ESPN continues the spin for the benefit of itself and its partner, the BCS

Well, here we go again with the BCS Apologists.

Last week Alabama was their savior. Now, it has become a potential scourge. What a difference one trip to LSU can make.

Prior to the Crimson Tide’s trip to Baton Rouge, the BCS-A thinking went like this: “If Alabama wins out, it should play in the national championship game—even with one loss.”

Why? Well, Alabama would have a win at LSU and would have finished its season by beating Auburn and winning the SEC Championship game. Thus, even if TCU and Boise State finished unbeaten, Alabama would be picked—SHOULD be picked—to play presumably unbeaten Oregon in the national championship game. TCU and Boise State would get another pat on the head from the BCS boys and be sent to play in yet another lucrative, but meaningless BCS bowl.

The campaign actually began a week ago Saturday when ESPN showed ‘projected bowl matchups,’ with Oregon and Auburn in the title game. In the ‘projections,’ Boise State was being sent to The Rose Bowl. “You know Herbie,” (or is it Herby?) Brent Musburger said to Kirk Herbstreit, “The Rose Bowl is a pretty nice consolation prize for the Broncos.”

Sure it is Brent. A team with a 26 game winning streak over two seasons should be handed a consolation prize.

That’s the way it works though in BCS-A/ESPN-world. This isn’t about fairness or doing what’s right. It’s about money, ratings and taking care of the big boys and the BCS Presidents who the ESPN suits do business with nowadays. That’s why it was no surprise last week when the ESPN talking heads began promoting the notion that if Alabama won out—which would, of course, mean knocking Auburn from the unbeaten ranks—IT would deserve a spot in the championship game.

Herbstreit explained it carefully one night on sportscenter. On Friday night, during the Central Florida-Houston game Rece Davis brought it up as pretty much a done deal. “Alabama looks to stay on track for the BCS Championship game,” was Davis’s throwaway comment at halftime as if he was saying, “tomorrow is Saturday.”

It is worth remembering that ESPN currently OWNS the BCS for all intents and purposes because of the money it is paying over the next four seasons. That means it will do just about anything to create the matchups it thinks best for the network and its partners in crime. Pounding away, as the pundits were last week, establishes in the minds of those who vote in the coach’s poll and The Harris Poll—which make up a large chunk of the BCS formula, the notion that what is being said on ESPN is what must be true.

Now though, there’s a problem: Alabama lost. So much for establishing the Tide as the alternative to Auburn should the Tigers lose. That means if Alabama beats Auburn later this month the BCS has a serious problem: Even if Oregon goes on and wins out (at California; Arizona; at Oregon State) the Ducks would then be the only team from a BCS conference that would be undefeated. That would make it almost impossible not to put either TCU or Boise State in the championship game.

Can you hear drumbeats for Wisconsin or LSU in the distance? How about Stanford or even Nebraska?

The larger question if Oregon is the only BCS unbeaten is how in the world do you choose between TCU and Boise State. The Horned Frogs certainly made a strong case for themselves when they waltzed into Utah Saturday and hammered the Utes 47-7 in a game that Utah Coach Kyle Whittingham said wasn’t even THAT close. Boise State has beaten Virginia Tech and Oregon State and destroyed a good (7-2) Hawaii team, 42-7 on Saturday.

Both teams have done everything they have been asked to do for two seasons now. Boise State’s last loss was in the 2008 Poinsettia Bowl—to TCU. TCU’s only loss the last two seasons was in last January’s Fiesta Bowl. If the college football postseason was even semi-legitimate and had a FOUR team playoff you could have two great semifinals, leading to the title game. But no, why decide who the best team is on the field when you can leave it to pundits who will tell us why going to The Rose Bowl is a nice consolation prize for a team on a 26 game winning streak.

TCU Coach Gary Patterson was asked how he would feel if TCU and Boise State ended up playing one another for a third consecutive season in a non-championship game. “It doesn’t really matter how I feel,” said Patterson, who always tries to be politically correct when such questions come up. “But I do know this: It wouldn’t be good for college football.”

Of course it wouldn’t. A championship game between the two schools WOULD be good for college football although ESPN and the BCS-A’s would be apoplectic about it. Of course a championship game between one of those two schools and either Oregon or Auburn wouldn’t make them happy either but would also be good for college football. How though, do you think Boise Coach Chris Petersen might react if TCU—a team he beat in a bowl game last year with almost all of his current starters—played Oregon, a team he beat the last TWO years while he was sent to Pasadena.

