Media blog from CFN's Matt Zemek

[BrutusBobcat]

Earlier this week, I cut and pasted an article from CFN where Matt Zemek gave Buckeye fans an earful for getting on Tressel's case after the Texas game. (http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?p=265150#post265150)

At the time, I wondered what the reasoning was behind such a strongly worded rebuke. After reading the first entry of Zemek's new blog, you can see that this is part of a new theme...MZ is taking on over-zealous Internet fandom as damaging to the sport and it's coverage. There's a lot to agree with here.

Media Blog
College football as the New Political War

By Matthew Zemek

For journalists who cover the weighty machinations of politics, statecraft, diplomacy and economic policy, it's understandable—maybe even necessary—that emotions are over the top. When matters that affect people's pocketbooks, their physical safety, and their children's future—among other such things—are on the table, people have cause to be extremely worried and accordingly emotional. You can't take it away from them: if their security is profoundly threatened in a genuine way, they have a right to be afraid, and fear will manifest itself in uncomfortable ways before that heat can eventually (hopefully) generate light.

But all that applies to issues of real importance. Death and taxes, the rise and fall of nations and ideologies. That kind of stuff.

It was never supposed to apply to a freakin' football season. (See, I'm getting emotional about this already...)

Yes, everything that necessarily applied to the War in Iraq and the 2004 U.S. presidential election has seemingly taken root in the college football community. What is supposed to be fun and games has been hijacked by a grim, defensive, emotionally sensitive and even—yes!—fearful mindset among a great many college football fans in this country. College football—based on the searing emotionalism of thousands of incredibly invested fans—seems to be a matter of life and death, of the rise and fall of nations—for a large number of people, larger than I've ever realized before.

The rise and fall of nations in college football is real. After all, you have Gator Nation, Tiger Nation, Dawg Nation, Troy (once a great nation, remade in USC), and countless other nations.

The rhythms, patterns, words and geographical realities that pertain to U.S. politics seem to apply to college football as well. You have a situation in which people from the South and the Central Plains are hell-bent against the West, and vice-versa. People in all regions of the country outside the Northeast think that New York and other "elitist East Coast media centers" have a corporate agenda that is set against the success of their region, their conference, and their foremost team.

USC, Oklahoma and Auburn fans spent four months disagreeing mightily about which team was truly the best in the 2004 season, but they all agreed on one thing: the media was biased against them, bent on seeing them fail, and motivated by a corporate agenda to write anything negative about their team. Journalists—even those not given a vote in the AP writers poll—were viewed as the problem: its source, its summit, and its center.

Sure, it's true that journalists—even in sports, beyond the world of politics and war—are supposed to suck it up, but it was never supposed to be this bad, this cutthroat, this emotional when the subject of college football is involved. Yes, sportswriters will always get some emotional e-mails from beer-drinking fanatics who absorb the talk radio/barroom gossip sports scene like a sponge, but it seems as though the polarization and emotionalization that belong to contemporary American politics are increasingly infecting the college football community. Fans who know their stats, possess a considerable amount of intelligence, and make otherwise cogent arguments are nevertheless entering a fight in which they feel compelled to write to and then rip the living daylights out of college football journalists.

The e-mail addresses of the respondents to my columns posed, in and of themselves, an intriguing and fascinating sociological narrative: health care workers, lawyers, an aide to a United States congressman, government employees, a judge, and—well—a lot of college graduates and alumni wrote in this year. Almost all of them wrote well, but despite the elevated quality of the written text of their letters, they nevertheless sounded the bitter refrains more profanely unleashed by the stereotypical beer-bellied superfan who has no life outside the sport. In 2004, educated college football fans did the same thing that millions of educated Americans did in politics: they blamed the bejeezus out of the media for virtually every single problem under the sun.

In my inbox during the 2004 season, I was labeled "you people," "hack," "national media type," or "East Coaster" several times. Forget the fact that my regular columns—the Weekly Affirmation and Monday Morning Quarterback—are, if nothing else, very in-depth explanations of football that avoid easy or convenient conclusions. Disregard the fact that my writing style and line of argumentation are quite nuanced. And, of course, also ignore the fact that I grew up in Phoenix and lived in Seattle. I was apparently still an East Coast media elitist who clearly had agendas against various teams, conferences and regions, depending on my views. Fans attacked first, and asked questions later, if at all.

Let's pause for a moment: all this might admittedly seem like a ton of pointless and weak-kneed whining from a writer who is either thin-skinned, bitter, or just worn out after an Autumn in which it seemed particularly difficult to live as a college football columnist. All of the above commentary could seem like mere venting, the outpourings of a psychologically fragile person who is stressed beyond measure, and who needs a shrink 24/7. One could understandably perceive a very childish and even cowardly nature to the journalistic lament just outlined.

It’s not about me (as hard as that might seem for any non-journalist to believe about a book written by a journalist). This book is about the reputation of both the profession of journalism and its individual practitioners, in college football but also beyond. Because the sport of college football is not only becoming politicized, but politicized in a way that so eerily mirrors the nation's already-corroded politics, it's important to prevent a cherished American institution from being even more tarnished than it already is.

