awfulannouncing
Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti didn't hold back when discussing ESPN's college football coverage, suggesting that the network's analysts simply echo directives from above. His comments, captured in two clips shared by Kirkwood and Dunn, came just after the College Football Playoff selection committee unveiled its initial rankings of the season on ESPN Tuesday night.
"These people, and there's a whole bunch of them, they march out of the tent, and they're given instructions on what to say," Cignetti said. "And they follow the company line. Right, and I don't need to go any further."
According to Cignetti, that company line is designed to boost the SEC. ESPN has a massive financial stake in the conference, paying billions for media rights, operating the SEC Network, and holding the rights to the playoff itself—including the weekly Tuesday night reveal that turns the committee's deliberations into primetime television.
The Big Ten, by contrast, has been a Fox conference since 2022, when ESPN exited negotiations and the league struck deals with Fox, CBS, and NBC, removing Big Ten football from ESPN's airwaves for the first time in about forty years.
"SEC gets a lot of love from the ESPN, and all their writers that they don't technically pay but march to their drum," Cignetti continued. "So that's why you see all these SEC teams up there, you know, and some good two-loss teams from the Big Ten, not quite as high. But like I said, it's all going to be played out on the field."
Cignetti became the second Big Ten coach in as many days to take a jab at ESPN over its playoff role. On Tuesday, Iowa's Kirk Ferentz joked that the Hawkeyes probably wouldn't make the rankings because they play on Fox, pointing to ESPN's limited coverage of the Fox-exclusive World Series as proof that the network promotes only events it broadcasts.
Despite Ferentz's prediction, the Hawkeyes did crack the rankings at No. 19 with a 6-2 record, while Cignetti's Hoosiers debuted at No. 4 with an 8-1 mark. Even that didn't satisfy Cignetti, who took to social media to defend Indiana's résumé with a terse reminder that "Facts are stubborn things."
His broader objection, however, seemed to focus on the rest of the rankings. The SEC claimed 10 of the 25 spots—more than any other conference—despite having no undefeated teams and six with two losses. Two-loss Alabama debuted directly behind Indiana at No. 5, while Ohio State, also with two losses and owner of a 19-15 win over the Hoosiers last month, sat seven spots lower at No. 12.
Such rankings fuel the skepticism that surrounds the weekly reveal, even within ESPN. Kirk Herbstreit, the network's most prominent college football analyst, has publicly called for an end to the show, and others have argued it should be scrapped. ESPN, though, has little incentive to drop a program that averaged roughly 1.7 million viewers per week last season.
The network may soon have to reconsider anyway, as Rece Davis, who hosts the broadcast, acknowledged this week that the format needs to be reimagined once the playoff expands to 24 teams.
The committee will release its next rankings Tuesday, Nov. 10, at approximately 9 p.m. ET on ESPN, giving the network's analysts another chance to march out of the tent and, in Cignetti's view, recite the company line.
Originally reported by awfulannouncing.