Do you think he’d think that was a pretty nice consolation prize?

Naturally, the ESPN boys—with the notable exception of Chris Fowler—were spinning like crazy Sunday night and Monday morning. First they told us that Utah was overrated and that the 47-7 TCU win really wasn’t THAT impressive. Craig James went on for a while about how much he liked Patterson and how good they’d looked but then added, “you know the linebackers in these non-AQ conferences are 5-10 or 5-11 and run 4.6 40s. The linebackers in the SEC are 6-3 and run 4.4’s.”

To which Fowler (God Bless him) said, “Craig have you looked at TCU’s linebackers?”

Herbstreit chipped in with how strong the SEC is and Davis went on about how great it was that TCU and Boise State after beating two teams this weekend with a combined record of 16-2 by a combined 75 points were really in good shape at No. 3 and No. 4 in the poll. Oh please. Monday morning, in the name of piling on one of the morning pitchmen bemoaned the notion of an Oregon-TCU championship game as one no one would care about. (If you want to guess which one, hum the Notre Dame fight song). This noted Notre Dame apologist probably would love to see a championship game between his beloved Irish and Texas—combined record at the moment 8-10, but they’re NAMES. Maybe the Cowboys should play in The Super Bowl, right?

In the meantime, if you want to talk about consolation prizes, how about whomever wins the SEC East or the ACC Atlantic. South Carolina, which had control of the SEC East, was embarrassed at home by Arkansas on Saturday. That means that the three loss Gamecocks now face three loss Florida this Saturday to decide who will play in the SEC title game. The ACC Atlantic is even worse: All three so-called ‘contenders,’ lost on Saturday: Maryland to a fourth string quarterback at Miami; Florida State at home to North Carolina and North Carolina State to mediocre Clemson. Unfortunately, someone in that group has to show up in Charlotte—in front of a crowd that will probably number well into the dozens—to play Virginia Tech on the first Saturday in December.

Of course The ENTIRE Big East isn’t any better. But the award for most surprising truly bad season has to go to Texas. In the last nine seasons, the Longhorns have won at least 10 games every year and had a combined record of 101-16. They are now 4-5 after an embarrassing loss Saturday at Kansas State.

That means no one at ESPN will be trying to convince people they belong in the BCS title game picture.

Unless…

Racing, Olympics and ESPN-ABC Announcers; Goydos keeps his sense of humor

I apologize for not having written a blog yesterday. On my way home Sunday from the Holy Cross-Bucknell game I kept having to pull over because there were potholes on Rte. 15 that I was afraid to go through at 200 miles per hour.

Sorry stock car fans, couldn’t resist. But seriously, the biggest event in racing delayed for more than two hours because the track has potholes in it? Who was in charge of track maintenance, the NCAA? Look, I know nothing about auto racing—I covered the Indy 500 once; thought the start was about the most thrilling thing I’d ever seen and then had little idea what was going on for the rest of the race. To be fair, that was the year when officials had to go back and look at the tape to figure out who finished second to Rick Mears. So it wasn’t just me.

But I don’t think you have to be a racing fan to understand that two delays caused by potholes is not exactly great theater nor is having the race finish when it is already dinnertime in the east. Apparently Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second. Where was Danica Patrick? Oh, that’s right she was in the race Saturday that only the real racing geeks pay any attention to at all. She’s the biggest star in the sport—at least based on how often she’s on TV—and she runs in the equivalent of the NBA rookie game.

She got more attention for finishing 32nd in that race than all the other drivers combined did for the entire week. Gee, I wonder why. Couldn’t have anything to do with her looks could it?

Meanwhile, back at sports I know something about…(which means there isn’t going to be too much talk about the Olympics although I got a kick out of Bode Miller caring enough to win a bronze medal in the downhill and an American with a great name—Johnny Spillane--winning the first U.S. medal in Nordic skiing since Bill Koch in 1976. Seeing Koch’s name reminded me that when he won his medal (a silver in the 30 kilometer cross country race) I was in college and avidly reading The Washington Post. One American writer had thought to show up for the race—Lenny Shapiro from The Post—who was my hero then as he is now. He talked to Koch and wrote a great story about him and his solitary quest to be a Nordic skier in a country that had zero interest in Nordic skiing.

