STARKVILLE – Mississippi State’s Sierra Sacco, Raelin Chaffin and Nadia Barbary earned All-SEC recognition as voted on by the league’s coaches, the conference announced on Friday. Sacco was a First Team selection, and Chaffin and Barbary landed on the Second Team. Additionally, Barbary was tabbed to the All-Defense Team at third base.
 
It marked the second consecutive year with three All-SEC honorees for the Bulldogs, and Sacco has now been named all-conference in every year of her career. Barbary is State’s first All-Defense selection since Chloe Malau’ulu won the award in left field in 2021 and the first Bulldog infielder ever to win the recognition.
 
Sacco hit .421 in SEC play, which ranked second in the league and seventh in MSU history. Her SEC-only slugging percentage (.724) was sixth in program history and sixth in the league. She ranked fourth in the conference in total bases (55) in league play and her on-base percentage (.505) was seventh. The graduating senior was third on the team in conference play with 18 RBIs and she had multiple hits in 11 of 24 league games.
 
Chaffin broke the MSU single-season record with 10 wins in conference play on her way to her first career all-conference honor while throwing nine complete games. For the year, her 21 wins in the regular season led the conference, and she led the league in strikeouts looking (47) while ranking third in total strikeouts (180) and second in innings pitched (166.0). Chaffin also landed in the top 10 in MSU single-season history in SEC play in walks per seven innings (2.00) and strikeouts per seven innings (6.62). She appeared in 20 of 24 games, making 14 starts in the conference slate.
 
Barbary earned her first career all-conference selection after leading the Bulldogs with 22 RBIs and ranking second on the team with 27 hits in league games. Both of those totals were among the top 15 in the SEC, and her RBIs were the sixth-most in program history by a Bulldog in SEC play. She slugged .571 with an on-base percentage of .416 for a .987 OPS in SEC play while batting .351. She collected five doubles and four homers to post 44 total bases.
 
Defensively, Barbary made just two errors in conference play while playing every inning at third base. She had the second-fewest errors of any SEC third baseman in conference play while having the second-most chances. Previous Bulldogs to earn All-Defensive honors include Malau’ulu (LF) and Amanda Ivy (CF, 2017).
 
No. 17 Mississippi State will learn its postseason destination on Sunday night. The NCAA Tournament Selection Show is scheduled for 6 p.m. CT on ESPN2.
 
For more information on the Bulldog softball program, follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram by searching “HailStateSB.”
 
 

At the urging of Nick Saban and others, President Donald Trump has gotten involved to try and fix the many issues that have arisen in college sports with unregulated NIL. NIL, which stands for Name, Image, Likeness, was initially pushed for and ultimately established as a mean for athletes to get a slice of the pie as institutions constantly profited off of athletes working for free.

Instead, it has turned into an unregulated pay-for-play scheme that has turned college sports upside down. Pay-for-play together with the Transfer Portal has fundamentally changed collegiate sports, particularly college football, to something almost unrecognizable.

Every change in college sports has seemingly been to the detriment to fans. The almighty dollar has been the driving force behind every decision. And in the interest of fairness, it’s the almighty dollar that is the driving force behind a lot of college football’s decision makers pushing back against NIL. Because what’s coming next is likely revenue sharing, and schools do not want to have to share money with the players.

Saban has been outspoken against the unregulated nature of NIL in college sports for a while now. People have taken that as sour grapes for a coach who stacked talent in Tuscaloosa and won at a never-before-seen level. But Saban is retired now. He’s not advocating for Alabama; he’s advocating for college sports in general. A sport he gave the majority of his professional life to. He sees a major problem and wants it to get fixed.

Saban was an obvious choice to be named co-chair of President Trump’s Commission to study college sports. Many fans have argued that college football needs a commissioner and if that day ever came, Saban would be the most obvious choice. He’s the greatest coach in the history of the sport and understands it at a fundamental level that most never will.

But Saban won’t be alone leading this commission. Texas billionaire and Texas Tech Board chair Cody Campbell will co-chair the commission with Saban., The two might have very differing agendas.

Saban, Campbell, not likely to see eye-to-eye on NIL

Before the NIL era, Texas Tech was a middling team in the Big 12. They would have flare ups from time-to-time where they would win 10 games or so, particularly under the late, great Mike Leach. But the Red Raiders were far from a legitimate power in the sport.

The best players weren’t flocking to Lubbock to play for Tech. Until now.

According to ESPN, Texas Tech spent north of $10 million to bring in one of the top Transfer Portal classes in the country. The Red Raiders have purchased a contender in the Big 12, and a team that will be a popular pick to make the College Football Playoff this season.

If there were guardrails and regulations against NIL, that would have been unlikely to happen. It stands to reason then, that Campbell, the leader of Tech’s NIL efforts, would have zero incentive to return to any kind of status quo. This era has led to a significant raise in his team’s profile. Going back would likely change that.

It’s that fact that likely means that Saban and Campbell will have differing agendas. There’s no going completely back. College sports are forever changed. But there does need to be guardrails to maintain a semblance of competitive balance.

