USA Today: Break up Saban's Monopoly

BrotherOfBear

BamaNation Citizen
Jan 28, 2006
39
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Backwoods, AL
What is hardly ever mentioned is what Saban's brilliance has done for other college football programs. Saban has left no stone unturned in improving the Bama program from facilities, to game preparation, to conditioning, to academic support, to analysts, to preparing kids for life with or without the NFL, to nutrition, etc. Every last bit of it is top notch and usually cutting edge. A whole lot of other programs have implemented much of what Saban has done. Who benefits? The coaches and players of those programs.
 
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USCBAMA

All-SEC
Sep 21, 2001
1,865
106
182
Columbia, SC, Richland
Some of the rating has to be contributed to the length of the game and the night of the week. If you were a regular non fan of one of the teams and had to get up early the next morning, you probably turned it off. Tuesday morning came early the other day for me. I wish they would just leave it on a Saturday like we play every other game of the year.
See above, when compared to previous Monday night cfp blowout games that ran late, this one fared worse in ratings. How much of that was Covid-related I don't know, but the dropoff was significant.
 
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B1GTide

TideFans Legend
Apr 13, 2012
47,874
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Previous 2 cfp title game blowouts garnered much better ratings if we're gonna do apples-to-apples. OSU-Bama should've been a bigger draw than LSU-Clemson based on fan bases, name recognition, etc.
Not sure what your point is, but I know many people who turned this game off at halftime - OSU fans. The average fan was not going to watch the second half of this game. Alabama wasn't just up 35-17 - Alabama was doing whatever it wanted to do at that point. Neither of the other blowouts felt the same at halftime.
 
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USCBAMA

All-SEC
Sep 21, 2001
1,865
106
182
Columbia, SC, Richland
I missed the memo, does Clemson suddenly suck now? I mean, they do, but in terms of being able to win football games they’re still better than Oklahoma in my opinion.
I meant this year at end of season, where in my opinion OU was playing good football & Clemson D was exposed as having some serious issues in their pass defense (weak rush, poor safety play, slowish corners, and an LB who still thinks it's 1977). At a minimum it's naive to think OU could not play with Clemson.
 

TiderJack

Hall of Fame
Jul 9, 2010
13,346
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Inverness, AL
I meant this year at end of season, where in my opinion OU was playing good football & Clemson D was exposed as having some serious issues in their pass defense (weak rush, poor safety play, slowish corners, and an LB who still thinks it's 1977). At a minimum it's naive to think OU could not play with Clemson.
Did you really feel that way before the semi-final game? After being exposed by OSU yes you would be naive.
 

USCBAMA

All-SEC
Sep 21, 2001
1,865
106
182
Columbia, SC, Richland
Not sure what your point is, but I know many people who turned this game off at halftime - OSU fans. The average fan was not going to watch the second half of this game. Alabama wasn't just up 35-17 - Alabama was doing whatever it wanted to do at that point. Neither of the other blowouts felt the same at halftime.
Clemson was up on Bama 31-16 & had just scored 17 unanswered points to close the half. I was watching that game and it felt pretty hopeless to me. But nickel & diming over which blowout caused the most fans to tune out doesn't explain a 27% drop in viewers. That's a huge drop.
 

USCBAMA

All-SEC
Sep 21, 2001
1,865
106
182
Columbia, SC, Richland
Did you really feel that way before the semi-final game? After being exposed by OSU yes you would be naive.
I felt like Clemson D had not been tested, so it was more of an unknown, but that's the point. How do you accurately compare a 1 or 2 loss SECW team that plays 5 ranked teams to an undefeated Pac12 or ACC team that only plays 1 ranked teams all season (Clemson's schedule next season only includes 1 team in early top 25, and that's an SEC team-UGA)? The answer is you can't.
 

USCBAMA

All-SEC
Sep 21, 2001
1,865
106
182
Columbia, SC, Richland
Players opting out was his emphasis.
And the likelihood is this will only increases for bowl games, so all this fun debate might be a moot point as I imagine bowl ratings will nosedive without top players in games, making the decision to expand easy as the bowls die.

The reality is current format hugely rewards Power 5 teams with easy schedules, and punishes power 5 teams with tough schedules. I think the SEC would excel in an 8 or 16-team playoff.