Finebum

[nogerO]

Old rabbit ears Paulie on Ohio State "They've always been the most talented team and well paid for" That's rich. Everyone knows the SEC for 20 years at least before NIL had the biggest bag men of any conference. Who's his pick for NC? Georgia of course. Or Texas. Any SEC team will do. What a homer.

[Duck07]

He and Lane had to go into Witness Protection after the 1st Quarter of the UT game.

Followed by Herbstreits "wins don't matter" take, I'm pretty much done with ESPN employees. I'm looking at the "my teams" schedule and the games are on : Amazon Prime; NBA TV; NFL Network; B1G+ and ESPN.

No more subsidizing Networks that just trash the teams and the sports that they don't have a built-in bias to support.

[Merganzer]

No more subsidizing Networks that just trash the teams and the sports that they don't have a built-in bias to support.

Couldn't agree more. Saw that Spurrier was saying that Tennessee should have had the Home field against Ohio State, they were both 10-2, he didn't bother to look at the discrepancy between the schedules, that SOS Herby was talking about re- Indiana. Of course, the SOS is never brought up when they talk about Texas either.
Finally, the crying for Alabama proves it's just an automatic response that Pavlov's dog would envy. Alabama lost 3 games, to Vandy, to Tennessee, that was wiped out by Ohio State, and 24-3 to 6-6 Oklahoma, and they deserved to be in the Playoff?

[nogerO]

I cut the cable 5 years ago. I have Peacock, Prime, Paramount plus and Max. Get to watch whatever I want and don't have to pay eSECpn a penny. Finebum, Stephen A and abunch of other SEC honks can have their echo chamber. I hope Texass and Georgia lose their games. No SEC in the final? Awesome.

[squintsdd]

I'm a little curious why other conferences haven't tried to bring it to court that an all sports network is working with a single conference. Seems like a huge conflict of interest

[duckpoint]

At this point it is probably best to hope that the arrogance and greed of the SEC continues and their agenda inspires major pushback and lawsuits. Also remember that the big traditional bowls have played a major role in resisting and now manipulating the playoff for their financial interests.

With next year being the last year contractually for the12 team playoff, the best thing the playoff organization (whomever that is) can do is to rebrand it as an 'invitational tournament' to try to limit exposure to the coming antitrust suits.

My biggest questions are; will the SEC & Big 10 split off and do their own thing after next years farcical 'national championship playoff'? Will they realign the conferences by absorbing (at a cut rate deal) the remaining more desirable teams from the Big 12 & ACC? Will they cut the fat of the less desirables from the Big 10 & SEC? Will they structure the new division so that every team has an equal opportunity based on on the field results, or will they try to keep the voters & polls system of determining who is & who is not worthy of playing for a championship no matter the post season format.

Some ranting from a Big 12 media source...

[Duck07]

A super league is such a short-sighted idea that if the B1G and SEC really want to do that, I think I'd much prefer dominating the Pac 12 and whatever is left of the reamaining ~80 D1 teams. Of course late stage capitalism and all I suppose just stay at the roulette wheel until Mr House drops the bombs.

[duckpoint]

I think the bombs are coming...

There was an intent behind the most recent realignments to hoard the most relevant teams both historically & up & coming. To be more clear, relevant is largely based on success on the field and revenue valuation. There are few if any top brands left in the Big 12 and only a few (3 or 4) could make that claim left in the ACC.

I can fully agree that such a drastic move by the B1G @ SEC would be short sighted, but only time will tell if everything that comprises CFB nationally will accept it or resist it and take the revenue incentive away from the power grab.

[StevensTechU]

There have been sufficient words written on the subject, so I can't add a lot. Maybe some links.

Awful Announcing - "ESPN’s College Football Playoff coverage makes for a miserable, negative experience" https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/colleg ... treit.html

Ari Wasserman - "Paul Finebaum’s position on Alabama and the playoff committee is the biggest threat to college football imaginable" https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/colleg ... r-AA1wibdy

To Wasserman's point, the effect ESPN will have is to shrink the overall popularity of the sport by delegitimizing any brand they don't have media rights to, and concentrate the shrunken pie on the brands they have. Great for ESPN, bad for the sport. I have been wondering if I should get more into FCS where there's a lot less BS.

[duckpoint]

A couple more links to add to the background context of ESPNs incentive to use their soapbox to attempt to prejudice the CFP committee...

https://www.secsports.com/news/2020/12/ ... -agreement

https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... al-2031-32

Also, who is the CFP as a legal entity...

https://collegefootballplayoff.com/spor ... nance.aspx

[73duck]

Wow, so much whining. I haven't had an argument with selections since 2001, and to be honest, Oregon would have probably lost to Miami that year. I don't feel cheated by the announcers and commentators because I get to pick and choose the ones I like on YouTube. Plenty of them love Oregon BTW. I don't pay a nickel for streaming or cable. I get all the inside stuff I need from Oregon podcasts and fan sites. I'm old enough to remember when they only showed one game a week on TV (and never Oregon; we got a coach's show on Sunday; LH Gregory called it "warmed over football"). I live in SEC country but get more duck coverage than I used to get years ago when I lived in Eugene. These are the good old days.