For better or worse, bias is a big part of college football’s DNA, and there is constant debate over the merits of the various conferences.
With conference-specific television contracts and media ties to various schools through former coaching and player roles, college football is unique in that many of the leading voices covering the sport are often questioned by fans for their objectivity.
But who does that shoe truly fit for? Who are the most biased, and who are the most objective voices covering college football? With the topic of bias among college football personalities pervading social media, message boards, and group chats, we thought it was time to develop a quantifiable way to measure the objectivity (or lack thereof) of the top personalities covering college football.
Below is a ballot with 40 names we selected for our inaugural year. We encourage you to vote on all the personalities you have a thorough understanding of, and can make an objective, educated vote for. In future years, we will likely pare down this list. This year we wanted to cast a wide net to ensure we weren’t focusing on a select group of people (think of it as the Iowa Caucus field of college football media).
Before getting started, here are some additional insights into the list below.
- Since play-by-play announcers aim to be objective, we’ve primarily not included them in the poll. However, we’ve added one name based on their outspokenness on social media and in other media appearances.
- Same for reporters. We’ve included a couple because they are on platforms and make appearances where they often appear as opinionists rather than reporters.
- We focused on people who have notable national platforms. Media people who write for team-specific sites or are exclusively on conference-owned networks were left out. You won’t see people who are exclusive to the ACC Network, Big Ten Network, or SEC Network, because, well, bias is a feature and a bug in that case. However, individuals who appear on those networks and also hold significant roles outside of them are on this list.
- We didn’t include the likes of Dan Orlovsky, Ryan Clark, Cam Newton, and others, as they focus primarily on the NFL in their national appearances and don’t believe their CFB commentary registers as among the leading voices covering the sport.
- We did not include the likes of Stephen A. Smith, Tony Kornheiser, Mike Wilbon, Dan Le Batard, Rich Eisen, and Dan Patrick. However, we chose to include Scott Van Pelt and Colin Cowherd, given the national prominence of their shows, the amount of college football-centric content they have on their shows, and other media ventures they have that tilt towards college football.
Without further ado, it’s time to vote! We’ll keep voting open until Friday, 10 p.m. ET, and will post the results next week.
