New Years Day began with ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit speaking a line about College GameDay that would echo for hours, and the throwback would become deafening as the unfortunate events unfolded hours later in New Orleans.
“I think this age of players just doesn’t love football,” Herbstreit said, discussing players who choose not to participate in bowling games to protect their bodies from injury and thus protect their professional futures. Analyst Desmond Howard opined that today’s players have “a sense of entitlement.” Two of the highest-paid men in the college athletics streaming space suggested that boys these days are cheating on the billion-dollar company that is only now beginning to compensate them for a fraction of their worth.
Herbstreit subsequently expanded on his comments, both on air and on Twitter. “Of course, some players love the game today as always. But some do not. I will always love the players of this game and I’m sorry if people thought I generalized them or grouped them all into one category. “
Less than 12 hours later, Mississippi star quarterback Matt Corral was on crutches at the Superdome with an ankle injury sustained at the Sugar Bowl, a game that would have been quite understandable had he skipped, given his high status as a draft, but what did i want to play. The extent of the injury was unclear Saturday night in terms of long-term damage, although Lane Kiffin Announced an x-ray was negative. Hopefully, it’s nothing that will compromise Corral’s ability to exercise or perform for scouts in the coming months.
Corral was injured in a first-quarter sack by the Bears defense.
Chuck Cook / USA TODAY Sports
Anyone who has seen Corral play would say that he loves soccer. But that passion would have been questioned if he’d chosen to sit outside the Sugar Bowl. He would also have entered the next chapter of his career without a limp.
On a day when the leading voice in the sport criticized players for opting out of bowl games, a top-10 vote winner in the Heisman Trophy, and a potential first-round pick in the NFL draft. showed the world why players skip them. Because sometimes players end up on crutches and crying on the sidelines. Depending on the severity of the injury, Corral could be the next warning.
Players have already heard that Notre Dame linebacker Jaylon Smith broke his knee at the 2016 Fiesta Bowl and dropped out of the first round of the draft. You’ve heard that Michigan tight end Jake Butt suffered a similar knee injury a year later at the Orange Bowl. They’ve seen enough bad things happen in games that they become more irrelevant each year.
Butt, who retired from the NFL last summer after a shortened career, appeared a couple of weeks ago on a Detroit-based podcast to talk about players opting out of bowling games. He said he had no regrets about his decision to play in the Orange Bowl, but added: “When you’re looking down and you have four, five, more than $ 10 million waiting for you … boy to sit down.”
But some in the sport still knock out guys for missing out. And the dull part of that is the sport’s own role in reducing bowling games to risky and inconsequential sideshows. The people in charge have done the damage, not the players who choose not to participate.
For years, coaches have left one job for another, ditching bowling duties along the way. That trend has only accelerated as the hiring and firing cycle has progressed even further into the regular season. The early signing period, implemented a few years ago, has become the biggest event in December for teams not participating in the playoffs; that is why the new coach must be in place as soon as possible, and that is why the bowl coach duties are transferred. to an acting boy.
So if schools don’t care about bowling, and coaches don’t care about bowling, explain to me why aspiring NFL players who take all risk of injury are supposed to care.
As Jason Gay from Wall street journal cunning and sour he pointed On Saturday, ESPN has done a lot to devalue the bowls it airs. The network airs the college football tie, which has overshadowed the rest of the postseason. He’s also been vital in promoting the NFL scouting combo and pro days, creating months of draft-related programming and billing it all as vital steps toward players’ future prospects.
This is an integral part of a system so bloated with greed and excess that it cannot even recognize its own double standards. We needed more than 40 bowl games because ESPN wanted the television inventory and the schools wanted the payouts and the coaches wanted the bonuses. But we also needed a Playoff because it would bring in tons of new revenue in addition to the bowls. And that new revenue is needed to build every imaginable facility and employ small armies of staff while paying the head coach $ 90 million over 10 years, and with a salary like that, he has to get to work and can’t be bothered to finish. a season. at the Valero Alamo Bowl, sorry.
Excess is also what puts Herbstreit in such ubiquity in the air that it dramatically increases his chances of saying something pitiful. His current schedule is just stupid, yet ESPN is celebrating that: Game’s Day and the Orange Bowl in South Florida on Friday, an overnight flight to California for more Game’s Day and the Rose Bowl on Saturday, and then a double-dip NFL / CFP championship game the following weekend.
Personally, I like Herbstreit and it’s a huge part of college football. But is it so invaluable that you had to do two on-site study programs and two games in a span of less than 36 hours on two different shores? That is simply nonsense, and yet it is an accepted practice. It can be difficult to articulate yourself well on live television when you are exhausted.
I don’t know if more rest would have saved Herbstreit from himself on Saturday. But the days of vilifying college football players for not playing games that have never mattered less should be over.
In a sport with a better postseason, an expanded playoff, there would be more relevant games and more participation from the best players. The power brokers in charge are only to blame for having devised the current seriously flawed system. Don’t blame the players for not accepting it.
More college football coverage:
• Michigan’s dream season ends with a groan
• Bennett, UGA make statements on Michigan Drubbing
• Nick Saban’s Juggernaut strikes again at CFP
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.