Great article about ESPN's gameday crew...

[StatTiger 3,188]

This was posted on the ITAT board and I thought it was a good read.

http://www.collegefootballnews.com/2004/Co...Quarterback.htm

By Matthew Zemek

Everyone has a final word about the accomplishments of the Big Three—the Trojans, Sooners and Tigers.

Today, Auburn folks are saying that they, like their team, cannot fully or genuinely celebrate their team’s magical 12-0 SEC Championship season. The reason? Anyone in the media who says that Auburn has much to celebrate is merely patting them on the back, complementing the Tigers gently and positively so they can just fade away while everyone moves on to the “real championship game” between the Sooners and Trojans. Auburn fans are of an opinion which holds that the same writers and broadcasters who are so evidently biased against them are now praising Auburn in a backhandedly belittling and malicious way, all in the attempt to sweep this BCS controversy under the rug.

I can see what Auburn folks mean after watching ESPN’s Gameday crew over the weekend; however, while understanding what Tiger fans are thinking, their charges are just not true. If you can simply realize that the BCS does not intentionally discriminate against any one team or conference (it screws everybody at some point), you’ll realize that there’s no institutional bias in the BCS or among the media members that talk about it.

But first, let’s explain why Auburn fans feel belittled, and not comforted, at the sympathy they’ve been getting from college football commentators and columnists over the past 24 hours.

Watching Gameday operate over the weekend, one can see the two different ways in which sympathy could come across to a jilted Auburn audience. (And let’s face it: the Gameday boys are the main roundtable discussion group in college football. They set industry standards for media opinion, especially since they’re able to see each of the top teams in person, unlike beat writers chained to one team or broadcasters—CBS’ Todd Blackledge, for example—chained to one conference.)

Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit have both bashed the BCS and its obvious flaws all year, so that point alone should have solved the bias issue, nipping it in the bud and assuring Auburn folks that both broadcasters felt Auburn’s pain. But once the BCS matchup was set between USC and Oklahoma, Fowler and Herbstreit both wanted to avoid creating a riot-type atmosphere of unrest and rebellion, a reasonable-enough measure for any journalist, but especially for TV commentators who—as a consequence of making on-site appearances at stadiums, need to be level-handed in a way writers don’t have to. Fowler and Herbstreit have very legitimate reasons to be a little bit politically correct about the sport they cover: first, their safety; second, they are the icons of college football commentators; third, they’re very well compensated for their work. This writer has none of those considerations to look out for… at least, not yet.

So it’s understandable that the younger Gameday boys (with Grandpa Lee Corso focusing on the cancellation of the Rose Bowl if Cal got excluded) would soft-pedal BCS criticism when the Orange Bowl matchup was essentially decided.

However, the ways in which Fowler and (especially) Herbstreit articulated their thoughts is what gave rise to the anger being felt in the Auburn community today. Fowler—who wrote a moving column on Thursday and opened up about the morality of college football, something this writer did as well over the past few days—stressed the pain the Auburn community felt. While acknowledging his personal opinion that USC and OU were the top two teams in the country, Fowler clearly and emphatically stated that Auburn felt hurt, and had a right to be hurt. He acknowledged that the sight of an SEC champion being left out of the big game did not feel right. Fowler showed a particular reverence for the prestige and honor associated with an SEC title, thereby balancing out his belief that the Trojans and Sooners were the best teams in the country. With Fowler, one could tell that while he approved of a USC-OU matchup in Miami, he was still not happy with the BCS.

But with Herbstreit, things were different.

Yes, the former Ohio State quarterback is still an exceptional commentator; he, like this columnist, has pushed for a selection committee much like the one used in the NCAA basketball tournament, and his football analysis is first-rate. However, Herbstreit’s youth sometimes makes the Buckeye reluctant to deliver criticisms in an overly harsh way.

