When did the ESPN B-list commentators get lobotomies?
seriously, in the past few weeks, i have heard some sincerely uninformed idiocy from these folks. cases in point:
sean salisbury (formerly of 3rd-tier quarterback fame for minnesota, and most famous for battlebots and getting his ass handed to him verbally by terrell "sharpie" owens) said how he disagreed with emmit smith saying bad things about the cowboys after his departure. if he had taken two seconds and three synapses to think about it, he would realize that every other player who has openly criticized their team while on it was considered a locker room disruption. plus, emmit knows he will be the ONLY reason arizona wins a single game this year. so anything he says, he's not sacrificing his teammates to the cowboys -- they would have focused on him anyway. sean salisbury = idiot.
trev alberts - washing over an obvious pass interference penalty at the end of the northern illinois game goes "what matters is that they were completely outplayed during the game. they should have never been in this position to begin with." wow, thanks for clearing that up, trev. guess we should also ignore any penalties during a game, as long as they are on the team who has been doing very well so far. who cares if rules are blatantly ignored at the end of the game to allow one team to win or lose. everyone knows it's impossible to come back from a distant deficit, right? heck, why even have a final score? let's just take a poll of internet viewers to see which team we all think has "outplayed" the other and call it a day. trev albert = moron
mark malone = famous for basically steering the steelers after all the stars had retired to, um, basically nothing of importance. when asked about tulane president cowen's comments about how the bcs consist of 63 teams, but there are 117 teams contributing to the I-A division, he says that it's really "all about those 63 teams bring in the money. if schools like tulane want to be considered, they need to put fans in the seats and season tickets sold." oh great, nice to see that college football is all about the money these days. and here's a hint of f'n advice for you, mark, those colleges that have teams regularly considered for a bcs bowl game have a better time recruiting, and more exposure, which results in more attendance, etc. mark malone = stooge
there. disagree if you want, but these three have made me sick recently. and i cannot find a single way to complain via espn's website (hell, it barely lets me register for the message boards). great way to get feedback, guys.
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sean salisbury (formerly of 3rd-tier quarterback fame for minnesota, and most famous for battlebots and getting his ass handed to him verbally by terrell "sharpie" owens) said how he disagreed with emmit smith saying bad things about the cowboys after his departure. if he had taken two seconds and three synapses to think about it, he would realize that every other player who has openly criticized their team while on it was considered a locker room disruption. plus, emmit knows he will be the ONLY reason arizona wins a single game this year. so anything he says, he's not sacrificing his teammates to the cowboys -- they would have focused on him anyway. sean salisbury = idiot.
trev alberts - washing over an obvious pass interference penalty at the end of the northern illinois game goes "what matters is that they were completely outplayed during the game. they should have never been in this position to begin with." wow, thanks for clearing that up, trev. guess we should also ignore any penalties during a game, as long as they are on the team who has been doing very well so far. who cares if rules are blatantly ignored at the end of the game to allow one team to win or lose. everyone knows it's impossible to come back from a distant deficit, right? heck, why even have a final score? let's just take a poll of internet viewers to see which team we all think has "outplayed" the other and call it a day. trev albert = moron
mark malone = famous for basically steering the steelers after all the stars had retired to, um, basically nothing of importance. when asked about tulane president cowen's comments about how the bcs consist of 63 teams, but there are 117 teams contributing to the I-A division, he says that it's really "all about those 63 teams bring in the money. if schools like tulane want to be considered, they need to put fans in the seats and season tickets sold." oh great, nice to see that college football is all about the money these days. and here's a hint of f'n advice for you, mark, those colleges that have teams regularly considered for a bcs bowl game have a better time recruiting, and more exposure, which results in more attendance, etc. mark malone = stooge
there. disagree if you want, but these three have made me sick recently. and i cannot find a single way to complain via espn's website (hell, it barely lets me register for the message boards). great way to get feedback, guys.
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Comments
P.S. Welcolme back to Louisiana!!
Malone is fine from what I have seen. I don't see what is objectionable about what he said either. The BCS is giving $100,000 per year to each of the lesser conferences for nothing in return. They don't bring in shit for money. And college football has been all about money for at least thirty or so years, that's patently obvious. Yes the system is somewhat self-fulfilling for the BCS teams. But those same BCS teams would control things for other reasons anyway, number of players, TV market, alumni/local population base, money invested etc, just as they did prior to the BCS or Bowl Alliance. The only difference now is that an inferior team from a non-BCS conference can't win a fraudulent national championship ala BYU 84.
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
Trev Alberts has always been one of the worst. Complete moron. Mostly agree on Salisbury as well.
