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2019 College Football

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And it’s moronic that OSU was 1, beat a top 10 team by double digits, and then dropped to 2.
Beat a top 15 team on the road by 27 as well.
 

It’s a relevant point the author is making.

I’d add, 20% of the Clemson players drug tested before the Chanpionship game last year, tested positive for Ostarine (a PED that helps you stay lean and keep fat off). 15 players were blood sampled, and (3) came back with positive results for Ostarine which is very specific PED. I'd also add, the (3) players all played in different position groups (which is to say, it sure looks like a system-wide issue and not a minor "a few guys are going rogue" issue).


IMO, the steroids story should’ve been absolutely explosive. I have no doubt if it was Ohio State it would’ve been.

It’s sports politics. The company that should’ve been on the forefront of investigating and calling it out, has a major issue at hand. Is destroying Clemson for a steroids scandal worth it when you’ve just invested $2.5B in a conference and own their conference network? The answer is no.

Which is also why it was a major conflict of interest to have an SEC crew officiate a game between Big 10 and ACC teams in a game that decides who goes to the title. People can laugh it off and call them crazy (like Herbstreit did on Twitter) but it’s a real issue. There’s a reason Day and Gene Smith were so “angry” after the game.

When ESPN owns the CFP for $5.7B (until year 2025), has a $2.5B deal with ACC including their conference TV network, has a now estimated $5B deal with SEC (ESPN recently paid for SEC’s game of week which will be moved from CBS to ABC in 3 years) and their biggest competitor is Fox Sports who has a $2.5B deal with the Big 10, you aren’t just talking about a game. It’s business.....you’re talking about Billions of dollars at stake. Quite literally, as ESPN hosted the Big 10 vs ACC game, forget the players and teams.....think of it as two financial investments. One ESPN has bet the farm on, and one, ESPN’s biggest competitor has bet the farm on. And it will be officiated by a “third party” that is under the same umbrella as one of the financial investments.

It’s absurd. I mean, ultimately it is just football, and if anyone should be pissed it’s the athletes who are grossly exploited when you are the dollars being spent for TV rights. But for anyone, including Herbstreit to make this lazy ass argument that Ohio State going to the Championship game, “would’ve been better for ESPN because of ratings” clearly doesn’t see the big picture. Would ESPN have enjoyed a huge, single night of ratings for their CFP and been able to leverage for additional ad dollars next year? Yeah. But does ESPN stand to make far more money long-term with elite SEC and ACC conferences? Hell yes.

You think ESPN is enjoying the ratings bonanza Fox has generated off of Ohio State? Fuck no. Fox college morning show is beginning to creep into College Gameday territory for viewership which was unthinkable just 1-2 years ago. It’s an arms race with massive investments on the line.

I’ll be honest, I hated when the SEC was announced as the officials of our game, but also thought, “there’s no way they’d be that bold to try and influence a game”. Then you hear the replays are being done from the SEC office in Birmingham? And the overturn of the fumble while ESPN’s “rules analyst” is butchering the interpretation of a catch and telling us it will be overturned? It’s gut-wrenching to me.

But to circle back, LSU’s booster scandal and Clemson’s rampant steroid use scandal, are not scandals because ESPN gains nothing by reporting on it. If it were Ohio State though.....
 
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But to circle back, LSU’s booster scandal and Clemson’s rampant steroid use scandal, are not scandals because ESPN gains nothing by reporting on it. If it were Ohio State though
I agree completely. It’s abundantly clear that ESPN is interested in protecting the south at all costs.
 
I’m getting sick of Clemson man. They will be in the playoff yearly with the ACC being such a piece of shit too.

So glad they lost.
 
This is an awful lot of whining two weeks later.
 
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This is an awful lot of whining two weeks later.

It’s not whining, it’s stating facts.

Is there another sport that is set up in any way, shape, or form like college football?

Where a Network owns rights to the playoff games, but also owns conference networks?

It’s so ripe for corruption and conflict of interest. I can almost guarantee in 2025 when contract negotiation comes back up, there will absolutely be rules put in place to negate the appearance of conflict of interest.

It was a long time ago, but the Big 10 once threatened to boycott the Rose Bowl because they always used PAC 10 refs. The Big 10 felt like they were consistently getting the short end of the stick.....the rules were changed to alternate referees.

I’m honestly not sure how a legitimate case can be made for the arrangement Ohio State faced against Clemson. The ACC and SEC are business partners and the game is being played on ESPN, who owns the thing for $5.7B.

I believe with 100% certainty, if it was Fox that paid $5.7B for the playoffs, OSU is the #1 seed and essentially get the “gimme” game against Oklahoma. And (2) years ago when the Big 10 was lauded as the best conference in the country, went 8-1 in Bowl games, but were left out of playoffs....yeah, that doesn’t happen. That doesn’t make it right either. It’s just the nature of the beast in the current college football landscape. There’s a reason Joel Klatt is like the “unofficial spokesman” of the Big 10......he’s employed by Fox.

And again, I don’t think I’m whining as much as I am stating facts. OSU left a lot of points on the field with essentially (3) TD drops. But that doesn’t excuse the officiating and their weird-ass mechanics of using a replay center in Birmingham rather than at the field like normal protocol. It’s possible to say OSU blew a lot of opportunities and the officiating was trash and gave appearance of a conflict of interest. Both things can be true.
 