College football, even with the presence of split and/or mythical national championships, had a lot more romance in the pre-BCS era than it does now. There have always been debates and controversies about national champions in college football through the years, but with the BCS has come an increasingly serious, almost grim, climate surrounding the BCS title game, the event that is supposed to determine the national champion.

There have been heated controversies in the past, but in all of them, there was never the sense of pure betrayal or, worse, conspiracy generated by the BCS. If there was a perceived injustice in any season before the BCS came along in 1998, it was not framed in terms of a wholesale systemic breakdown. Why? Because there was no system. They just played the bunch of New Year's Day bowl games, voted on a champion at the end, and that was it. The AP writers' and UPI coaches' polls might have gotten it wrong, but there was an understanding of how incomplete the whole process was. Furthermore, the lack of ESPN (which didn't hit its stride as a saturation college football broadcaster until 1993, with the arrival of College Gameday) and other cable or satellite TV outlets created a situation where writers and coaches couldn't view the vast preponderance of all college football games during a season, even if they wanted to!

Remember, it's only been in the past decade in which everyone associated with the college football industry could finally view most of the product each Saturday at the Division I-A level, with dozens of games (out of roughly 50 played each full week of the regular season) available on the ESPN family of networks, GamePlan, Fox Sports' regional networks, and even (gasp!) a few major broadcast networks. The fact that fans can see so many games is a new reality that everyone else in the sport—writers, coaches and administrative officials (for both schools and conferences)—has simply not adjusted to. The people in charge of college football have been incredibly slow to realize the impact of saturation television coverage on the implications of the polling and analysis that admittedly factor into the creation of a BCS title game matchup.

But the very fury surrounding every controversial BCS title game (in other words, every year except 1999 and 2002) only serves to illustrate the comparative lack of bitterness in the pre-BCS era. Even if the champion was mythical, split or otherwise controversial, there was not the communal sense that the sport of college football let down an entire country, conference or member institution. Joe Paterno and Penn State were left at the altar a number of times over the years after perfect seasons in Happy Valley, but as JoePa soldiers on in State College, one simply doesn't hear much, if anything, about the icon's reputation being tarnished by four seasons in which an unblemished record still didn't deliver a national title. It's not going out on a limb to say that being the national champion didn't matter as much in the days of yesteryear.

But today, it certainly does matter, and if you make the BCS title game, only to then embarrass yourself on the field, the stakes are high and the recriminations ever more intense from the fans of the team that felt it should have been picked for the Big One.

The 2005 Orange Bowl is a perfect case in point.

In past title games before the BCS era, the Oklahoma Sooners would have still been ripped for losing by 36 points to USC in Miami. But in the BCS era, the Sooners had to endure not only criticism of their own sorry effort, but also the wrath of the college football community and the Auburn football family for dogging it against the Trojans.

See, in the BCS era, it's not enough to merely make the BCS title game if you're chosen to participate; you have to come up with a respectable showing if you want to save face and be viewed as a legitimate runner-up. The BCS has ushered in an era in which college football's national championship game involves two battles, not just one. One battle is to win the game and the perceived national title that goes to the BCS champion (aside of the AP writers' champion); but the other battle, which is in some ways even more important than the first one, is to prove that you belonged in the title game in the first place.

Just as there was no systemic breakdown in all the pre-BCS years when college football crowned a mythical or split champion, the BCS offered the expectation (perhaps a false one, but an expectation nevertheless) of a system, and consequently, of systemic competence in determining the two title game participants. Certainly, the combination of polls and formulas, of strength of schedule and quality win points, of a midseason release (unlike the preseason polls) and the use of average valuations (numbers gained from several sources instead of flat rankings from just one or two sources, a la the AP and UPI polls of yore), was going to create a legitimate, scientifically objective championship game matchup free of taint and above the typical media fray... or so everyone initially thought. But as soon as it became clear how impotent computer microchips were in the face of the messy, uneven realities of each and every college football season not ending with two and only two unbeaten teams, the amount of bitterness among college football fans began to spike, as the crude outpourings of crazed fanatics turned into the witty yet bitingly sarcastic and angry e-mails of a more educated and articulate segment of college football's fan base.

There can be no doubt about it: today's college football fan is Internet-savvy; able to do much more individual research and investigation; aware of the latest statistical reports and comparisons; granted instant access to fully informed arguments that support his/her personal viewpoint (or more accurately, rooting allegiance); exposed to many more live TV games; and generally much more educated than the typical college pigskin fan of 20 or even 15 years ago, before ESPN began to provide wall-to-wall coverage of the sport. This means that media pervasiveness—which has a direct correlation with media access and media awareness among college football fans—has significantly affected the way fans view the sport they love and the journalists who cover it. Everything is more intense, more personal, more serious, and more of a cause for outrage if the journalist giving an opinion is viewed to be horribly wrong.

