In today’s Fact or Fiction, I look at three big recent topics in college football and decide whether the statement is indeed FACT or if it’s FICTION.
1. Pat Narduzzi is right about Deion and Colorado.
Farrell’s take: FACT
Narduzzi is always outspoken and I applaud him for it. From calling out Lincoln Riley for poaching Jordan Addison to downplaying the role of Mark Whipple in the development of the offense and Kenny Pickett, Narduzzi can be blunt. His latest rant was about how Deion Sanders is doing things all wrong by forcing players out at Colorado. Here is what Narduzzi told 247Sports’ Brandon Marcello about what he thinks about Coach Prime.
“That’s not the way it’s meant to be. That’s not what the rule intended to be. It was not to overhaul your roster. We’ll see how it works out but that, to me, looks bad on college football coaches across the country. The reflection is on one guy right now but when you look at it overall — those kids that have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and goals in life — I don’t know how many of those 70 that left really wanted to leave or they were kicked in the butt to get out.”
And he’s right. It’s a bad look. But with NIL and the portal, college football has become NFL-like with free pay for play and free agency and Sanders is taking advantage of it. It’s not what I’d do and it’s not what Narduzzi would do and I think it’s wrong, but if it’s not illegal then is it cheating? It’s an interesting debate.
2. The talk of the ACC losing members is legit.
Farrell’s take: FICTION
C’mon people. Conference realignment rumors are the lowest-hanging fruit in college football media and it keeps getting used for clicks. The latest is Brett McMurphy and his “magnificent seven” rumor that seven ACC teams — Clemson, Florida State, Miami, UNC, NC State, Virginia, and Virginia Tech — have been working behind the scenes to get out of the ACC Grant of Rights debacle. Heck, I’ll write about this all day too if people want to read it and I have staffers doing interesting articles on where these teams could land. But let’s be real. Leaving means losing about $120 million in revenue, and the Grant of Rights has been looked at by hundreds of lawyers over the years and it’s nearly impossible to break. This is all rumor, innuendo, and posturing for tasty headlines and for the elite ACC teams to get more revenue over the also-rans. And that’s kind of funny since Miami has been below average since joining the ACC, Virginia Tech has stunk since Frank Beamer left, Virginia has had like two good years recently and Florida State is coming off a 25-33 run from 2017 to 2021. This was a good deal for all to sign when conference realignment was running crazy and now the deal sucks. That’s life and no one is going anywhere.
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3. The Gators have the toughest schedule in the country.
Farrell’s take: FACT
ESPN ranked the toughest schedules for 2023 with Ole Miss and Minnesota at 1 and 2 and Florida No. 3. But forget that. The Gators are in trouble, it appears. Intradivisional games against Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Kentucky are no fun and they get Arkansas and LSU in cross-divisional matchups. And if that’s not bad enough how about opening at Utah and finishing against Florida State. I get that Ole Miss has Alabama, LSU, Mississippi State, and Georgia and Minnesota has Michigan and Ohio State cross-division, but nothing is worse than Florida’s slate.
