Texas A&M’s Bobby Petrino wins the Broyles Award: Jimbo Fisher’s decision to turn his offense over to Petrino, a former Arkansas and Louisville coach, reeked of desperation after last season’s 5-7 debacle. What if it actually works? The Aggies ranked 13th in the SEC in scoring (22.8), 11th in rushing (141.8 yards) and 10th in passing (219.4 yards) last season. Not good. With quarterback Conner Weigman taking the next step with one of the league’s better receiver corps, the Aggies should be much better on offense.
Petrino winning the award that Todd Monken should have one last season would be something of a cosmic joke. On us. And probably on the next athletic director dumb enough to give him another head coaching job based on that.
The Dawgs aren’t scheduled to play in Week Zero, but I got a couple of emails over the weekend asking if I was going to provide ticket exchange posts this season, so here we go.
If you have tickets to sell or are looking to buy, make your wishes known in the comments. Please be specific about what you’re looking for and remember to leave contact information in your post.
Also, don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just providing a platform for commerce here; I don’t guarantee anyone’s offers. Make sure caveat emptor is your friend.
My last post reminded me of something: remember all the folks here who rather patronizingly insisted when I warned about postseason expansion being unchecked that there was simply no way the playoffs would expand beyond eight teams because that was the logical number? I sure do.
Welp, Bill Hancock’s masters shot right past that sucker, didn’t they?
When it comes to CFP expansion, the only logic that matters is whether there’s a broadcast partner ready to stroke a bigger check to pay for the next round. Knowing what we know now, tell me I’m wrong.
If the former five-star recruit can keep performing at a high level on the practice field, the Vols should expect to continue its renewed dominance in the SEC for years to come, and Iamaleava has the unique opportunity to be the face of Tennessee’s efforts.
“Renewed dominance”? Their first good season in years and they’re acting like they’re the team that’s won back to back natties.
Everything about the collegiate sports model seems ripe for radical changes. But not quite yet.
I’m not dumb enough to blame anyone for where things are at other than those in charge of the sport I love, whose lust for money trumps everything else from tradition to geography. That said, there’s a significant chunk of the national media that, in their endless hunt for the next new shiny toy, deserves to be tarred with the aiding and abetting brush.
The sad thing is, in a moment of honesty, many of ’em will acknowledge there’s a price to be paid for conference realignment and playoff expansion. In the linked article, Rece Davis provides a good example of that:
“I’m resigned to it,” said ESPN’s Rece Davis on The AP Top 25 College Football Podcast. “There are parts of it I will miss very much because I consider myself, at heart, a traditionalist. I love the nostalgia of the sport. Maybe, save, baseball, I don’t think there is another sport that conjures up that type of deep emotional connection that college football does. And we’re losing some of that.”
… All this change on the horizon has some fans uneasy about the future of the sport they love.
Davis isn’t too worried.
“Once the games start, except for moments of wistfulness among certain fanbases and certain broadcasters or journalists … it’s not going to matter,” Davis said. “Because the games are going to be a great as they have ever been.”
The sad thing is that sometime in the future, when they remake the sport again for more profit, Davis, or somebody like him, will express a similar sentiment as college football continues its journey farther and farther away from its roots.
Which is why I’m gonna cherish the hell out of the 2023 season.
Interestingly, the Dawgs are given a better percentage shot of winning the SEC than is the Tide, as well as slightly better odds of making the CFP field, but don’t rate as highly as ‘Bama in either making or winning the title game (although it’s pretty close).
Pretty good story here on CBS’ last season broadcasting SEC games.
The Southeastern Conference is leaving CBS after this season, and it won’t be taking the intro song with it.
But the song is not the only thing lost in the conference’s 10-year, $3 billion move to ABC and ESPN. It’s mostly a loss of a historic relationship.
It’s pretty easy to crap on CBS now for having such an advantageous contract, but it’s only fair to note how the deal also benefitted the conference.
“I think there was a prestigious feel for the SEC and CBS in terms of how the presentation goes,” New York Post sports media writer Andrew Marchand said. “Because we look at that late window. In the NFL, for example, a lot of people talk about Monday Night Football or Sunday Night Football, but the most-watched time is the late 4 o’clock window either on CBS or Fox. If there’s anything that was similar to that, it’s been CBS’ SEC game-of-the-week window.”
… That set the stage for that 2:30 p.m. game every Saturday, when the best SEC matchup was broadcast nationally, and not just regionally.
“That was counter to what everybody thought at the time — that people would only watch the game that was in the region,” said Andy Staples, a college football reporter who has covered these deals for Sports Illustrated, The Athletic and now On3. “That’s what made it special.”
Would the SEC enjoy the same level of public perception it has without the deal? I can’t say for certain, but one thing suggests no — Mickey’s keeping that 3:30 time slot intact, and on ABC.
Also, there is one good thing coming out of this.
Staples said the change can also come with the added benefit of knowing the TV schedule sooner.
“They should be able to announce kickoff times at the beginning of the season,” Staples said. “There’s no excuse for 11-day windows when every game is on the same family of networks. Before, CBS had first choice, so they wanted to push it as close as possible to ensure they got the best matchup. But now they’re all going to be on something that Disney owns. (The) same company owns it all, so you should be able to come out in May and say, ‘Here’s the kickoff times.’ That’s what the NFL does.”
I didn’t need to see that last sentence, though. And I’m gonna miss that theme song.
“We remember the Sugar Bowl, I think it my junior year of high school, we let Alabama beat us twice,” Brinson said of a team that also lost to the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship game. “We’re not letting Alabama beat us twice. In the Sugar Bowl in 2018, they… thought they should have been in the playoffs and lost to Texas.” -- AB-H, 12/27/23
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