Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
Something tells me the RRR had its peak right around the end of the broadcast. My guess is some folks were tuning in for the Georgia-Alabama broadcast and suddenly realized that Oklahoma had found an offensive pulse again. How’d the premiere B1G game matchup?
In light of our criticism of announcers and the quality of the game telecast, allow me to present to you an interesting clip of film footage of Georgia’s first game in Sanford Stadium versus Yale in 1929.
97 years ago today, on Oct. 12, 1929, Georgia upsets Yale, 15-0, before 33,000 fans—more than twice Athens’ population—in the first game at Sanford Stadium.
Playing in just his third varsity game, sophomore end Vernon “Catfish” Smith scores all 15 points.
There was a clip of someone calling the game on the radio, but other than that, it’s just football, crowd noise (when available), and watching the game unfold. Also, Vernon “Catfish” Smith going all Herschel Walker on that Yankee ass for all 15 points.
Just imagine the yammering on from Chris and Kirk watching the Dawgs win over a vaunted independent like Yale.
I bet no one playing that day was concerned about missing a penalty or contact to the head. I’m sure they were all happy to just leave the field alive and in one piece.
I don’t think we were the only ones who grew overly ill listening to Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit’s three hour fellating of Nick Saban and the glorious Alabama Crimson Tide. Apparently, it was so bad, it made the news!
Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, pictured here preparing to fawn over a B1G team or Alabama, along with Kirk’s trusty emotional support dog, known as Saban’s Phallus.
‘You Guys Have Become Unwatchable’ — CFB Fans Grill Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler for Being ‘Terribly Biased’ During Georgia-Alabama Matchup
Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler had a heavyweight SEC matchup to call Saturday night. Some viewers spent the evening wishing they could change the announcers without changing the game.
The broadcast duo caught criticism after Georgia’s trip to Alabama, with fans accusing them of favoritism. Even one viewer who normally considers them the best in the business wanted a little self-reflection before their next assignment.
Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler Draw Harsh Reviews
The Georgia Bulldogs beat the Alabama Crimson Tide 20–17 at Bryant-Denny Stadium, taking the lead on Peyton Woodring’s 23-yard field goal with 5:25 remaining. Georgia improved to 6–0 with the victory.
Anoverturned Alabama interception with the game tied at 17 became a major talking point. Fans also took issue with the voices guiding them through a tense night.
“You guys have become unwatchable. It’s embarrassing,”one fan wrote.
You guys have become unwatchable. It’s embarrassing.
There are several other examples out there of even uninvested fans from other programs pointing it out. Will they get called out on it? Will they change?
Of course not! Kirk’s had an axe to grind ever since he threw an interception to Mike Jones in 1993 Citrus Bowl, and he hasn’t been shy about it, even going so far to flip Dylan Raiola (actually, thanks for that, Herbie) from Georgia during the former Buford star’s recruitment.
I agree with most of you from yesterday’s Mumme Poll, that the default color commentary options for the game is the mute button, especially whenever I see Herbstreit doing anything during a football broadcast.
The ratings are in after five weeks of college football, and it’s safe to say this wouldn’t be a good year for the Montana Project.
Total viewers of college football programs, accumulated over the course of the start of the 2026 college football season. Image credit to Danny Neckel on Snapchat.
First off, tell my why we should take the BigXII seriously. Nearly three-quarters of the SEC has more viewers that the BigXII’s top pull, which is Coach Amazon Prime and Colorado, and I dare say that was boosted by their game with Georgia Tech and possibly Northwestern. The Atlanta and Chicago viewer markets are pretty big, and people also watch Colorado with the same interest as they would watching an actual train wreck or infrared videos of war footage from military helicopters.
Also of interest is the relative lack of appetite for Indiana, which should startle the hell out of the television money machine, being that they, and NIL, propped up the Hoosiers to a National Championship to only yield yawns and indifference from their viewership. The Indiana-Northwestern Friday night game was great watching, but it didn’t help Indiana that much, and, let’s face it, they aren’t playing anyone for another couple of weeks, anyway.