This is the culture in which college football journalists now live—it's not what it used to be, and it sure isn't like the media environment in which Grantland Rice lived. The man who named "The Four Horsemen of Notre Dame" and wrote with a mythically grand literary voice was celebrated by the public he served, venerated by readers the world over. Aside of Keith Jackson—and even his reputation is becoming increasingly stained in the eyes of many college football fans with each passing season—virtually no one in the past 40 to 50 years of college football journalism is celebrated and praised in a near-universal and almost unconditional manner. Sixty years ago and beyond, however, Granny Rice and his contemporaries were venerated. It's instructive to note how much the media landscape has changed in college football, in accordance with both the level of saturation coverage given to the sport, and also the system used to determine the Division I-A national champion. The more the scrutiny and the more the saturation coverage of games, the more the media is viewed as pure evil. It's a far cry from the times in which Grantland Rice spoke of a blue-gray October sky, and American football fans ate up the delicious imagery that captured a nation's sporting imagination.

For college football fans and media consumers, every word from a journalist seems to be a weapon used in a holy war that has all the attendant emotional intensity of a larger-than-life event. Columnists like me are either perceived to be on the right side, or on the wrong side. We either "get it,” or—if we dare say something against the home team—we don't.

By criticizing USC, I'm obviously an Auburn-loving redneck.

By gently pointing out Auburn's limitations, I'm unmasked as a West Coast homer.

By mentioning just one or two matchup disadvantages Oklahoma would have with USC, I was exposed as someone clearly bent on destroying Sooner Nation and undermining the prestige and credibility of the OU football program.

As Bugs Bunny so often said in his decorated Looney Tunes career, "Dem's fightin' woids!" Everything I said unleashed a torrent of emotions and immediately accompanying claims of both bias and utter professional incompetence. No middle ground, no nuance, no understanding, no sensitivity. I never feared for my life this past Autumn, but my intellect (and moral compass) were scared by what seemed to be an alarming amount of rage about a mere game. (Yes, college football is a business, but it is a business in the context of "entertainment," and not other more serious industries that affect lives in more profound ways. Let's get some perspective here.)

It might seem innocent to some: 2004 put me very much in the firing line, the hottest of hot seats. It wasn't fun; college football shouldn't be like that.

 

[Oh8ch]

Good read. I agree with a lot of it as well.

I have never had so much anticipation for a football game as I did OSU-Texas. I owe it all to the Internet. In the past I could talk to folks about football, but it was one of many topics of common interest and few shared my passion for OSU. Now I can visit a sight like this where all of those folks have been filtered out. Only the most passionate of the passionate visit regularly and we can find fodder to fuel topics on the most minute details of the program. We feed on one another's frenzy - good or bad the passion grows.

A loss is no longer 'Aw shucks, we'll get 'em next time'. It is someone's fault and assigning blame properly is of great import.

Recruiting has evolved into an unhealthy spectator sport where we all feel entitled to an opinion regarding where a teenager should attend college. Teenagers can actually betray us personally by choosing to leave the state, or by simply looking closely at the benefits of OSU, but choosing to commit elsewhere.

And yes, ESPN IS out to get us, as is any other writer who dares to criticize the program or fails to list our stadium in its top 10.

But the media is not without blame. They fan the flames and - I am convinced - purposefully write controversial articles because of the uproar - and subsequent flood of emails - it will trigger.

But if we back away half a step we can see that this change in our culture is one of many triggered by cyberspace - and a trivial one at that.

BP is not using the Net to seduce young children (except for Thump), share plans for bombs, or solicit members of hate groups. But that is happening.

What the Net has done is enable individuals to form groups around special interests in a way not imaginable a decade ago. It has irrevocably changed the world beyond our wildest imaginations. There is little any of us can do but watch this change and see where it takes us. There will be good and there will be bad.

In that context the change in the college football landscape is nothing earth shattering. Sports writers can whine about the nasty email they receive, but they might take a half step back as well. Sports writers are simply a product of the technology of their times. Print, radio, tv have all had major impacts.

Their role evolves just as the role of a musician has evolved from that of a minstrel playing for whatever an audience within earshot cares to contribute, to millionaires selling countless copies of a song recorded from a single performance, and again to those same millionaires railing against further techological advances that put sound reproduction in the hands of that original audience.

Among the changes that sports writers are facing - and fearing - are the loss of a monopoly.

Anyone can be a sports writer today. Just start a blog or an Internet site. BP itself is the primary source of OSU info for many. JoPa suffers partly because local papers friendly to the program are no longer the sole source of PSU info.

I enjoyed the reference to Grantland Rice as well - a man who was free to report the truth as he saw it, or to create the truth as he saw fit. Not saying he did, only that he was free to do so when information flow was limited.

There is nothing wrong with the Internet. The flaws are flaws of human nature. With new media they will simply manifest themselves in new ways.

It is Mr. Zemek who needs to adjust.

 

[Steve19]

I also agree with much of what Zemek writes. I also disagree.

In the case of ESPiN's attack on Ohio State, the facts are very clear.

• Clarett allegations reported (fair journalistic practice).
• Heavy coverage citing other ESPiN sources as if these were external and credible third-party sources of information that supported the allegations (unfair journalistic practice).
• Continual reciting of allegations, even after the NCAA investigated and dismissed the allegations, without disclosing that ESPiN knew this was the case (unfair journalistic practice).
• Use of internet, print and electronic media to advance personal attacks on Ohio State sports administrators and coaches, knowing that the adminstrators could not respond, even to indicate that they could not respond, because that might be construed to indicate that Ohio State was saying that it had negative information about Clarett.
• The unmitigated attack on Ohio State administrators and coaches during the Alamo Bowl, on the basis of the above allegations, ending in the retirement of Andy Geiger (unfair journalistic practice).

