Commentary: Michigan vs. Alabama is Fox vs. ESPN. This is the state of college football in 2024
LOS ANGELES — During the postcard hour of last year's Rose Bowl, when gray clouds covered the San Gabriels and rain peppered the Granddaddy's glorious green turf, the scene made for easy metaphorical references to Mother Nature expressing her displeasure at the sad end of one of college football's timeless traditions — the champions from the Big Ten and Pac-12 playing in Pasadena to ring in the new year.
Looking back, the surprising darkness and dampening of Penn State's win over Utah was a portending moment. Yes, a disruptive and disheartening 2023 for our beloved sport was truly just getting started.
Seven months later, there wouldn't even be a Pac-12 to speak of. After Colorado's departure for the Big 12, stoked by the bravado of new coach Deion Sanders, Fox saw a window to finish what it started a year prior when it encouraged the additions of USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, bringing along Washington and Oregon. This 18-team "super conference" presumably would go toe-to-toe with the ESPN-backed 16-team SEC — toe-to-toe, at least, in the TV rating metrics, the only competition that seems to matter these days.
Mercifully, the games finally started again, and the product drew more viewership than ever before. It turns out that the players being labeled as amateurs and treated like
