Did ESPN have an agenda trying to force feed Georgia into the playoffs?

A few days have passed since the College Football Playoff committee correctly selected Alabama, Clemson, Notre Dame, and Oklahoma into the college football playoffs. ESPN, specifically the normally astute Kirk Herbstreit tried and tried to give flawed reasoning why Georgia should have been that 4th playoff rather than Oklahoma.

To give some credit, Georgia fought hard and played a fine first half against the heavy playoff favorite Alabama.  They eventually led at one point in the 3rd quarter 28-14. They made Alabama look mortal which was no easy task.

Then Alabama became Alabama, and scored 21 unanswered points. Backup QB Jalen Hurts came in for the injured Tua Tgovailoa, and led Alabama to their final 2 TD scores.

Georgia missed FGs, Kirby Smart called a ridiculous fake punt at mid-field, Jake Fromm couldn’t drive Georgia anywhere near the endzone.

35-28 Game Over, and Georgia had their shot at the playoffs and that should have been the end of it.

It wasn’t, as ESPN tried to force feed us Georgia into the playoffs.

Here is the resume of the Georgia Bulldogs. They were not a conference champion. They had a 20 point defeat at 3 loss LSU. They blew a 2 TD 3rd quarter lead in their conference championship game to a backup QB. Their best non-conference win was 7-5 Georgia Tech. Basically ESPN tried sell us Georgia’s worthiness on 1 good half of football against Alabama. While Oklahoma avenged their only loss of the season by beating Texas and becoming a 1 loss Big 12 Champion.

UGA was a good team. Certainly one of the top 7 in the country, but one of the top 4 – no chance.

I have to go with with my blog partner @Hokiesmash_ASD who surmised that ESPN pushed the Georgia agenda to gain viewers for the playoff show. I am now convinced he is correct. There’s no rational reason to have included Georgia in the playoff discussion other than to try and build an audience.

Why? – is what escapes me, as you could have pushed the decision into an Oklahoma vs Ohio State one after the Buckeyes won the Big 10. To me Oklahoma was still the choice, but at least a debate of Oklahoma vs Ohio State was within reason. The Buckeyes were barely in the discussion.

Could have it been the old rumblings of E SEC PN?

Let’s just say when the ACC Network launches next year, will ESPN be pushing for 2 ACC and 2 SEC teams? I highly doubt that, but this Georgia inclusion was just t0o far fetched to think it was anything more that some kind of background agenda by ESPN.

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