Google denies it is working to erase college football history

You’re a sophisticated Internet user, so you’ve probably visited www.google.com. You’re also a sports fan, so you may have used that site to search for a football team’s upcoming season schedule. When you do, Google accommodates you by automatically presenting you with something like this:

Convenient! But let’s say you do the same search for Michigan State, as our colleague Allison Rockey did.

Where are Michigan and Ohio State’s logos? It’s not as though Google couldn’t find them; it’s freaking GOOGLE. All it does is find things. And these aren’t the only two schools curiously forgotten. Take this, from Kansas State’s schedule.

Or this, from Clemson’s.

Or this omission, which you can find by searching for LSU’s schedule.

There are other schools that aren’t logo-represented as well -- Kentucky, Cincinnati, and Houston -- but we believe those are red herrings meant to throw you off the scent. What do Notre Dame, Bama, Texas, Ohio State, and Michigan all have in common? This chart from Sports Reference should make that clear.

If Google’s trying to slowly eliminate all Internet traces of these five teams (which clearly seems to be what’s going on here), who would that benefit?

Pretty convincing evidence that Google is in the pocket of the Huskers, trying to turn them into college football’s all-time wins leader unjustly. We reached out to Google to ask for clarification on this suspicious trend. Was this merely a technical error? Or does Google have a grudge against Ohio State?

In a statement, a Google spokesperson told SB Nation:

”Does Google have a grudge against Ohio State? Well, our founder did go to Michigan, so ... Nah, the less conspiratorial truth is, Google provides sports scores and schedules through a combination of licensed content and from public information available on the web. So, any missing or incomplete logos do not reflect our official position, including on who will win the Big 10. Thanks for letting us dot all the i’s and set the record straight.”

We’d like to take Google at their word, and maybe we will once those logos reappear. Until then? TRUST NO ONE.