The STRANGEST BROADCAST CONTROVERSY in ESPN College Football HISTORY

[@patrickracer43]

Rutgers: "we're rivals with Penn State!" Penn State: "I don't know her"

[@aaronholcomb237]

Pitt and Rutgers had the largest margins of defeat against Notre Dame since the 1989 game against SMU. The Irish won by 54 and 62 respectively.

[@medic7556]

An interesting footnote to that game, the game was the final game of Johnny Majors's coaching career. He coached Pitt to the NC in 1976. That right there should been enough to warranted it to be televised.

[@encycl07pedia-]

to warrant* it

[@christopherengel7436]

They were letting up 53 a game and there was 2 worse defenses than them? Holy sh*t. That's stunning.

[@Jason_Maier]

As much as we can criticize ESPN for their programming choices (such as last year when they kept cutting into every Aaron Judge at bat late in the season); I fully agree with their decision to not air this game.

[@mrmonty86]

He forgot to mention the Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern because that's one of the many big games on that weekend as well.

[@toddbiesel4288]

Let's face it, the main attraction for the Bayou Classic is watching the bands perform at halftime. Not your normal football audience.

[@mistuhgone]

And not only that, but around that time, the Eddie Robinson Era was in it's death throes so any Grambling game was hardly relevant.

[@pronkb000]

@@mistuhgone NBC showed it for years so obviously they thought it was (and has recently brought it back after moving it to NBCSN until that channel died).

[@mistuhgone]

@@pronkb000 I was just talking about back then. If you remember, '96 was Eddie's second to last year and Grambling wasn't quite what they used to be.

[@claybornethomas6537]

Yea I’m sorry but The Classic to me is the biggest rivalry game in the country! I watch that game every year!

[@clydemiller4776]

Love the montage of ESPN bumpers at the beginning, especially the ones from probably the late ‘80s with the angular, computer-drawn buses and cars. Those may have been some of the first images I saw on TV.

[@chrisayres2340]

nd vs fsu in 93 was the "game of the century"'

[@rewing84]

I don't blame ESPN at all for not airing Pitt Rutgers

[@a.grimes4202]

It’s completely wrong, indefensible and inexcusable what ESPN did here. Even if nobody outside of fans of the two teams were going to watch the game, they still had an *OBLIGATION* to those fans -- and they failed to deliver in just about the worst way possible. Absolutely shameful.

[@runrafarunthebestintheworld]

Rugters where awful though. Pfft

[@a.grimes4202]

@@runrafarunthebestintheworld Not an excuse.

[@ms.melissa1384]

All I remember from the ‘96 FSU-Florida game is the fans tearing down the goal posts. The back and forth between Steve Spurrier and Bobby Bowden is what made this rivalry legendary.

[@Sacto1654]

Interestingly, the narrator didn't scream during this video because the ABC network game between FSU and Florida was going to overwhelm whatever available college football game ESPN was going to put on anyway. It ended up being a smart move for ESPN, saving them hundreds of thousands of dollars that day. It'll never happen again, given the importance of _College Gameday_ .

[@AdamJ617]

IMO, the best part of this video was when he said “Yeah, both teams sucked”.

[@peacefrog0521]

Pitt fan and alum here. I went to one game my whole time there because they were so bad in those days. I can’t remember if it was this ‘96 season or the season before, Pitt got blown out 72-0 by Ohio State. So yeah I’d rather have watched cheerleaders too.

[@AdamJ617]

It sure Was 1996. 9/21/96 to be exact. Looked it up on Wikipedia.

[@peacefrog0521]

@@AdamJ617 I did too - but I tried so hard to forget those times 😄

[@thegoldfly1]

I mean Pitt's real rival was WVU.

[@ItsDatCajunStuff]

Flipping to ESPN on a random weekend and finding World's Strongest Man on was always a pleasant surprise.

[@DavidBaruffi]

Penn St. was never in the Big East. It joined the Big Ten in 1993, and before that, there were always an independent. The big team in the Big East back then, I always thought was Syracuse. I guess in certain years it might've been Virginia Tech or Miami when they were good and apart of the conference, but no, Penn St. was never in the Big East and they would've been in the Big Ten at this time.

[@TheSonicsean]

I'm surprised they didn't show bass fishing, which was their usual go to for early mornings when there was no sports on yet (before ESPN decided to fill every second with idiots yelling about whatever happened yesterday).

[@donaldpaluga]

BOLD STRATEGY, COTTON! LET'S SEE IF IT PAYS OFF

[@Michael-sb8jf]

My favorite non main stream sports eapn aired was those lumberjack competitions

[@chrisguardiano6143]

This is similar to what the BBC did in the UK all the way back in February 1976. Instead of airing Match of the Day which is a highlights show of all the English Premier League games aired that weekend (though back then it was Division 1 as the Premier League didn't come into existence until 1992) they chose to air of all things a condensed version of that year's Daytona 500 instead on tape delay as the race had taken place two weeks earlier along with highlights from the previous year's World Football League season, a season in which the whole league folded midway through. These two events were a part of Grandstand, the BBC's version of ABC's Wide World of Sports. The sports division of the BBC thought it would be a good idea to introduce Brits to American sports this way and not be so soccer heavy with their sports coverage. Instead all it did was anger the soccer fans that wanted to see the highlights of their team many of whom switched over to ITV the BBC's main rival at the time for that. Not surprisingly the BBC never tried this again.