Ohio State is, I’m sure, claiming another trophy, but let’s be fair, people are watching for the same reason they watched Alabama for so many years…they are praying for the Suckeyes to lose, and two games – versus Texas and Iowa – were prime watching for that very thing.
I’m sure Georgia’s viewership will rise after this weekend and moving forward. I’m just hoping that 9 million eyes will be watching Georgia officially break the Alabama curse, and not another iteration of the 2024 debacle featuring the first 17 year old to yadda yadda yadda.
I wrote last week about the B1G’s fewer eyes on the TV and Big Noon Snoozers, which seemed at the time a bit of arrogance and bravado on the B1G’s and Fox’s behalf, but in retrospect, it seems like it’s more a function of giving way to let people watch bigger games and bigger rated games on other networks.
To be fair, I’m probably putting on my tin foil hat and doing some heavy lifting here, but hear me out.
Take, for example, the absolute oddity of airing this slate of SEC games all in the noon or 3:30 slots on October 17th:
Florida at Texas alone could be a 7:30 prime time event, as could be Alabama at Tennessee or, hell, even Missouri at Ole Miss.
Yes, these time slots were selected in the summer, but it’s important to note here that all three 3:30 games were in the “flex” slots and could’ve been night games. They probably should be, except for one glaring reason:
So, ABC looks at their lineup of games, sees Notre Dame and BYU, and has to make it “must see TV”.
Why? Well, it’s simple. It’s helping to build Notre Dame’s brand, and they want to make sure all eyes are squarely on the TV watching the justification for the most over-hyped team in all the land make their case for the CFP, as if the Top 16 autobid clause wasn’t doing that, already.
So what else is on at night on the 17th? Absolutely nothing, except for one thing. See if you see it, too.
Oh, look, there’s Miami, kicking off a half hour before Notre Dame, and that will lock in your channel flipping for the evening broadcast on the World Wide Leader. This helps with the previewing for Miami’s Week 8 tilt against NOW RANKED Pittsburgh and also helps to hype the Week 10 matchup between the Catholics and Convicts, which also happens to be on…PRIME TIME. On NBC.
The B1G and the SEC will have their usual suspects in the CFP hunt, but the networks having to work overtime to place these lousy brands of football in front of people’s eyes is both desperate and reeks of “look at me” opportunities to make the case for Miami and Notre Dame, or, by proxy, the ACC.
I’ll take my tin foil hat off now. It’s definitely been getting way more use than my regular Georgia ballcap the past few seasons, and I’d like to hang it up for good.
But I don’t think it’ll get hung until the real vision is finally actualized, which is the super conference model brought to you by ESPN/ABC/Fox/NBC/Cartoon Network. It’s too rich of a pie for everyone to not take a bite, even if the taste nowadays is way more bitter than it used to be.
This week’s recent release of the AP and Coach’s Polls are a bit of a head-scratcher, but let’s face it, they almost always seem to be, and the CFP Polls are likely to be worse.
Mind you, if you disagree with any of it, make sure you show how in this week’s Mumme Poll:
Firstly, Missou moved up quite a bit from “why are they ranked” last week at 25 all the way up to 14, while Florida was Free Fallin from 8th to 16th.
Oddly, Mississippi State got walloped by Alabama and only went down one place to 17th, while Alabama’s beating didn’t impress enough to move them ahead of Miami and Notre Dame, and let’s recall Ohio State already has one loss to their name, so what gives?
Northwestern is on a tear and beating folks pretty handily, yet it was Pitt that they decided should debut in the poll this week after eeking out a little over 200 yards and benefitting from a missed Virginia Tech field goal, where Pat Narduzzi took the gift and used it as his pulipt to whine about the polls.
Pitt HC Pat Narduzzi after defeating Virginia Tech and improving to 5-0:
“We’ve got a helluva football team. If any of those [AP] voters wake their a**es up, they might figure that out.” 🥶
Disregard that Pitt beat UCF 12-7 and a hapless Syracuse team 27-13.
Nebraska is undefeated with a nearly similar resume to Pitt and UCLA, yet remains unranked. Kentucky, on the other hand, has the 7th hardest schedule in the country, is 4-1 with a “good loss” to Alabama, yet sits outside the polls.
