Click this link. (It is ESPN and work safe).
I find the words “again” and “dominates” to be propaganda.”Again” implies this happens ever year, which isn’t true (at least not until ESPN purchased the SEC). “Dominates” implies these teams actually play great football, to the point no other conference or team could compete with them.
They are attempting to condition me to accept the false notion that the SEC plays great football. That headline would be disproportionally influential to the average Joe Sixpack who checks in for his daily sports news. For the record: I did watch Georgia/South Carolina this weekend, and that was some of the worst defense and QB play I have watched since OSU/Sac State. Those are not good teams. Period.
ESPN/Disney is an embarrassment to sports. It is only good for fantasy football and baseball. If you want unbiased information about the real sports, you’ll have to increasingly turn to blogs and alternative media.
I like the argument being used that Arkansas, the lowest team in the SEC West, beat Texas Tech (and Nicholls State) so the SEC West is just “dominating” college football, with their 5 top 12 teams.
then later in the season, when these teams start playing each other, it will be a top 10 team beating another top 10 team, resulting in both teams staying ranked highly because…… somebody has to lose, right?
Apropos quote on zh this morning:
The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan. As soon as you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided, the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither digest nor retain the material offered. In this way the result is weakened and in the end entirely cancelled out.
Source: Chapter 6, “War Propaganda” of Adolf Hilter’s 1926 “Mein Kampf”
The headline states “SEC Again Dominates AP Poll.” Which is probably true, but speaks less to the quality of SEC football than the quality of AP critical thinking, reporting, and publishing. Saying the SEC dominates the AP poll is a different thing then saying they play dominating football.
Agree however that ESPN/Disney sucks, as does the AP poll.
I agree with that, which is why I wrote that it implies these teams play dominating football. We know that’s the ESPN/Disney message, so it follows that’s the implication of this headline. Maybe it is just news, but it sure feels like propaganda. I feel like it’s implied that the SEC is great when I read that.
Why not write “SEC with 7 teams in the top 15”? The language the chose to use is suggestive.
Similarly, Goe points out the danger of again allowing the SEC to control the narrative:
http://www.oregonlive.com/collegefootball/index.ssf/2014/09/monday_morning_news_notes_link_2.html
Regarding the “power 5” conferences, or whatever they call themselves, if they are the only teams that actually get to be in the “playoffs,” then they should only get to play nonconference games against each other. Imagine for example, Alabama, in week two, having to play Oregon and Mariotta, in Eugene, with only a week to prepare. Yeah, that’ll happen.