[@anthony0358]

Florida also needed Nebraska to lose to Texas in the Big12 championship game. They were also fortunate that until 1998 the Big10 and PAC10 were not part of the so called Bowl Alliance” which existed from 1995 to 1997. I do remember watching that UF-FSU it was really good

[@marcus813]

I was wondering if Creative Sports had picked up that Rutgers/Pitt game, but even it wanted no part of it!

[@mkepioneet]

12:22 that's probably the EAA Experimental Aircraft Association) air show, which takes place yearly and, beyond being just an air show, is where seemingly everyone with a plane goes. I haven't been there in years since it's an almost two hour drive for something I don't have that much interest in

[@jacekatalakis8316]

I did not know ESPN used to tape the Oshkosh airshow. Makes me curious if the Reno races ever got any coverage. They, oddly enough got a pretty high budget videogame in 1999 around the same time as a lot of other weird sports (PBR, target shooting et al) Makes me wonder what ESPN would do today in that situation.

[@ElFuego35]

It's simple, with ESPN as ABC's sports department, if they ever get a regular season #1 vs #2... ESPN would likely take it for themselves, with ABC being the ones getting the scraps.

[@pookiejames05]

Love this channel!

[@davidwebb3407]

Those World's Strongest Man competitions were awesome. I hope Magnús Ver Magnússon won.

[@chrisguardiano6143]

He did

[@KN_1]

We take it for granted to be able to watch any college football game in the country.

[@orionparish9858]

Honestly? ESPN would have lost no matter what. Even if by some miracle Pitt and Rutgers both didn't suck, you'll lose to #1 and #2, both undefeated and playing for everything, on another channel.

[@rongamble8930]

Can I ask the unofficial (or are you official?) JG8 historian how many videos does this make that focuses on a Pitt game?

[@mrmoose6619]

11:17 - I see what you did there. Good one

[@altfactor]

I suspect that the Pitt/Rutgers game got broadcast locally in Pittsburgh and New York (as Rutgers' campus us across the river from New York City).

[@americangiant1003]

Incorrect Alt. WABC-TV actually aired the FLA-FSU game.

[@stout8807]

It’s unfortunate this was almost 20 years ago, with growth in popularity of FCS, they could have picked up a good game there in the modern era.

[@donaldpaluga]

"It's still a rivalry nonetheless" Tennessee/Vanderbilt is a rivalry worth paying more than fifty bucks to see. You can learn more about THAT fiasco by clicking the card on the upper right hand corner

[@altfactor]

It would be one thing if ESPN didn't carry that game because of technical difficulties that precluded the game from being televised or the game being postponed or cancelled for some reason. ESPN probably would've gotten more viewers for this game than what they did show.

[@jeffanderson3962]

Honestly I'd be OK with a network airing ax throwing depending on the game situation. I might tune in for that.

[@nicholasbarber3644]

back before espn was meat riding the sec

[@timothywhitfield9483]

Well seeing how 15 of the last 25 National Champions have been SEC teams I'm going to say espn is not "meat riding the SEC" But going with the goose that lays the golden eggs for its bank accounts 🤷‍♂️

[@nicholasbarber3644]

@@timothywhitfield9483 espn ruined college football when they started the realignment

[@runrafarunthebestintheworld]

@@nicholasbarber3644 now ESPN has pretty much bought out SEC football which has now forced CBS hand will air Big 10 football along with Fox and NBC and they pretty much rights to the Mountain West conference too.

[@Umamaahoe]

@@timothywhitfield9483 The b10 still makes more revenue technically

[@krazyeman4]

I used to love watching the World's Strongest Man lol

[@WalkenDead]

So if Pitt had the 3rd worst defense, who were the other two?

[@aaronholcomb237]

Looking at statistics from the 1996 season, it looks like they were UNLV and Kent State. The Golden Flashes gave up "half a hundred" 7 times that season. UNLV gave up at least 31 in every game.

[@Hogtownboy1]

because the cheerleaders are the best athletes at any game

[@adriafitzy6459]

I would have watched Rutgers-Pitt, as a sicko from NJ

[@ChrisS9993]

Could you do a video about the recent nuclear meltdown threat at this years Utah-San Jose State game?

[@jimroscovius]

It's about time the cheerleaders were promoted.

[@johnkerry6312]

College football is a regional game

[@mikemoore5263]

Begs but also maybe answers the questions involving how much these conference media rights are today, Luke think your lucky to have maybe 2 premier conference games a week how that warrants multi billion dollar deals for TV rights today, I get each major school might have a million or so fan who tune in on Saturdays plus the prime time games, but I'm a die hard Michigan fan.. also a lifelong chef, so literally only catch games on replay except once or twice a year. Understanding whatever advertisers pay is the market, but less people have TV, and seems the bubble will pop at some point. Probably outside the NFL and maybe NBA the most profitable TV rights inAmerica. Just saying

[@Michael-sb8jf]

Rivalry's what are those?

[@matismf]

This was also before trans cheerleaders, so they knew there was an audience!

[@curtisdavis2157]

#SportsFest!

[@daveporter0217]

First!