Meh-chigan is the playoff impostor; and bravo to the 'Noles for making the Orange Bowl a no-lose scrimmage game
Meh-chigan is the playoff impostor; and bravo to the 'Noles for making the Orange Bowl a no-lose scrimmage game
But mostly, take heart: the white knights of private equity will soon kill all conferences; create a 32-team mini NFL; and bring us the first major American relegation sport. I’m here for it.
This is my on-the-field quality ranking of the college football product Power 5 conferences for 2023, the last year that college football “conferences,” as we’ve known them, will exist. More on that in a second.
PAC 12
ACC
SEC
Big 12
Big 10
Now, here is the ranking that actually matters for a birth in the 2023 playoff: the 2022 revenue generated by each conference. Note in bold the most crucial facts of these two rankings in understanding this year’s hilarity:
Big 10 ($845M)
SEC ($802M)
ACC ($617M)
PAC 12 ($580M)
Big 12 ($480.6M)
That second list is the reason FSU isn’t in the playoff on the “most deserving” test and Georgia isn’t in the playoff on the “best team/eye test” fiction. And this reason only gets bigger moving ahead:
The Big Ten followed suit in 2022, agreeing to a seven-year deal with NBC, CBS and Fox Sports that spans from 2023-30 and is worth more than $7 billion, believed to be the most lucrative in college sports history.
Mind you, these rights contracts are just the income part of the equation.
It would be fascinating to see the capital/asset/donor valuation of each university football franchise. I bet there’s a big gap between Ohio State, Michigan, and everybody else (including you, S.E.C blue bloods.) I suspect the franchise valuation question may have mattered even more than conference income in the playoff discussion — as I’ll explain in a second.
But let me just say this clearly: in a sports business, the most successful franchise isn’t the one that wins the championship, it’s the one with the highest valuation.
That’s why no one who is paid by the college football business and capital model seems willing to say the obvious out loud: Michigan should have been left out of the playoff before FSU or Georgia; but Fox/college football capital owners would not allow an undefeated Michigan to be left out.
It wasn’t really Bama and the SEC that stuck it to FSU; it was Michigan, the terrible Big 10, and Fox. It was the owners of capital. They stuck it to Georgia, too.
It’s pretty amusing to watch a bunch of “hardboiled” libertarian capitalists pretend to go all “Occupy ESPN” because economic power chose valuation over performance. Welcome to America, bros. And I’m sure that Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott and Ashley Moody, having now seen how the behavior of wealth punishes and cheats the economically and socially vulnerable, will start to rethink … well, never mind.
LOL.
Make the case for Meh-chigan, Herbie
The unctuous face-turned-heel formerly known as Kirk Herbstreit is still all-capping and double exclamation-pointing over hiding behind Jordan Travis’ agony rather than just owning his own truth like a man — that he was dutifully riding to dump FSU for the sake of capital long before Jordan Travis got hurt.
Note my bolding on this recent Herbie tweet sent in response to someone who pointed that out — and asked why:
"Because Alabama is BETTER!! Period!" he replied. "So is Texas. So is Michigan. So is Washington. So is Oregon. So is Georgia…"
"If FSU doesn’t like itbis [sic] "The BEST 4" tell the conference commissioners to change the protocol to "MOST DESERVING… Don’t like it-change it."
Here’s fun little chart with which to mock Herbstreit.
It’s the FSU and Michigan schedules side-by-side. I’ve tracked which opponent was better each week (based on my very objective eye test); which actual win was better each week (based on my very objective eye test); and whether each week’s opponents could reach the ACC title game or win the Big 10 West. (Garnet is for Noles; blue for Wolverines; black for a wash.) As you can see, FSU played more “better” teams and had more “better” wins than Meh-chigan, by quite a margin. And I think I’ve been sympathetic to Michigan here.
The fact that AP voters — not just the CFP committee — ranked a Meh-chigan team bleeding oil on offense down the stretch with its starters at #1 shows the power that capital wields to make people lie to themselves and the public. (Michigan should be #6. Washington should be #1; and I expect the Huskies to win the playoff.)
There is an honest performance case to be made for leaving FSU out of the playoff (I don’t agree with it); but there is no honest case to make for the actual field chosen instead.
There is literally nothing — no performance on the field — that anyone can even pretend to point to say that Michigan performed better on the field than FSU or Georgia. So no one has. Everyone has simply retreated to tautology. Michigan is in the playoff because Michigan is in the playoff. Michigan is #1; so Michigan is #1.
Herbstreit and others made arguments against FSU and for basically everybody else, except Michigan. That’s because there isn’t one in the “best team” beauty contest sense criteria they pretended to use.
Fox’s capital simply guaranteed a spot for the undefeated champion of its historically bad product
In addition to playing more “better” teams and having more “better” wins, let’s review all the other ways Meh-chigan’s “most deserving” and “best team” resumes fall short of FSU’s.
