Clay Travis: Every now and then there is an opinion that is so dumb it pierces through all of the noise, and actually just crystalizes the absurdity of why this show is so successful. There are so many people making ludicrous arguments every day in the world of college and pro sports that they can’t possibly believe themselves. In an effort to virtue-signal everyone else, occasionally you see an opinion that every single one of you will be like ‘there is no way that the person who is saying this can possibly believe what they are saying’… This happened to me yesterday when I read a column in The New York Times arguing – I swear to God this is what the story argues – that the University of Connecticut is the REAL National Champion this year, not Alabama, or Ohio State, but the University of Connecticut because they were ‘brave’ enough not to play college football this year… ALL of this article was patently absurd. The ‘Corona Bros’ in the media trot out all these virtue-signaling absurdities which are completely unsupported when you unpack what they are saying in this argument. The argument that Connecticut ‘deserves’ a National Championship for not playing is the height of absurdity. That’s like me arguing that I deserve a Pulitzer Prize for the column that I didn’t write, or I deserve a Marconi for the radio show that I didn’t do. American life is predicated on awarding achievement, and achievement requires action… America is about taking risks, embracing opportunity, and finding ways to make things happen, not about curling up in the fetal position and saying ‘this is impossible to do.’ This article wasn’t written in August, it was written in January when all of these college football conferences already proved that it was possible to play a season without significant health issues. There was nobody who was hospitalized in high school, college, or pro in the entire country that we can trace to getting COVID from athletic competition. There isn’t anyone in the world, according to Dr. Allen Sills, who is the NFL’s chief medical expert, that they have been able to trace getting COVID from competition. Every school but three in major college football found a way to play other than Connecticut, Old Dominion, and New Mexico State. We should be ridiculing the three schools that didn’t find a way to play, not ridiculing the 127 that found a way to play safely. The things being argued in this column are not true… I don’t understand this perpetual desire to seek out victims. It’s one of the big flaws of American life today, and it’s represented by this New York Times article saying that UCONN deserves to be named National Champion because they were the ‘bravest’ by choosing to do nothing. Since when has ‘bravery’ been defined exclusively as a failure and a refusal to do something? It’s a really backward way of thinking. It’s not ‘brave’ to fail to take a risk." (Full Video Above)
Listen to Clay Travis blast The New York Times for a recent article that proclaimed Randy Edsall and the UCONN Huskies the real ‘Champions’ of college football in 2020 for having the ‘bravery’ to cancel their entire season during the COVID-19 pandemic while the rest of the power conferences pushed through scheduling their seasons.
Out of the 130 FBS teams in college football, UCONN, Old Dominion, and New Mexico State were the only three programs who called of their football seasons.
Despite all the praise for UCONN for sitting out 2020, the writer of the article does mention at the end of the piece that ‘Connecticut football’s lowly status and financial struggles made the decision against playing easier. This is a team that won just six games over the last three seasons. It has not gone to a bowl game since 2015. It posted a $13 million deficit in 2019.’
Not mentioned in the article was also the reality that UCONN is no longer affiliated with a conference in football either, and was going to face steep challenges trying to schedule 12-13 out-of-conference opponents during a season in which many non-conference games were abandoned altogether.
Check out the full segment above as Clay calls the entire article ‘patently absurd’, and simply ‘virtue-signaling’ from a completely unsupported viewpoint.'
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