Sankey: Little SEC role in Freeze, Petrino hires
LOS ANGELES — Two recent high-profile coaching hires in the SEC have received public backlash and raised questions about the optics they present, but commissioner Greg Sankey said Sunday that the conference played a limited role in the processes and that the hiring decisions were made at the campus level.
Auburn hired Hugh Freeze as its head coach in November, while Texas A&M hired offensive coordinator Bobby Petrino last week, two decisions that received scrutiny given both coaches’ history.
Sankey said the SEC has a specific bylaw that defines whether he needs to speak with a university president about a hire, and while that occurred with Freeze, it did not rise to that level with Petrino because his behavior wasn’t an NCAA violation. Petrino was fired from Arkansas in April 2012 after school officials said he lied about a motorcycle crash while riding with a female football staffer whom Petrino had hired and with whom he was having an affair.
Freeze resigned from Ole Miss in 2017 after school officials found a pattern that included phone calls to a number associated with a female escort service. Later in 2017, Ole Miss was placed on NCAA probation for violations that occurred in part under Freeze, and the sanctions included a two-year bowl ban. Freeze was charged individually by the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions of a Level 1 violation and found guilty of failing to adequately monitor his football staff and its interaction with boosters.
“Our campuses, despite whatever mythology may exist, make their own personnel decisions, but we provide for any hiring decision, here’s the background from a compliance standpoint,” Sankey said. “Bobby’s situation was public, so there aren’t any secrets there, but it wasn’t an NCAA violation that would create a bylaw review. Our campuses with any hire are going to check to see if there’s any issues that create a trigger for our bylaw that result in a conversation between me and your university president.
“I’ve been open that Hugh did, so Hugh had an outcome of an infractions case. We informed the Auburn University leadership, and they make those decisions, so it’s not an approval or disapproval. It’s actually compliance with the bylaw that’s been established so there’s transparency. There’s a clear understanding of the track record, and there’s an oversight plan so that we don’t have those problems moving forward.”
Sankey spoke to a small group of reporters Sunday morning following the final media availability for TCU coach Sonny Dykes and Georgia coach Kirby Smart before the College Football Playoff National Championship on Monday at SoFi Stadium (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). Asked whether he had concerns about the public perception of those hires, Sankey was clear in his expectations for both coaches.
“I want the people leading and participating in our programs to meet the expectations of the rules and how they conduct themselves, period,” he said, “and to represent their university and this conference well. Period.”
In a separate interview with ESPN, Sankey said the SEC is focused on its growth to 16 members, which includes the arrival of Big 12 co-founders Oklahoma and Texas in 2025, but he remains “keenly aware of conversations” around him regarding conference realignment.
“I tried to take a responsible approach knowing that we created disruption in the summer of ’21,” he said. “So we’re focused on the move of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC in ’25. It’s clear to me the issues around conference-membership movement haven’t just settled. I’m going to be fully attentive and engaged knowing what’s going on around me. That doesn’t predict that we’re going to go beyond 16, but I’m also keenly aware of conversations.”
Sankey reiterated that the timing of the eventual arrival of Oklahoma and Texas into the SEC remains between those schools and the Big 12.
“That’s really for them to speak of,” Sankey said. “This is about contractual relationships between the Big 12 conference and Big 12 members, period. We would have to go back through an adjustment to our invitation. That’s us, but that is likely much less complex than the issue the Big 12 has to deal with. I just have to figure out a football schedule, but we’ve known that.”
Sankey was also asked about a recent proposal by the LEAD1 group that there should be one person in charge of college football. LEAD1, which represents the 131 athletic directors in the FBS, in November proposed appointing a chief operating officer of college football who would report to a proposed FBS football governing board.
“The observation that’s been made doesn’t acknowledge the reality of differences and disparities and diversity that are present in Division I college football,” Sankey said, “So what you’re asking is, is the Southeastern Conference willing to submit its decision-making fully to some individual that’s unknown and undefined without any discussion of how that happens, and the answer is no.”
Last month, the NCAA announced that former Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker will become the organization’s next president in March. Sankey said the job description of the next NCAA president was six pages long. (“I mean, literally,” he said with a laugh, “I had to take a nap in the middle of it.”) Sankey said there is not one specific topic for Baker to address “that will solve all the problems” because the NCAA and its organization is complex and there are external expectations and pressures that are different from what faces the government.
“I would say for Gov. Baker it’s obviously to pivot quickly from leading a state to leading an incredibly diverse association at its most challenging time, at least in modern history, and to help bring people together to find solutions that make certain we have a breadth of support for college athletics while providing great opportunities,” Sankey said.
Penn State quarterback Drew Allar is set to play in Saturday’s key Big Ten matchup against No. 4 Ohio State.
Allar missed the second half of last week’s win over Wisconsin after suffering a left knee injury, but he was not listed on the injury report for the No. 3 Nittany Lions on Saturday morning.
Penn State coach James Franklin said earlier this week that Allar could be a game-time decision and that backup Beau Pribula would take snaps with Allar in practice.
