Bo Pelini Is Wrong in Questioning ESPN's Relationship with the SEC

It's a good time to be an SEC team. Then again, it was a good time to be in the SEC last year, and the year before that and the year before that, and so on.

As of Sunday, SEC West teams Mississippi State, Ole Miss, Alabama and Auburn are ranked inside the top five of The Associated Press poll. Meanwhile, the Amway coaches poll has those four teams in the latest top six. Playoff projections from USA Today—which aren't really projections; they're more of a result "if the season ended today"—have two SEC West teams in the four-team field. 

The SEC is the king of college football—or, at least, that's the narrative being pushed. However, Nebraska head coach Bo Pelini takes issue with that, as well as the business partnership between the SEC and ESPN. 

From Huskers.com: 

"

On how good the SEC West is
I don’t know. I think that will play out as the season goes on. We will find out. We will see how that goes. They play good football, and I know there is some good football played in some other conferences, too. It’s hard to say because you just don’t see unfortunately in this day in age a lot of crossovers. So you don’t get a lot to make that decision on to be able to compare and contrast. You have to go off what the media says to a certain extent and what some people say.

On ESPN’s and the SEC’s relationship involving the SEC Network
I don’t think that kind of relationship is good for college football. That’s just my opinion. Anytime you have a relationship with somebody, you have a partnership, you are supposed to be neutral. It’s pretty hard to stay neutral in that situation.

"

Pelini was asked about the SEC West and ESPN, and he gave his honest answer. You can't fault him for that, but you can disagree about the relationship between ESPN and the SEC. 

Yes, ESPN and the SEC have a partnership: the SEC Network. Of course ESPN is invested in the success of the SEC. 

However, ESPN also has rights to the Big Ten, the ACC, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and just about everybody else in major college football. ESPN is the single largest rights holder for college football games by a country mile. Under no circumstances would the World Wide Leader ever want to lose out on any conference's rights. 

Similarly, the Big Ten Network has its own agreement with Fox, which owns about half of the network. Of course, Fox doesn't have the same fingerprint on the sport as ESPN does, but the same question Pelini raised could apply there as well.  

While ESPN has an interest in the SEC's success, there are interests in every conference's success. For example, Matt Yoder of Awful Announcing points out that ESPN's Saturday Night Football showcase for Week 9 is Ohio State's road trip to Penn State. The Nittany Lions aren't even ranked and there's little intrigue about this game. Nevertheless, the storyline is that the Buckeyes, ranked No. 13 in the AP poll, are clawing back toward being in the playoff picture. 

You could even go so far as to say there's an interest in Notre Dame's success, even though NBC has been the rights holder for Irish home games, because of the brand of the program. 

That being said, it's understandable that Pelini would question the relationship. Securing rights with the SEC and Texas (Longhorn Network) is always going to raise concerns about objectivity. However, ESPN employs plenty of personalities and analysts from outside the SEC footprint, including Chris Fowler, Scott Van Pelt, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard. 

Ultimately, the only opinion that matters anyway is that of the playoff selection committee. What skeptics like Pelini hope is that its opinion isn't swayed by outside forces. 

Pelini is right about one thing: The season will work itself out. By year's end, the Big Ten could be in the playoff picture. If a Big Ten team makes the playoff, it cools the bias discussion. 

Ben Kercheval is the lead writer for college football.