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ESPN's secret hate list revealed!

By on Dec 14, 2014, 10:18pm CST 51

Throughout this season, we've heard numerous Husker fans talk about how biased ESPN is against Nebraska - how they don't want to give the Huskers any credit when they do well, how they're quick to dump on them when they fall flat, how they love showing Angry Bo on the sideline 20 times a game, and so on. The reasons given for this hatred are varied: ESPN's in bed with the SEC and doesn't want to favor teams in other conferences, Nebraska doesn't have enough TV sets to get ESPN's attention, various individual biases by particular ESPN staffers, and probably others I'm forgetting.

Regardless, the consensus at Corn Nation is clear: ESPN is biased against the Huskers. So that got me wondering -what other teams does ESPN dislike? Surely it's not just Nebraska. We should find out exactly who ESPN hates so we can catalog and watch for their pernicious influence in college football, then counteract it when ESPN tries to subtly enact its secret agenda to manipulate the sport. And who better to determine this than us, the fans - the people who watch ESPN every day, who are eagle-eyed in their ability to perceive every slight and oversight.

So here's the comprehensive list of ESPN's Hated Teams, as determined by us, the fans, revealed for the first time. Everything comes from this football season, because I wanted to make sure we were up to date with the ebbs and flows of ESPN's hatred:

SEC

That's, uh, not who I was expecting. OK, so the whole conference. Anyone in particular within that?

Alabama

Well, sure, Nick Saban's easy to hate.

Arkansas

He's right - pretty much every comment thread on this blog ends up devolving into rants about how much we hate Arkansas.

Auburn

Georgia

LSU

Mississippi State

Missouri

South Carolina

Tennessee

There are lots and lots of people who have noticed that ESPN hates the University of Tennessee with the white-hot fire of Hades. I decided just to take the simplest, most direct assertion.

Texas A&M

IT'S NOT. It's time to stop ESPN's culture of hate.

ACC

Well, shoot. The whole ACC, too?

Clemson

Florida State

I could have embedded at least 900 of these tweets. ESPN is clearly intent on leaving the greater Tallahassee area a smoking crater, and Nole fans are ON IT.

Louisville

North Carolina

Apparently fabricating an academic scandal to take down UNC's football and basketball teams isn't enough. ESPN's out for Tarheel volleyball, too.

Syracuse

Big Ten

If there's any proof of ESPN's hatred of a sports team or conference, it's sending a damn woman to announce their games. #men #mancard #manhood #dudes

Iowa

Not sure if hating Hawkeye fans is the same as hating the Hawkeyes. But I'm good with ESPN on this one. Also, #bros #mancave #sausagefest

Maryland

#guys #guystuff #brosb4hos #dudes

Michigan

Michigan State

Minnesota

This hate is approved, and also basketball hate. But still hate. We sniffed you out on this one, ESPN.

Nebraska

Same here. When I'm in a deep emotional funk, once I think about it for a while, I realize it's usually ESPN hate that's getting me down.

#testosterone #grunting #brochachos #dudes

Ohio State

Aha - a leaked ESPN employee guideline! Now we're getting somewhere.

Penn State

It's all good, though - they're bowl-bound.

Wisconsin

Pac-12

It's In-N-Out. They're jealous of In-N-Out.

Arizona

Arizona State

Oregon

Well shoot, based on that first Pac-12 guy's comment, I thought Oregon might have escaped ESPN's all-consuming hatred for college football. No such luck.

Oregon State

Pretty much the only way to explain such an egregiously wrong description of Oregon State.

UCLA

USC

Only pure, unadulterated hatred could have explained an error like this. Appalling.

Big 12

Woof. This is hate the likes of which we have yet to see so far. ESPN's hate scale goes to 11, apparently.

Baylor

No. The answer is none more hate.

Kansas State

Oklahoma

Blessed are the persecuted by ESPN, for they shall earn a trip to the Russell Athletic Bowl.

TCU

Texas

Have yet to see any ESPN hatred for any of these teams, so this theory's got some legs.

Texas Tech

This would cover Texas Tech. Also Rice, Houston, Texas State, North Texas, and UTEP. Basically, all Texas football except SMU, which, as we all know, is ESPN's current college football darling.

West Virginia

Others

Notre Dame

Well, at least ESPN has the kindness to release Lou Holtz from its company-wide Notre Dame hatred policy.

BYU

UConn

Probably mostly basketball hatred, but I'm sure it spills over into football one way or another.

UNLV

Same with this case.

Conference USA

Big East

None of these teams play FBS football, but just FYI. If you hear ridiculously biased announcing during Villanova's FCS games on ESPN3, now you know why.

Everyone not already mentioned

Except Army and Navy. They don't have a conference, so they're cool.

A few takeaways from this comprehensive survey of ESPN animosity:

- First, ESPN has a truly disturbing breadth and depth of hatred for a sport in which it employs thousands of people to broadcast and cover, not to mention one that has earned it billions of dollars of revenue. One can only conclude that there is something not only truly pathological beneath this bottomless well of hatred, but something deeply and profoundly self-loathing as well. There's no other way to explain hatred that is so thoroughly counterproductive not only to ESPN's bottom line, but to the livelihood and life's work of so many of the individuals within the organization.

- Second, despite the overwhelming nature of ESPN's loathing for all things college football, there are detectable patterns: The following is a rough Top Five of ESPN hatred, based on the volume of instances detected and publicly alerted by Twitter's crack team of media critics:

1) Florida State
2) FSU
3) The Noles
4) Tennessee
5) Baylor

Hundreds of Twitter's media critics are also very concerned that ESPN hates someplace called Kobe, though I'm still trying to determine why the network cares so much about Japanese cities and/or beef.

- Finally, because ESPN has such incredible power to transform perception of a football team in an instant amid millions of members of the American public as well the sort of power brokers who vote for the College Football Playoff, we can pretty well assume that the teams not on the previous list have a massive advantage in the court of public opinion over those on it.

There aren't many Power 5 teams left that ESPN doesn't hate, but I feel comfortable guaranteeing that one of those teams will win the national championship next year based on their possession of the awesome power of support from the entity that really runs college football, ESPN:

Boston College
Cal
Colorado
Duke
Florida
Georgia Tech
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa State
Kansas
Kentucky
North Carolina State
Northwestern
Oklahoma State
Ole Miss
Pittsburgh
Purdue
Rutgers
Stanford
Utah
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Virginia Tech
Wake Forest
Washington
Washington State

If, however, we take the expert college football fan media critics of America at their word and accept that ESPN hates everyone in every major conference both outside of and including the SEC, then it may be that only two teams in all of FBS football have earned the love (or at least non-hatred) of ESPN:

Army
Navy

Which, of course, explains why the Army-Navy game gets nauseating wall-to-wall, 24-7 coverage from ESPN each year. Case closed - well done, college football fans of America.

This FanPost created by a registered user of Corn Nation.

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