BUCKY SHOT: Bucky Badger did 573 pushups in Wisconsin’s 83-20 win over Indiana on Saturday, when Phil Mushnick says coach Bret Bielema showed no class in running up the score. (AP)
Once again, in a blood bath, the Lions 88, the Romans 3. So long from the Coliseum.
Long before this three-school (Florida, Mississippi State, Auburn) Cam Newton scandal hit, the SEC had begun to resemble a collection of rival crime families.
If the Feds were ever to prosecute an NCAA Division I football or basketball conference for racketeering — and they should — they should begin with the SEC. No conference is clean; all are dirty. But it’s a matter of filthy, filthier, filthiest.
And the SEC, aside from the scores of arrests of full-scholarship recruits, is at least tied for filthiest.
And the primary, see-no-evil underwriters of the racketeers are CBS and ESPN, who pay the SEC tens of millions of dollars a year for TV rights.
Every week brings more ugliness, more reasons to consider whether sports have become a moral issue. Abortion? Illegal immigrants? The death penalty? Heck, watching a football game these days is stepping on the devil’s tail.
A proud new leader of the March for Degradation is Wisconsin football coach Bret Bielema.
As noted here in September, in a 70-3 win against Austin Peay, Bielema had Wisconsin throw four straight passes on a drive that made it 63-3.
Last month, he had Wisconsin go for two after a late TD made it Wisconsin 41, Minnesota 16!
“I thought it was a very poor decision by a head football coach and he’ll have to live with that,” said since-fired Minnesota coach Tim Brewster. “It was wrong. Everybody in here knows it and everybody in football knows it. It was wrong.”
Saturday, as seen on ESPN2, Bielema had his quarterback throw a 74-yard TD pass to make it 76-13 over Indiana, final score, 83-20. What a guy.
Why beat them, and badly, when you can stomp them, humiliate them? You’ve seen the NCAA image ads: Participation in athletics teaches sportsmanship and builds good character in young men. Yeah, sure.
The biggest loser on Saturday was the day’s biggest winner, Bielema. But what do I know; I’m just a sports fan.
Oh, and there was Donte’ Stallworth. A year removed from killing a pedestrian in a DWI, he played for the Ravens on Thursday night on NFL Network.
ESPN flops again with World Series of Poker
ESPN, for the second straight year, spent two months building to the World Series of Poker final, then blew it.
The final was played Nov. 8. ESPN, as it does with the preliminaries, edited it into a two-hour show. But last week’s tape of the final — scheduled for 10 p.m.-to-midnight — ran long, thus those who recorded the show in a two-hour window lost the ending!
Again. ESPN did the same thing with last year’s final.
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Bonnie Bernstein‘s interview with Eric Mangini on ESPN Radio on Friday was an ear-opener. Most folks around here had never heard Mangini so open, so human, so likeable. Bernstein asked good questions, then wisely — as if she too were surprised — let him speak uninterrupted. And he did.
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Almost every word Phil Simms spoke during Jets-Browns was applicable to the next play, especially about how the Browns were trying to use the Jets’ aggressive defense to their advantage early in the game. Simms made us wiser, had us watch things off the ball, out of the corners of both eyes.
At the end of the first half, Jim Nantz noted that there had been no punts, but more remarkably, no replay reviews.
Fox’s Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, who worked Cowboys-Giants, should do what Simms does: Wait for replays; don’t present guesses as facts — as in “That should have been intercepted [by Dallas’s Keith Brookings],” only to have the replay show that Brookings had no shot.
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Michael Kay, Nantz and Simms are among the hosts of the annual “Remember When, Remember Now” fundraiser for Alzheimer’s research and support of its victims, tomorrow evening at the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. For more info, call 212-972-5337 or e-mail johnnycigar@aol.com.
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Three of CBS’s four pregame “Upset Alert” picks yesterday were a joke. Dan Marino took Miami, a one-point dog; Bill Cowher picked Cleveland, getting three; Shannon Sharpe chose Detroit, a two-point dog. Only Boomer Esiason took a real dog, the Bengals, plus-seven.
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What happened? When did Derek Jeter become so hate-worthy? . . . That power failure during Cowboys-Giants yesterday? Someone’s PSL payment bounced.
Jeers for Kelly’s ND cheering
UTAH, down 28-3 at Notre Dame in the fourth quarter on Saturday, went for it on fourth-and-13 from the Irish 15.
On the ND sideline, head coach Brian Kelly went bush-league. He began to gesture to the crowd, to encourage more noise, to make it difficult for Utah to hear signals, to throw it off, as if the Irish can’t stop a fourth-and-13 without off-field help.
Usually, a third-stringer behaves that way, standing on the bench, waving his arms to the crowd. Genuine coaching greats would be too embarrassed. Could you see Knute Rockne or Ara Parseghian doing that?
But on NBC, the Notre Dame Network, all was good.
“Coach Kelly turned cheerleader!” said play-by-player Tom Hammond.
“Hah, hah,” said analyst Mike Mayock.
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Seton Hall basketball unveiled its new Adidas-issue black uniforms on Friday. Seton Hall’s school colors are blue and white.
Given recent events in and around Seton Hall — including the arrests of two former full-scholarship basketball players for first degree kidnapping, theft, assault and weapons — it’s a good idea for the Pirates to appear as menacing as possible.
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Mike Francesa unloaded on Wisconsin yesterday for its 83-20 run-up against Indiana. Noting that Wisconsin could have and should have killed the clock with a 50-point lead, Francesa characterized it perfectly: a disgrace.
Yet Francesa’s radio pal, UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun, has been doing the same for years. There was a 113-49 win over Texas Southern. Three weeks later, it was 129-61 over Morehead State. In that game, one UConn reserve played seven minutes, two played two minutes and one played one minute.
But there were no gripes from Francesa.