Winning a national title in college football takes talent, coaching, leadership, luck and many other things. But one of the main things it takes is the support of the mainstream media. Not that you'll ever hear ESPN or Sports Illustrated or CBS or any of the other media outlets covering college football admit it.When your sport ends its season with a beauty pageant (the BCS) instead of a head-to-head resolution (a playoff), it's inevitable that the people presenting the pageant have to be in support of the contestants. That's why it is so important for Georgia's football team to be starting the season with such acclaim and expectations. Doing so allows the members of the media to not only wrap their arms around the idea of UGA in the national title game far in advance, but to tell you at the end of the year that Georgia is a worthy contestant in the pageant. Of course, the telling you is based on those same media outlets placing Georgia in the pageant to begin with back in August.
Don't believe me. Take this anecdote from last season as your prime example. On December 1, 2007, UGA entered the day ranked no. 4 in the nation, having won six games in a row, including knocking off highly-ranked Florida 42-30, destroying Auburn by 25 points, and holding a potent Kentucky team to 13 points. The Dawgs watched that day as two of the three teams ranked ahead of them lost. But did Georgia move up to the no. 2 spot in the country and secure a berth in the final beauty pageant of the season? Of course not.
Because the media members who throw the party didn't deem Georgia to be worthy of competing in their beauty pageant. Sure, she might have been the late bloomer who ended up with the best figure in the class, but she hadn't started the season on their radar. That sin, the sin of the national media not noticing her until too late caused the Bulldogs to miss the final pageant last year, getting passed over for an LSU team that lost twice in the six-week period preceding December 1.
Care to guess where LSU started the season in 2007? As a friend of mine in the mainstream media said to me last year on December 2, "How could I not choose LSU? They've been there all season long, while Georgia just got hot late." That's right. All season long. As in, I, mr. high and mighty national media scribe, ranked LSU No. 2 in the preseason while I only had Georgia at no. 12.
Really?!? Are you serious?
The rationale for placing one two-loss team that is 4-2 over its last two six games in the beauty pageant final game over another two-loss team is that the former team has been there all season long. That's a rationale that is flawed in so many ways, the most obvious is that the mainstream media placed LSU at the top of the polls at season's beginning and Georgia in the middle of the pack, so they are simply validating their initial selection by choosing LSU over Georgia for the title game.
Validation of their own opinions. It's what no college football writer will ever talk to you about, but it's the dirtiest little secret around for those who support the current system and are against a playoff. The current system allows college football media members to tell you who the frontrunners are to be in the pageant and then they select the final contestants from a field including everyone. Do you really think those that weren't at the top of the polls to begin the season have a chance? If you believe that, you probably think that Michigan is actually the no. 24 team in the country.
Starting on December 3, 2007, Mark Richt began campaigning to be the number 1 team in the country preseason in 2008. He saw how his 2007 team fought against a stacked deck and made certain that would not be the case in 2008. He took advantage of an overmatched Hawaii team and pummeled them and Colt Brennan into the Superdome turf. And then look what he had to say immediately after the game.
"We wanted to win the national championship, we thought we had an outside shot at that, but it's still a great honor to finish in the top five and win 11 games," said Richt. "We're going to return a very good football team [next season]. ... I think we'll have a chance to make a run at it."
And from that statement on, Richt has actively made it a point to seek out a high preseason ranking. It's worked too. The coaches poll, Sports Illustrated, and now, posssibly, ESPN Magazine, have placed Georgia at the top of their preseason polls. By doing so, the media has created a wave and a resume for the Bulldogs. So long as Georgia wins its games, everything will fall into place.
You might think that is always the case, but 2007 certainly proved otherwise. In the end, you've got to be a contestant in the pageant to have a chance to win, and the Bulldogs are finally a contestant thanks to the mainstream media telling us they are.
Thanks for doing us so many favors, media scribes. Maybe someday you'll be so kind as to let the teams themselves determine at season's end who the prettiest of them actually is.
