As fans of college football, we need to push back against ESPN. ESPN is destroying college football.
It was brought to my attention that Desmond Howard said this on College Gameday last weekend: "Why are we picking this game? I thought it was a mistake."
That was in reference to the Arizona State vs Kansas State game.
We can't continue to go down the path of the media saying what teams and games are of value and what games and teams are not of value and letting media create propaganda and narratives of who belongs in the playoff and who doesn't. We created the 12-team playoff to provide wider access across the country, not for one conference to behave in a manipulative fashion to push others aside so they can get their own teams into the playoff.
ESPN employees, along with some SEC media folks and a few national journalists, are one of the biggest problems in college football.
Even though TV ratings are up on ABC, we are seeing other conferences getting pushed away from being seen to a national audience and we have people like @ryenarussillo who try to tell us who is worthy of a playoff spot and who isn't.
As I stated the other day, when you rip away seasons of teams that went undefeated or 11-1 in a 12-team playoff, you are saying that program is not worthy to play this sport and only handpicked programs are worthy to play. That kills a sport.
In order to keep the sport of college football healthy over the long-haul, media people have to stop trying to devalue teams in front of a national audience.
We can't have people saying "player X should sit out this game because an injury could happen." We can't have coaches being coward losers being afraid of wanting to play in a conference title game because they are afraid of a potential loss. And a lot of those viewpoints are then pushed by media people.
When you add everything up together, ESPN, SEC media, and a few national journalists are killing the sport of football and they don't even realize it or they don't care.
It is time that there is a push back against ESPN.