Maize & Blue Review's Trevor McCue believes ESPN is deliberately rushing to report Michigan's recruiting violations in a way the World Wide Leader never did for FSU, Tennessee, or Kentucky's over the last year.
"Also, once again, Michigan has to deal with an NCAA leak to ESPN," McCue prefaced before saying, "In just the last year, Florida State, Tennesee, and Kentucky were all able to be investigated by the NCAA, receive NOA, respond, and come to a resolution before anyone knew the cases existed."
Reading between the lines here, McCue is accusing ESPN of showing favoritism toward ACC and SEC programs; of which the network owns the conferences' media rights agreements. Michigan is a Big Ten property, which is now affiliated with CBS.
ESPN overly involved with reshaping the college football landscape
This isn't the first time a B1G analyst has been critical of ESPN's role in conference realignment.
Husker Corner's Oliver Vandervoort doesn't appreciate the World Wide Leader's potential pulling of the strings that could see FSU and Clemson jump from the ACC to the SEC.
"If this rumor is true, it would mark what appears to be the next evolution of the sport in general," Vandervoort prefaced before saying, "The money and broadcast rights have always been at the forefront of why a team moved to the SEC or the Big Ten or anywhere else.
"But if this deal comes to fruition, a network is directly involved in brokering the realignment. That’s not a good thing."
This kind of disconnect between the most involved network in the sport and those who cover the biggest revenue-generating conference is what has many thinking the current model as we know it will be obsolete soon in favor of a super league.
And while a super league isn't imminent, the timeline could be expedited as more friction forms between ESPN and the Big Ten.