So, let's be very careful to not group this disgusting campaign against Ohio State in with the other fanbase resentment of media criticism. What ESPiN did can be seen in no other light than a premeditated attack designed to increase their ratings and profits.

Having said that, I will accept that fan resentment of the media is more visible now, because people are sharing information over the Internet.

However, I suspect that what really irritates Zemek and his peers is that football fans now have information at hand. Whereas in the past these guys looked like really knowledgeable figures, simply because they had staff who could calculate the leading passer and etc and we had no idea, now we have equal information at hand.

I don't think that Zemek is one of the "bad guys" but the result is that we know most of these guys are hacks who don't do their homework and don't know as much about football as many of the members of BP. And these guys now actually have to work for a living.

Viral marketing is the corporate response to the new environment of computer mediated communication and Zemek and his peers are trying very hard to use this.

I think it is rather funny that the "sports entertainment" industry wants to use viral marketing techniques, on one hand, and then complain about it when fans resent what they are doing and let them know about it.

 

[ArtilleryBuck]

That was such a nicely written, calm rational article....so, why in the hell can't they write and broadcast that way when talking about college football? Fans are passionate...maybe even overly so...and, yeah....they (we) have internet access. But I am reminded of "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" in this case. Most of the shit that these people put out is intended to strike passionate responses. Their style is passionate.

I like this guy from this one article, but I don't know what else he has written in the name of sports journalism. If he always presents his opinions in this manner, then he is a minority in his field. If not, then....quit bitching about getting hit in the head while your in a boxing ring.

 

[Saw31]

awww...Did the poor little innocent sports journalist get his feelings hurt... ...J/K...this guy is actually pretty good.

I agree with much of it and will only comment on the parts I do not.

If Mr. Zemek thinks people like Mark May and Trevie boy are not out there to stir the pot and that ESPiN isn't in the business to produce the exact venom he denounces, he's wrong. (What news show was just exposed for telling it's guests to "act angry and emotional" for better ratings?) Look at how Coach Holtz comments on the games and contrast that with the ESPiN instigators. He is respectful to both team's coaches and players. Unfortunately that probably means Coach Holtz won't be around very long. And Mr. Zemek's whole dismissal of the "East Coast Elitist" attitude or maybe more appropriately said, "Urban Centric Elitist" attitude, which is completely and blatantly obvious in all of journalism, shows he may need to look a little deeper at his colleagues (Bernie Goldberg blew that wide open. We are and always have been "fly over" country to most of these people). When I see journalists start to deal with these issues (NYTimes as an example of a baseless and fact less hit piece against tOSU), maybe then he can expect a little less venom. When a profession, whose sole currency is trust, honors men like Dan Rather instead of shunning him, we are hard pressed to not scorn and ridicule the practitioners of that profession. When journalism as a profession has sunk so low and lost so much of it's credibility through provable example after provable example, Mr. Zemek may be pointing his finger in the wrong direction.

Mr. Zemek also needs to understand that us "commoners" have a way of responding to garbage from journalists now. They used to be insulated from any anger they created. This is only bad for the journalists. It certainly is not bad for me, as a "commoner". If he doesn't like it, too bad, I do.

Now, Mr. Zemek, grow some thicker skin or get out of the business you uneducated journalistic hack!! :)

 

[lvbuckeye]

wow... i'm somewhat stuned by the harsh response... have you guys actually read any of Zemek's work before? he writes for CFN, and in addition to Peter Futiak, is probably the best journalist there is when it comes to college football... they are truely fair and objective in their analysis, and tell it exactly like it is... IMHO, collegefootballnews.com is the Premier site for college football information...

i didn't take his column as whining at all, but merely an observation and a lament for the days when Joe-asshole fan didn't have the access that he has today... yes, there is much more information available today, and yes, that access to information causes the public to hold the media to a much higher standard, but that access also allows for the cocksuckers who write hate mail to Ryan Hamby for the ultimatley insignificant offense dropping a fucking pass... and i think that was his point... people used to hate oppressive rulers and injustices... now they hate college kids who play a game, and the guys who write about it...

once again, i don't think Matthew Zemek was complaining, i merely think he was making an observation... and as usual, i think he was dead on...his column was not the result of his feeling being hurt by jaded fans as much as it was an indictment of a society that puts a pastime on such ridiculously high pedastals...think about it: a starting school teacher makes ~$25,000 per year, yet a first round draft pick in the NFL signs for anywhere between $10 and $50 MILLION dollars...people's priorities are entirely skewed...

 

[ArtilleryBuck]

I have since become a fan of his...but at the time of my first post in this thread, I didn't know much about him.

