ESPN’s Empty Seats Bowl Week was like studying the condensed version of how it wrecks nearly everything it touches. There is no looks-slick, seems-slick, sounds-slick, thought-deprived idea ESPN won’t produce, present, promote and repeat — as slick, helpful insight.
Its “Bottom Line” this week steadily pitched an ESPN study that showed how much every team should win/lose by on a “neutral field.”
That the football has pointy ends that make it bounce funny, that it’s the object of 22 men in simultaneous, aggressive motion, was reduced to a mathematical equation. Remarkable!
Remarkable and as predictably useless as any tout against any line using any “formula.” No one in Bristol knows this? Or is self-humiliation another habit ESPN can’t kick?
In the Rose Bowl, where “Stanford is 15 points better than Michigan State on a neutral field, according to ESPN’s Power Football Index,” Stanford lost. And Georgia — as per ESPN’s, oy!, PFI — would hammer Nebraska! Except Georgia lost, too.
Like Stanford, ESPN gave North Texas a “neutral field” advantage against UNLV. That field was in Dallas, 35 miles from North Texas, 1,075 from UNLV!
Another new bowl week feature was a superimposed line atop the field, a line indicating field goal kickers’ maximum distance — as if they’re robots in controlled environments.
With Duke down by four, last chance vs. Texas A&M, ESPN had that field-goal line there for our edification. Yep, four-point field goal to tie!
ESPN even botches deceptions. When Brad Nessler and Todd Blackledge appeared, ostensibly live, to hype the Oregon-Texas Alamo Bowl — just minutes from kickoff — the background of an empty stadium tipped us to the fact this was on tape.
And after Nessler concluded with, “Longhorns and Ducks, when they get done with Ole Miss-Georgia Tech in Music City,” John Saunders, from ESPN’s studio, smiled and said, “Well, they are done with that one.”
The Rose Bowl again was placed in predetermined peril, as it was again assigned to Brent Musburger, whose call again sounded like a come-on from a guy who sells used flypaper.
He had help. Kirk Herbstreit, 16 years a first-team ESPN communicator, said Michigan State’s defense “literally begs you to take some chances.” MSU should’ve accepted that bid to the Port Authority Building Bowl.
Later, after Stanford linebacker Kevin Anderson tackled a running back for a loss — it was a good, self evident play; Anderson beat a block, tripped up the RB — Herbstreit said, “That was because Anderson was able to get separation. That’s what allowed him to get up field.” Yeesh!
Did it matter that Georgia, in the Gator Bowl, was going quick-huddle/snap? Not to ESPN. It kept showing worthless replays then showed the next live play in a split-screen. Thus, even if you could watch two things at once, you couldn’t see either!
Third-and-13 for North Texas. How about “dialing up” one of those graphics giving useless, mindless all-season third-down conversion percentages? There it was! Right on time!
Odd, the Rose Bowl appeared without ESPN’s “Bottom Line” crawl. Did ESPN realize that it’s distracting, redundant, self-serving? Or did the Rose Bowl folks?
“Hopefully,” writes reader Michael Epstein, “ESPN won’t get the rights to my naughty dreams. They’d mess them up, too!”
What’s that about? Starters play late in historic rout
In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously concluded that while he’s unable to describe pornography, “I know it when I see it.”
To that end, a sports year infested by greediness and seediness went out with an extra big bang. In basketball, Southern University of Baton Rouge, La., with an enrollment of 6,700, played Baptist Champion of Hot Springs, Ark., enrollment 250. Southern won, 116-12.
As the late Billy Mays would holler, “But wait, there’s more!” The final score, ugly as it was, wasn’t as indecent as were its particulars.
Those who know how to read a play-by-play sheet know pornography when they see it. That 99-0 Texas high school football game in October was condemned as inexcusable. But as the winning coach reasonably explained, how could he tell his third-string halfback, finally in a game, to “just fall down”?
Southern’s Roman Banks had no such out. He played his starters 20 or more minutes — one played 29, another 27. One took seven 3-pointers, which isn’t too bad, except one gave Southern a 70-6 lead. Another, with 2:57 left in the game — oh, yeah, the starters returned — he missed. That one would’ve made it 113-11.
Coach Banks explained he didn’t even realize Baptist Champion hadn’t scored until a free throw made it 44-1. Only then, he claimed, did he check the scoreboard.
So, perhaps frightened that its first point would ignite Baptist Champion, Coach Banks had his student-athletes step on the gas.
“For whatever reason, Southern pressed us the entire game,” said Baptist Champion coach Eric Capaci. “I have no idea why.”
Banks said he was prepping his kids for conference play. But perhaps he figured that a 116-12 win — starters in, pressing, stealing, shooting 3s until the end — is how to attract attention and admiration these days.
The only thing missing was live TV — pandering analysts whooping like lunatics at breakaway slam-dunks while a graphic read, “Southern on 83-6 run.”
House of banned Card
Just-dismissed Louisville basketball star Chane Behanan in April was eligible to lead the Cardinals to a national championship. He was eligible to try it again this season. But before he was dismissed, his misconduct had made him ineligible to live in Louisville dorms; he had been banned.
So if your behavior is so intolerable that you’re ineligible to live in a school residence, how does that school allow you to sustain your full scholarship as a student-athlete?
Oh, 10 points and seven rebounds per game. Oh.
Tells: Without even looking up — like mid-second period of MSG’s Tuesday telecast — you always can tell when the Rangers are being shutout. That’s when Sam Rosen and Joe Micheletti praise the Rangers for getting “good chances on the power play.”
No way Greg Schiano will be fired by the Buccaneers. That was Mike Francesa’s expert claim — he said it as if he knew that to be true, as if he hasn’t conditioned listeners to know better.
Reader David Distefano asks if we’ve heard the hot new cover band on ESPN Records, “Adam Schefter and the Other Media Reports.”
Once more: Had Doc Emrick loved baseball or football the way he loves hockey, he would be Top 5, America’s Most Beloved … if hired, to begin with.
Imagine, now the Knicks have to worry about J.R. Smith’s feelings.
It’s 2014. Stay vertical, my friends.