Some interesting comments
https://triblive.com/sports/mark-ma...e-football-used-to-be-not-what-it-has-become/
College football is beyond screwed up and not worth paying attention to unless you’re a fan of one of the chosen few and can look past being on the grifter’s end of a con game.
So it’s a lot like following MLB.
College football’s latest carny move is the SEC’s absorption of Oklahoma and Texas at the quiet behest of ESPN, which wants to see the Big 12 dissolve by way of shedding rights fees that the network currently pays the conference. The Big 12 signed a 13-year, $2.6-billion deal with ESPN and Fox in 2012. The agreement is back-loaded, and the Big 12 title game costs extra.
The Big 12 filed a cease-and-desist against ESPN, accusing the network of steering schools to other conferences.
It’s a difficult story for ESPN to objectively cover. Fortunately, ESPN stopped objectively covering most things years ago. (ESPN’s leverage over college football is overwhelming, not least because ESPN has exclusive rights to the playoff, which likely expands to 12 teams in 2023.)
This isn’t the end. The SEC will keep poaching teams in its quest to become the NFL of college football. Wait till they kick out Vanderbilt and add Southern Cal. That’s not exactly “Southeast.”
But the NCAA is both powerless and gutless. The SEC runs college football.
Alabama quarterback Bryce Young has yet to start a collegiate game, but he’s already agreed to roughly $1 million in name, image and likeness rights deals. Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett, by contrast, got himself and his offensive linemen a free meal every week.
Ohio State recruit Quinn Ewers, a top-rated quarterback from Texas, is skipping his senior season of high school ball and will start college early so he can start pocketing NIL money right away.
College football is becoming more and more like the NFL. That ignores and compromises its main selling point, namely that it’s not like the NFL.
It’s all good for Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and the like.
It’s not so good for Pitt.
Pitt badly needs what college football used to be.
Pitt just isn’t a proper ACC school. Any Pitt fan who says he/she cares about the ACC is lying. Pitt doesn’t have a single rival in the ACC, nor a game to look forward to.
Pitt football has no buzz. The most highly anticipated events are the sporadic nonconference games vs. Penn State and West Virginia. Those games were once the anchor of Pitt’s program but mean considerably less now because of their diluted and occasional nature.
Pitt has no on-campus stadium. Leaving and demolishing Pitt Stadium in 1999 was a crippling mistake that even the most lame-brained saw coming a mile away. Pitt football committed suicide when that decision was made. Petersen Events Center and college basketball don’t remotely matter by comparison.
Truly blue-chip WPIAL prospects don’t dot Pitt’s roster anymore and won’t. When the next Tony Dorsett, Dan Marino or Bill Fralic comes along, he won’t go to Pitt.
Pitt needs to be in an Eastern conference playing meaningful games against legit rivals. The value of Big East football wasn’t realized till it was gone.
But Big East football is dead and has been since 2012. It’s not coming back.
Rivalries created by geographic proximity and tradition are the lifeblood of college football. That’s still the case in truly elite college football markets despite conference realignment. Ohio State and Michigan always will play. So will Alabama and Auburn. Oklahoma and Texas, too. Those schools have their cake and eat it, too.
Pitt has got nothing.
College football takes from the small and gives to the big. That’s more evident every day and just isn’t going to stop
https://triblive.com/sports/mark-ma...e-football-used-to-be-not-what-it-has-become/
College football is beyond screwed up and not worth paying attention to unless you’re a fan of one of the chosen few and can look past being on the grifter’s end of a con game.
So it’s a lot like following MLB.
College football’s latest carny move is the SEC’s absorption of Oklahoma and Texas at the quiet behest of ESPN, which wants to see the Big 12 dissolve by way of shedding rights fees that the network currently pays the conference. The Big 12 signed a 13-year, $2.6-billion deal with ESPN and Fox in 2012. The agreement is back-loaded, and the Big 12 title game costs extra.
The Big 12 filed a cease-and-desist against ESPN, accusing the network of steering schools to other conferences.
It’s a difficult story for ESPN to objectively cover. Fortunately, ESPN stopped objectively covering most things years ago. (ESPN’s leverage over college football is overwhelming, not least because ESPN has exclusive rights to the playoff, which likely expands to 12 teams in 2023.)
This isn’t the end. The SEC will keep poaching teams in its quest to become the NFL of college football. Wait till they kick out Vanderbilt and add Southern Cal. That’s not exactly “Southeast.”
But the NCAA is both powerless and gutless. The SEC runs college football.
Alabama quarterback Bryce Young has yet to start a collegiate game, but he’s already agreed to roughly $1 million in name, image and likeness rights deals. Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett, by contrast, got himself and his offensive linemen a free meal every week.
Ohio State recruit Quinn Ewers, a top-rated quarterback from Texas, is skipping his senior season of high school ball and will start college early so he can start pocketing NIL money right away.
College football is becoming more and more like the NFL. That ignores and compromises its main selling point, namely that it’s not like the NFL.
It’s all good for Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and the like.
It’s not so good for Pitt.
Pitt badly needs what college football used to be.
Pitt just isn’t a proper ACC school. Any Pitt fan who says he/she cares about the ACC is lying. Pitt doesn’t have a single rival in the ACC, nor a game to look forward to.
Pitt football has no buzz. The most highly anticipated events are the sporadic nonconference games vs. Penn State and West Virginia. Those games were once the anchor of Pitt’s program but mean considerably less now because of their diluted and occasional nature.
Pitt has no on-campus stadium. Leaving and demolishing Pitt Stadium in 1999 was a crippling mistake that even the most lame-brained saw coming a mile away. Pitt football committed suicide when that decision was made. Petersen Events Center and college basketball don’t remotely matter by comparison.
Truly blue-chip WPIAL prospects don’t dot Pitt’s roster anymore and won’t. When the next Tony Dorsett, Dan Marino or Bill Fralic comes along, he won’t go to Pitt.
Pitt needs to be in an Eastern conference playing meaningful games against legit rivals. The value of Big East football wasn’t realized till it was gone.
But Big East football is dead and has been since 2012. It’s not coming back.
Rivalries created by geographic proximity and tradition are the lifeblood of college football. That’s still the case in truly elite college football markets despite conference realignment. Ohio State and Michigan always will play. So will Alabama and Auburn. Oklahoma and Texas, too. Those schools have their cake and eat it, too.
Pitt has got nothing.
College football takes from the small and gives to the big. That’s more evident every day and just isn’t going to stop
