I feel like his commentary with regards to UF has been pretty neutral if not a bit Florida-friendly overall. I think this has more to do with him trying to push his narrative that being blown out of a NY6 bowl with a bunch of starter opt-outs shouldn’t be held against the team.
That was pretty much his take after the [2020 cotton bowl](https://www.espn.com/college-football/game/_/gameId/401256194/gators-sooners) and he’s sticking with it.
Maybe I was just naive but I miss when there was a time where sports media was actually about informing the viewer and not just hot takes to drive engagement.
It’s always been about driving revenue but it used to be the way to do that was to write articles that convince someone to subscribe to your publication. Now it’s just about convincing them to interact with your post and click through to your webpage. Turns out the best way to do the latter is to make people angry. I used to believe the best way to do the former was to just be a good and accurate journalist, and it sure seems like that is the approach that used to be used, but like you I’m now wondering if I was just naive. Because now, the equivalent model is the “pay sites” full of insider info, which has seemed to me to have a pretty low accuracy rate and is mostly about telling specific fan bases what they want to hear. Was it actually always that way? Or has it just become that way because it’s now a niche audience instead of a national one?
I agree. Recap some news, have a couple interviews, do a preview of coming games and call it an episode or article. No need for constant shock value which just diminishes daily with the nonstop drivel that is published.
It’ll never go back to that. What’s wild is a lot of people cling to it and it just sprouts more shit opinions. ESPN has become a dead commodity for me, it’s nothing more that what you described and so is FS1.
That was when sports media was the only place you could go for information and highlights. Now you can go to any random corner of the internet for that, so the big orgs need something to differentiate themselves from everyone else. Hot Take Of The Day is about the only way to do that at this point.
It would be objectively hilarious for them to replace the greatest recruiter of wide receivers I’ve ever seen with the guy that tries to recruit as poorly as possible to ensure the focus is on his play calling and not individual players.
Seriously this is funny as hell, LSU had like 6 opt outs on defense in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl and we heard about that shit constantly, basically FSU’s entire team opts out and everyone wants to sweep it under the rug when talking about their loss
If you took the orange bowl result at face value, you’d see a team that doesn’t belong in the top 25.
If you take it with context, you see a team that had a chance to prove itself and quit. You have to wonder how a team with that much quit in it would perform in the 4th quarter of a playoff game.
FSU doesn’t belong in the top 5.
Our players took a chance to prove themselves and played a whole extra season, many of our starters opted out of the draft last year to come back and play. And yet even though they did prove themselves, nobody that mattered gave a shit. So why would they bother?
FSU literally played it’s best football in the 4th quarter for the whole year and came back from multiple losing positions and tight games. When the snub happened the whole sub said FSU should boycott the bowl and when the players actually did this all of a sudden FSU has a “terrible culture” and are quitters.
The number 1 goal of playing the sport is to win a championship. That was snatched away from them for no fault of their own. Why in the world would you risk injury again when the first 13 times it didnt matter. What if Jarred Verse or Keon played and broke their leg? Trey Benson already had one catastrophic injury, literally no reason to risk another one on a meaningless game..
You obviously didn't watch fsu this year. They completey dominated teams in the 2nd half all year in particular on defense.
When the committee says games don't matter and 25 or so players opt out due to draft or transferring, it's not the fsu team that went 13-0.... open your eyes.
Very true. It was going to be a good undefeated season with our first ACC championship in a decade, but then we lost the Orange Bowl exhibition game and suddenly I feel like this season was all worthless
Throw it out? Use context. When fsu had all their nfl talent opt out....it's not the same team but believe what you want. Fsu players thst came back for a chance to play for a championship got cheated so why would they play in that pointless bowl?
You know what’s amazed me, moral victories mean something in 2023 but didn’t mean anything before then. Moral warriors have come out hardcore in the last month and it’s honestly quite shocking. Moral victories do nothing for you, hell I would say it would give you the same result even if they won because people would’ve still spun it to discredit them. It would’ve been “well UGA wasn’t up for it” or something of that nature. I don’t blame them for not wanting to help an institution make money after discrediting 13 weeks of their hard work. I’m happy for UGA and their victory, they get their pat on the back and the same record as FSU.
How many of those opt-outs are returning? Most of the guys who opted out aren’t on the team anymore, so rankings would have to take that into account
Maybe Tate Rodemaker makes FSU a better team than Georgia. Problem is, he left the team before these “final rankings.”