 

[wadc45]

The guy just gets it...he is moving up my list of favorite sports journalists...

http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2005/Columnists/MZ/WeeklyAffirmation.htm

Weekly Affirmation
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif]Week Four[/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial,
sans serif][SIZE=-1]

[/SIZE][/FONT]By Matthew Zemek | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3
[FONT=verdana, arial, sans serif][SIZE=-2]
[/SIZE][/FONT]I. The Fab Four
II. SEC Shakedowns
III. Mississippi Mud
IV. Quick Hitters
V. Media Corner

I. The Fab Four

Finally, after four weeks of play, enough has transpired in the college football world to warrant some tentative, preliminary calls on the top teams in the country.

With the month of September done (except for those teams playing in the middle of this week), this much can be said:

1) The SEC has a lot of question marks, but on the plus side, its top teams (LSU, in fact, has a big one tonight against Tennessee) will all get their fair shot to move up the big board. LSU, Florida, Georgia and Alabama—as league unbeatens—will all be able to prove their mettle to the country, and each other. If any one of these teams can run the table, they’ll merit strong BCS consideration at season’s end.

2) With that having been said, there are four elite teams in college football in terms of raw quality, records and rankings considerations be damned. Those four teams are, in order, USC, Texas, Virginia Tech, and Ohio State. At this point, there seems to be some degree of separation between these four clubs and the rest of college football.

Obviously, an explanation is demanded here.

USC is number one not because they’re the defending champions, but because they’re simply the best. Arizona State has the artillery to keep pace with USC in a shootout, but in order for the Devils to win, Matt Leinart has to misfire repeatedly, and that’s not likely. USC’s offense is worthy of the weighty “juggernaut” label and any other top-shelf superlatives you can find. But what makes the Trojans so solid is that their head coach, Pete Carroll, knows how to manage: a) a defense; b) his coaching staff (he’s getting great performances from Lane Kiffin and Steve Sarkisian in place of Norm Chow); and c) his team’s emotions and attitudes. The fact that USC, though slightly unsettled, never fully lost their composure at Autzen Stadium is a telling sign that this team isn’t likely to lose games mentally. Right now, that’s the only way this team can lose... unless Sam Keller leads ASU to nine touchdowns, a few two-point conversions, and at least seven fourth-down conversions that prevent the Devils from having to punt at all.

Texas is number two because the Longhorns beat a very, very, very good Ohio State team on the road at night. You can’t look at that game and not view the Burnt Orange Bevo Boys in a supremely favorable light. In many other years, this would be a No. 1 team. But with that Left Coast Dynasty in full flower, Texas has to settle for second.

Virginia Tech sits in third. This is where real disagreement and controversy are both understandable and, frankly, justified. You could make an excellent case that Ohio State is better than the Hokies, given the ability of OSU’s linebackers—who stuffed Vince Young—to throttle Marcus Vick and beat back anything Frank Beamer could throw at the Bucks offensively. But until Troy Smith—who is unmistakably getting better—solidifies his upward progression and becomes an every-game stud under center, the Hokies’ offense—which also has a proven two-headed monster at running back with Cedric Humes and Mike Imoh—has a slight edge. The defenses and special teams units are both great, but OSU’s quarterback is still a bit of a concern.

Look at it this way: Ohio State’s top five priorities for the rest of the season, in any games it plays, are as follows:
1) Troy Smith’s ball security.
2) Troy Smith’s ball security.
3) Troy Smith’s ball security.
4) Troy Smith’s ball security.
5) Wanna guess?

If Smith displays ball security, Ohio State would vault over Va Tech. But that’s precisely why the Hokies have the edge now: in a game between the two teams, Smith and the Bucks are much more likely to commit turnovers and lose the game, whereas Vick The Younger has been impressively airtight with his play so far.

And a memo to Ohio State fans, while we’re at it: if you think No. 4 is too low a ranking, take comfort in the fact that you won the Big Ten on its first weekend. The Boilermakers won’t cross your paths, but never fear: Purdon’t lost yet another close game, though it was surprising that Minnesota, of all teams, was the bunch that did it. Michigan is in huge trouble, and Michigan State isn’t a team that will run the table (though it should beat the Wolverines on Saturday and vault to the head of the pack). Iowa has been kicked to the curb, and Wisconsin—admittedly off an impressive win—is not going to survive the Big Ten with John Stocco’s passing. Seriously, what conference team can currently hold a candle to Ohio State’s awesome defense and nasty attitude? There isn’t anyone out there. Penn State will have a nice little season, but the Nittany Lions barely beat Northwestern—reality check, please.

II. SEC Shakedowns

Another feature of October—when this sport begins to crackle before November’s climactic collisions—is the deepening of tensions in the Southeastern Conference. Tennessee-Florida whets the appetite (and tonight’s Tennessee-LSU game is obviously crucial for the Vols in particular), but it’s in October that you get even more significant battles that, at the end of the month, could decide each division, the East in particular.

At the beginning of the season, for example, some might have thought—understandably—that South Carolina would pose a formidable threat to the East’s traditional Big Three. But with the Gamecocks so evidently lacking in talent and raw physical prowess, Florida—if it can beat Georgia on Oct. 29 and split its two roadies at Bama and LSU (the Tide come calling this Saturday in Tuscaloosa)—will have the East virtually sewn up before November. Vandy at home and Carolina on the road are two games Urban Meyer’s team should dominate if they merely bring their brains and don’t get too full of themselves.
Georgia is another SEC East team that’s been lying low, but in October, the Big Dawgs have to get off the porch. Games at Tennessee and in the Cocktail Party against the Gators will determine how good Mark Richt’s team is... and where they’ll be headed in late December or early January.

