ESPN’s nosedive quest to find the absolute bottom of the cultural and moral pit appears to continue unabated. On the network’s Heisman House Voting Site, which is sponsored by Nissan, ESPN removed the name of Navy quarterback Keenan Reynolds, which had appeared next to the name of other leading Heisman candidates.
Reynolds had been leading the vote by a wide margin. This did not go over well at Navy:
#NavyFootball QB Keenan Reynolds was running away with the fan vote so @Nissan or @espn took him off the ballot: https://t.co/cwE4ZCLKGw
— Navy Athletics (@NavyAthletics) December 1, 2015
Why was Keenan Reynolds taken off the ESPN Heisman House Voting? You now have to look for him manually. https://t.co/P0MiTmcgRS
— Navy Athletics (@NavyAthletics) December 1, 2015
Of course, you can still vote for Reynolds if you want to. That is, if you can spare the 87 hours necessary to wade through the multiple drop-down menus highlighted by “Nominate Your Favorite Player” icons, in order to select Reynolds’ name from the thousands of eligible college football players.
However, I preface all this with saying that it “appears” as though ESPN is up to its usual tricks here. Because, the “four letter network” actually does have an explanation for this. ESPN bases its decision on which players to feature as leading candidates, and allow individual links to, based on something called the ESPN Heisman Watch Expert’s Poll.
It turns out that after Navy lost to Houston last week, Reynolds stopped getting votes from the expert’s poll. Even though he had been getting votes and doing reasonably well prior to that defeat.
In an email, an ESPN spokesperson explained,
“When the names change on the ESPN Experts’ Poll, they automatically change on the Heisman House site. ESPN and Nissan have no control over what names are on the Heisman House ballot.”
What’s terrible about this is basing the individual links and the leaderboard on an expert’s poll. If the Heisman House concept was developed for the fans to have a voice, Reynolds was leading the fan vote by a large margin. So why should it matter what a bunch of experts on a poll say? If it’s a fan vote, and the fans are voting for Reynolds, shouldn’t that be enough to keep him on the list?
But regardless, nothing to see here, so sayeth the worldwide leader. It was the fault of the poll and not some cynical plot.
However, one could not be faulted for openly wondering whether or not the same network that rewarded a man who got implants and an Adam’s apple shaving with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award would have allowed such an oversight by any poll group --experts or not-- had Keenan Reynolds been the first self-identifying transgendered midshipman?
One would be inclined to think, based on their track-record, that if that had been the case, then ESPN would actually petition to have the Heisman renamed the Reynolds, while simultaneously firing all of the “experts.”
But here’s the point, Reynolds is still doing really well in the poll. So, here’s the link. If you want, click “Nominate Your Player,” select the American Athletic Conference, then Navy, then find Reynold’s name, and show the liberal sports media and the “experts” who our heroes are.
I promise it won’t take 87 hours.
