and that's coming from a guy who isn't quite as anti-ESPN as many on here are. A quick history lesson's called for here for those who don't understand the context of how it came to be.

ESPN revamped their online college football coverage in the mid-to-late-00's. Previously they had a few writers, like Pat Forde, who broadly covered college football with very little in-depth writing on individual teams or conferences. As part of the revamp, they decided to pick up some (mostly young) writers and assign them individual conferences to cover.

Heather got assigned the ACC. This was a hell of a career step for a young writer, being at the flagship for sports in general, and college sports in particular. While she had no ties to the ACC, it was very easy to see something like that as an entry-level position, which would lead to bigger things down the road.

Unfortunately for Heather, that corresponded with the long down period the ACC experienced at the time. The other conference bloggers, like Chris Low (SEC) and David Ubben (Big XII), were getting TV appearances on College Football Live, etc. to talk about the successful teams in their conferences. Heather was getting no such thing because of the perception of the ACC, and her career stagnated for *years* because of it. This corresponded with when VT was winning the ACC, and I believe she let her frustrations color her coverage of the ACC, and VT in particular.

One example that still stands out to me was near the end of her time in the position, when one of the major licensing companies (I don't remember which one) listed their top 100 schools. VT didn't appear on their list, and Heather wrote up a blog post on it with a snarky, "Hey where's VT, Hokies?" Meanwhile, literally 30 seconds of on Google would have shown that VT used a different licensing company than that one, just like Ohio State and Texas did. She ended up printing a retraction after VT's fans called her out on it. Her relationship with the ACC's fans in general got to be toxic, and she was later replaced with Andrea Adelson (who still covers the ACC today).

Meanwhile, Heather Dinich finally got the job she was looking for in a way. She covers the college football playoff today, and does get to make some on-air appearances now and again. But those of us who believe she was biased against the ACC, and VT in particular, aren't just paranoid. She really was out to get us.



[Post edited by GoobyPls at 10/15/2018 4:56PM]