BYU, meanwhile, snuck out a win against TCU (now 2-3), 17-10, and remains in the top 10, despite being 16th in ESPN’s FPI and 21st in the Sagarin Rankings.
And people are screaming about Duke…but they have only played four games, two against P4 teams, which was a 28 point win against Stanford and a four point win against an Illinois team that just lost to *checks notes* PURDUE. Not exactly a resume to write home about…but let’s look at the Coaches Poll:
The Top 9 is pretty much the same as the AP (they give Indiana more credit in the Coaches Poll), but how is LSU ahead of Ole Miss and how is Florida ahead of Missouri? And look…there’s Duke at 23, formerly at 21…WHY?
And let’s pause for a second and ask ourselves the question…what is so damned appealing about the Men of Troy?
USC played their first three games against G6 teams, barely beat Rutgers by 7, lost to Oregon lead by Dylan Raiola, and took everything they had to beat Washington, who is currently 3-2.
Another oddity in the polls is SMU. It took a power outage unusual game in Tallahassee to beat FSU by 3, they lost to unranked Louisville, beat Boston College, arguably the worst P4 team in the land, by 9, and only beat Missouri State by 10. They have no quality wins on their resume, yet they occupy the bottom of both polls.
Why argue and bitch about it? Well, because they’re doing their damndest to make something out of nothing:
The ACC is utter shit, and that’s the nicest I can be about it. Outside of Miami, who frankly is a question mark given they’ve played exactly nobody thus far, who else in the ACC is really that good? By ranking Duke and Pitt, they’ve added two more ranked teams to Miami’s already lousy schedule. That’s Miami’s resume booster for you.
BYU at 8 is also odd, until you realize they play Notre Dame here this weekend. By inflating the BYU brand, it helps Notre Dame in the rankings by saying “they beat a quality BYU team” since the rest of their schedule is crap…except for
Miami versus Notre Dame COULD be the meteor game for both teams. Whoever loses would be questioned relentlessly for the rest of the season, and grounds for keeping them out of the CFP at season’s end. By giving them a few other needless high ranked opponents, they’re helping them out in the polls.
The B1G and the SEC have a host of quality teams. The ACC and the Big XII do not. But man, they’re going to make them seem that way in the polls, aren’t they?
Between the CFP Expansion noise and the ever growing sizes of conferences, it’s interesting to note that we’ve seen here Pate’s take on expansion and an article yesterday about overall viewership being down by 11%.
While the B1G has been dominating NIL and CFP Championships over the past three years, one thing that is becoming glaringly apparent is the SEC is becoming the champion of television revenue.
It’s not just the quality of the product on the field, where the B1G’s biggest games this year has been against OOC opponents, but it’s also the fact that the actual games and their Charmin-soft scheduling just plain sucks.
If Greg Sankey was out for anything with the expanded nine game schedule, whether he argued about strength of resume for the CFP or not, it’s landing well for television viewership, and especially for Mickey Mouse (but not necessarily for SEC programs).
Fox seems content with the current arrangement. They’re making money, and the Big Ten has been largely happy cashing checks that are bigger than their SEC rivals by an average of around $400 million per year. Past feedback from fans and schools hasn’t registered as a problem for Fox, as they have an effective blueprint for making money, which includes:
A decent Friday night game
A mildly successful alternative to College GameDay
A Big Noon showcase game
Enough mediocre games on BTN and FS1 to keep validating their cable carriage fees
Cashing checks from NBC and CBS for Big Ten games, the majority of which are pretty mid and get clobbered by SEC games … an arrangement those networks seem less than thrilled with.
It makes money. A handful of noon games do well. CBS and NBC usually have one or two games per year to puff their chests out about.
But in the larger picture, the Big Ten is fading, at least in terms of ratings and its television product. Obviously, three straight national titles have reset the discourse on the best conference on the field, but undeniable problems seem to continue unabated in the short term.
I’ve been told the conference itself has grown increasingly annoyed by the trend, as well as by Fox’s de facto stance that the Big Ten needs to do more to help itself. There is a growing sense at the Big Ten, from those who work for the conference to the individual athletic departments, that, compensation aside, they are at a disadvantage when it comes to the television product. And they fear the situation is only getting worse.