LSU has tonight’s tilt with the Vols, followed by that showdown with Florida and a home game against Auburn. Much like virtually every other SEC team (other than the Vols, who have already stubbed their toes), the Tigers can afford no more than one loss in October. Two losses would severely cripple any division title aspirations.

You can see that the stakes are higher than high in the SEC, now that October’s here. The lack of clear answers about this league only means that we’re about to learn about Southern football in the next month.

III. Mississippi Mud

On the cosmic justice scale—yes, it’s early, but this was a telling moment nevertheless—it’s fitting that Ole Miss lost at home by double digits to Wyoming.

No offense to Ed Orgeron—he’s a fine man who obviously still deserves plenty of time to try and make things work in Oxford; this is not about him at all—but it was hard not to recall that the momentum behind David Cutcliffe’s mind-boggling ouster last Autumn was fueled in large part because the Rebels lost at Wyoming. That was viewed as an unspeakable outrage in and around the Grove, so much so that Chancellor Robert Khayat and Athletic Director Pete Boone insisted that the program be competitive year in and year out... whatever that meant. This brings up an obvious point: if losing at Wyoming reflected a lack of competitiveness, what does it mean to lose by double digits at home to Wyoming, in a game that was 24-7 Cowboys entering the fourth quarter? And if Memphis’ first-string quarterback doesn’t get injured on the third play from scrimmage in the season opener, we’re looking at an oh-and-three ballclub.

Chancellor Khayat and Mr. Boone, we could sit here three years from now and see Ed Orgeron take Ole Miss to the SEC Championship Game. But after three games, your program is less competitive than it ever was under David Cutcliffe, who is too fine a man to gloat. I’ll do the gloating for him.

Suddenly, an average of seven wins a season and a Cotton Bowl win seems a lot better than it did when Cut was cut, eh? The Rebels have some of college football’s greatest fans, but the leaders of the university made a horrible decision based on woefully misguided logic that is now biting them in the backside. Serves them right. In a profession where winning is supposed to matter, David Cutcliffe won, and yet got booted after being offered the hollow and meaningless chance to stay “only if he changed his coaching staff.” Code can be deciphered without too much strain in such cases: Cutcliffe was given no real institutional support or love. Now, his successor is finding out that it’s just not that easy to beat Wyoming... or Vanderbilt... or anyone else in college football. Let this be a lesson to university leaders who think they know more about football than the head coach does.

IV. Quick Hitters

Fans throughout this league might groan at this, but face it, it’s undeniably warranted: The Big Least Conference strikes again. Seems as though Louisville has absorbed and contracted the disease of mediocrity that has infected every program in this conference. It’s bitterly ironic for Big Least fans that Boston College, in but three games, has already looked better as an ACC team than it ever did in its former conference. This isn’t said gleefully (though some might find that very hard to believe), but it is said with authority because the Big Least has been stealing BCS bids for a number of years. True, it can, should and must be noted that Stanford stole a BCS bid in the 1999 season, and that Purdue stole a bid in 2000, not to mention Florida State in 2002. But no single conference has had more undeserving BCS teams than the Big (L)East. Syracuse in 1998, Pitt last year, and now the winner of this year’s conference chase will all be less than legitimate BCS bowl game-caliber ballclubs.....

This past weekend raised a number of small logic chains that make you wonder just how good (or bad) several teams are in this sport.

Mini-chain No. 1: Iowa State barely beat Army. Iowa State crushed Iowa. How bad is Iowa? How good is Iowa State?

Mini-chain No. 2: South Florida crushed Louisville. Louisville barely escaped Kentucky and demolished Oregon State. Is Kentucky better than Oregon State?

Mini-chain No. 3: South Florida crushed Louisville (part two). Oregon State beat Boise State. Oregon State got mashed by Louisville (part two). How good are Boise State and Louisville, a year after their Liberty Bowl classic?

Mini-chain No. 4: North Carolina beat NC State, who almost beat Virginia Tech, who crushed Georgia Tech, who beat North Carolina. Did UNC sleepwalk against the Yellow Jackets, or did NC State play over its head against the Hokies earlier in the year?.....

This was mentioned in the West Virginia-Syracuse game on Labor Day weekend, but it has to be mentioned again. ATTENTION, COLLEGE FOOTBALL COACHES ASSOCIATION: YOU MUST DEMAND RULE CHANGES ON ROUGHING THE PUNTER CALLS! NOW!