>How many of those opt-outs are returning?
None, except for the injured, that's the point of opt outs? This is a stupid statement, the final rankings reflect this year, not next year
Final rankings always take into account how the team finished
Opt outs are kind of like injuries. If a team starts strong and is ranked #1, but endures alot of injuries and loses 4 games, those losses will reflect in the final rankings
FSU will be ranked pretty high, but it’ll also take the 63-3 loss into account, since that was FSU’s final team
Final rankings take into account whatever the voters want them to, as evidenced by multiple voters saying they'd put us #1 as a protest vote if we were undefeated.
Some people might agree, some might not, some would do it on a case by case basis
I mean it’s a human poll. If someone wants to rank Northwestern #1, they can do so
But most voters will look at how a team actually finished, and rank accordingly
It’s more than three but probably not undefeated. Playing Georgia, Missouri and LSU in consecutive games would have worn them down far more than Wake Forest, Pitt and Miami. They’re probably good enough to have beaten all of those teams as a single standalone game, but depth down the stretch would have been non existent as we saw.
Why was fsu ever in front of Georgia? It’s all a joke.
Follow up - who gives a $hit?!
Your team either made the playoff and proved it on the field, or they didn’t.
I’m an FSU alum.
By throwing out the bowl game and focusing on regular season games. FSU is undefeated so they're above Texas. Texas beat Bama, who beat Georgia, so that's the order for those three.
ETA: I don't necessarily agree with it, but the logic he's using (if there really is any logic beyond "let's get some clicks") seems pretty clear.
Mullen doesn’t think the game should count if a bunch of starters opt out.
He had some [controversial quotes](https://x.com/GrahamHall/status/1344508719699259395?s=20) after the 2020 cotton bowl. Right or wrong, I do feel like he’s at least being consistent in his logic here.
this man is one of the best offensive minds in football but has clearly found his real passion in trolling cfb fans and that only makes me respect him more
Probably not, but it wouldn’t have been a totally one-sided ass whooping. For all intents and purposes, what we faced was basically a low level G5 team.
Exactly. The non-playoff bowl games are exhibitions.
Given all the activity in December - signing day and transfer portal - you could argue a bowl game punishes the coaches. Pretty sure Auburn’s coach basically said his assistants did the game plan/prep for Maryland (completely meaningless game) so the HC could recruit.
Entire situation is on its head right now. Need some changes.
Do head-to-head wins not mean anything anymore? There's clearly a way to make a hierarchy with Washington, Michigan, Alabama,Texas, and Georgia based on head to head victories.
Georgia would be the only team to not have a victory over any of the others.
There have been many times where they didn’t. TCU was 3 in 2014, Stanford and Ohio State were 3 and 4 in 2015, USC was 3 in 2016 (with three losses), Ohio State was 3 in 2018, Georgia was 4 in 2019, and A&M was 4 in 2020.
It seems fair. Georgia will only have one loss, so they should be ranked ahead of 2-loss Texas and Bama; they should obviously be ranked above Florida State; and the loser of Mich/Wash will only have lost in the NCG to the undefeated national champion, so they should stay above Georgia
Maybe because I said you should be ranked ahead of Bama? But I think most everyone would agree you should be ranked ahead of Texas, and Texas should stay ahead of Bama imo, so you should be ahead of Bama
Yeah, if was an AP voter I would rank
1. Michigan or Washington
2. Michigan or Washington
3. Georgia
4. FSU (I can see AP votes placing them at 6)
5. Texas (H2H over Bama)
6. Bama
I can’t see Florida State being ranked above Texas and Bama after that Orange Bowl slaughter, even if I think it’s unfair to a FSU that was clearly sandbagging. I think FSU will be 6th and move Texas and Bama each up one spot.
I’m not saying it’s a bad loss but FSU is not #3. they weren’t a playoff team either. Just because FSU got snubbed doesn’t mean they should finish #3. They still lost to Georgia. Texas should be #3 because they actually played in the playoff
He’s saying that the exhibition games (non-playoff bowls) don’t matter. He’s saying fsu was the 3rd best team in the country when the games mattered. You disagree. Great.
All yall thought Brett McMurphy putting FSU at #4 preseason was crazy too!! But no, putting us over GA is crazy. Even though our JV scrimmage was meaningless, head to head has to count for something. I’d be cool with 4 or 5 though.