Allar ranks 10th nationally with a QBR of 83.6. He has completed 71.3% of his passes for 1,640 yards and totaled 15 touchdowns with four interceptions.
Penn State starting defensive lineman Dani Dennis-Sutton will be a game-time decision, a source told ESPN’s Pete Thamel. Dennis-Sutton, who is listed as questionable, is expected to warm up and try to play.
Information from ESPN’s Jake Trotter was used in this report.
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
WEST POINT, N.Y. — Army star quarterback Bryson Daily will miss Saturday’s game against Air Force with an undisclosed injury/illness, Army officials told ESPN.
Daily leads the country with 19 rushing touchdowns and leads all FBS quarterbacks with 909 rushing yards. He was unable to practice this week. The No. 21 Black Knights had a bye last weekend after beating East Carolina 45-28 on Oct. 19 to win their seventh straight game this season.
In the win over ECU, Daily carried the ball 31 times for a career-high 171 yards and accounted for six touchdowns, five rushing and one passing. The 6-foot, 221-pound senior has already set Army single-season records for touchdowns responsible for (26) and rushing touchdowns (19) in seven games.
With Daily sidelined, junior Dewayne Coleman will fill in at quarterback and make his first career start. Daily, one of four team captains, has been Army’s starting quarterback over the past two seasons and the main cog in a Black Knights offense that has eclipsed 400 yards of total offense in all seven games this season.
Army (7-0, 6-0) travels to North Texas next week for an AAC contest. They get a bye week on Nov. 16 and then face Notre Dame on Nov. 23 at Yankee Stadium.
There’s no timetable at this point on how long Daily might be out of the lineup, but Army officials don’t think it’s a season-ending setback.
Army, off to its best start in nearly 30 years, will be one of the top contenders for the Group of 5’s spot in the College Football Playoff if the Black Knights can win the American Athletic Conference championship.
The 2024 World Series ended with the Los Angeles Dodgers winning the championship in a stunning comeback in Game 5, with Walker Buehler the unlikely pitcher to close out the 7-6 win over the New York Yankees. First baseman Freddie Freeman was handed the World Series MVP award for his record-tying 12-RBI performance.
But that doesn’t tell the full story of everyone who played a starring role in October — a postseason that featured a record six grand slams, among other wildness. So, to honor the best of the entire postseason, we’ve created our first MLB All-October Team.
From wild-card-round sensations to World Series standouts, here are the players our ESPN MLB panel of experts voted as the best of the best at every position along with some award hardware for the brightest stars of October.
2024 All-October Team
Catcher: Kyle Higashioka, San Diego Padres
Why he’s here: To be honest, it wasn’t a great playoffs for catchers — they hit just .184/.254/.310. Higashioka is the one catcher who did hit, belting three home runs and driving in five runs in the seven games the Padres played.
Honorable mention: Will Smith, Los Angeles Dodgers
1B: Freddie Freeman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why he’s here: Freeman didn’t have an extra-base hit and drove in just one run in the first two rounds of the playoffs as he tried to play through the severely sprained ankle he suffered at the end of the regular season. He didn’t even play in two games of the NLCS and required hours of physical therapy before each game just to get on the field. But the five days off before the World Series clearly helped, and he homered in the first four games, including his dramatic walk-off grand slam in Game 1 that will go down as not only the signature World Series moment of 2024 — but a World Series moment for the ages.
Honorable mention: Pete Alonso, New York Mets
2B: Gleyber Torres, New York Yankees
Why he’s here: Torres had a solid October as he heads into free agency, although he had little competition here. Indeed, second basemen collectively hit just .219 with three home runs the entire playoffs — two of those from Torres — and drove in 24 runs, with Torres driving in eight himself. He had three multihit games and scored five runs in five games in the ALCS, while also taking walks to help set the table for Juan Soto.
Honorable mention: Brice Turang, Milwaukee Brewers
3B: Mark Vientos, New York Mets
Why he’s here: Max Muncy set a record when he reached base 17 times in the NLCS, including a single-postseason-record 12 times in a row, but he went hitless in the World Series. Vientos, meanwhile, had a stellar first trip to the postseason, hitting .327/.362/.636 with five home runs and 14 RBIs in 13 games. That followed a breakout regular season in which he posted an .837 OPS with 27 home runs in just 111 games. He looks like he’ll be a fixture in the middle of the Mets’ lineup for years to come.
Honorable mention: Muncy, Los Angeles Dodgers
SS: Tommy Edman, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why he’s here: Edman was an under-the-radar pickup at the trade deadline, in part because he was still injured and hadn’t yet played for the St. Louis Cardinals. Most of Edman’s starts came at shortstop, especially after Miguel Rojas was injured in the NLDS, but his bat got him here. Edman was the NLCS MVP after hitting .407 with a record-tying 11 RBIs in the series. He had started at cleanup just twice in his career but was slotted there twice against the Mets, driving in seven runs in those two games. Then he went 2-for-4 in each of the first two games of the World Series, including a home run in Game 2, and finished the Fall Classic hitting .294/.400/.588 with six runs.
