Turns out America didn’t have a problem tuning in to an all-SEC national title game.
ESPN’s presentation of the epic College Football Playoff National Championship between Georgia and Alabama (Jan. 8 at 8 p.m.) delivered a massive 16.7 overnight on its Nielsen-rated networks (ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU) as part of its MegaCast production, up 9% from last season’s thrilling College Football Playoff National Championship on the same three Nielsen-rated networks. The ESPN-only presentation delivered a monster 16.0 overnight for the Crimson Tide’s overtime victory, up 8% from the ESPN-only presentation last season, a game which featured a dramatic, last minute touchdown to win the game.
I guess the pundits jonesing for an eight-team field who were predicting doom-and-gloom boredom will have to fall back on a “poor ol’ Central Florida” argument. Sucks when a narrative doesn’t pan out…
Get The Picture 
When does Bama have to play UCF?
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4 media members voted UCF #1 in the final AP poll
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Bless their hearts.
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I assume that asshat Mike Bianchi from the Orlando Sentinel was one of them.
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Not sure if Bianchi has a vote, but the Orlando Sentinel FSU beat writer was one of the four. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the Ucf championship book he and the Sentinel are publishing or the fact that he was tweeting anti-SEC snark like “oh yay, another all-SEC championship field goal exhibition.”
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it’s probably posted elsewhere, but I don’t think I would feel this way today if we had played UCF.
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Let’s face it…the SEC is the AAA minor league for the NFL. With a few exceptions, the rest of the P5 is AA or worse.
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I’m declaring Georgia the pre BCS national champion as our SECCG and Rose Bowl win proved that the final poll (were it taken last week) would declare us champions.
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YESSSS!!!
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Bama would do it!
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Imagine viewership if the game was shifted to a Saturday or Sunday and started promptly at 6:00 pm.
As much as I love cfb, and always have, it’s fricken insane to have this game on a Monday night and starting at 8:20-ish. The stupidity of the scheduling is off the charts.
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Preach it, brother. I’m in the central time zone, and I still went to bed late. Put it on the weekend where it belongs, and put 10 days between the semi’s and the final.
But it was an exciting game. I know 95% of the viewers were watching to see Bama lose. Sorry we couldn’t deliver for them.
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The problem is the powers that be don’t want to go up against the NFL playoffs. Therefore, Monday night in prime time is where it’s always going to be.
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Then have the game on Friday night. Doesn’t interfere with NFL, and way less people work on Saturday’s.
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Friday from what I understand is the worst night of the week for TV advertising because audiences are typically smaller. I don’t see the powers that be moving their version of the Super Bowl to a poor night for viewership. The championship game for March Madness is on Monday as well. They know a Monday night is going to draw more eyeballs than any other night during the week.
I may be wrong about all of that, but that seems to be the conventional wisdom.
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Correct, better for the host city too…more hotel rooms sold etc…
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Amen. And have it in a venue that knows how to get fans IN & out & does so in a courteous manner.
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You can blame Trump on the getting in part. Getting out was no issue for me.
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Just the opposite for me.
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New venue needs some significant design changes in the offseason.
Build more ramps, less escalators, and more access points or liability costs are going to bankrupt the management company and related parties.
Escalators are dangerous when the crowd backs up at one end. No where for people to go when they are thrust into the backs of people who are unable to move. Saw plenty of that last night. Hopefully there were no serious injuries.
Completion of the dome demolition will not solve the access point issues by itself. There is a need to acknowledge the design flaws and solve them.
It’s easy to see the very dangerous situation if the building ever has to be evacuated.
Also, don’t get me started on how MARTA mismanages trains at the Lindbergh station. Clusterf*ck is too kind of a word to describe it.
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If I didn’t have a rooting interest, I’d love watching UGA football.
Incredible, exciting games, and a morbid interest in seeing how they will shoot themselves in the face in the end
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This is exactly what all my Texas “friends” do and they next day is just awful with the false sympathy and tired platitudes. Fun times being a Bulldog fan. Maybe I should move to Montana.
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I’m not in favor of expansion, but one thing I do think needs to change is that a team needs to win its conference to be considered for a playoff spot. Conference championship games are already de-facto semifinals, so why not appease the expansion people and make it official? Yes, I’m fully aware that that the four ‘best’ teams might not win their conference. To which I would argue that ‘best’, in the absence of a fully objective post season system (which major college football will never, and should never, have), is always going to be subjective based on each individual’s preferences and biases.
Alabama was actually REWARDED for not winning their conference. Every single other CFP participant played an extra de-facto semifinal game against a tough opponent in the conference championships, while Alabama got a bye. This doesn’t mean that Alabama wasn’t one of the four best (they obviously were), just that we desperately need some more objectivity in the selection process. This change would’ve at least meant that UCF was in the conversion, and while they weren’t deserving of a playoff spot, I fully believe we would’ve avoided this UCF National Champions nonsense and at least signaled a possible path for the G5, thus removing one major talking point of the expansionistas.
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Yeah, that’s Bama’s second MNC without winning the conference. Pretty dumb.
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Eliminates ND, so that’s a positive.
Pretends the 2 best teams can’t come from the same conference, which is directly NOT in Georgia’s best interests.
buzz
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As if Georgia is going to get the benefit of the doubt the way that Bama does. If our resume had been as paper thin as Bama’s was this year there’s no way they don’t put Ohio State in ahead of us.
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Ohio State had 2 losses, both ass-whoopings. Smart is building that rep as we speak. I get that in America 2018, cutting off your nose to spite an oppoent’s face is all the rage, but a conference champ requirement is just stupid. The SEC is most likely to get two, and with the way Smart os stockpiling talent over the rest of the SEC East, that team has a real shot at being Georgia.
But hey, if you want to lower Georgia’s chances of ending up in the playoffs to get back at 2011 and 2017 Alabama, have at it.
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I only tuned in to see Trump…
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he knows the words to the National Anthem.
Not all of them…just the “the” parts.
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I have the best memory for all of the parts.
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Bring on 8, even maybe 12, even maybe 16.
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Georgia played in 4 national title implication types games over the last 8 weeks and won 2 of them. It’s hard to complain about that.
If you are even marginally interested in college football you have gotten some great games this year.
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I believe the country watched because they WANTED to see Alabam/Saban lose
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