This is getting rather ridiculous and infuriating quite quickly. On Saturday, Boston College’s punter fell down on the leg of a Clemson player who was motionless and on the ground, and who was on the ground because he was blocked into that position. The BC punter—perhaps endowed with a fine liberal arts Jesuit education—did his dramatic thing and spilled onto the grass. The referee not only flagged the Clemson player, but determined that a 15-yard personal foul penalty was appropriate. Please, this insanity must stop: kickers cannot be allowed to act their way into flags, number one; but secondly, if punt rushers are on the ground, that is obviously not “running into the kicker.” And it’s certainly not roughing the kicker, either. No forward force or contact is being initiated by the punt rusher. If there are bodies around the punter, that’s part of football. Those with the power to change the sport’s rules must demand that roughing the kicker could never, ever be called in a situation like the one witnessed in Clemson this past Saturday, and in the Carrier Dome back on Sept. 4. Secondly, kickers who fake injuries must be flagged 15 yards for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Do this, and do this now, people! The Weekly Affirmation has had more than enough of this garbage. Remember, a seduced referee on a punt affected the outcome of the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, the national title game between Tennessee and Florida State. Six and a half years later, we still need to legislate acting jobs on punts. (Insert angry growl here.)....

Finally, any fans of Florida or Tennessee might have looked on with interest when a Miami receiver came down in the end zone with one foot, after which he lost control of the football in the Hurricanes’ game against Colorado. This eerily mirrored the Jabar Gaffney catch that was ruled a touchdown in that game. The refs in Miami-Colorado ruled an incomplete pass, but it evaded their attention—much as it evaded the attention of Vols fans five years ago—that when the subject of discussion is possession of the football in the end zone, you just need to have control and tap your foot down. The length of time in which you have control is really rather irrelevant. If you have control with your toe on the ground for one tenth of a second, that’s good enough, because the moment you touch your toe down in bounds, you have de facto possession of the ball. Since you’re in the end zone, the plane of the goal line is instantaneously broken the moment that toe touches the ground. That’s what made Gaffney’s catch a touchdown, and it’s what made the refs’ ruling of an incomplete pass this Saturday in Miami so clearly incorrect. (Where was replay on that one?)

V. Media Corner

Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts haven’t received much examination so far this season, so the occasion of Saturday’s Pac-10 showcase between USC and Oregon offered a good time to check in on this broadcast pair. Here’s a breakdown of the way they called Trojans-Ducks, in chronological order:

The first big moment of the game was the punt that was unwittingly touched by a USC blocker. Jackson and Fouts didn’t connect all the dots in this case, because replay would not have been needed had USC recovered the ball. Both the play-by-play man (Jackson) and the analyst (Fouts) should have been able to determine that the referee’s signal of “USC ball”—which was made without paying any attention to the team that came out of the pile with the pigskin—came about because the officials thought the ball wasn’t touched by William Buchanon. If the refs thought the ball had been touched by USC, they would not have conferred among themselves and Oregon would have been awarded the ball. But Jackson and Fouts missed this—they both wondered aloud how replay could determine that Oregon, not USC, recovered the fumble. It was never a question of who recovered the fumble, but whether Buchanon touched the ball or not.

A few minutes later, though, Jackson came back with one of a number of good lines he delivered during the contest. He said of the USC offensive line, “They’re the reason why Matt Leinart has a small cleaning bill.” Such a line reminds me—and all who love college football—why Keith Jackson is such a treasure. The line rolled off his tongue (and flowed from his brain) with such natural ease. No play-by-play man, over the course of a long and storied career, has ever been able to deliver such rich color and fresh phrasings with such minimal and graceful effort. That is, in many ways, the essence of Jackson’s brilliance over four decades in a college football broadcast booth.

Fouts, for his part, got on a roll as the first quarter got going. He made a great point on USC’s first drive, wondering aloud why Oregon wasn’t having a single defender spy on Reggie Bush. Shortly thereafter, Fouts made another quality identification with an assist from the ABC production truck. On a replay, Fouts was able to say, with decisiveness and force, that Matt Leinart was hit late by an Oregon defender. Still later, Fouts perfectly deconstructed—with clarity and brevity—the “defenseless receiver” rule provision to explain why a USC safety got tagged for a personal foul on a play when he hit a receiver well after the pass went over the receiver’s head.

Jackson’s other great line of the day came when Bush made one of his customary 10-juke runs that left several Oregon defenders dazed and confused. Of Bush, Jackson said, “He’s made out of something other than I am.” Classic.

Beyond a chronological analysis of the Jackson-Fouts call of USC-Oregon, some larger notes are in order as well.

First, on Jackson: aside of his one-liners and his occasional mention of the “Willamette Valley,” (notice how Jackson finds ways to incorporate the setting into his broadcast, a great attribute of a man assigned to provide not mere words, but word-pictures; whenever he broadcasts the Rose Bowl game, he mentions the San Gabriel Mountains), Jackson’s call of this game was fairly sparse and minimalist. It’s true that a Keith Jackson-called game has a lot more dead air than it used to. This is not so much deteriorating journalism as it is a mere byproduct of age; watching older broadcasts on ESPN Classic clearly shows that Jackson was a more authoritative voice back then. Jackson has hardly gotten less knowledgeable about the game; anything but. It’s just that you have to pay attention to so many details in such a short amount of time, and the relentless pace of a live TV broadcast is a lot harder for today’s Keith Jackson to handle than it was a decade ago.

However, within that acknowledgment of Jackson’s decreased ability to keep up with a broadcast, one must nevertheless complement Mister College Football (a title he always has and always will deserve to retain for his long-term excellence in broadcasting this sport’s biggest games) for not trying to force a call or cram a pre-packaged, pre-conceived theme down a viewer’s throat. Some announcers, lacking a lot to say, might try to fill the air with fluff or generalizations. Jackson, by keeping quiet and letting Fouts do as much of the talking as possible, shows his immense wisdom.

