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.
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.
You gotta hand it to him. At 61, he’s the oldest NFL head coach to make his debut as the head coach and start the season 3-1.
With the Cleveland Browns.
With a PR nightmare QB room.
After being pretty much booed out of Baltimore and blamed as the reason why the Ravens weren’t successful, instead of tucking his tail between his legs and hanging it up, he’s making waves in the one place where most people imagine you go to let your career die.
Seems like the kind of guy you’d want to play for, no?
I gotta admit, looking back at 21 and 22, Kirby did everything he imaginably could to put together a roster of players and coaches that couldn’t be beat.
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?
Shocker, sounds like Curtis is wavering on his decision to play at Georgia again.
After not playing against Oklahoma, star Georgia RB Nate Frazier is questionable. Vanderbilt QB Jared Curtis is questionable. pic.twitter.com/YXdpLGDbLZ
It’s likely raining, so all he needs to do is hand off or possibly run some times, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he finds a way to duck this game the same way he ducked his commitment.
Well, well, well…look who’s in the Top 5 this week.
Others receiving votes: South Florida, Cincinnati, Kentucky (5), Wake Forest, Houston, Massachusetts (4)
Dropping out: Vanderbilt (24), Kansas State (24),West Virginia (21), Michigan (20), Penn State (18), Missouri (17), Louisville (15),
Notably, losing to Texas and Florida has repercussions around here, as both Tennessee and Ole Miss saw the largest drops and differences between ours and AP polls. Reminder that Ole Miss was without Kewan Lacy, but let that be a lesson about all your eggs and a basket, right?
Also, look at all the Group of 6 love we’re giving…the AP currently only has one G6 team (Boise State) while we’re including NDSU and JMU, and some votes for UMass, too. I’m sure they’d appreciate this poll. Also, James Franklin thanks you for not noticing how ugly the Virginia Tech win was against Boston College last weekend.
In regards to our bonus questions:
Which area worries us the most? Pass Offense – 49%; Offensive Line – 22.8%, Secondary – 10.5%; Defensive Line – 8.8%
Which area is our strength? Linebackers – 57.9%; Defensive Line – 15.8%; Coaching – 12.3%; Run Offense – 7%
What do we think will happen in Atlanta against Florida? 83% said we will win, but it will be uncomfortably close, 14% Dawgs in a Landslide, and 4% said we lose, but barely.
Honest question – what is comfortably close? Anything outside of a 28 points lead is always uncomfortable to me and my 1990s PTSD.
Meet David Rudolph Jenrath, aka Don Julio, a former staffer who has now been arrested on felony charges for leaking Auburn recruiting secrets to other teams.
The interesting this about it is that it sounds like, in keeping with the true Auburn tradition of national championships, that much of it was made up.
One source on the receiving end of the email questioned how proprietary the information really was. Jenrath was not a major member of the Auburn front office staff, and multiple sources told CBS Sports he was fired after he was spotted at an Auburn baseball game, even though he told staff he was sick.
“Your high school slash JUCO evaluation pipeline and how it gets from the intern to the head coach is not confidential information,” a source said.
CBS Sports has obtained part of what Jenrath emailed to dozens of front office staffers seemingly at random in July. The source on the receiving end of the documents said 85 different email addresses were listed, including theirs. The document is labeled as an “Auburn personnel manual” which lists the names, phone numbers and emails of recruiting staff and scouts. It also includes a section for scouting office rules/expectations, and an explainer of the different recruiting and scouting services used by the Auburn scouting department.
Another source who had viewed the email recipients flagged that some of the addresses were for staffers who had moved onto other jobs. “It’s almost as if he asked AI for a list of recruiting staff members.”
To make matters even better, Don Julio is a student currently at Tennessee.
When it comes to college football, the facts are simply better than fiction.
Well, before we all go talking smack at Florida, seems it was a term coined long ago at Florida by none other than the Corch himself:
So now the Gators are claiming proprietary rights over the term and starting to talk trash in earnest, all the while forgetting that Bloody Tuesdays on the Florida campus haven’t happened in nearly two decades, let alone many bloody Saturdays, either.
Also, I don’t think the term Bloody Tuesdays is explicitly novel to Meyer, either. From doing a little digging (mainly because many Twits of Twix were arguing that Erk coined the phrase, which he didn’t, but AI will tell you anything) sounds like most programs have their first full contact practices on Tuesdays.
Sundays are generally film study and walkthroughs, Mondays are an NCAA mandated no practice day (or vice versa but apparently there is a required day of no practice), so Tuesday is the first “get back at it” day and sets the tone for the week. Sounds pretty important, but not just to Kirby and Sumrall.
Still, suffice it to say the rivalry has warmed again, in case it ever felt like it was cooling to anyone out there.
Good thing we haven’t been shooting in the foot with penalties lately. In fact, some may say that their theories of “the refs favor Georgia” may have a point, based on this infographic.
Or, you know, they could be disciplined.
Also not surprised that Alabama is at the bottom of that list, but that makes me guilty of the same assumption I made above.
We couldn’t have gotten one of those marquee noon slots on ESPN, could we?
I’m sure it’s about two undefeated teams something something and the rivalry and the brand…but…didn’t that just happen last weekend with Tennessee and Texas?
Methinks Nick Saban may be whispering into producers ears up in Bristol.
