Like many of you, I have loved the game of football since I was young. Whether it was playing it, watching it, or even writing about it, there is no better sport on the planet. While I enjoy the NFL, college football was and will always be my first love. From day one, I was hooked on the traditions, pageantry, and parity.
However, it seems the things that made me fall in love with the sport are slowly starting to fade.
College football is no longer about the fans. It’s no longer about loyalty to the schools or even players, for that matter. College football and its decision-makers have become enamored with the almighty dollar.
Recently, I discussed a benefit of money becoming the focus of college football, as it’s bred more parity in the sport. While that particular effect is awesome, the influence of money is also why college football is rotting from the inside.
You’ve heard the expression: “Money is the root of all evil.”
The bills themselves are not evil; it’s what people are willing to do to get them.
Two of the biggest entities in college athletics—the Big Ten Conference and SEC Conference—have proven in recent years that they’re willing to do just about anything to stuff their pockets with more cash than the next guy.
Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger published a bombshell report on Sunday evening, revealing that the future of college football is solely in the hands of the SEC and Big Ten, as they’ll ultimately control what the College Football Playoff will look like going forward.
“According to most who have viewed the memorandum of understanding from last spring, the SEC and Big Ten hold sole discretion on the future CFP format starting in 2026, the beginning of the CFP’s new six-year television agreement with ESPN that runs through the 2031 playoff,” Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports writes.
What is crazy is that this isn’t the first time they have threatened to do this. Last spring, the leaders of the Big Ten and the SEC threatened to create their own postseason system if they were not granted a majority of CFP revenue and full authority over the playoff format.
Sure, the new proposal would give the Big 12 and ACC two automatic bids for a 14-team playoff, but it would also provide the Big Ten and SEC four bids each. Does anyone actually believe that’s what’s best for college football? Anyone outside of ESPN, that is.
The SEC hasn’t won a national championship in the last two seasons, and in fact, they haven’t even had a team represent the conference in the big game since Georgia played TCU at the end of the 2022 season. That seems like a lifetime ago when you consider that the conference has had so much success over the years.
From 2006 to 2012, the Southeastern Conference won seven straight national championships. And from 2013 to 2022 (excluding 2014), the SEC had at least one team in the championship game.
Don’t you think Commissioner Greg Sankey is upset about that? He wants as many teams as possible from his conference to get automatic bids no matter what, and the Big Ten feels the same way. They believe that they are head and shoulders above everyone else. They feel the rest of the conferences should feel lucky enough to share them same field as them.
The Big Ten and the SEC don’t care about the sport. Sure, they can say all the right things to the national media, and of course, they will just nod and go along with whatever they say. But behind closed doors, I would be willing to bet just about anything that nobody in those meetings is talking about what is best for the sport, nor do they care.
Just look what they did to other conferences. Do you think Texas and Oklahoma randomly decided to leave the Big 12 for the SEC? It was planned, and there were meetings between those schools and the SEC. And while it may not have been proven, don’t forget that former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby accused ESPN of manipulating the Big Ten and SEC to go after Big 12 schools. And do you know what? He was right. If you don’t believe that ESPN had something to do with conference realignment, then I have some oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you.
The only thing they care about is how much money they can put in their pocket, and they could care less how they do it. Unfortunately, this is the world we live in because everything is about money. The Big Ten and SEC are willing to kill college football as we know it as long as their wallets can get fatter than what they already are because they are a bunch of greedy people in suits who pretend to give a shit about college football.
If those two want to take their ball and go home, let them. If they want to have a pissing contest while ESPN watches, then, by all means, go for it. It’s about time that someone stands up to those idiots and tells them to stick their ideas where the sun doesn’t shine. I, for one, am not going to sit here in silence and let the Big Ten and SEC kill the sport we all love. The time for playing nice is over, and if they want to do their own thing, then tell them to leave and not let hit their door hit their ass on the way out.
