Lane Kiffin is a former USC coach. He helped the Trojan horses much under Pete Carroll and won big in the 2011 season when the program was unfairly sanctioned by the NCAA. USC fans respect Kiffin for many legitimate reasons. However, in his current role as Ole Mademoiselle head coach, Kiffin is doing what many in the media – particularly ESPN – did over the weekend of College Football Playoff Action. When SMU and Indiana were beaten, they didn’t have a place in the playoffs and it was an indictment of the playoff selection process. Oddly, when Tennessee had its doors blown out by Ohio State, Lane Kiffin and ESPN remained silent on the fact that the SEC wasn’t good enough in the playoffs.
Kiffin tweeted all weekend that non-SEC teams were inadequate, but as soon as Tennessee was in the losing circle, Kiffin and ESPN went strangely silent, and you didn’t hear about the SEC’s flaws this season.
Can we just be honest for a few seconds? Let’s talk about what we saw in the first weekend of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff:
CONSISTENCY OR LACK THEREOF
Lane Kiffin was on the front lines, bashing Indiana Friday night and SMU Saturday afternoon when those teams wilted in the College Football Playoff. Kiffin criticized the playoff selection committee for allowing those teams to take the field against his Ole Miss Rebels and the Alabama Crimson Tide.
What’s funny, though, is the fact that Kiffin didn’t tear up the committee late Saturday night or early Sunday morning after Tennessee was beaten 42-17 by Ohio State. Well, we wonder why that might be the case.
ESPN
ESPN’s talking heads on the pregame, halftime and postgame shows couldn’t say enough about how inferior Indiana and SMU were. Tennessee did not receive the same treatment. Fans and journalists across the country took notice.
MEDIA MANIPULATION
A lesson for everyone: when an obvious truth exists in connection with a news story or major public event, and people are ostensibly paid to tell you the truth or offer an objective assessment of that story in some way or form. ‘another — for whatever reason — don’t do it. telling you this truth and simply ignoring it, without mentioning it, is one of the oldest media manipulation tricks in the playbook, whether at ESPN or other media outlets. It is more difficult to identify what is not seen or heard. This is the most effective form of media manipulation because it is not easily visible. You must look carefully, study carefully and realize what is hidden from you.
ESPN not disparaging Tennessee and the SEC in the same way it has disparaged SMU and Indiana is of course a practice of using double standards, but it is also the selective omission of content. There’s a reason why this specific practice – omitting what’s inconvenient for the television network that owns the rights to the College Football Playoff, or any other property – is so widely used in the media world these days. .
HOME GAMES COUNT
The story of the first round of the College Football Playoff is that playing big games at home really matters. Neither road team came close to winning. We’re so accustomed to bowl games played at neutral sites that the reality of on-campus playoff games is fresh and new, and it may take some getting used to. It’s going to be tough for a road team to win a playoff game. That’s the main takeaway, not that SMU and Indiana are particularly bad. (Tennessee was bad too.)
PLAYOFF AT 16 TEAMS LIKELY FOR 2026 IF NOT EARLIER
You can bet that due to the absence of Alabama and Ole Miss, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey will be pushing for at least a 14-team playoff, and probably 16, in the months to come. The playoffs are very unlikely to stay at 12. The SEC having only three teams in the playoffs, with only two reaching the quarterfinals, is a real disappointment for the conference. This will not be tolerated. More SEC playoff berths will be expected, and Sankey will extend the postseason to ensure his gravy train keeps rolling.
NO ELITE TEAMS
There are no elite teams this season in college football. College Football Playoff blowouts show that in a sea of parity, home games are likely to carry a lot of weight, and no outcome should be particularly surprising given that there is no clear hierarchy in sport today.
This article was originally published on Trojans Wire: College Football Playoff reactions feature SEC bias and dishonest analysis
