The social media outrage that followed last week’s announcement by the SEC that the conference would be sticking with an 8-game conference schedule for the 2024 season was as inane as it was predictable.
For the legions of thoroughly devoted SEC haters that had spent the week following the proceedings at the SEC spring meetings with their tigger fingers oh, so impatiently hovering over the “enter” button on their computers ready to fire off the snarkiest comments they could devise about the SEC being “scared” to play more conference games, as soon as word of the SEC’s temporary decision on a schedule format leaked, it was go time. The social media warriors cracked their knuckles, rubbed their hands together, licked their lips, and went to war.
It’s not that the people spewing that nonsense are themselves lacking in intelligence. The Big 10, the Pac 12, and the ACC are full of distinguished institutions. I’m sure many of the graduates of those schools are extremely intelligent and do very well for themselves, but the type of hatred some possess for the SEC is the type of hatred that can blind a man and make even the most intellectually gifted among us do and say some inexplicably stupid things.
The reality is, as anyone even remotely capable of objectivity understands, the debate over the SEC’s future scheduling format was complicated by a litany of complexities and competing interests that made unanimity on the question impossible to achieve. But the masses of social media warriors representing the other Power 5 conferences couldn’t possibly let details like context or nuance slow down their anti-SEC crusade. No, there’s no time for reason and logic to enter the equation when the opportunity to troll your sworn enemy presents itself so clearly. It’s “damn the torpedoes” and full speed ahead with reckless abandon, no matter how dumb we sound in the process.
And make no mistake about it, the idea that the SEC declined to immediately move to a 9-game conference schedule format for the 2024 season out of fear is a very, very bad take.
The conference that has won the last four college football national championships and has claimed 14 of the 23 national titles since the turn of the century while no other conference has won more than three in that time span is scared to play one additional conference game? The conference that has played AND WON more neutral site and true road games against non-conference opponents than any other conference over the last decade is cowering in the corner? The conference that features 3 of the top 4, 4 of the top 6, and 8 of the top 15 most talented programs according to 247 Sports’ 2023 Blue Chip Ratio is shaking at its knees at the thought of playing one more of its SEC brethren every year? You get how that defies logic, right?
Fear had nothing to do with it. While there were other issues – rivalry games, future non-conference schedules, equity with permanent opponents – operating in the background of this decision, the cold, hard truth is, this was a business decision. Plain and simple. All of the other considerations were subservient to the all-mighty dollar. The SEC is slow-playing things in an effort to leverage the situation to coax more money out of ESPN and to give themselves an opportunity to watch how the expanded playoff dominoes fall. Right now business dictates that the conference stay at eight conference games. If and when business and financial considerations incentivize a move to nine conference games, the SEC will move to nine conference games. Why change things up when business is at an all-time high right now? Does a Fortune 500 company undertake a complete organizational restructuring when profits and achievements are at record highs without being assured that the move will yield even higher profits just because another company down the block decided to do so? Of course not. So why would a college football conference whose job is to protect the financial and competitive interests of its member institutions do so?
Come on, guys. Let’s use our big boy brains.
But while we are on the subject of bad college football takes, let’s run through a couple more of the absurdly bad college football takes that come to mind in recent memory.
- Dan Mullen is a better coach than Kirby Smart
It never ceases to amaze me that this was a take that was so widely accepted around the country circa 2019-2020, but oh, boy was it ever. Kirby Smart was viewed as nothing more than a Saban knockoff; a guy that could recruit all the requisite pieces but who would never be able to put them together well enough to knock off the old boss man and win a national championship. Kirby was the doofus with a bad haircut and all of Georgia’s success in the early years of his tenure (3 SEC East titles, an SEC title, a Rose Bowl victory, and a heartbreaking loss to Alabama in overtime in the 2018 national championship game) was chalked up to his recruiting chops. He was the idiot who screwed up the Justin Fields situation and called a fake punt in his own territory at a critical juncture in the 4th quarter of the 2018 SEC championship game.
Mullen, on the other hand, was an offensive mastermind that could coach circles around that moron in Athens. He might not have been a great recruiter, the narrative went, but his offensive wizardry more than compensated for that. He only lost to Georgia in 2018 and 2019 because Kirby had recruited better players, but give him a couple more years to get HIS players into Gainesville, and WATCH OUT. He was, after all, the great quarterback whisperer who turned every quarterback he touched into solid gold (Nick Fitzgerald, Felipe Franks, and Anthony Richardson conveniently excluded, of course).
Bless your hearts.
Fast forward to 2023 and, of course, that take could not possibly have been proved more definitively wrong. The Saban knockoff with the bad haircut enters the 2023 season with back-to-back national championships on his resume with a program he has built to sustain for the foreseeable future, while Mullen spends his fall Saturdays behind a desk in Bristol, Connecticut after imploding in spectacular fashion in 2021.
- Georgia can’t win a national championship with Stetson Bennett
Look, I get it. He was a former walk-on, 5-foot-nothing QB who was uninspiring the first time around in 2020. I don’t blame anyone for having that take when he was INITIALLY handed the job in 2021. What I do hold people accountable for is their stubborn refusal to update their opinion on Bennett as he kept improving and kept being a big part of why Georgia was winning games during the march to its first national championship since 1980. This was a classic case of confirmation bias. Many fans and prognosticators around the country had preconceived ideas about who and what Bennett was entering the 2021 season and, by God, no matter how many games he helped Georgia win and no matter how well he played doing it, there was nothing that was ever going to change their minds.
