SEC’s Sankey feels ‘sadness’ as Pac-12 dissolves
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Heather Dinich, ESPN Senior Writer
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he feels “a little tinge of sadness, probably more than just a little” seeing the Pac-12 on the verge of collapse after more than 100 years of existence, and noted that as the flurry of events unfolded last week “it just wasn’t one of those great feelings to work in college sports in my experience.”
“I take responsibility where we’ve made moves,” Sankey said during a lengthy interview on “The Paul Finebaum Show” on Tuesday. “But there was something different last week about the questions around the existence of the Pac-12 conference, given its long and storied history.”
Last week, Washington and Oregon announced their intent to join the Big Ten, and Arizona, Arizona State and Utah decided to join the Big 12. The drastic decisions left Washington State, Oregon State, Stanford and Cal looking for a conference home in 2024 if the Pac-12 isn’t capable of piecing itself together again.
Sankey said he called Washington State athletic director Pat Chun and Stanford AD Bernard Muir.
“I don’t have any solutions, but I have great empathy,” he said he told them.
While the Pac-12 was amid uncertainty, Florida State president Richard McCullough told the university’s board of trustees in a public meeting last week that the Seminoles would “very seriously” consider leaving the ACC unless there is a radical change to the league’s revenue distribution model. That, of course, prompted speculation about where FSU could go, and Sankey was with his conference athletic directors at a Cubs game in Chicago when people began reaching out to him about the volatility of it all.
“I’ve opined publicly that I think the speculation in some of the pronouncements we’ve seen since that time about growth or directional growth is problematic,” he said. “Even for me, with the security of the Southeastern Conference, whether it was Friday afternoon or Saturday fielding phone calls, which really were more conversations, ‘What do you think’s happening?’ There’s nobody calling me seeking or demanding entry, [just] a lot of commentary publicly.”
Sankey reiterated his conference isn’t actively recruiting any additional schools but said it is “constantly attentive” to the shifting collegiate landscape around it. He said last week, behind the scenes, the conference office had “different types of daily communications with our campuses to say, ‘Here’s what we understand is taking place.'”
The SEC presidents and chancellors had a videoconference at the end of the week during which Sankey said there was a “really strong alignment with that group, very clear that there’s not something out there that we should be reaching for or engaging in.”
As the Big Ten now stretches from coast to coast, Sankey has been firm in his stance that the SEC is comfortable with its current geographical footprint.
“We don’t need to be in four time zones to generate interest on the West Coast or really across the globe,” he said, “and so that’s been a hallmark. Who knows what will happen, and that’s where I go back to one of my original statements: We’re always going to be attentive to what’s happening around us. And perhaps there’ll be some opportunity, but it needs to be a lot of philosophical alignment. And it’s not something where we’re actively out recruiting institutions right now.”
Sankey is one of 10 FBS commissioners who oversee the format of the College Football Playoff, and he was one of the original authors of the 12-team format, which will begin in time for the 2024 season. The current model includes the six highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next six highest-ranked teams.
If the Pac-12 dissolves — which many sources expect it to — the commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, who is also on the CFP management committee, would likely revisit how the 12 teams are chosen.
“I think it’s wise for us to take a step back and reconsider what the format might look like given these changes and circumstances,” Sankey said. “We’ve not met on that, I’ve not had any meaningful conversations, but I think we have to acknowledge that it is on everyone’s mind pending the outcome of some of these additional membership movement pieces.”
Sankey said he has been an advocate long before the recent events to look carefully at the decisions around seeding and location.
“Now here we are with more membership movement questions about how many conferences will exist,” he said. “It just raises the questions that are not fully back to a starting point about conference champion access, about how a bracket is seeded, particularly the adjustment around Notre Dame remaining an independent not having that top-four seed status. Those matters really need to be dug into and understood.”
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Jesse Rogers, ESPN Staff Writer
CHICAGO — Chicago Cubs rookie starter Shota Imanaga lowered his ERA on the season to 0.84 on Saturday after throwing seven shutout innings in his club’s 1-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
It’s the lowest mark through a pitcher’s first nine career games since ERA became an official stat in 1913, besting Fernando Valenzuela, who compiled a 0.91 ERA after nine starts in 1981.
“If I’m being honest, I’m not really too interested in my own stats or any historic value,” Imanaga said after the game through the team interpreter. “But just knowing that there are so many good pitchers that came before me is a good learning experience.”
Imanaga, 30, gave up four hits while striking out seven including his final batter with two on and two out in the seventh inning. He used a combination of nearly all fastballs and splitters to stymie the Pirates, making him the very early front-runner for NL Cy Young. Pirates manager Derek Shelton was asked why he’s so tough to square up.