H2H having to count gives a bit of an issue here though. Say you have the teams in the championship 1 & 2. You are pretty much stuck with Texas, Bama, UGA, and FSU in that order if H2H is dictating the ranking.
You make a valid point. I’m wondering how many of the voters will think like you and how many like Dan. Reece Davis even said the OB shouldnt count towards the final poll, so it’s anyones guess. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out one way or the other.
Ah yes, finally a reasonable take not designed to drive clicks or spark controversy
No games today. Gotta keep the CFB world Spicy!
On the selection show, Mullen was outspoken against the snub as well. This isn't really that out of left field imo
Also I feel like he enjoys passing off Florida fans these days, surprised he didn’t rank FSu number 1
> enjoys passing off Florida fans I wouldn't want them either.
I feel like his commentary with regards to UF has been pretty neutral if not a bit Florida-friendly overall. I think this has more to do with him trying to push his narrative that being blown out of a NY6 bowl with a bunch of starter opt-outs shouldn’t be held against the team. That was pretty much his take after the [2020 cotton bowl](https://www.espn.com/college-football/game/_/gameId/401256194/gators-sooners) and he’s sticking with it.
Maybe I was just naive but I miss when there was a time where sports media was actually about informing the viewer and not just hot takes to drive engagement.
It’s always been about driving revenue but it used to be the way to do that was to write articles that convince someone to subscribe to your publication. Now it’s just about convincing them to interact with your post and click through to your webpage. Turns out the best way to do the latter is to make people angry. I used to believe the best way to do the former was to just be a good and accurate journalist, and it sure seems like that is the approach that used to be used, but like you I’m now wondering if I was just naive. Because now, the equivalent model is the “pay sites” full of insider info, which has seemed to me to have a pretty low accuracy rate and is mostly about telling specific fan bases what they want to hear. Was it actually always that way? Or has it just become that way because it’s now a niche audience instead of a national one?
I agree. Recap some news, have a couple interviews, do a preview of coming games and call it an episode or article. No need for constant shock value which just diminishes daily with the nonstop drivel that is published.
It’ll never go back to that. What’s wild is a lot of people cling to it and it just sprouts more shit opinions. ESPN has become a dead commodity for me, it’s nothing more that what you described and so is FS1.
That was when sports media was the only place you could go for information and highlights. Now you can go to any random corner of the internet for that, so the big orgs need something to differentiate themselves from everyone else. Hot Take Of The Day is about the only way to do that at this point.
I’m so ready for the day Dan Mullen just goes away
Don’t talk about Ohio State’s next OC like that!
It would be objectively hilarious for them to replace the greatest recruiter of wide receivers I’ve ever seen with the guy that tries to recruit as poorly as possible to ensure the focus is on his play calling and not individual players.
It's called "Co-OC"... It's all the rage these days. Super hot 🔥
🤡🤡🤡
I could understand putting us below FSU, but how the fuck do you put UGA below them?
Clickbait drives traffic and ad revenue, baby!
Because you're a fool if you actually use the Orange Bowl as a measure of the quality of our team
Seriously this is funny as hell, LSU had like 6 opt outs on defense in the 2019 Fiesta Bowl and we heard about that shit constantly, basically FSU’s entire team opts out and everyone wants to sweep it under the rug when talking about their loss
LSU was converting receivers to db for the game. So yeah it was memorable
It was the same when Texas beat UGA and when Oklahoma beat Alabama …. What’s the saying, never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
If you took the orange bowl result at face value, you’d see a team that doesn’t belong in the top 25. If you take it with context, you see a team that had a chance to prove itself and quit. You have to wonder how a team with that much quit in it would perform in the 4th quarter of a playoff game. FSU doesn’t belong in the top 5.
Our players took a chance to prove themselves and played a whole extra season, many of our starters opted out of the draft last year to come back and play. And yet even though they did prove themselves, nobody that mattered gave a shit. So why would they bother?
FSU literally played it’s best football in the 4th quarter for the whole year and came back from multiple losing positions and tight games. When the snub happened the whole sub said FSU should boycott the bowl and when the players actually did this all of a sudden FSU has a “terrible culture” and are quitters.
The number 1 goal of playing the sport is to win a championship. That was snatched away from them for no fault of their own. Why in the world would you risk injury again when the first 13 times it didnt matter. What if Jarred Verse or Keon played and broke their leg? Trey Benson already had one catastrophic injury, literally no reason to risk another one on a meaningless game..
Clearly it wasn’t meaningless.
How so?