Michigan played two teams that probably would have made the ACC championship game. (I’m not totally sold on Penn State.) FSU played six teams that were definitely better than Iowa when the ‘Noles played those teams and so likely would have won the extraordinarily awful Big 10 West.
Michigan played the seven worst teams in the worst Power 5 conference. Michigan’s five-game, mid-year stretch of Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan State, and Purdue is the worst 5-team conference stretch any Power 5 conference champion has ever played.
And despite playing the seven worst teams in the worst Power 5 conference, Michigan chose not to schedule any Power 5 teams in non-conference. By contrast, FSU played and beat convincingly LSU and Florida in “neutral” site and away games.
Moreover, the best quarterback Michigan played all year just transferred to Syracuse from Ohio State. So Michigan’s best win came at home by 6 against Syracuse’s QB. FSU’s best win was a 21-point neutral site drubbing of the Heisman-winning quarterback, which included a garbage time LSU touchdown.
The argument for Michigan isn’t an argument at all.
It’s just an economic reality: the Big 10, although a historically terrible on-the-field football conference, is part of the FOX/ESPN short-term college football TV duopoly. The flagship representative of Fox’s product gets in the playoff unless it has two losses. This wasn’t even about ratings as much as just a raw duopoly power play.
The untested Wolverines will have no answers for Alabama’s weapons on offense or defense — and will likely get dumped even more unceremoniously than they did last year by TCU and Georgia the year before.
But even if Michigan scores more points, Alabama is clearly better. Right, Herbie?
Two conferences mean *no* conferences
Meanwhile, FSU’s ACC lawsuit isn’t really against the ACC — and FSU isn’t really the plaintiff. Indeed, the suit itself — and eventual settlement for leaving the ACC it will produce — is apparently financed by private equity, which sees massive untapped value in college football.
At least that’s what Bud Elliot said on the “Cover 3” podcast; so I’m an expert now. LOL. Seriously, I do enjoy “Cover 3” quite a bit. I think it’s the best, smartest, and most refreshingly honest college football discussion show. And Bud is a ‘Nole.
The FSU suit challenges the idea, on behalf of private equity, that any conference can punish/restrain its high capital football franchise colleges on behalf of its low capital football franchise colleges. So Mississippi State and Arkansas and Indiana and Northwestern and Vandy better pay very close attention. You’re wearing the SEC and Big 10 patch only until you’re not.
It makes total sense when you think it through.
Private equity is gradually maneuvering all the valuable college football franchises into a two-conference duopoly. But the Big 10 and SEC aren’t really conferences; they’re holding companies for portfolio businesses. Sorry, SEC honks: no one cares about your patch; they care about Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Georgia, etc. They care about high capital franchises — not the S.E.C. logo.
To paraphrase the immortal words of Rorschach from Watchmen: private equity and the TV/content networks aren’t locked in here with you, SEC and Big 10; you’re locked in here with them.
I suspect the endgame is private equity negotiating down the cost of replacing the conference system entirely with a 32-team (or similar) college “Premier league” and a relegation component. You can play your way out of the Premier league by sucking; and you play your way it into by overachieving.
To that, I say: bring it.
It beats the hell out of what private equity does to housing and health care.
Introducing the college football Premier League and Challenger League
Here’s how you might start it, based on a combination of on-field performance and franchise valuation. The first year would be the most controversial because it’s not based on merit. Then, it’s (mostly) about field performance, which would continually sort itself by the outcome of games.
I’d go back to an 11-game regular season schedule to try to save a little wear and tear on the kids; because these are titanic regular season games, with a playoff on top. But private equity would probably demand more games. So you could do this in 36-team units, too.
Every division is a round-robin tournament. Each division winner of that tournament gets automatic bid to the playoff. I’d reduce the play off to an 8-team — with four wildcards, regardless of division, chosen by some subjective criteria, which is probably the biggest hole in this model. (Again, private equity would probably want to stay at 12.)
You play your seven division team games — then four teams from anywhere in the college football landscape. Non-division performance/scheduling would be huge for the playoff wild card choices.
Crucially, the last place team in each division gets relegated each year. If we started this in 2023, Florida, Texas A&M, Wisconsin, and USC (maybe Iowa) would have been the likely relegations. The top four teams — or maybe just the four division winners — of the Challenger League swap spots with them.
I’m open to many specific different approaches to how relegation and elevation would work, but you could have these 32-team team leagues all the way down, with relegation and elevation in play for all of them.
And contemplate for just a second, southern college football fan, the round robin tournament of the Premiere League Southeast division. Holy cow!
Look at all the classic rivalries this allows to return — LSU/Tulane, Texas/Texas A&M, etc. can play each year again. Think about FSU and Florida playing to relegate one or the other at the end of a season. Or Texas and Texas A&M.