Malone is fine from what I have seen. I don't see what is objectionable about what he said either. The BCS is giving $100,000 per year to each of the lesser conferences for nothing in return. They don't bring in shit for money.
edit: first of all, those lesser conferences do one thing critical to the success of many of these programs (though not as much in the bcs ranking days): they offer those precious early-year sacrificial lambs like san jose state, northern illinois and such to the behemoth teams so they can always start their year off with a 53-3 victory. heck, those smaller conferences basically ARE a college pre-season for those schools, ensuring that no one gets hurt, the big teams get to practice their plays without worrying about losing, etc. make the alumni feel happy and write bigger checks. they also provide the cannon fodder for the larger school to consistently post 9 and 10 win seasons. without those, athletic directors and coaches would be fired much more often after "respectable" 8 win seasons. the smaller schools may not bring in DIRECT money, but they bring in a whole lot of INDIRECT money. those smaller conferences are like the commercial actors and actresses of the screen actors guild: no respect, often forgotten about, but critical to the success of the industry (okay, that analogy may be flawed and oversimplified, but it made sense in my head).
my point is that as long as they never have a chance to "go to the dance", they never will bring in the fans and money and television ratings. everyone in louisiana watched lsu. being in the sec, they have a shot of being national champion every year. why watch tulane? so they can maybe go to the liberty bowl with the students who couldn't get recruited to lsu? and now that i am in close proximity to a small school again, i know that all the talent and recruiting goes to those 63 teams (in our local case, LSU). it's really a catch-22 -- you can't really be dominant in a market with another powerhouse unless you can recruit as well, but you can't recruit as well (or get alumni support, etc) without being dominant and fostering that local civic pride.
edit: to point out another example, i lived in columbus, ohio from '96 to '98. how could a school NOT win in that type of atmosphere?!?!? EVERYONE IN THE STATE knows your name, what you look like, tells you about how you'll get drafted easy if you go to OSU. EVERY GAME, no matter how unimportant, is on national television. don't go to miami(ohio)! you'll never get tv exposure, you'll never even get considered for the heisman! you'll end up with a desk job later! 100,000 fans will be there to cheer you on every day! you'll never fail a class while you're there (trust me, there was an unspoken rule among many teachers that no one was to fail a first-round draft pick). OSU will be dominant for decades to come based on sheer momentum alone. it's just not fair.
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
And college football has been all about money for at least thirty or so years, that's patently obvious.
yes, my point though is that everyone seems to have accepted that as being "right." and it is definitely not "right."
Originally posted by ColanderOfDeath
Yes the system is somewhat self-fulfilling for the BCS teams. But those same BCS teams would control things for other reasons anyway, number of players, TV market, alumni/local population base, money invested etc, just as they did prior to the BCS or Bowl Alliance. The only difference now is that an inferior team from a non-BCS conference can't win a fraudulent national championship ala BYU 84.
no more fraudulent than any other national championship, really. i just wish they would dispense with all this dumb "national championship" hoo-haa altogether. i just don't find it necessary, but maybe i just watch it "for the love of the game." we just need to play the games, don't bother with an unfair BCS system, no playoffs that make the college system longer than it needs to be for these STUDENTS, and stop acting like the college system is simply a farm system for the nfl (whether it is or not is not my point -- it SHOULDN'T be). there was a day and a time when winning your conference and bowl game were an AWESOME event. this whole focus on a national champion has taken a lot of that luster away. everyone wants it to be another NFL, and it isn't. it shouldn't be.
just to sound way older than i am for a second, i remember when i was in high school, and colorado and georgia tech won the "co-national championships," and people were screaming "we need a playoff system! we need a national champ!" WHY? both those programs did incredible that year. more power to them. if it's a miracle that a lesser team gets that great season, let them have it for a year. tulane went undefeated in 1997-98, but no one noticed. it was a great accomplishment. should they have gotten the national championship? who knows? stranger things have happened. could they have beaten an ohio state that year? doubt it. but they beat everyone they were stacked up against, and not many people can say that.
i'm just glad it is tulane leading the charge for all this (and if you couldn't tell, they are my alma mater, but i still believe in what they are doing), because no one can accuse them of doing it just for the money. they are perhaps the richest private I-A university in the country, one of the highest graduation rates of student athletes, and THE highest minority athlete GPA and graduation rate in the country. they're already doing it right, and they are not petitioning the BCS to allow JUST tulane in, but ALL of the other I-A schools. they are leading this charge because it is the right thing to do.
is it a fantasy land to hope for a return to "the good ol' days"? the times when some bowl games were great, but others sucked? the days when you knew you were about to get pounded by a school eight times your size, but you didn't care -- you were just glad to have the opportunity? the days when the rose bowl was between the pac-10 and big ten champions, no matter how bad one of them may have sucked? to have bowls that were named for things other than the blockbuster bowl, or the insight.com bowl, or the outback bowl?
yeah, probably a total fantasy. but that won't stop me from hoping.