I swear I’d watch more of the Olympics but every time I switch over it seems that NBC is either in commercial or Bob Costas is saying, “let’s return now to figure skating….” Bring back Janet Lynn and I’ll return to figure skating. I finally figured out last night as I clicked back to college hoops as two more figure skaters graced my screen why I simply can’t stand it anymore: it’s not a sport, it’s a reality show. All it lacks are early tryouts with people who can’t stay up on their skates and Simon Cowell telling them that they suck).

Okay, now you are looking live at today’s blog. Sorry, I spent some of last night listening to Brent Musburger and Bob Knight. Talk about memories. Brent is now 70 and Knight is 69 but they both clearly love being in places like College Station, Texas doing a game on a Monday night in February. Hey, good for them. I wish I had that kind of energy sometimes.

Brent sometimes sounds like he’s doing an imitation of Brent but who cares? If ABC-ESPN gets the NCAA Tournament contract this summer, there’s going to be a battle royale over there about who gets The Final Four games. Dick Vitale HAS to do color because he’s Dick Vitale and he’s been waiting more than 30 years to go to The Final Four and not sell pizzas all week. I’d pair him with Knight because Knight’s sarcastic presence might tone Dick down a little and they could be the sort of Odd Couple that Al McGuire and Billy Packer became.

The smart betting on play-by-play would have to be Dan Schulman, who is the company’s rising play-by-play star and works most of the time with Vitale. Nothing against Schulman but I’d stick Brent right there in-between Vitale and Knight. It would be the climax to a comeback that began 20 years ago when CBS unceremoniously fired him on the eve of the 1990 national title game. And the guy still gets it done when the red light goes on.

Okay, I’m rambling. Some day I’ll tell the story about Brent and I almost getting into a fight about 10 minutes before the national championship telecast went on in the air in 1989 in Seattle. Billy Packer was standing there preparing, as he said later, to open the telecast himself. The whole thing has a happy ending. Brent and I have gotten along fine for years now.

The downer of the weekend for me was my buddy Paul Goydos coughing up the lead on the back nine at Pebble Beach. Anyone who knows me at all knows that Goydos and I have been friends since 1993 when I first began researching “A Good Walk Spoiled.”

I was at the Buick Open on the first day killing time in the afternoon before going to meet Billy Andrade for dinner. Larry Mize had shot 64 in the morning and the only player in the afternoon wave who had gone low at all was a rookie named Goydos, who had shot 66. After a lengthy debate, Chuck Adams and Mark Mitchell, the two on-site PGA Tour PR guys, decided to bring Goydos into the interview room.

“There’s no one else to bring in this afternoon,” Mitchell said. “Plus, it’ll be good experience for Paul.”

With nothing else to do, I wandered into the back of the interview room to see if there was any reason at all to listen. The first thing I heard Goydos say was, “I’m sure none of you have ever heard of me. There’s a reason for that: I’ve never done anything.”

Hang on, I thought, this guy might be worth listening to for a few minutes. He launched into a 10-minute monologue that was supposed to be a recap of his round but was more like a standup routine. “At 17 I hit 7-iron. When I’m playing well it’s because I get my slice going. I know if you’re on the PGA Tour you’re supposed to call it a fade but when you hit a 7-iron and it goes 20 yards to the right, that’s a slice.”

I needed to meet this guy. I introduced myself as he was walking out, said I was doing a book on life on tour and wondered if we could talk at some point. “Sure, I’ll talk to you all you want,” he said. “But you’re wasting your time writing a book on the tour. No one’s going to buy it.”

Fortunately Paul is better at golf than predicting book sales. He became the character in the book few people had heard of but continued to follow long after it was published. We became good friends. He’s won twice on tour and pieced together a pretty good career for someone who likes to describe himself as, “the worst player in the history of the PGA Tour.”

He had a great chance to win on Sunday, but came undone on the back nine with a couple of bogeys and then, disastrously, a quadruple-bogey nine that sent him spiraling to a disappointed tie for fifth. Talk about hitting a pothole.

On Monday I sent him an e-mail offering condolences. Typical Paul, this was the answer I got back: “Well, when I made my back-nine 9 on Sunday at The Hope it was on a par-three. This time it was on a par-5. I guess that’s progress.”

You have to love a guy who NEVER loses his sense of humor. There aren’t many people you can say that about.

Gotta go. I think Costas is about to introduce some more figure skating.