Sports

ESPN’s Spielman dishes sharp Nebraska nugget

Good things come to those who wait. And wait, and wait, and wait …

Saturday on ESPN, Nebraska took a 6-0 lead against Michigan State when running back Rex Burkhead ran in, untouched, inside left guard Andrew Rodriguez, who’d pulled to his left. Before Nebraska kicked the extra point, analyst Chris Spielman, ex-star linebacker, said he had detected a “tip,” one worth keeping an eye on:

Rodriguez lined up about two feet short of the line of scrimmage, and actually farther back than the left tackle. This, suggested Spielman, “tells me he’s pulling,” and that when he does, the play would go in his direction.

ESPN lost sight of Spielman’s tout after that, but at least one viewer didn’t. For the rest of the game, when Nebraska had the ball, I kept an eye on No. 63, Rodriguez, and darn, the other times he lined up slightly removed from the line of scrimmage, he pulled left or right — and the play followed him.

Late in the third, before Burkhead caught a 27-yard touchdown pass from right-handed quarterback Taylor Martinez to make it 23-3, Rodriguez went into his stance detached from the line of scrimmage, pulled right, then picked up a linebacker, allowing Martinez an unimpeded throw.

OK, so I watched alone, but Spielman still made me the smartest fan in the room.

For all the nonsense that football telecasts load up on, Spielman’s analysis made for a big difference, a big change and a big relief.

Series ratings not Super-impressive

In spite of all those smiley-faced MLB and FOX-placed stories about the monster numbers this World Series produced, the ratings were roughly one-third of what the World Series used to regularly produce. And this rationale that cable offers so many other viewing choices? True, but that hasn’t hurt the Super Bowl.

Don’t wanna get in the way of “progress” (read: money), but didn’t the World Series look more like the World Series before American flag bunting was lost, so as not to cover advertising?

Gotta admire the St. Louis Cardinals’ timing. This year they won the World Series with the eighth-best record after 162 games. In 2006, they did it as the 13th best.

So we’re watching YES’ telecast of Yale-Columbia in the snow and slush on Saturday, and all we could think of was Super Bowl 2014 in PSL Stadium.

The Giants yesterday went for it on a fourth-and-9. CBS could have let that speak for itself. Instead, for your enlightenment, it posted the Giants’ fourth down conversion stats, this season. Yep, fourth-and-a-foot, fourth-and-9 — they’re all the same.

A USC fan’s sign, seen in the background on ESPN’s Saturday “College Football GameDay” from the L.A. Coliseum: “The NCAA Sanctioned My Other Sign.”

The Hospital For Senseless Surgery Stat of the Week: Texas’ Darren Oliver, in to pitch in the 10th inning of Game 6, faced three batters — two hits and a sacrifice bunt. Oliver was credited with a hold.

Soundalikes: ESPN’s Lou Holtz and Red Skelton.

Loved CBS’ Halloween-themed music commercial cut from Patriots-Steelers: Donovan’s “Season of the Witch.”

WFAN’s Giants’ pregame co-host Anita Marks is not yet in a position, as she felt she was yesterday, to ridicule any caller’s question.

Reader Jason Kudelka, at the opening Rangers game of the new old Garden, was appalled that the cheapest beer goes for $9.50 a cup. The Dolans are cable people, Jason. That $9.50 includes the pour fee, the convenience fee, the facility fee, the cup fee, optional refrigeration, shipping and handling, sipping and handling, the connection fee, the disconnection fee, the playoff elimination fee, Jimmy Dolan’s guitar lessons and sales tax.

A sickening foul with no remorse

It’s astonishing, what now passes as sports.

Saturday, as seen on MSG Plus, Vanderbilt punt returner Jonathan Krause signaled for a fair catch, but before the ball even reached him, he was drilled, head-first, by Arkansas’ Marquel Wade. Although Wade had committed a flagrant, excessively dangerous foul/assault — and perhaps because he’d laid Krause down and out — Wade began to celebrate himself, strutting as if he’d just conquered Mesopotamia.

As the medical staff ran on to treat Krause, Vandy coach James Franklin had to shove his team back toward the sidelines. Until then, a riot was not out of the question.

Wade, who appeared remorselessly defiant — perhaps he was raised on ESPN’s “He Got Jacked Up!” — was ejected. The entire episode was sickening.

Gangwear Report: Two Saturdays ago, as seen on MSG Plus, Washington State, school colors crimson and silver-gray, wore “Nike Combat” gray and black. Didn’t help. Washington State lost to Oregon State in Seattle, 44-21. This Saturday on MSG Plus, WSU was back in its traditional uniforms to play Oregon, school colors green and yellow, but wearing Nike-issue yellow and black — no green at all.

Rutgers’ Scarlet Knights, in their bad-dude, Nike-issue black helmets and black pants, two Fridays ago lost at Louisville. Saturday, as seen on ABC, the Scarlet Knights wore their badder-dudes Nike all-black uniforms and helmets, but lost at home to West Virginia.

Amazing, how these colleges, otherwise starving to death, have four and five different uniforms, an assortment of helmets and more shoes than Imelda Marcos.

So exactly what was it that the Big 12 found attractive in West Virginia, convincing it to bolt the Big East? Had to be Mountaineers football’s long history for successfully recruiting future criminals, including the late Chris Henry and headline-maker Pacman Jones. What value judgments, beyond TV money value, do these college conferences make?

There is no idea so stupid that it’s unworthy of duplication. On Saturday’s SEC Network production: Arkansas up by three over Vanderbilt. Vandy has the ball with 54 seconds left in regulation at the Arkansas 14. Vandy breaks the huddle, comes to the line. Pay-strict-attention time, no? Up pops a distracting, ESPN-style graphic, “Impact Player Tracker,” giving some guy’s stats!