The Wisconsin Badgers are far from sniffing the College Football Playoff. When they return to the discussion, you can expect them to receive the same treatment ESPN gave the Indiana Hoosiers and SMU Mustangs this year.
The four first-round playoff games proved to be duds, as the home teams all won by double digits. Ohio State had the best showing out of all the home teams, as they dominated Tennessee 42-17 right from the start. You would think a network like ESPN would praise Ohio State for beating a mighty SEC squad and setting up a No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup with Oregon, but that's not what we got.
Instead, we had these hot takes from ESPN:
"What was it about [Indiana's] resume that said they were clearly more deserving than SMU or Alabama?... I think they need to lose the assumption that the SEC and the Big 10 are clearly head & shoulders above everybody else, particularly the Big 10..." - Sean McDonough 🏈🎙️#CFP pic.twitter.com/tPHIjNXGw6
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 21, 2024
On @SportsCenter last night, @KirkHerbstreit takes a stand. Do you agree? pic.twitter.com/OFCbboT4QH
— Linda Cohn (@lindacohn) December 22, 2024
So far, the CFP selection committee has given us some blockbusters. Notre Dame led late over Indiana 27-3 and Penn State just went up on the committee’s final team 28-0 at the half. Take a bow.
— Paul Finebaum (@finebaum) December 21, 2024
The sad part about how ESPN treated Indiana and SMU's historic season was that it was nothing new. Remember the 2017 Wisconsin Badgers? They were a 12-0 team with ranked wins over Iowa and Michigan. Tim Tebow (remember him?) had some less-than-mediocre comments on our Badgers before the Big Ten Championship game.
Tim Tebow coming in hot. (via @FirstTake) pic.twitter.com/dpDH8TUTl0
— ESPN (@espn) December 1, 2017
You would think that a network like ESPN would be excited to cover something new in Division I college football history: playoff games at college football venues. These playoffs also feature storylines such as Indiana's first 11-win season in school history and SMU's long climb back from their 1987 Death Penalty. Everyone loves an underdog, right?
We didn't get that from ESPN. Instead, we heard how these games were awful, that Indiana and SMU didn't belong, and that Alabama would've given us fans a much more competitive game against Notre Dame or Penn State.
Side note: Do you notice how SEC teams always come out on top in these hypotheticals?
We can debate on and on until we are blue in the face over who should have made the College Football Playoff this year, but for ESPN to trash Indiana and SMU's fantastic seasons like garbage was as unprofessional as it gets.
And you can expect them to use these tactics against Wisconsin in the future.