Fox and the Big Ten Have a September Problem
From 2021-2023, Big Noon was the most-watched TV window in the sport. It’s now fallen to a third behind ABC’s primetime and 3:30 game, both around 8 million viewers per week, compared with Big Noon’s 6.3 million weekly viewers in 2025. There’s chatter that Fox’s noon window could even end up behind ABC’s noon game this season.
Fox’s ability to compete with ABC’s 3:30 and 7:30 time slots went out the window when Texas and Oklahoma moved to the SEC, and ESPN acquired the SEC game of the week, previously held by CBS.
Big Noon will have a handful of great games this year, and every year. But beyond that, the slot is often filled with duds. So far this season, Big Noon has opened with North Texas vs. Indiana, Oklahoma vs. Michigan, Kent State vs. Ohio State, Illinois vs. Ohio State, and Michigan vs. Minnesota.
None of these games featured two ranked teams. The spreads for three of those games were 27, 41, and 52. You can probably understand why Gus Johnson has seemingly been sulking.
Fox didn’t even send Big Noon Kickoff to Kent State vs. Ohio State. Ultimately, they knew the size of the Ohio State fanbase might draw a bigger audience than their other options that day, even against a 50-point underdog, but they couldn’t even sell their Saturday pregame show for that game.
Fox is ultimately prioritizing a TV ratings projection versus airing a competitive game. This strategy does help maximize viewers, but it significantly diminishes the Big Noon brand and seems to act as a Quaalude for Gus Johnson. While they squeeze out mediocre ratings by going to objectively crappy Ohio State, Michigan, and Indiana games over and over, the cost is that most fans now know Big Noon is only “big” a handful of times each season.
Please don’t put Gus Johnson on Quaaludes. I actually enjoy listening to his off-brand foolishness, and it’s the only thing that makes watching games on Fox interesting.
While the first four (and probably fifth) Georgia games have been snoozers – thankfully, I suppose – the rest of the SEC slate has been must-see TV. Tennessee vs. Texas, Ole Miss vs. LSU, and Ole Miss vs. Florida have been money makers for ESPN/ABC/Satan. What’s odd is that it’s making more money for Fox, and how that is happening is beyond me. That can’t last long if there’s not enough eyes on the television.
And consider that a noon game featuring Georgia versus an Arkansas team that was boat-raced by Utah the week prior pulled almost as many viewers as Oregon vs. USC and “blue blood” matchup Michigan vs. Iowa.
I asked yesterday about engagement, but this could certainly be part of the problem. The games are starting to mean less thanks to playoff expansion, and the B1G’s problem of trying to include every football program in the nation is leading to dull matchups not worthy of watching unless they play out of conference.
What they (B1G fans) are beginning to learn is that they don’t need to tune in until the season is over, and pull for their favorite team in the expanded playoffs and let the soft regular season, player rest, and NIL compensation kick in to coast to another national championship.
If it continues at this rate, not only will the regular season mean less…the Trophy at the end of it will, too.
Maybe Kirby has a point about winning the SEC being a bigger deal than people give it credit for. You don’t have an expanded conference playoff, so you have to really make the regular season matter to be there, and win it all.
Well, Mickey, maybe “It’s a Small World” isn’t just a ride, but a mantra to hold to for preserving the integrity of college football.
Sure there are a lot of assumptions that can be made here. A few thoughts:
Could it be because of the number of SEC vs. Cupcake games being played the first two weeks? Maybe…but
You still had some SEC vs B1G and ACC games. Generally, some good matchups and the previous weekend that featured six games with ranked teams squaring off should’ve boosted over those cupcakes, right? But…
With the expanded playoffs, do these matchups matter as much? And does anyone even watch Notre Dame versus nobody anymore? The games aren’t even worth watching. But…
With conferences playing more conference games, that should’ve made better watching…but…
There are still cellar dwellers in conferences. Just as interesting as a cupcake game.
Who knows. Maybe it could be like college basketball you don’t know who’s playing this year or not, too?
I wonder what kind of viewership you’d have had if you flipped the LSU and Texas games?
