Pro-SEC Kirk Herbstreit And ESPN Still Don't Get It

This week of bowl games could not have gone more poorly for the SEC, ESPN, and Kirk Herbstreit. 

After Indiana lost 27-17 to Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff, Herbstreit and several of his ESPN colleagues spent their time railing against the Hoosiers' inclusion in the 12-team field. Even outright saying that Indiana didn't belong on the same field with the Fighting Irish. Yes, Indiana had gone 11-1, they said, but the wins shouldn't matter because other schools, with just nine wins, had supposedly played a harder schedule.

In an interview on SportsCenter with Linda Cohn, Herbstreit said that Indiana had 11 wins while "beating nobody," and that didn't make them better than "a team that maybe had a tougher road that had nine wins."

The obvious implication from Herbstreit's remarks was that nine-win SEC teams like Alabama, South Carolina and Ole Miss should have been included over Indiana. Unsurprising as it is that a broadcast partner of the SEC went to bat for the SEC, it wasn't justifiable criticism. And it got a whole lot more embarrassing within a matter of days.

Tennessee, which finished 10-2 in the SEC, got obliterated by Ohio State. Herbstreit had nothing to say about the Volunteers' inclusion as an at-large team that was run off the field. Then Texas A&M, which was one win away from the SEC title game, lost to a mediocre, 6-6 USC team in the Las Vegas Bowl. Despite the Trojans missing around a dozen key players on offense and defense.

On New Year's Eve, Alabama scored just 13 points in a 19-13 loss to 7-5 Michigan. Even though, like SC, Michigan was missing a number of its most important players on defense. Then South Carolina lost to Illinois as a big favorite, sending the SEC to 1-4