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Today in college football news, all Catholic sports humor is henceforth about Villanova, in light of an alum becoming pope. Much to process for Notre Dame.
Money: ESPN ready to pay for 9th SEC game?
Ever since the Big Ten expanded to a nine-game conference schedule nine years ago, there’s been a bit of public pressure on the SEC to do the same. This is usually framed as a call for the SEC to increase its bravery and valor on the field, rather than retreating each November to play the likes of Mercer.
(Mercer-Alabama photo chosen for this newsletter because everyone hates the annual SEC-SoCon Challenge so much. I dunno, whatever. SEC schedules are fine, as are the schedules of all other conferences. Nobody in the SEC gets to count Purdue as a conference win.)
Anyway, after nearly a decade of chatter on the topic, there might finally be some movement:
“ESPN has indicated a willingness to increase its payment to the SEC if the conference adds a ninth game to its league football schedule, sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic.
“There is no formal offer yet, those sources added, and the exact amount of the increase still needs to be fully negotiated. But the sources said the additional money would likely be in the range of $50-80 million annually on top of the current deal, in which ESPN pays the conference $811 million per year to broadcast its sporting events.”
On the field, this probably would result in an overall upgrade for viewers — though it would also mean even more reason for Georgia to play Charleston Southern. Nine SEC games plus an in-state ACC rival would leave only a couple games that can serve as guaranteed home dates and relative breathers.
Also, the monkey’s paw curls further: If you’re a non-SEC fan who’s ever felt annoyed by some 8-4 Auburn or Ole Miss or South Carolina being ranked near the top 10 thanks almost entirely to covering the spreads against the Tide and Dawgs, just imagine your annoyance in a world where that third-tier SEC team has gained yet another quality loss.
Elsewhere at the very peak of college sports:
Quick Snaps
💰 “In its final year as a 14-member conference, the Big Ten saw its revenue soar to $928 million.” And the line’s still going up. By the end of this fiscal year, the longtime members in position for full shares are expecting $75 million each.
🚫 At the total opposite end of FBS, in terms of support resources and everything else: Akron hasn’t made a bowl since 2017 — and is already ineligible to do so in 2025, becoming the first team since 2014 Idaho to be ruled out of bowl season by NCAA Academic Progress Rate scores.
🫡 Cam Rising, the extremely college football quarterback of the Utah Utes, is calling it a career after six eventful years in Salt Lake City (plus another in Austin).
😐 “Nick Saban and Texas Tech board of regents chairman Cody Campbell would co-chair the commission President Donald Trump is interested in forming to examine the long list of issues facing college sports.”
🕵️♂️ Michigan‘s punishment for the Connor Stalions thing draws nigh. (And actually pretty swiftly, by NCAA standards!) Joe Rexrode argues for it to be a stiff one.
Experiments: The upside to Clemson’s unique path
As we all learned in high school physics or chemistry, you can’t conduct a proper experiment unless you establish a control group. Do the weird stuff to Group A, but leave Group B alone, and then see how different the two groups look afterward.
In 2020s college football, Clemson decided a while back to make itself the control group. For a couple years there, Dabo Swinney’s unwillingness to engage with the transfer portal made him look out of touch, hopelessly stubborn and doomed to irrelevance in the modern game.
But then you look up and realize his Tigers have still averaged 10 wins a year throughout the NIL-and-portal era, most recently winning his ninth ACC title in 16 full seasons. Overall, they’ve slumped a bit, often at quarterback — but they now field Cade Klubnik, the senior QB who ranks as a top-tier Heisman favorite, and the nation’s No. 1 roster in Bill Connelly’s returning-production stat.
That latter fact came to mind again while reading Seth Emerson’s new interview with Swinney and company:
“Players say the portal strategy, or lack thereof, resonates in the locker room. In a recent interview on Ryan Clark’s podcast, Clemson players TJ Parker and Peter Woods said it makes players want to work harder for the program.
“Klubnik echoed that in an interview with The Athletic: Players feel they have a long runway to prove themselves.
“‘Because everybody knows you’ve got to do something stupid to get kicked out of here,’ Klubnik said. ‘That’s not the case everywhere, if you have three bad practices you might get booted somewhere else. But coach Swinney believes in the guys he recruited.’”
When Clemson’s quirky series of personally selected stars align, like they might be right now, it does seem like there’s a lot of potential value in remaining relatively old school. Swinney’s even taken up bringing in a transfer or three.
There’s also a lot more in Seth’s story, including the former doomsayer Dabo calling this the “best time in the history of college football.” 🤔
Take My Hand: ‘Enter Sandman’ finally went home
Nearly 25 years ago, Virginia Tech first entered Lane Stadium to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman,” a hype song chosen to show off the new video board. (The other contenders that day: “Welcome to the Jungle” by Guns N’ Roses and the 1990s Chicago Bulls theme by the Alan Parsons Project.)
“Enter Sandman” stuck around.
- Within a few years, the thunderous walkup and crowd response established Lane Stadium as one of those places that gets universally referred to as A Hostile Environment. By 2011, when the song fired back up during the final seconds against Miami (and the crowd went apes—), it was one of the most nationally recognizable things about the Hokies.
- Over the years, the band became fully aware of the phenomenon. In an interview from a while back, singer James Hetfield expressed adoration for Blacksburg latching on so fiercely to the decades-old song that their singalongs have frequently set off seismographs.
Last night, Metallica’s tour swung through Lane Stadium for the first time ever. There are tons of videos of the song that was the obvious highlight of their set, but I like this one taken from the crowd. Hokies fans did work on the Richter scale again, of course.
