Welcome to The A Block, Awful Announcing’s daily newsletter, where you’ll always find the latest sports media news, commentary, and analysis.

Did someone share this newsletter with you? Sign up for free to make sure you never miss it.

🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏈 Frankly shocked. Three weeks ago, James Franklin had Penn State in contention for a national title. Three losses later, he’s been fired. While he collects his hefty buyout (over $49 million), the sports media world saw the situation as an “all-time implosion” and “crazy” as well as a reminder that “college football is a tough-*ss business.”

🏈 Dilfer down. The weekend’s brutality continued in Birmingham, where UAB fired Trent Dilfer on Saturday following a 53-33 loss to Florida Atlantic. Dilfer, who spent nine years at ESPN as an NFL analyst, may attempt to re-enter the media business, but given how negotiations broke down at ESPN last time, a return there seems unlikely.

🏈 Sanchez speaks. Fox Sports NFL broadcaster Mark Sanchez has been officially booked into the Marion County Jail, where his fingerprints were taken and a mugshot was captured on Sunday morning. Sanchez did not respond when asked to comment on the charges stemming from an altercation last weekend in Indianapolis. However, he did say he is “focused on my recovery” and that he is “recovering slowly.” A judge granted him the ability to leave Indiana, but he must return for his next court hearing on November 5.

🏈 Belicheck-in. Bill Belichick is under immense pressure for the nightmare currently unfolding at North Carolina, everywhere it seems… except for the set of College GameDay. Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, Desmond Howard, and Pat McAfee all took turns defending the legendary coach Saturday. It’s clear that if things don’t work out at UNC, Belichick, who might have called Kirk during the show, will be welcomed back with open arms to GameDay.

🚨 LEADING OFF 🚨

A tale of two college football media darlings

College football giveth and college football taketh away. And things move pretty quickly in this sport, especially when you’re not winning. Yesterday’s media darling is today’s pariah.

Just ask James Franklin.

This past weekend, two coaches solidified themselves as the official media darlings of the 2025 college football season. While both are about to be discussed ad nauseum on ESPN morning shows, sports talk radio programs, and likely appear on The Pat McAfee Show soon, they represent two very different kinds of media darlings. Yes, they’ve both risen into the limelight by winning, but it’s worth interrogating what they represent now that we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about them.

Curt Cignetti is no stranger to the spotlight. He’s been in it since last season, when he led the Indiana Hoosiers to an 11-2 season and a berth in the College Football Playoff. It was a feel-good story, but one that many people expected to be a one-time occurrence.

That’s not how it’s gone. On Saturday, the No. 7 Hoosiers defeated the No. 3 Oregon Ducks in Eugene, Oregon, marking their first-ever road victory over a Top 5 team in 47 tries. In doing so, they ended Oregon’s 23-game regular-season win streak and 18-game home win streak.

The win also cemented Cignetti as an absolute force in the world of modern college football coaching. After building winning programs everywhere he went (Google him), he’s turned a perennial Big Ten basement dweller into a legitimate national title contender in just two years.

Moreover, Cignetti has demonstrated himself to be a force of nature behind the microphone and during interviews. Unlike so many of his peers, he seems to understand the assignment when it comes to in-game and post-game interviews, often offering cheeky, playful answers that showcase a caustic wit. Whereas other coaches get angry or annoyed, he channels his sarcasm into something enjoyable to watch.

Instead of complaining about NIL or worrying about what the blue-bloods are doing, Cignetti is meeting the moment on the field and proving himself a worthy character off it. He may very well be lured away to the likes of Penn State or elsewhere, but with each win and a knowing wink afterward, he has the chance to build a legacy all his own at Indiana.

Meanwhile, the UCLA Bruins football program was at the bottom of the Big Ten just a few weeks ago, but a change in the coaching staff has made all the difference. After a 0-4 start, the team has come alive, rattling off successive wins over Penn State and Michigan State while putting some serious points on the board.

Usually, this is when the interim head coach becomes a media darling. People start wondering who this person is, how they turned things around so quickly, and whether or not they’ll get a chance to earn the position full-time after this season.

That discussion is happening for UCLA, but it’s not happening for interim head coach Tim Skipper. It’s happening for interim offensive coordinator Jerry Neuheisel.