Fouts, for his part, does a quality job of carrying Jackson and doing slightly more talking than most analysts might do in a two-man booth (with Brad Nessler, for example, Fouts would do a lot less talking; with Jackson, he must do more). After missing that early touched punt by William Buchanon, Fouts found his footing and nailed a lot of identifications. He was all over the bad blocking calls that cancelled out one Oregon TD and failed to blot out a tainted USC score. Even more impressive was the fact that Fouts immediately seized on Bush’s 38-yard run during the Trojans’ crucial opening drive of the second half. Fouts—providing commentary when it was appropriate, instead of voicing the obvious well after the fact—was right there to tell viewers how much Bush’s run quieted the Autzen Stadium crowd and got it on its heels. This was not only accurate analysis, but analysis that had a lot to do with identifying the turning point in the game. Fouts did a solid job, along with a quieter and less informative but still enjoyable legend, Keith Jackson, whose one-liners still sing with effortless grace.

In other broadcast news from the weekend, the big highlight was that Brent Musburger showed up again, the Brent Musburger that has been an industry giant for three decades. Doing the very kinds of things Keith Jackson did 15 years ago and before, Musburger would mention a few small but telling details of either a player’s biography, his football tendencies, or both, and these bits of color would inform the viewer. Such was the case early in the Colorado-Miami game when Brent talked about Joel Klatt’s ability to secure the ball. Sure enough, the very next play—in the Hurricanes’ red zone—Klatt threw a ball where no Miami defender could pick it off, enabling Musburger to reaffirm what he had just said. Throughout the game, Musburger’s inflections were perfect. He was vocal on big plays, and he shifted into that delicious, whispery, drama-enhancing tone in between plays. At one point in the first half of the game, Musburger said, “And now Miami moves into CU territory.” That line seems boring when appearing in print, but if you were listening, you knew that the lilt in Musburger’s voice was dead solid perfect. It produced the goose bumps that this man has been so good at eliciting for three decades on national television, either as an anchor or game broadcaster. Good to have you back, Mr. Musburger—when you’re bad, you can embarrass yourself, but when you’re good, you’re the gold standard, hands down.

Musburger’s partner, Gary Danielson, continued to shine like no other analyst in this sport today. The former Purdue star was right on top of a play when Klatt never fully found his equilibrium, stumbling to the ground before a Miami defender even had a chance to tackle him. Beyond that, Danielson—reaffirming his greatest strength—exhibited living-room intimacy and familiarity with the schemes, philosophy and ideal scenarios of Colorado’s coaching staff, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Recalling the times when he and Musburger called Colorado’s big win over Nebraska at the end of the 2001 regular season (a game in which I can still recall how Danielson was immediate in noting how Nebraska was overrunning its gaps and failing to read its keys; damn, Danielson was good that day!), Danielson—having the kind of memory great broadcasters possess—said that “When Colorado is humming, they use play action to get a big play.” No analyst is able to think along with coaching staffs and coordinators the way Danielson does, and that hopefully offers yet more insight into why he’s so good.

The final broadcasting note of the week (excluding tonight’s Tennessee-LSU game) is to salute Chris Spielman of ESPN for an awesome single-game performance. The former Ohio State linebacker is a very good analyst, but the enthusiasm he exhibited during the Purdue-Minnesota tilt—easily the best game of the whole weekend—was both genuine and yet fueled by his immediate awareness (an awareness borne of football experience) of the elevated quality of both the players’ effort and the coaches’ strategic moves. Oftentimes, excited analysis will come off as shrill, forced, or ridiculously generalized and hollow. Spielman, however, always avoided the simplistic “what a great play!” exclamations that poor analysts blurt out... and then don’t follow up with detailed deconstructions. Spielman took his viewers step by step through three or four telling details on each of the game’s biggest and most impressive plays. Instead of merely shouting in excitement, he went on to show the viewer exactly why he was so jacked up about the play he had just witnessed. His brilliant dissections of plays are precisely what made Spielman’s repeated overtime shouts of “I LOVE FOOTBALL!” so thrilling and yet journalistically accurate at the same time. It’s hard to recall another individual game when an analyst was so thoroughly entertaining and informative at the same time. Chris Spielman made me and a national ESPN audience love football a little more on Saturday, and for that, he is to be thanked.

 

[lvbuckeye]

Matthew Zemek is the shit... that last bit about Chris Speilman was awesome... i remember when Speils first started up in the booth, and he was-- well, not too great... but in the following seasons, he has blossomed into something special... obviously, his knowledge of the game is very high, but as he grows more and more comfortable, he shines brighter and brighter... i think that his sheer, unparalleled enthusiasm for the game is what sets him apart... and that enthusiasm only served to add to the drama and fun of the Purdue-Minny game...

i think it was the Wiscy- Bowling Green game when a guy came down on kick coverage and just leveled a blocker: Speils asked for a replay of the block, and got it, then shouted, "HE BOBBY BOUCHER'D HIM!!!" it was classic...