Honorable mention: Francisco Lindor, New York Mets
OF: Mookie Betts, Los Angeles Dodgers
OF: Juan Soto, New York Yankees
OF: Enrique Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why they’re here: Betts entered this postseason in a 3-for-38 postseason slump going back to the end of the 2021 NLCS — and it initially looked like it would be more of the same when he went 0-for-6 the first two games of the NLDS, including being robbed of a home run courtesy of Jurickson Profar. Everything turned in Game 3 when Profar almost robbed him of another home run — but didn’t. After that, Betts was in the middle of most of the Dodgers’ big rallies, hitting .321/.394/.625 with four home runs and 16 RBIs over the Dodgers’ final 14 playoff games.
Soto’s at-bats spoke for themselves: He never seemed to have a bad one. His big at-bat was the three-run home run in the 10th inning of Game 5 of the ALCS to send the Yankees to the World Series. Getting intentionally walked twice while batting in front of Aaron Judge speaks to Judge’s struggles, yes — but also to how locked in Soto was all postseason. He finished the postseason slashing .327/.469/.633 with 4 home runs, 9 RBIs and 14 walks in 14 games.
Hernandez actually began October on the bench, but we’ve seen him perform big in the postseason before, and he stepped up when Rojas was injured in the NLDS. Hernandez homered in the Dodgers’ 2-0 victory to close out the Padres in the NLDS, had a big two-run home run against the Mets in Game 3 of the NLCS and got the series-turning five-run rally against the Yankees in Game 5 started with a leadoff single in the fifth as well as the series-winning rally in the eighth with another leadoff base hit. Overall, he hit .294/.357/.451 with 11 runs and six RBIs.
Honorable mentions: Steven Kwan, Cleveland Guardians; Teoscar Hernandez, Los Angeles Dodgers; Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres
DH: Giancarlo Stanton, New York Yankees
Why he’s here: The Yankees were often a two-man show in the postseason, just like they were in the regular season — except it was Soto and Stanton, not Soto and Judge. Stanton blasted seven home runs in the playoffs, including in the final three games of the ALCS (earning MVP honors) and in Games 1 and 5 of the World Series. He finished the playoffs hitting .273/.339/.709, and those seven homers are the most in a single postseason in Yankees history.
Honorable mention: Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers; David Fry, Cleveland Guardians
SP: Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees
SP: Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers
Why they’re here: Certainly, it seems as if the status of the starting pitcher in the postseason continues to decline — although, that doesn’t mean they’re not important. There were certainly some stellar individual outings along the way: Corbin Burnes allowed one run in eight innings (but lost 1-0) for the Baltimore Orioles; Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler allowed one hit in seven scoreless innings (but that would be his only start); and the Padres’ Michael King fanned 12 to beat the Atlanta Braves in the NLDS. Skubal had two scoreless starts against the Houston Astros in the wild-card series and Cleveland Guardians in the ALDS, confirming his status as one of the best in the game — or maybe the best, as his soon-to-be AL Cy Young Award will attest.
Cole was really the one consistent starter throughout the postseason, making five starts with a 2.17 ERA. Unfortunately, that ERA doesn’t register the five unearned runs from the final game of the World Series when the Yankees’ defense turned into a comedy of errors — including Cole himself opening up the floodgates by failing to cover first base to get what would have been the inning-ending out.
Honorable mention: Walker Buehler, Los Angeles Dodgers; Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers; Sean Manaea, New York Mets; Seth Lugo, Kansas City Royals
RP: Luke Weaver, New York Yankees
RP: Blake Treinen, Los Angeles Dodgers
Why they’re here: It also wasn’t the best of postseasons for closers — not even great ones. The Guardians’ Emmanuel Clase allowed five earned runs all regular season — and then eight in the playoffs. Milwaukee Brewers closer Devin Williams blew that wild-card game against the Mets. All-Star Jeff Hoffman lost two games for the Phillies. Weaver, however, was the one consistent late-game performer and was great while often pitching more than one inning. He posted a 1.76 ERA across 15⅓ innings. Who knows how the World Series ends if Yankees manager Aaron Boone keeps Weaver in the game in the 10th inning of Game 1. (Weaver had thrown just 19 pitches.)
Treinen, meanwhile, capped his comeback season — he had missed almost all of 2022 and then all of 2023 — with a 2.19 ERA across 12⅓ innings, winning two games and saving three others. In the World Series clincher, he recorded seven outs and got out of a two-on, no-out jam in the eighth inning to preserve the Dodgers’ 7-6 lead before handing the ball to Buehler to close out the ninth.
Honorable mention: Cade Smith, Cleveland Guardians; Michael Kopech, Los Angeles Dodgers; Beau Brieske, Detroit Tigers
All-October Award Winners
October MVP: Freddie Freeman
Pitchers of the month: Gerrit Cole, Walker Buehler (tie)
Best October introduction: Mark Vientos
Clutch performer: Freeman
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