This approach, purged of conferences, but anchored in geography: 1) makes the regular season more epic than it has ever been 2) restores rivalries that conference bullshit has destroyed 3) gives every level of team something to strive for and/or fear 4) maybe challenges the NFL as the most intensely followed sports league in America. 5) maybe generates enough money for the players and coaches to threaten the NFL on raw player economics, which might cause the NFL to fight it.
So, overall, I guess I’m rooting for FSU and private equity to destroy conferences.
Indeed, if you want to get really conspiratorial: it wouldn’t surprise me if private equity dudes are responsible for the both playoff snub and FSU’s lawsuit. They serve the same medium and long-term capital interests.
If FSU’s scout team gets within 21 of Georgia, we’re national champs!
In the immediate aftermath of the snub, I wrote this:
The Orange Bowl game between #5 FSU and #6 Georgia is a meaningless, glorified Harlem Globetrotters-style exhibition game designed to enrich the same people who just screwed FSU.
No player with any hint of an NFL future to risk should take part in ESPN’s Orange Bowl broadcast. That’s the first thing I would I tell Mike Norvell and Kirby Smart if they even to were ask. (LOL).
And then I would suggest a way to sabotage ESPN and the corrupt powers of the sport while selfishly helping improve both programs for next year.
So I am overjoyed by the fact that FSU opt-outs have turned the Orange Bowl into precisely the type of labor action I was hoping for — and rendered ridiculous college football capital’s consolation prize for its behavior.
I think I could almost see Mike Norvell smirk when he got asked a question about all the great FSU players not playing. Hey, the Committee and Herbie and the rest told our kids the season ended when Jordan broke his leg. We take them at their word. Should we not?
Norvell now gets a free developmental game, with no consequence to the legacy of the team. And if, by some miracle, FSU’s scout team beats a bored Georgia team with absolutely nothing to play for, Tallahassee will have a national championship parade down Tennessee Street.
I’m just bitter that Herbie or Greg McElroy chickened out of doing the game.
The most American sport
I also wrote this recently:
It’s important to remember that none of this is remotely important — in any real sense. Entertainment is not important. But college football outrage is much more enjoyable to indulge and write about than some of the other terrible things afoot on our planet at the moment. It’s a small tragedy.
The only real human stakes here are injuries to young men — many of whom lack access to capital — that may cost them a chance at life-altering windfalls.
The transfer portal and NIL have lowered those stakes a little; but these young men are depreciating capital assets, not young men, to the powers that run college football. In this case, a terrible injury itself was the asset.
The only thing real in this discussion are Jordan Travis’s shattered bones.
I care about college football in way I care about Busch Gardens. I enjoy the roller coaster thrills, have nice memories of both with my family, and find the engineering — mechanical, social, and economic — quite fascinating. College football is the most uniquely American sport, by far.
In fact, I wrote a whole book of essays — pretty well reviewed — that I called Seminole Wars, in which the Faulknerian sociology of college football — particularly southern college football — was a unifying theme.
But let’s be clear: if Busch Gardens or college football ever went away, I would not struggle to fill whatever time and attention and money I spend on either.
It’s a lot less now than it was when I was a kid.
I’m writing about college football today mostly because theme parks are too crowded to visit between Christmas and New Year’s Day — and because my other favorite past-time is publicly puncturing the fake personal mythology of cynical suck-ups who use other people for their own interests.
You don’t have to sacrifice all your dignity to capital, my dudes
The most vile part of this entire kerfuffle is the shameless use of Jordan Travis’ terrible injury by the squealers college football’s Animal Farm. And it didn’t stop with the Committee selection day.
I had the misfortune of stumbling upon the Herbie awards one night while flicking through channels just in time to see this gross expression of fake Jordan Travis love.
LOL, right. The “ultimate Herbie” wasn’t good enough to keep FSU in the playoff over SEC and Big 10 champ before he got hurt. And yet, the final image of the “Herbie” spot has Jordan lying in a manger. (LOL, not really. But almost.)
McElroy did a version of the same thing on his incredibly whiny podcast, which I listened to for the first time in the hope of enjoying some delicious, self-indulgent defensiveness. I was not disappointed.
Look, all Herbie and McElroy and the other squealers had to do to retain some dignity was point at the conference valuations and say: Scoreboard.
Instead, they pretended to be deeply saddened by a young man’s terrible injury; collapsed into intellectual incoherence about their only area of supposed expertise (on-field performance); and then went all snowflake when people laughed at them or asked them logical questions.
Yeah, Michigan and the Big 10 aren’t deserving, but that’s capitalism …
They would say literally anything to avoid saying that — which is a common personal weakness of public capitalists.
Indeed, I wonder if “College Gameday” ever comes back to Tallahassee. Maybe Herbie gets a permanent veto, citing the inevitability of profane chants and signs aimed him and his dog. I’ve long ago given up watching that show — or any other hype show. I’m a games-only guy now.
But I might make an exception for that spectacle.
I do like seeing prominent people endure the public consequences of weak cynicism. It’s a vice I enjoy — kinda like college football itself.