Bill Connelly article on CFB commissioner
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2025 11:32 am
Must Read article. Does the future of college football need a commissioner? https://www.espn.com/college-football/s ... re-excerpt
Article opens with talking about 1919 Black Sox scandal and noting but just barely, that there were other issues around MLB then that could turn even worse. Connelly writes: Baseball had been governed by a National Commission consisting of three parties with extreme self-interest: National League president John Heydler, American League president Ban Johnson, and Garry Herrmann, president of the Cincinnati Reds team that had beaten the White Sox in the World Series. Its leadership proved lacking in this moment, and its questionable independence severely damaged perceptions.
One of Nick Saban's most important quotations is used by Connelly: "'"There needs to be somebody that looks out for what's best for the game," Alabama's Nick Saban said at the time, "not what's best for the Big Ten or what's best for the SEC or what's best for Jim Harbaugh, but what's best for the game of college football -- the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it. That's bigger than all of this."
Great quote from Charley Trippi in the 1950s rightly noting that CFB needed a commissioner because the BT was then, and long before then, acting like the BT: """Charley Trippi, one of the all-time greats in college and professional football ... said college football today needs a national commissioner to direct the game on a national basis. Trippi ... charged that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is 'controlled by the Big Ten.' He said he felt no conference in the nation should have any kind of monopoly in the game." -- Macon News, 1958
And it is much worse now because the SEC is like the BT on meth and steroids, replete with NY lawyers who belong on high pay retainer for Mafia families.
Triple Amen to this paragraph: "For somewhere between 10 and 30 years, Delany was the sport's most powerful figure. He kick-started multiple runs of conference realignment, and the Big Ten's creation of the Big Ten Network turned out to be a game-changer. But college football's most powerful figure was also doing everything he could to keep other conferences' ambitions in check, to almost limit the sport's potential growth in other areas of the country."
Always acting to move toward monopoly in order to claim all Titles and all the money available. That is THE problem.
Article opens with talking about 1919 Black Sox scandal and noting but just barely, that there were other issues around MLB then that could turn even worse. Connelly writes: Baseball had been governed by a National Commission consisting of three parties with extreme self-interest: National League president John Heydler, American League president Ban Johnson, and Garry Herrmann, president of the Cincinnati Reds team that had beaten the White Sox in the World Series. Its leadership proved lacking in this moment, and its questionable independence severely damaged perceptions.
One of Nick Saban's most important quotations is used by Connelly: "'"There needs to be somebody that looks out for what's best for the game," Alabama's Nick Saban said at the time, "not what's best for the Big Ten or what's best for the SEC or what's best for Jim Harbaugh, but what's best for the game of college football -- the integrity of the game, the coaches, the players, and the people that play it. That's bigger than all of this."
Great quote from Charley Trippi in the 1950s rightly noting that CFB needed a commissioner because the BT was then, and long before then, acting like the BT: """Charley Trippi, one of the all-time greats in college and professional football ... said college football today needs a national commissioner to direct the game on a national basis. Trippi ... charged that the National Collegiate Athletic Association is 'controlled by the Big Ten.' He said he felt no conference in the nation should have any kind of monopoly in the game." -- Macon News, 1958
And it is much worse now because the SEC is like the BT on meth and steroids, replete with NY lawyers who belong on high pay retainer for Mafia families.
Triple Amen to this paragraph: "For somewhere between 10 and 30 years, Delany was the sport's most powerful figure. He kick-started multiple runs of conference realignment, and the Big Ten's creation of the Big Ten Network turned out to be a game-changer. But college football's most powerful figure was also doing everything he could to keep other conferences' ambitions in check, to almost limit the sport's potential growth in other areas of the country."
Always acting to move toward monopoly in order to claim all Titles and all the money available. That is THE problem.