The boyish Neuheisel, who previously played quarterback for the Bruins and is the son of longtime college football coach Rick Neuheisel, has become the person everyone in college football media is gravitating toward. It doesn’t hurt that Neuheisel’s dad works in the media, and they shared a lovely viral moment following the Penn State victory. But the extent to which the 33-year-old has been anointed as the face of UCLA’s resurgence, and not Skipper, has gotten weird very quickly.

If you were on social media following UCLA’s win over Michigan State, it was likely Neuheisel’s face you saw in social media graphics or his name being bandied about for future coaching gigs.

Neuheisel has done a masterful job turning the UCLA offense around. He deserves plenty of kudos, congratulations, and job consideration for what he has already accomplished. However, it’s challenging to think of any situation where the interim head coach was ignored while an assistant coach received all the credit, especially with such an impressive turnaround. And the longer this goes on, the weirder it’s going to get.

Also, all of this is to say nothing of the fact that Neuheisel is a blond-haired, blue-eyed nepo coach, while the 47-year-old Skipper is a person of color with a coaching resume that spans decades, implying a career in which he had to fight hard to earn his way to this spot.

We’ll be keeping an eye out this week to see how UCLA’s resurgent season is handled on talk shows and in media reports. The more Neuheisel gets the credit while Skipper stands in his shadows, the more we’ll be wondering why that is, and what it says about the biases in our sports media coverage.

📱 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Let’s take a look around the Awful Announcing social media feeds from this weekend to see what stuck out.

Barstool’s Dan “Big Cat” Katz and Mike Katic showcased their acting skills in a comedy segment on Fox NFL Sunday about the AFC South division.

Who can say no to a little Jim Nantz love for Baker Mayfield on a gutsy run for a first down?

Indiana star QB Fernando Mendoza had a whole lot to say after the win over Oregon, including a shoutout for Pat McAfee and Boston Connor.

📣 NOTABLE QUOTABLES 🗣️

"Oh my gosh. I was fat, and I had a weird facial hair situation going on." - CBS Sports’ J.J. Watt discussing a photo from his Wisconsin Badgers days in 2008.

"No sacks of Sam Darnold in this game... Darnold is sacked." - Fox’s Chris Myers with the dreaded announcer jinx on the Seahawks quarterback.

“To say ‘What kind of question is that?’ and follow that up a minute later and say, ‘You know better than that,’ is a horrible look. There’s no other way around it. There’s 40 other better ways to handle that situation. It’s tone deaf.” - SNY’s Connor Rogers on Aaron Glenn’s defense of Justin Fields following their loss to the Broncos.

“There is no excuse for my forgetting a hard moment in X’s life. I have nothing but respect for Xavier. It was an innocent mistake on my part, but a hurtful one, and I hope he will accept my apology.” - ESPN reporter David Newton after asking Panthers WR Xavier Legette a question about his father, who passed away years earlier.

“I’m not normally speechless, but I’m trying to figure this out.” - NFL Network’s Kurt Warner watching the Jets’ questionable play-calling.

"That’s a thumb and a hand I would be looking to step on as a defensive lineman." - ESPN/ABC’s Booger McFarland discussing Oklahoma QB John Mateer, who returned this weekend following surgery to repair a broken bone in his right hand.

️‍🔥 THE CLOSER 🔥

Is this all there is, Scorigami?

Social media has become such a critical aspect of the sports-watching experience, but it’s a medium that is constantly changing, evolving, and moving forward (not always in good ways). That includes the unfortunate reality that sometimes we lose the little things that add some extra flavor to the game-watching fun.

Scorigami, which Jon Bois coined as "the act, and art, of producing a final score in a football game that has never happened before,” has become a small-but-significant part of the weekly NFL game-watching experience. Every time an NFL game ends, football fans have turned to the Scorigami social media accounts, chiefly the X (formerly Twitter) one, to let them know if it’s the first time this score has ever occurred.

However, something’s been wrong this NFL season. The Scorigami X account has made several notable gaffes this season. It completely missed the September 8 showdown between the Bills and Ravens, which ended in a scorigami. In the weeks since, it has posted randomly during games instead of final scores, claimed common final scores have never happened before, and posted scores at random times.

Presumably, the account is run by a bot that has stopped working correctly. For what it’s worth, the Bluesky version seems to be working just fine. However, the fact that the X version has been on the fritz for weeks and doesn’t seem to be receiving any updates or fixes is sending the unfortunate signal that the endigami may be near.

All we can do is remember the good times we had, and cherish the sweet scorigami memories left behind.