Now that most players have used their COVID years, you’re going to see more and more of a swing in college sports toward the “haves” and away from the “have nots.” Some teams will no longer be able to compete. Some might drop sports altogether. None of that is good for the athletes.

It remains to be seen what comes out of this presidential commission. It will be interesting to see if Saban and Campbell can find common ground to make some needed adjustments to the current landscape of college sports.

There have been teams known to cancel midweek games in college baseball. That’s done, oftentimes, to help avoid a game that would hurt the team’s RPI rankings. Despite that, Oregon Ducks head coach Mark Wasikowski has no intention of canceling games.

Following Oregon’s pair of midweek wins against Saint Mary’s, Wasikowski defended playing midweek games. That’s because he sees that the system is broken and doesn’t want to take away opportunities to play simply because of that system.

“Well, the system’s broken,” Wasikowski said. “So, I’m not going to complain about the system being broken and start canceling games. I mean, if the geniuses can’t figure out that the system’s broken, the RPI is screwed up, and you shouldn’t be canceling games.”

The Oregon Ducks currently rank 23rd in the RPI, a key metric in deciding postseason seeding. That makes them the second-highest ranked Big Ten team. Right now, nine of the top 10 teams in the RPI rankings come from the SEC or ACC, adding value to their conference games. Still, even with the chance that midweek games could hurt Oregon’s RPI, Wasikowski wants to compete.

“Tonight was a great opportunity for guys to get a chance to play. We got a chance to play in two really good baseball games. We got some guys in — we got a lot of experience out of those two games,” Wasikowski said. “And if we’re canceling games because of some magical RPI formula that is so messed up it’s not even funny, we’re taking opportunities away from student-athletes that they deserve. That’s why they came to the University of Oregon. To play baseball. So, to take the opportunity to play baseball away from them for anything other than weather-related or some sort of act of God or any of those clauses that are in those contracts, I think it’s ridiculous. I think it’s repulsive and, for me, the student athletes suffer when that happens.”

Oregon just took two games from Saint Mary’s. That makes the Ducks 6-3 on midweek games this season. Those are games that, regardless of outcome or impact on BPI, Wasikowski wants to maintain.

“I don’t fault the coaches, I fault the fact that the system isn’t right,” Wasikowski said. “And until they get their arms around it and have the courage to make some changes to that, no, we’re not gonna cancel games. We’re gonna play the games that are on our schedule because I really respect the team that we just got done playing. They’re a good team. They’re trying to win a league championship. Then, tonight, all the way down to the last pitch of the game, you have Tanner Bradley in the last inning. You see how good Tanner Bradley is, and without the opportunity to play that game tonight, he doesn’t get a chance to pitch and show how good he really is. So, I’m a big proponent of playing baseball.”

Oregon wraps up the season series against Washington and Iowa. There, the Ducks look to build momentum for the postseason and round out their resume. They have no midweek games remaining.

Former Alabama head football coach Nick Saban is reportedly adding a new title to his resume after retiring from coaching following the 2023-24 season.

The now ESPN television personality will co-chair President Donald Trump’s commission on college sports, according to The Athletic. He is expected to serve in this role alongside billionaire businessman and Texas Tech University board chair Cody Campbell according to Yahoo Sports.

Yahoo Sports reported that the commission is expected to look at the rocky landscape of college sports, including the frequency of player movement in the transfer portal and the debate of college athlete employment and payment through “name, image and likeness” deals, also known as NIL deals. Since 2021, the NCAA has allowed players to profit off of NIL, and it is set to begin allowing college athletes to participate in revenue sharing this fall following the settlement of lawsuits brought forth by former athletes.

This comes after Trump reportedly met with Saban last Thursday when the two were in Tuscaloosa to speak at a special commencement ceremony. People familiar with the meeting told the Wall Street Journal that Saban discussed his concern about NIL with Trump and that he “believed the influx of money had damaged college sports.”

Trump reportedly agreed with Saban and said that he would look into creating an executive order. Saban also proposed “reforming” NIL due to it causing an uneven playing field.

Saban did not immediately respond to request for comment. 

Saban has previously been an advocate for regulating college sports, including speaking out against the current NIL and transfer portal structure. Although he insisted it was not a factor in his retirement when speaking to ESPN, he did mention it being an issue after making the move to step down as head coach.

“Now, I think everybody is frustrated about it. We had an SEC conference call, 14 coaches on there, and there’s not one guy you can talk to who really understands what’s happening in college football and thinks that it’s not an issue,” he said.

Saban also discussed college athletics when he visited Capitol Hill last March, just months after leaving his role at Alabama. He testified at a roundtable discussion hosted by Texas senator Ted Cruz, advocating for revenue-sharing in college athletics and discussing issues with NIL and the transfer portal.

“I’m for student-athletes being able to share in some of this revenue,” Saban said. “I think the No. 1 solution to all this is if we could have some kind of revenue sharing proposition that did not make student-athletes employees.”

He added that he believes that revenue-sharing could be the long-term solution, and that it could create a better quality of life for student-athletes. 

“You could still emphasize development, personal, academic, brand, and athletic development, with a system like that,” Saban said. “And it would be equal in all institutions. Somebody couldn’t go out and raise more money at one school to create a competitive advantage over another.”