The College Football Crisis: Corn Dogs vs Commissioners And Why It's A Big Deal!
SEC fans should be the angriest of anybody, because the SEC Championship Game is in the crosshairs.
By Buddy Martin
I’m not a member of the team Steve Sarkisian fan club. But this week the Texas coach said the smartest thing anybody in college football has said in years, and he said it about corn dogs:
“I love all of that. I love all that this thing comes with. I love that it’s at the State Fair. The smell of corndogs, the funnel cakes, all that. It’s so special, it’s so unique. I do not take it lightly but I would not change it for anything. I think it being there at the old Cotton Bowl is very, very special.”
Translation for the commissioners: some things aren’t for sale.
They won’t hear it, of course. They’re too busy counting.
Rivalries Built in a Boardroom
College football used to be regional, tribal and petty in the best way. You hated the school across the state line because your daddy did, and his daddy before him.
Then the TV money showed up and the suits started drawing maps with a dartboard. Bedlam? Gone. The Pac-12? Sold for parts. Now fans are supposed to get fired up over “rivals” who sit three time zones away and have no history with them at all.
You can’t create hatred with a press release. It takes a hundred years and a few stolen goalposts.
Twenty-Four Teams, Zero Stakes
Twelve playoff teams wasn’t enough. Now the people running the sport want 24.
College football used to have the best regular season in sports because one loss could sink you. In a 24-team field, a loss is just a bump in the road. Two losses get you a first-round home game. Rivalry Week turns into a scrimmage where a coach who’s already in sits his starters against the school his fans have hated since the Eisenhower years.
It isn’t expansion. It’s dilution with a bracket attached.
Atlanta on the Chopping Block
SEC fans should be the angriest of anybody, because the SEC Championship Game is in the crosshairs.
There are only so many weekends on the calendar and only so many hits a player’s body can take. Stretch the playoff and something has to go, and the people in charge have already said conference title games could be cut.
So December in Atlanta, a real championship that sells out a city and was earned over a whole season, could be traded for a 9-3 team playing a Friday night first-round game in front of empty seats.
People like me, and the followers of Steve Spurrier who value the SEC championship game right up there next to the natty game, are downright outraged at the idea that they would throw out the baby with the bathwater. Kill the SEC championship game? Is nothing sacred anymore?
Ask the bowls how that works out. The Rose, the Sugar and the Orange were once the prize for a great season. Now they’re filler between playoff rounds, and half of every roster is in the transfer portal before kickoff.
Dallas Got It Right
Texas and Oklahoma could have walked away from the Cotton Bowl years ago. A home-and-home series would bring more money and more control, which is all anybody in charge seems to care about.
They stayed. In 2023 the schools extended the deal through 2036, and the City of Dallas committed $140 million to fix up the old stadium. Some of that work will be on display this weekend: the stadium split at the 50, burnt orange on one side and crimson on the other, with the State Fair going on outside.
That’s what saving a tradition looks like. Somebody looks at the extra dollar and says no.
Go Eat a Corn Dog
So here’s my advice to every commissioner, athletic director and TV executive with a bracket and a calculator: go to Dallas this weekend.
Walk the midway. Eat the corn dog. Stand in the tunnel when 92,000 people start screaming at each other. Then go back to your conference room and explain with a straight face why a 24-team playoff is worth more than that.
You can’t. Sarkisian already said it for you.
He would not change it for anything. Neither should you.
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