Arizona State self-imposes bowl ban for 2023
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Pete Thamel, ESPN
Arizona State will not play in a bowl game in 2023 after self-imposing a one-year bowl ban Sunday morning, a decision that acknowledges the severity of the evidence in the ongoing NCAA case against the school’s football program.
Arizona State’s decision comes amid an investigation that began during the tenure of former coach Herm Edwards, whose job with the Sun Devils ended three games into last season after an embarrassing loss to Eastern Michigan. The specter of the NCAA investigation into allegations of repeated and gratuitous recruiting violations has scattered many of the program’s best players.
The heart of the investigation comes from a dossier of documents sent to the NCAA on May 31, 2021, that detailed a trove of recruiting violations, including persistent ignoring of the restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 recruiting dead period. The allegations from the dead period included the mother of a player purchasing tickets for travel to campus, staff members giving tours to up to a dozen recruits in vans when visitors were prohibited, and a position coach working out a prospect in a local park while he was in town and evaluating the video of the illicit workout in an offensive staff meeting.
The fallout from the case has already been significant, as it has led to five full-time coaches leaving the staff or being fired, including defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce, alleged as the ringleader who created a culture in which rule breaking was rewarded. Pierce and former offensive coordinator Zak Hill are among the coaches no longer on staff.
The timing of the bowl ban is a difficult one for the current team, which was informed by school officials at an early-morning meeting Sunday, just days before it opens the season Thursday night against Southern Utah. That game marks the debut of first-year coach Kenny Dillingham.
A source told ESPN that the reaction among the players in the team meeting was “devastating.” Approximately 20 players on the roster are expected to play their final season.
“Their entire goal this year was to right the ship and to make a bowl game,” a source told ESPN of the seniors and veterans.
Dillingham told reporters that he learned of the bowl ban Sunday morning. He called the situation “upsetting” but added that he wanted his players to find motivation from their circumstances.
“It’s my job to try to get our team and rally our team behind each other to go compete and go work at the highest level,” Dillingham said.
More than 50 of Arizona State’s players were recruited by Dillingham and did not get recruited by Edwards or his staff. The bowl ban is expected to eventually result in a one-year contract extension for Dillingham, who had protections built into his initial five-year deal tied to the NCAA investigation.
The decision to self-impose a bowl ban comes at an interesting inflection point for NCAA enforcement. Tennessee faced a similarly daunting volume of allegations in its recent NCAA case, but the Volunteers escaped a postseason ban with a punishment that included an $8 million fine. That decision prompted speculation that bowl bans may be an antiquated tool for punishment in NCAA enforcement, as recent decisions were made under the backdrop of NIL rules that have changed the conventional paradigms of amateurism.
Also, the fairness of punishing those not connected to the alleged violations has emerged as a hot-button issue. Arizona State’s decision to self-impose this punishment hints at the severity of what is expected to be alleged by NCAA enforcement. There is expected to be additional punishment coming for the Sun Devils — whose nine major NCAA violations exceed that of any other major conference school — and the individual coaches who are under investigation.
It is unclear whether Arizona State was offered a similar fine that Tennessee was issued, but it is notable that Arizona State’s athletic department resources are not in the same financial hemisphere as Tennessee’s. A department spokesperson declined to comment when asked specifically whether some type of fine had been an option, citing the ongoing case.
Arizona State athletic director Ray Anderson said in a statement Sunday that the school would not comment further because of the ongoing investigation. The notice of allegations in the case has yet to be delivered, sources said.
Both Edwards and Pierce are not expected to return to college coaching. After leaving Arizona State, Edwards joined ESPN as an analyst in November, returning to a role he held from 2009 until his hiring by the school.
The notice of allegations is expected to be delivered at some point this season. The case is expected to feature an unusual number of former coaches and staff members cooperating, as the original dossier came together as a text chain among Arizona State coaches in shock over the number of rules violations happening in the program. They included specifics rare in NCAA cases, such as a picture of Edwards taking a person alleged to be a top-100 recruit for a tour around the Arizona State weight room during a dead period.
The text chain became the basis of the information that was brought to the NCAA. The dossier included evidence with pictures and documentation of flights for recruits arranged by assistant coaches and the mother of a former player booking trips for recruits and their families.
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stubbed a toe on his left foot during an off-the-field incident and was out of the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup Friday night for the opener of a highly anticipated weekend series against the New York Yankees.
Betts was scheduled to undergo X-rays at Dodger Stadium before first pitch. Until then, the team will hope for the best.
“It’s day-to-day right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So, that’s where we’re at.”
The incident — affecting Betts’ second toe — was believed to occur late Wednesday night, after the Dodgers returned from a six-game road trip through New York and Cleveland. Roberts didn’t find out until Betts called him Friday morning. He was vague on the details.
“I really don’t know,” Roberts said when asked how the injury occurred. “I think it was at home. It’s probably a dresser, nightstand, something like that. It’s just kind of an accident. I think that Mookie will be able to give more context, but that’s kind of from the training staff what I heard. So hopefully, it’s benign, it’s negative. Not sure, but I feel confident saying it’s day-to-day … but putting on a shoe today was difficult for him.”
Betts’ injury isn’t the Dodgers’ most serious at the moment. Late-inning reliever Evan Phillips, who was rehabbing a forearm injury, didn’t feel right playing catch earlier this week and will undergo Tommy John surgery next week, knocking him out for all of 2025 and most of 2026.
Phillips, 30, was released by the Baltimore Orioles in August 2021 and designated for assignment by the Tampa Bay Rays less than two weeks later. The Dodgers picked him up and turned him into a valuable late-game option. From 2022 to 2024, Phillips posted a 2.21 ERA and 0.92 WHIP, saved 44 games and struck out 206 batters in 179 regular-season innings.
But Phillips dealt with arm issues during last year’s postseason run and was left off the team’s World Series roster. He then went on the IL because of a rotator cuff strain in the middle of March, returned a month later, notched seven scoreless appearances, then went back on the IL on May 7 because of what the team called forearm discomfort. Platelet-rich-plasma injections did not take. Phillips never got better.
“As we started getting into it, it wasn’t really responding,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “We felt like this could be a possibility, so as he got deeper into the process and it wasn’t really getting better, the decision to do it was pretty much evident with our information.”
The loss of Phillips is coupled with the Dodgers having four other high-leverage relievers on the IL — Brusdar Graterol, Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Michael Kopech, all of whom are right-handed.
The Dodgers tried to backfill some of that depth by trading for former All-Star closer Alexis Diaz on Thursday. But Diaz, who struggled so badly this season that the Cincinnati Reds optioned him to Triple-A, will initially work out of the Dodgers’ spring training complex in Glendale, Ariz.
The Dodgers also have three starting pitchers — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki — recovering from shoulder injuries, with Shohei Ohtani not expected to join the rotation until sometime after the All-Star break.
The lineup, at least, had been healthy. Until now.
Betts, 32, got off to a slow start but was still slashing .254/.338/.405 with 8 home runs and 5 stolen bases while slotting between the hot-hitting Ohtani and Freddie Freeman in the No. 2 spot. More notably, Betts had proven to be a capable major league shortstop after working during the offseason at the position.
But the toe injury could set him back, in much the same way a broken left hand robbed him of nearly two months in 2024.
At this point, Roberts said, “I don’t see it being long term.” But the Dodgers can’t say that definitively yet.
“We need to see the doctors and kind of get a better sense of it,” Gomes said. “It happened pretty recently, so it’ll take some time before we have a better understanding.”
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