“That’s a great question,” he answered. “This guy is going to give hitting coaches nightmares. The fastball is not 94-95 mph but it’s effective. The split is real. It’s strike to ball.”
Imanaga averaged just 90.9 mph on his fastball, which he threw 46 times. The rest of his pitches were splitters — save four curveballs. All of it was extremely effective, moving from the top of the zone with the fastball and coming down with his split.
“You feel the hitter a little in-between,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It makes both pitches better.”
The Cubs won the game on a walk-off RBI single by Christopher Morel that plated Cody Bellinger, though the play at the plate was reviewed before the celebration at Wrigley Field could begin. It’s the team’s first 1-0, walk-off win since September 2015.
“We’ve won two 1-0 games that he’s started,” Counsell said. “It’s hard to win 1-0, and the fact that he’s been the starter nine games into his career in two of them is incredible.”
In addition to being the lowest to start a career through nine outings, Imanaga’s 0.84 ERA is also the third lowest through the first nine games of a season for any pitcher, trailing only Jacob deGrom (0.62) in 2021 and Zack Greinke (0.82) in 2009. The win came a day after Pirates rookie Paul Skenes struck out the first seven batters he faced en route to a six-inning, no-hit performance. Imanaga did him one inning better, making the Pirates the ninth different team unable to solve the lefty.
“We’re fortunate to watch it,” Counsell stated. “His aptitude, pitch-making ability, his stuff, his competitiveness. They’ve all been a joy to watch.”
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Jorge Castillo, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — The Yankees waxed the White Sox 6-1 on Saturday to earn their sixth straight win behind two players.
One, Juan Soto, was expected to lead the club to victories after he was acquired in December. He smashed two home runs, both long beyond Yankee Stadium’s short porch in right field, to emphatically snap out of a mini personal skid with his first multi-home run game as a Yankee.
The other, Luis Gil, was expected to begin the season in the minors, honing his craft, waiting for an opportunity. Instead, Gil continued his unforeseen breakout campaign Saturday, delivering the best start of his young career with 14 strikeouts — a Yankees rookie record — on 98 pitches over six innings as New York improved to an AL-best 32-15.
The 25-year-old right-hander recovered from a 29-pitch first inning to produce 27 swing-and-misses behind a fastball that touched 100 mph and a changeup he has developed into a devastating offering. At one point, he struck out nine of 10 hitters. He held the White Sox to five hits and one walk. In the end, he lowered his team-best ERA to 2.39 across nine starts.
“Today felt like, maybe, his best one,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Gil is in the rotation only because Gerrit Cole isn’t. Cole began the season on the 60-day injured list after being shut down in mid-March with an elbow injury. On Saturday, the team’s ace took a significant step forward in his rehab — logging a 40-pitch bullpen session, divided in two to better simulate a game experience. He remains encouraged in his return to the mound.
For now, Cole is playing the part of assistant pitching coach — and making an impact on his replacement. Gil credited an increased focus and Cole’s tutelage — during games and in between starts — for his success after his performance Saturday.
“I have a teacher, Gerrit Cole, who’s teaching me how to pitch, how to handle situations and how to execute,” Gil said in Spanish. “And that’s what we’re doing, what he teaches me, and we’re applying it in the game.”
Gil has been dominant in May after posting a 4.01 ERA in five April starts. Since then, he has allowed just two earned runs with 27 strikeouts in 24⅓ innings across five outings. He made history Saturday by breaking Orlando Hernández’s Yankees rookie record for strikeouts in a game. Hernández, who set the mark in 1998 with 13 strikeouts, happened to be in attendance Saturday to throw out the first pitch.
“It was a pleasure to meet him,” Gil said. “He was a great pitcher. I loved getting to meet him.”
Chicago’s only run off Gil came on Andrew Benintendi’s two-out, check-swing RBI double to open the scoring in the first inning. The lead was fleeting. Soto responded in the bottom of the frame, smashing a pitch from Brad Keller 112.5 mph for a solo home run. He did it again in the fifth inning, this time launching a pitch from Keller 437 feet to right field for his 11th home run of the season. He finished the day 4-for-4 with a walk and three RBIs.
Soto’s explosion came after he went 4-for-31 (.129) without a home run over his previous eight games. The relative struggles were enough for him to take additional batting practice several hours before the Yankees and White Sox opened their series Friday. Soto took swings with hitting coach James Rowson and assistant hitting coach Pat Roessler. He then went 1-for-4 with a double, hitting the ball hard in play three times, in a Yankees win.
“Last night,” Boone said, “was the prelude to today.”
Soto declined to share what he worked on specifically during Friday’s extra hitting session, but he noted he was searching for the “feeling” he had over the first five weeks of the season when he was dominating pitchers on a daily basis.
Did he get it back?
“I think so,” Soto said with a smile.
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