- Georgia can’t win ANOTHER national championship with Stetson Bennett
Sorry, guys. After being one of the few swinging my sword on social media to protect Bennett’s honor during the 2022 offseason, I couldn’t NOT throw this on the list. You would have thought a national championship, especially one that was won against the team that people swore Georgia would never be able to beat, would have been enough to change the hearts and minds of the Bennett haters around the country. Nah. Not a chance. Not only did those who were emphatically proven wrong about Bennett in 2021 refuse to acknowledge their bad take, they doubled-down on it!
“Georgia won in spite of Bennett, not because of him,” they claimed. “Georgia only won because of a great defense and with all those players gone to the NFL, Bennett will be exposed for the fraud he is,” the narrative went. The idea that Bennett and his “pop-gun” arm would ever get drafted was mocked unmercifully.
Well, the Mailman delivered. All Bennett did was go out and break the Georgia record for passing yards in a single-season, save his best games for the biggest moment, earn an invite to New York as a Heisman Trophy finalist, and spearhead a second-consecutive national championship for the Dawgs while waving two big, old fat middle fingers to the haters the entire time.
- Texas is Back! [insert any year after 2009]
The 2005 season, punctuated by Vince Young’s iconic performance against USC in the 2005 BCS national championship game, seems like centuries ago. After getting smacked by Alabama in the BCS national championship game to conclude the 2009 season, the Longhorns have been inexplicably mediocre. Since that appearance in the 2009 BCS title game, the Longhorns are 91-72 with five losing seasons with a lone 10-win season coming in 2018. With the type of talent that Texas routinely accrues on its roster, the lack of on-field results truly defies logic.
Yet, despite the consistently lackluster results, every offseason many of those who watch and cover college football get seduced by the talent and declare “this is the year Texas is back, damnit!” And every year, they are wrong.
- Desmond Howard’s 2022 Preseason College Football Playoff Predictions
Look, we all make preseason predictions. We get some right, we get some wrong. That’s the way it goes.
There is no shame in being wrong. Yet, there is a difference in being wrong about a prediction and whatever the hell you call what College Gameday “Analyst” Desmond Howard did last August. This man, with a straight face, predicted that the four CFB Playoff teams in 2022 would be Michigan, Pitt, Baylor, and Texas A&M. WOOF.
I’m sure Howard wasn’t the only talking head to miss on three of his four CFB Playoff picks, but he was all alone in picking three teams that went a combined 19-17 in the regular season. Two of his playoff teams – Baylor and A&M – failed to even finish the regular season with winning records. I mean, there’s going on on a limb, and then there’s GOING OUT ON A LIMB.
Just remember those predictions the next time you find yourself nodding your head in agreement with one of Howard’s takes. You might want to rethink that.
- Jeremy Johnson is a Heisman contender
This one might be a little out there because it takes you back all the way to 2015, but eight years’ passage of time doesn’t change just how awful of a take it was. Admittedly, this one might still be more vivid for me than most of you because calling BS on it was the first big prediction I nailed as a podcaster when I started the podcast I still run today prior to the 2015 season, but I really think it still holds up.
Let’s not forget that Auburn’s Jeremy Johnson was garnering legitimate Heisman contender love leading into the 2015 season based on quite literally one game against Arkansas to open the 2014 season. Several sportsbooks had him listed with the third best odds to bring home the prestigious award. In that one start, Johnson played very well against the Hogs, completing 12/16 passes for 243 yards and two touchdowns. However, starter Nick Marshall returned in week two and played the rest of the way. Johnson threw a grand total of 21 passes over the course of the other 12 games of the season.
This all went down back when Gus Malzahn was considered one of the foremost offensive minds in the game, so even though it was only one start against a really bad Arkansas team, Auburn fans and the national media went crazy over the guy and declared him the next great Gus Malzahn QB. But I have this habit of actually watching the football games I comment on, so I happened to watch that Auburn-Arkansas game and I came away thinking this guy didn’t show me anything. The game plan that Gus Malzahn put together for Johnson featured a lot of screens and quick hitting pass plays that got the ball out of Johnson’s hand quickly. His success in that one start in 2014 wasn’t so much about him making plays as it was about Malzahn having an extended period of time to put together a game plan that would minimize his inexperience against an Arkansas team that would go on to finish 2-6 in the SEC.
I stopped short of calling him a fraud, but I was throwing copious amounts of cold water on the Jeremy Johnson for Heisman take. My contention was that there was no way this guy had shown us anything remotely resembling Heisman Trophy playmaking ability. I hadn’t seen enough to call him an outright fraud, but I also didn’t see anything to suggest he was Cam Newton 2.0.
And what did Johnson do in 2015? He wet the bed and made me look like a genius to the approximately 52 people on average that were listening to my podcast when it first launched (we’re up to about 74 listeners per show now, if you were wondering). He threw for just barely over 1,000 yards (1,053, to be exact) and just 10 touchdowns to 7 interceptions. He threw for 100 yards or less four times on the season and only threw five touchdown passes against Power 5 competition. He was benched three games into the season in favor of redshirt freshman Sean White but managed to get the job back by default when White went down with an injury. And this was a guy that EVERYONE spent the entire offseason propping up as a Heisman contender? That’s the definition of a bad take.
So is the SEC is “scared” take the worst take in recent memory? Probably not, but it’s a terrible take, nonetheless.