And we pitched so well, but one of their best hitters jumps on a heater, and their other best hitter (Turley) fights off a ball and it drops. It’s like, OK, you’re in it here now; you’re going to have to grind this out and earn it. And they made us earn it.”

The Beavers played as an indepedent this year and will again next season before the Pac-12 ramps back up in 2026-27. They had only 19 regular-season home games, logged nearly 25,000 air miles and won enough to be the No. 8 national seed in the NCAA Tournament. They won five elimination games in regionals and super regionals.

“What a season we had. What a run,” Arquette said.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

Is anyone else getting tired of the constant back and forth between the various conferences over the College Football Playoff format?

Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but just seeing commissioners and athletics directors (and coaches) seemingly never stop giving their opinions on what the CFP’s 2026 format should be has become a tired tale, in my humble opinion.

Of course, to be fair, a lot of money is at stake in the CFP, which this past season moved to 12 teams and will stay at 12 participants in the upcoming season, along with some changes to the seeding format that were revealed earlier this spring. After that, the chatter is that the CFP could move to 16 teams in 2026, but the different power leagues aren’t in agreement over the format.

For our beloved Syracuse football, what does it mean? Well, that’s tough to say at this juncture. Head coach Fran Brown has said his singular focus on the field is to win national championships, so regardless of how many automatic qualifiers the Atlantic Coast Conference has in the future, the main thing that the Orange can do to control its own destiny is pile up a lot of victories and make it darn near impossible for the CFP selection committee to leave the ‘Cuse out.

When it comes to the Big Ten and the SEC, there are so many egos in the room.

Okay. So without question, the Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference rule the college football world. The last two national champs are from the Big Ten – Ohio State and Michigan – while SEC squads such as Alabama, Georgia and LSU have won chips in recent years.

Some of the talk is that the Big Ten and SEC each want four automatic qualifiers in a 16-team CFP. Huh? Let’s not be greedy here, folks. I understand why those two conferences want multiple automatic qualifiers. They annually have the top teams, and those squads play the toughest league schedules.

Still, two conferences automatically getting half of the 16 CFP participants? I’ll have a tough time thinking that’s in any way fair. Then again, nothing in life is fair, much less the CFP.

Personally, I’d be all for a 16-team CFP that features the four power-conference champions, the next two highest-ranked league champs, and the next 10 highest-rated teams regardless of their conference affiliation.

Maybe that’s wishful thinking, though.

As college football reporter Brett McMurphy noted in a post on X, the deadline for finalizing the CFP’s format in 2026 is December 1. He reported that conference commissioners are starting over as it pertains to the 2026 format.

I’m stunned (insert sarcasm here).

Tom Fornelli, a national writer with CBS Sports, had an insightful column earlier this week where he suggested ideas for the CFP’s 2026 format. He’s on board for 16 teams, with straight seeding and no bonus given to conference champions as it relates to their seeds.

Fornelli suggests that the top six conference champions land automatic bids. The Big Ten and the SEC each get three automatic bids. That gets us to 10 teams. Fornelli writes that no conference can have more than four teams in the 16-team field, meaning that every year, there would be a minimum of four at-large berths available to the ACC, the Big 12, the Group of Five conferences and, presumably, Notre Dame.

The speculation will continue onward until a 2026 format is decided for the CFP. My advice to Syracuse football and its ACC peers: just win games.

KC Concepcion is set to be one of the most important players for Texas A&M football next season. The star wide receiver, a transfer from NC State, comes to the Aggies after two highly productive years up in Raleigh, and was one of the most highly-coveted players in the transfer portal.

In this modern era of college football, then, this means that most fans conclude that he will command a high amount of leverage when it comes to NIL compensation. So no one was surprised when a number began circulating recently of 2.5MM total compensation for Concepcion in this upcoming year.

As a matter of fact, I took that reporting to mean that the Aggies were taking the next step to be competitive in the NIL space. There’s a lot that’s still opaque about amounts that certain players are earning, and the lack of transparency makes things difficult, but it didn’t seem out of the question that Concepcion could be earning that much from the collective and other deals.

Mike Elko dismisses rumored, eye-popping NIL amount for KC Concepcion: “He does not have that much money”

However, Mike Elko at a coach’s night last night had some definitive words about such rumors.

This does not necessarily mean that the Aggies are not competitive on the NIL front: I don’t think that they would have a guy like Concepcion on the team if they weren’t competitive. It clearly is not their entire pitch to any recruit, unlike certain schools.

But it’s good for Elko to address these things in one way, because it can lead to other recruits being of the belief that, if they are offered less, they are being lowballed. If that’s not the case, then it doesn’t help anyone.

This was a smart move by Elko to dismiss this rumor. It’s hard to be upfront as a modern college football program, but the strategic way that Elko is doing so is paying off.