Kudos to Robert Griffin III, RG III, or RG3, for saying what we’re all thinking. The 2011 Heisman Trophy winner, who played eight seasons in the NFL with three different teams, is now with FOX Sports, where he is one astute announcer. While calling a game, RG3 even referred to the execution of a fake punt as “a dimepiece.”
Griffin also called out the College Football Playoff selection committee, which is basically run by ESPN, for SEC bias.
While he is definitely not wrong, it is indeed a fun fact that RG3 used to work for ESPN.
“Anyone that has paid attention to the season knows that Miami beat Notre Dame in a head-to –head matchup, but the process that happened that ended up leaving Notre Dame out, putting Miami and leaving BYU out, and keeping Alabama in, there there’s so much uncertainty with the college football playoff selection process, the SEC bias that was in there,” Griffin III said exclusively to RG. “There’s no way that you punish BYU, but don’t punish Alabama for losing the conference championship game and getting blown out in it.”
Bama is the first-ever team with three losses to qualify for the College Football Playoff. Granted the CFP has only been at 12 teams for two seasons, but still.
Notre Dame getting left out, and then dealing with their omission in a less than ideal way, is another story that we already covered.
As for the Crimson Tide, yes they defeated Georgia earlier on in the regular season, but they got absolutely hammered by UGA in the SEC Championship game, the day before the CFP selection was made.
Is this “SEC bias?”
Well, ESPN has been in bed with that conference for well over a decade or more. ESPN literally owns the SEC Network and their flagship college football program ESPN College Gameday has been SEC centric for as long as anyone can remember.
Also ESPN paid a gajillion dollars to broadcast the CFP, so they basically own/run/manage the competition.
If that wasn’t already obvious than just look at how much ESPN obnoxiously overpromotes their CFP rankings release show (the classic meeting that could have been an email) every week.
So of course, it’s clear- ESPN, when all other things are considered relatively equal, will take a SEC team, hands down. The fact that it’s Bama, the banner program of the league, makes this even more obvious.
The program’s patriarch emeritus, Nick Saban, appears on Gameday every Saturday.
“Only way you do that is if there’s SEC bias with the committee and based on knowing intricately how they go through the selection process,” Griffin continued.
“Because I took the time to educate myself on that and actually go to the seminar to figure out how they get these teams in and the voting process and how it all works.”
RG3 added:
“The easiest thing they could have done was punish both Alabama and BYU and put in Miami and Notre Dame, or punish neither of them and have both Alabama and BYU be in because they made it to their conference championship games and they felt like they were worthy of playing in the college football playoff.”
Right- the CFP i.e. ESPN sent an inconsistent message about conference championship games and if they honestly matter or not.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network, RG.org and Ratings.org. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and the Washington Post.