It’s not whining, it’s stating facts.

Is there another sport that is set up in any way, shape, or form like college football?

Where a Network owns rights to the playoff games, but also owns conference networks?

It’s so ripe for corruption and conflict of interest. I can almost guarantee in 2025 when contract negotiation comes back up, there will absolutely be rules put in place to negate the appearance of conflict of interest.

It was a long time ago, but the Big 10 once threatened to boycott the Rose Bowl because they always used PAC 10 refs. The Big 10 felt like they were consistently getting the short end of the stick.....the rules were changed to alternate referees.

I’m honestly not sure how a legitimate case can be made for the arrangement Ohio State faced against Clemson. The ACC and SEC are business partners and the game is being played on ESPN, who owns the thing for $5.7B.

I believe with 100% certainty, if it was Fox that paid $5.7B for the playoffs, OSU is the #1 seed and essentially get the “gimme” game against Oklahoma. And (2) years ago when the Big 10 was lauded as the best conference in the country, went 8-1 in Bowl games, but were left out of playoffs....yeah, that doesn’t happen. That doesn’t make it right either. It’s just the nature of the beast in the current college football landscape. There’s a reason Joel Klatt is like the “unofficial spokesman” of the Big 10......he’s employed by Fox.

And again, I don’t think I’m whining as much as I am stating facts. OSU left a lot of points on the field with essentially (3) TD drops. But that doesn’t excuse the officiating and their weird-ass mechanics of using a replay center in Birmingham rather than at the field like normal protocol. It’s possible to say OSU blew a lot of opportunities and the officiating was trash and gave appearance of a conflict of interest. Both things can be true.

What was the corruption here?

That bowl games are played in the South?

Or that LSU was number 1?

Are we so homerish as to act like there's no argument, outside of corruption, that LSU deserved it.

I remember being the beneficiary of blowing a team out to end the season and having an opposing fanbase (TCU) decry us getting in because we were the "big market" team. And no one here gave one flying fuck.

Ohio State was better than Clemson and both blew the game and got screwed, but the bitching about LSU being number 1 is...just that. Bitching.

As for all of the major Bowls being places that benefit warm weather teams, I've said countless times the Big Ten needs to stand up for itself. It's the largest conference with the most money. IT can put an end to the entire bowl season being played in the South and in the West. It just has to do so.

But what happened with LSU having a home game can still happen. It can happen in the NFL in the superbowl. Sometimes it's just dumb luck.
 
Joe Brady already gone. Hope LSU enjoyed being elite for a year.
 
What was the corruption here?

That bowl games are played in the South?

Or that LSU was number 1?

Are we so homerish as to act like there's no argument, outside of corruption, that LSU deserved it.

I remember being the beneficiary of blowing a team out to end the season and having an opposing fanbase (TCU) decry us getting in because we were the "big market" team. And no one here gave one flying fuck.

Ohio State was better than Clemson and both blew the game and got screwed, but the bitching about LSU being number 1 is...just that. Bitching.

As for all of the major Bowls being places that benefit warm weather teams, I've said countless times the Big Ten needs to stand up for itself. It's the largest conference with the most money. IT can put an end to the entire bowl season being played in the South and in the West. It just has to do so.

But what happened with LSU having a home game can still happen. It can happen in the NFL in the superbowl. Sometimes it's just dumb luck.
Here's my issue with it:

It's not that LSU was #1. That is a fine stance to take.

But it's the process that led to them being #1 that I and others have an issue with. This wasn't OSU beating Wisconsin 59-0 while TCU sat at home.

No, both LSU & OSU played top 10 teams. Both won by double digits. Based on the criteria the selection committee is SUPPOSED to be using, there is no reason for them to change spots at that time.

The issue lies with the process. It is broken as fuck as has been discussed in this section to death for years now. For fucks sake, a 2 loss non-champ Georgia finished ahead of OSU last year in the final CFP rankings. This was so egregious that it led to Gene Smith quitting the CFP committee.

There is extreme bias, perhaps even puppets, in that committee. And the defined criteria is simply not being followed.

There are very real problems with this process. An AD doesn't just publicly quit like that, citing being uncomfortable with the rankings as the reason. This isn't normal..
 
Can OSU fans ever just admit they didn’t get the job done on the field and lost the game?
Well blanket statements like this are cute and all, but 7 points were flat out stolen from OSU. In a game that they lost by 6. Forget every other questionable call, they had 7 points taken away that factually should not have been taken away.

So, no, to simply say OSU didn't play well enough to win is both ignorant and stupid.

I know taking a thought out, logical stance is an ancient practice for this society, but it's possible to recognize that OSU blew plenty of opportunities to win that game AND the refs fucked them.

Very similar to what happened to the Saints last year. They still had plenty of opportunities, even in OT, to win. But the refs completely fucked them on that PI play.

And those two plays will be replayed for decades for that reason.
 
Joe Brady already gone. Hope LSU enjoyed being elite for a year.

I mean they've won 3 national titles since the advent of the BCS and been to a 4th so like...probably not gonna suddenly just drop off the face of the Earth for 20 years.
 
I mean they've won 3 national titles since the advent of the BCS and been to a 4th so like...probably not gonna suddenly just drop off the face of the Earth for 20 years.
No, I imagine they'll go back to being 9-3 most of the time sprinkled in with one or two elite seasons per decade.
 

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