Not exactly WRU, but still…

I’ve seen a fair amount of chatter recently that Georgia’s coaches, Smart and Monken in particular, have had to spend time explaining to wide receiver recruits that Georgia’s offense isn’t wideout adverse.  (Burton’s departure to Alabama didn’t help the narrative, to put it mildly.)  So, in light of that, I found this stat kind of interesting.

https://twitter.com/jontweetssports/status/1545924512092397569

Does it matter?  I dunno, but it should.

The golden, rule.

That I have to use Dennis Dodd as a foil to Matt Hayes’ nonsense should be telling, but, damn, this is the current reality college football faces:

Can a credible playoff can be staged without Oregon and Washington being allowed to compete for a spot?

ESPN sort of answered that question when it thought nothing last summer of throwing the Big 12 on the scrap heap as Texas and Oklahoma moved to the SEC.

The network was telling us without telling us that the world wouldn’t end if the likes of Oklahoma State, Iowa State and TCU, among others, did not get a chance to finish in the top four of the College Football Playoff. The question was further answered when the Pac-12 was marginalized last week.

Ratings matter. They matter more when a 9-3 Oklahoma from the SEC might have a better chance of getting into a playoff than a 12-1 Oklahoma State from the Big 12.

One industry source called Oregon and Washington “tweeners” in realignment. They are certainly not USC and UCLA in terms of branding and marketability, but they’re not Arizona and Arizona State, either. That’s what realignment has revealed: The real things that make college football relevant to the only people that matter — TV executives, programmers, advertisers — are being exposed in increasing and specific detail.  [Emphasis added.]

And that reality is that the noise made at Greg Sankey’s bully pulpit will always be drowned out by the sound of TV money being deposited in conference bank accounts.  Anyone who believes otherwise is hopelessly naïve.

Today, in punditry

So, I see this Matt Hayes piece, entitled “Greg Sankey has the power to save college football. It’s time to wield it”, and figure it’s about offering the 12-team CFP expansion plan as a way to cool things down on the realignment front.  (It probably wouldn’t work, although I expect Sankey’s got more buyers for that than he did before.)

Wrong, bacon breath.  Matt’s gone way out there with this:

It’s time for SEC commissioner Greg Sankey to seize control of the sudden uncertainty in college football expansion with a definitive declaration.

The SEC is sticking at 16 teams.

Forget everything you’ve heard or read or seen. Forget about the ACC being raided, or a flirtation with Notre Dame or one last dip into the state of Texas.

The SEC is sticking at 16 teams.

Sure, man.  ‘Cause Greg Sankey.

Knowing all that, and knowing he and the SEC are standing on the cliff as the tip of the spear, Sankey should declare loudly and proudly that college football as we know it isn’t dead. The Playoff isn’t dead, and NIL and the transfer portal won’t take it down, either.

Embrace the moment, embrace the power of the position he built and earned — and the bully pulpit where he stands — and declare the SEC, the one true stabilizing force in all of college football, stands behind the current structure of the game.

Yeah, that’s it, Matt.  The one true stabilizing force in all of college football is the conference that unlatched the barn door that’s led to the latest free for all conference realignment farce we’re watching play out.  But I guess since Sankey’s got his, that gives him the gravitas to shut the door before any more ponies decide to bolt for greener pastures.

The truly detached from reality part of this is his belief that such a move would somehow — and I’m quoting here — “force the Big Ten to follow”.  Seriously?  As if either the Big Ten or SEC would turn down an overture to join from Notre Dame for the greater good of college football.

It’s amazing that anybody could post crap like this with a straight face.  It’s as if Hayes has completely forgotten how Sankey’s last shot at the bully pulpit was strangled at birth by three other P5 commissioners, including the one he apparently believes would now have no choice but to follow Sankey’s lead.  Genius take, dude.