I asked Dan Hurley the same question I asked Tom Izzo: why does the media have a problem with coaches coaching players hard?
Hurley: "Society has gotten soft in a lot of ways... The real world is tough and cruel... I'm preparing my players for life."
Expansion alone isn’t the answer.
Out of $48 million that will be paid to the 12 CFP teams (and distributed among their conferences) $32 million will go to schools where ESPN fully or almost fully owns the media rights (SEC, ACC, AAC, and SBC)
Only $16 million will go to schools in conferences where ESPN doesn’t own the rights (B1G and Big 12). ESPN also doesn’t own the media rights for Notre Dame.
Once you understand that, the double standards applying the selection criteria make sense:
Of course we shouldn’t penalize Alabama for getting blown out in its CCG—the ESPN owned SEC makes ESPN more money!
Of course we should penalize BYU for getting blown out in its CCG. The Big 12 won’t make ESPN more money! Of course the Big 12 is only a 1 bid league!
And even better—penalizing BYU means we can make an excuse to swap Notre Dame (for which ESPN doesn’t own the rights) for Miami (for which ESPN DOES own the rights).
Result: ESPN can better line its own pockets and invest in its own product.
Why does all that matter?
If we only expand the playoffs without structurally separating ESPN’s profits from playoff selection, the wrongs, the double standards, and the ridiculous narratives will continue, just on a larger scale.
Instead, we’ll simply see 8 SEC teams in, 3-4 B1G, 1-2 Big 12, and likely 2 ACC despite that conferences’ clear weaknesses (whether the ACC is even still a P4 conference is a debate for another day, but the fact that a bad 5 loss Duke won the CCG is compelling evidence that it’s probably not).
Until ESPN’s profits are wholly severed from the playoff selection process, ESPN’s CFB corruption will remain King.
National KW Kicking Showcase
🏈 This showcase used brand new balls that had zero prep done to them 🏈
‼️Won kickoffs for the 2027 age group‼️
💣 Winning kickoff 70 YD 3.96 💣
FGS
60 ❌ (pushed it about half a foot right)
55✅
50 ✅
45✅
40 ✅
35 ✅
@dukeslegal@THENWF And I hear you. However big names don’t always repeat success. That’s all I am saying. I hated the Napier hire from the jump. But I also know big names don’t always equal success. That’s it