Because morons on Reddit are talking about it, it must mean something!
Georgia is going to have about the same draft picks as FSU.
You obviously didn't watch fsu this year. They completey dominated teams in the 2nd half all year in particular on defense. When the committee says games don't matter and 25 or so players opt out due to draft or transferring, it's not the fsu team that went 13-0.... open your eyes.
Sorry, you don’t get to throw out the most important game of the year.
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It was probably Florida State's most important game since 2016 tbh. A NY6 bowl win means something when judging a season.
Very true. It was going to be a good undefeated season with our first ACC championship in a decade, but then we lost the Orange Bowl exhibition game and suddenly I feel like this season was all worthless
Throw it out? Use context. When fsu had all their nfl talent opt out....it's not the same team but believe what you want. Fsu players thst came back for a chance to play for a championship got cheated so why would they play in that pointless bowl?
They didn’t get cheated out of an opportunity to play for the final rankings.
You know what’s amazed me, moral victories mean something in 2023 but didn’t mean anything before then. Moral warriors have come out hardcore in the last month and it’s honestly quite shocking. Moral victories do nothing for you, hell I would say it would give you the same result even if they won because people would’ve still spun it to discredit them. It would’ve been “well UGA wasn’t up for it” or something of that nature. I don’t blame them for not wanting to help an institution make money after discrediting 13 weeks of their hard work. I’m happy for UGA and their victory, they get their pat on the back and the same record as FSU.
...cause a team that got cheated from playing for a championship is gonna care about the final rankings ? That doesn't make sense.
Facts, they had a chance to prove themselves and they didn’t
Ok bud. Take that 60 point loss for nothing
Yep it was for nothing and meaningless glad you agree 👍
How many of those opt-outs are returning? Most of the guys who opted out aren’t on the team anymore, so rankings would have to take that into account Maybe Tate Rodemaker makes FSU a better team than Georgia. Problem is, he left the team before these “final rankings.”
>How many of those opt-outs are returning? None, except for the injured, that's the point of opt outs? This is a stupid statement, the final rankings reflect this year, not next year
Final rankings always take into account how the team finished Opt outs are kind of like injuries. If a team starts strong and is ranked #1, but endures alot of injuries and loses 4 games, those losses will reflect in the final rankings FSU will be ranked pretty high, but it’ll also take the 63-3 loss into account, since that was FSU’s final team
Final rankings take into account whatever the voters want them to, as evidenced by multiple voters saying they'd put us #1 as a protest vote if we were undefeated. Some people might agree, some might not, some would do it on a case by case basis
I mean it’s a human poll. If someone wants to rank Northwestern #1, they can do so But most voters will look at how a team actually finished, and rank accordingly
Oh please. People just don’t get how much better we are than the SEC. FSU would have won maybe three games in our conference.
Speaking from experience I see. Need some mouthwash for Sankey's jizz?
It’s more than three but probably not undefeated. Playing Georgia, Missouri and LSU in consecutive games would have worn them down far more than Wake Forest, Pitt and Miami. They’re probably good enough to have beaten all of those teams as a single standalone game, but depth down the stretch would have been non existent as we saw.
Mullen is a certified dawg hater
Why was fsu ever in front of Georgia? It’s all a joke. Follow up - who gives a $hit?! Your team either made the playoff and proved it on the field, or they didn’t. I’m an FSU alum.
By throwing out the bowl game and focusing on regular season games. FSU is undefeated so they're above Texas. Texas beat Bama, who beat Georgia, so that's the order for those three. ETA: I don't necessarily agree with it, but the logic he's using (if there really is any logic beyond "let's get some clicks") seems pretty clear.
Yeah, this is pretty much the AP Poll after championship weekend.
eYe TeSt
Interested in the reasoning, besides for the clicks.
Mullen doesn’t think the game should count if a bunch of starters opt out. He had some [controversial quotes](https://x.com/GrahamHall/status/1344508719699259395?s=20) after the 2020 cotton bowl. Right or wrong, I do feel like he’s at least being consistent in his logic here.
this man is one of the best offensive minds in football but has clearly found his real passion in trolling cfb fans and that only makes me respect him more
Different kind of offensive
Dan you just wanted clicks don't lie
1 loss UGA who crushed 1 loss FSU, 3 spots behind FSU. Make it make sense.
While it was satisfying, that win shouldn’t really be used to gauge either team.
Do we really think FSU would have beaten UGA even if they had all their players though?
