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I was in school at the University of Alabama for some really lean football years, but one thing I never thought twice about was that we would beat Vanderbilt. We had not lost to Vandy since I was two years old. Since 1957, the two teams have finished in a tie more often than the Commodores have beaten the Crimson Tide.
That all changed Saturday night. The Dores beat the top-ranked Crimson Tide 40-35 and fans celebrated by taking the goal posts out of Vanderbilt Stadium, which is currently an active construction site, through downtown Nashville, down Broadway, and eventually throwing them into the Cumberland River.
It was the biggest win in Vanderbilt football history and it should mean something. In the age of the BCS or even the four-team College Football Playoff, it would likely mean Bama would be playing from behind all season as it tried to climb back into the championship conversation. In the age of the twelve-team Playoff, it is still meaningful to the bigger picture, but we have to wait and see just how meaningful.
If the SEC and the Big Ten get their way, and secure multiple guaranteed bids in future editions of the College Football Playoff, moments like this, something so monumental in the sport that it even warranted a hat tip in the opening monologue of this past weekend’s episode of Saturday Night Live, will go from a typhoon to a fart bubble in the bathtub.
ESPN cannot let that happen.
College football, more than any other sport, follows the lead of its media partners. FOX and ESPN’s relationships with the Big Ten and SEC respectively can result in those networks spitting out some serious propaganda and framing it as analysis.
It’s a great example of why we ask so many questions about where the power lies in these TV deals. Does ESPN have the power to dictate whether or not the ACC and SEC each add a ninth conference game and what that would be worth or do the conferences have the power to tell ESPN that they each have a price in mind and if the network doesn’t agree to it, there will be no ninth game?
I don’t know if there is a concrete policy or hierarchy that dictates all scenarios. Both sides want the other to be successful because that would ensure they are successful too. There aren’t a lot of times that the network has to act like the parent and tell the conference that getting their way may feel good now, but it will hurt everyone in the long run.
This, however, is one of those times.
I have written before about the networks’ responsibility to protect college sports. Investing so much in the enterprise and not stepping in when it is waving a proverbial gun around screaming “I’m gonna shoot myself in the balls!” is a disservice not only to fans, but to the networks’ business interests.
Usually, ESPN can rely on FOX to be aligned in any decision made to protect college football, but not this time. That’s why ESPN has to throw away any allusion that it can be a cool mom. The only way to win is authoritarianism.
What the Big Ten and SEC are proposing is a guarantee that four teams from each conference will be included in the College Football Playoff. For all of the handwringing about an expanded playoff watering down the regular season, this is what would actually do it. This is what would turn a literal once-in-a-lifetime victory into just another Saturday.
For FOX, the move may add some serious value to the Big Ten race. While very few schools across the country can boast Ohio State’s success and no one is a bigger TV draw, there are fewer superpowers in the conference than in the SEC. The race for spots two, three and four would be a valuable promotional vehicle for FOX and its Big Noon brand.
Plus, if the SEC and Big Ten don’t see the College Football Playoff immediately acquiesce to their demands, I would imagine someone at FOX would be ready to sew seeds of discontent.
Why wouldn’t the network make sure the two conferences get the message that it would play ball on the creation of a “Power Two” postseason if the Big Ten and SEC want to abandon the CFP entirely? It’s just smart business.
Disney has put a lot of money into the SEC. It has put just as much if not more into the creation and execution of the College Football Playoff. Why would the company not flex its considerable muscle here to stop anything that could threaten the value of its investments?
Fans like big brands. Why does Stephen A. Smith talk about the Cowboys even when they are clearly not a threat to win anything of note? Why does every NBA story get filtered through the lenses of Steph Curry and LeBron James? For the same reason that Alabama and Georgia get prime placement every Saturday. They have the power to capture the casuals.
It makes total sense that ESPN would want as many of those iconic helmets involved in what are usually some of the network’s biggest broadcasts of the year, but to manipulate a month of programming at the expense of an entire season is crazy. That’s why I cannot see Jimmy Pitaro and his staff sitting back and letting the Big Ten and SEC dictate terms of the future of the sport.
I may root for one of the most tradition-laden programs in college football, but I loathe the marriage to “the way things used to be” in this sport. I promise you, if the Rose Bowl were discontinued tomorrow, Touchdown Jesus crumbled to the ground, or animal control confiscated Bevo from the University of Texas, the sport would be just fine. We may be sad, but no one would stop watching. Tradition is good but meaningless. Evolution is necessary.
The point of moving first from a free-for-all to the BCS and then from the BCS to the College Football Playoff was to ensure the college football season always ended with certainty and real stakes. The last game of the year would always see the two most deserving teams playing with a trophy on the line. We may not be smart enough yet to do away with polls, but merit was more important than conference relationships.
Yes, even last year. I don’t want to go off on a tangent, so email me and I can explain to you why anyone that says Florida State deserved the four-seed over Alabama is dumb and wrong.
The SEC and the Big Ten are proposing going backward and not in a good way that could benefit traditional or geographic rivalries.
As I write this, it remains to be seen what the conferences will decide and/or how ESPN will react. I don’t love how much influence the networks have in the sport on a day-to-day basis, but when that influence can be used to save the sport from itself, I think it’s valuable.
My friend Ryan Nanni has recently launched a new podcast called Who Killed College Football. It’s an anthology series that looks at six different culprits responsible for the sport looking less and less like the one so many of us fell in love with. Episode one was all about television and it is very good.
If you buy their argument that TV is at least partially to blame, this is ESPN’s chance at redemption. The SEC and Big Ten are ready to turn to the Dark Side and follow Emperor Palpatine’s plot for galactic domination. ESPN, viewed by so many as Darth Vader, can show everyone that Anakin Skywalker is still in there and is willing to do what is right.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
