ESPN’s coverage of the College Football Playoff is unpleasant and overbearing

The worldwide leader has trashed its own product to the benefit of a league it has a financial relationship with.

You take your family to an NBA game. It’s been a long week for everyone, so why not take an evening to relax and take in something that all of you can enjoy?

You pay for your tickets, buy food from concessions and find your seats. The game tips off and whew it does not go well. Your team can’t score, the other guys are getting buckets at will and soon enough you’re looking at a 18-8 run. Not great!

But suddenly the public address announcer starts mixing in some comments between the play-by-play.

“There’s a bucket…. man, this is awful.”

“Three more points… why even bother coming out.”

“And there’s another miss. That guy we almost traded for could’ve made that shot.”

This sounds unpleasant, no? Uncomfortable even. The game’s not all that entertaining and the arena, meant to welcome you and provide an entertaining environment, has stunningly chosen to denigrate its own product and make the experience even worse than it has to be.

Would you stay and keep watching? Probably not. Because that stinks.

That’s effectively what it’s been like to watch ESPN’s disastrous presentation of this year’s College Football Playoff from the moment the field was announced to the middle of its first round games.

This college football season has been absolutely dominated by playoff discourse. Pundit against pundit. Twitter burner against twitter burner. Friendly discussions over a beer at the neighborhood bar.

We’ve heard countless arguments from countless people about what makes a playoff resume. That wins matter above all else or that a few quality wins somehow erase multiple losses, some of which are pretty bad.

But the field is set. It’s been set. The games are on now and that’s what matters. If I turn on a broadcast, I expect to see and hear commentary on that game. Tell me what’s happening and why.

Instead we went from hearing the above arguments, the strength of schedule, quality of wins and differences between conferences to being subjected to them.

Here it is, bluntly: The argument is that an SEC team, truly close your eyes and point at one because you won’t hear ESPN give you a solid example, should have gotten into the 12-team field over the likes of Indiana and SMU.

Sure. That’s certainly an argument. Probably one for before the field is announced though. Not to be dragged and beaten repeatedly like a dead horse around a national television broadcast when there are actual games on.

And of course ESPN would keep making this argument. The worldwide leader has a brand new ten-year deal with the conference where It Just Means more. There’s a financial relationship and therefore an incentive to pump that product and drag down others in comparison.

But this coverage of the College Football Playoff has just gone too far. Just listen to this.

That is Kirk Herbstreit, one of the most recognizable voices in the college football media space, urging the committee to not get caught up with… wins.

Wins. Winning football games. In college football.

Is he serious here? Is this a serious happening? How do you even say something like this with a straight face?

It’s also a rather stunning heel turn from a position he held years ago when his alma mater, Ohio State, was in a similar position:

Herbstreit tried to explain himself the next day on the Pat McAfee Show. He said he wasn’t trying to argue for a specific team (sure) and doesn’t just want to see a team get in for going 11-1 (Indiana. He’s pretty clearly referring to Indiana here).

Which is a fine argument until you consider that Army, ranked No. 22 in the final College Football Playoff rankings, was also 11-1. Unless you haven’t been paying any attention, Army wasn’t in. Indiana was.

The problem he is referring to does not exist. And it is quite clear he, an ESPN personality, is going to bat for those SEC teams that didn’t make the field. He can say otherwise all he wants.

This kind of coverage was present from the start during the dreadful ESPN Selection Show. News had already leaked that SMU would make the field over Alabama, but even if you didn’t know that you probably could’ve guessed based on the morose looks on the faces of Herbstreit and former Crimson Tide coach turned commentator Nick Saban.

It felt almost like a funeral if you weren’t getting fed up with the sudden commercial break that took place before the bracket reveal.

Then there was Paul Finebaum. You know Finebaum, the guy who pushes narratives to no end on the SEC Network. But of course he would! He’s an SEC Network guy! He’s always been an SEC guy!

Well that’s not the case anymore. ESPN has given Finebaum another title: national college football analyst. So he’s still delivering these impassioned defenses of his SEC under that purview.

Here’s what Finebaum had to say about Indiana’s and SMU’s losses:

He probably could’ve waited to fire this off after Tennessee, his alma mater by the way, laid an absolute egg in Columbus to lose 42-17.

Oh, and the Buckeyes led 35-10 late by the way. That same 25 point margin that Finebaum above speaks of as vile, unwanted. There wasn’t nearly as much venom for the Vols as there was for the Hoosiers and Mustangs.

ESPN ran a promo for the next few games in the playoff during its Monday Night Football broadcast led by Joe Buck and Troy Aikman.

Transparently, Buck went to Indiana and has offered thoughts, praise and joking moments about the Hoosiers on broadcasts with his booth partner, a former UCLA quarterback. When Buck praises Indiana’s season, Aikman is quick to jump in and say the same of SMU.

Aikman, not Buck, brings up the playoff discourse. He says it’s unfair to play the comparison game and question who was truly deserving now with the benefit of hindsight. Buck is quick to agree.

“What it does is it diminishes the job that the teams that won did,” Buck said.

Here’s the full clip:

It’s not a completely foreign concept for ESPN hosts to disagree with one another. But a statement like that on the same network feels pretty notable regardless.

I remind you, ESPN owns the rights to broadcast the College Football Playoff. It should want people watching this game.

Instead, for what feels like a favor to the SEC and at the expense of its own product in the playoff, the network chose to spend just about every moment it could trashing the playoff.

It was tiring. Annoying. And it made for a rough watch. I wouldn’t have been shocked nor blamed fans for watching these broadcasts on mute.

Some of these playoff teams laid an egg, for sure. Shout-out to ESPN for one-upping that by laying an even bigger one on the same network.