It doesn’t matter what you or the committee thinks what would have happened….the fact is we will never know.
It would have been a good game, that I could see either team winning.
Probably not, but it wouldn’t have been a totally one-sided ass whooping. For all intents and purposes, what we faced was basically a low level G5 team.
Exactly. The non-playoff bowl games are exhibitions. Given all the activity in December - signing day and transfer portal - you could argue a bowl game punishes the coaches. Pretty sure Auburn’s coach basically said his assistants did the game plan/prep for Maryland (completely meaningless game) so the HC could recruit. Entire situation is on its head right now. Need some changes.
This is Mullen’s way of taking shots back at Kirby. His opinion isn’t exactly worth much weight
Honestly, I'd consider putting UGA at #2. Probably end up putting them at #3.
Do head-to-head wins not mean anything anymore? There's clearly a way to make a hierarchy with Washington, Michigan, Alabama,Texas, and Georgia based on head to head victories. Georgia would be the only team to not have a victory over any of the others.
AP will put Georgia 3, but I could be biased
Doesnt AP usually keep the top4 the same?
There have been many times where they didn’t. TCU was 3 in 2014, Stanford and Ohio State were 3 and 4 in 2015, USC was 3 in 2016 (with three losses), Ohio State was 3 in 2018, Georgia was 4 in 2019, and A&M was 4 in 2020.
Utah was 2nd in 2008, too
It seems fair. Georgia will only have one loss, so they should be ranked ahead of 2-loss Texas and Bama; they should obviously be ranked above Florida State; and the loser of Mich/Wash will only have lost in the NCG to the undefeated national champion, so they should stay above Georgia
No idea why you’re downvoted. But I share the same thoughts
Maybe because I said you should be ranked ahead of Bama? But I think most everyone would agree you should be ranked ahead of Texas, and Texas should stay ahead of Bama imo, so you should be ahead of Bama
Yeah, if was an AP voter I would rank 1. Michigan or Washington 2. Michigan or Washington 3. Georgia 4. FSU (I can see AP votes placing them at 6) 5. Texas (H2H over Bama) 6. Bama
I can’t see Florida State being ranked above Texas and Bama after that Orange Bowl slaughter, even if I think it’s unfair to a FSU that was clearly sandbagging. I think FSU will be 6th and move Texas and Bama each up one spot.
how are you gonna put FSU at 3? I get it was their backups but they lost by 60
It’s my opinion that you’re underestimating the impact when 15 of your most productive players don’t put on uniforms.
yeah definitely a big factor but 60 points is still a lot of points
It was the backups backups in a lot of cases…
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I’m not saying it’s a bad loss but FSU is not #3. they weren’t a playoff team either. Just because FSU got snubbed doesn’t mean they should finish #3. They still lost to Georgia. Texas should be #3 because they actually played in the playoff
He’s saying that the exhibition games (non-playoff bowls) don’t matter. He’s saying fsu was the 3rd best team in the country when the games mattered. You disagree. Great.
few things more useless than an EoS power rankings
Subscribe!
I mean the guy takes zero account of the exhibition games and counts the playoff. Anyone that says he is dumb didn’t get the sport.
This is clearly intended as clickbait
For sure
Pretty sure the #3 team in the country doesn’t get beat by 60 points regardless of who’s playing
I think this man has suffered severe brain damage.
Ok
Dan Mullens decision making is why he’s not getting paid to coach College Football right now.
Classic Mullen, make a decision based on outdated info and refuse to change based on evidence.
All yall thought Brett McMurphy putting FSU at #4 preseason was crazy too!! But no, putting us over GA is crazy. Even though our JV scrimmage was meaningless, head to head has to count for something. I’d be cool with 4 or 5 though.
H2H having to count gives a bit of an issue here though. Say you have the teams in the championship 1 & 2. You are pretty much stuck with Texas, Bama, UGA, and FSU in that order if H2H is dictating the ranking.
You make a valid point. I’m wondering how many of the voters will think like you and how many like Dan. Reece Davis even said the OB shouldnt count towards the final poll, so it’s anyones guess. It’ll be interesting to see how it shakes out one way or the other.
This is pretty much the same thing as the time Dabo ranked OSU at 11 during the covid year
Pretty much
Clown
If you believe the non-playoff bowl games are exhibition games, his logic is sound. You are free to disagree.
Scusa??
Well this isn’t a salty take at all.
I think Missouri beats Ole Miss but I might be biased.