While it was fully obvious to anyone who’s watched a whole season of Gameday broadcasts that Herbstreit disapproved of the latest BCS mess, the man they call Kirk clearly acquired a “let’s forget about this and move on” attitude when the USC-OU matchup became clear. Herbstreit’s mention of Auburn’s disillusionment was very perfunctory, and his emphasis on the supremacy of the Trojans and Sooners was rather pronounced and authoritative. In an attempt to generate positive excitement about what truly is a great matchup (the only problem is that other possible Orange Bowls involving Auburn, against USC or OU, would have also been truly great matchups), Herbstreit went too far, saying that the BCS worked.

Wait a minute: you can’t suggest a number of policy changes relative to the BCS and college football’s overall postseason scheme, but then say—at the end of the season, when the big game’s matchup is announced—that this same misguided and broken system worked. Herbstreit created the impression that the BCS formulas neatly and fully coincided with his views, and that it worked like a charm as a result. However, this point stands in marked contrast to everything Kirk said about the BCS’ flaws over the course of the whole season.

Herbstreit (like Fowler) has good reason to not inflame controversy; yet, he shied away from many of his remarks over the course of the season, while Fowler was at least candid and consistent enough this past weekend to reassert the broken nature of a system that just didn’t feel right, and in fact never felt right throughout the fall of 2004. Herbstreit didn’t need to bend over backwards and say how much he hated the BCS—he didn’t need to inflame already raw emotions. All Kirk needed to do—while legitimately pumping up the USC-OU Orange Bowl, something he is supposed to do as a popular TV commentator—was to say up front that the BCS is a broken and unfair system. Having made that point for the umpteenth time, Herbstreit could then say—with a straight face and with more journalistic integrity—that USC-OU was a great matchup that luckily happened to coincide with his views.

What this whole explanation boils down to is that while Fowler and Herbstreit both panned the BCS all year long, Fowler gave a nod to the Auburn community on the final weekend of the year, a legitimate acknowledgment of the Tigers’ frustration and of the brokenness of the BCS. Herbstreit—while having much the same view as his colleague—decided, in a political move, to swallow his criticisms in order to pump up the Orange Bowl and not create an extra storm cloud of controversy over the game.

On the merits and content of their viewpoints, Fowler and Herbstreit are relative equals. Herbstreit, and the media at large, hardly hold any kind of institutional bias, just like the BCS system itself. But by swallowing some of his criticism in an attempt to be politically correct, Kirk created the appearance of not seeming to care about Auburn’s plight. When viewed in that light, one can understand why his praise of Auburn seemed hollow.

But look at the bigger picture: the same man who insists that a selection committee is needed for NCAA football does not simultaneously believe that the BCS is a good system that is fair to all parties involved in major college football. Herbstreit does feel for Auburn, but as a nod to the two teams who will play in Miami, the former quarterback wanted to congratulate Bob Stoops’ and Pete Carroll’s teams. That was the innocent but genuine purpose of Herbstreit’s clipped remarks about Auburn, in tandem with his effusive comments about the USC-OU Orange Bowl.

So whether you watched the BCS discussion shows—and the opinions within them—from a West Coast, Southern, or Central Plains perspective, please understand that no matter what the team or region, the BCS system is biased against everyone. The Gameday broadcasters, on the other hand, are biased against no one. Whether it’s the computers or the media, and whether the debate concerns the national championship game or an at-large BCS bowl bid, biases run in all directions and affect all conferences at some point in time. At a time when anyone and everyone in college football is quick to level a charge of bias against the BCS and the media that talks about it, the reality is that bias exists in very short supply. The BCS is an equal-opportunity heartbreaker, and the media are equal-opportunity praisers who know they won’t win over audiences by raining on any one team’s parade.

[AUHansel 0]

that is a pretty good article.

and about the alcohol thing, I'm sure there are people at Big 10 schools that sneak alcohol in the game. It's not hard.

[BigSammyK 171]

A lot of Big 10 schools sell alcohol at games actually.

[Auburnforever 0]

Good article and good read. Although Herbstriet is jerk... regardless of the reporters opinions of not wanting to start a riot. I got more pissed everytime I saw him this weekend. The cocky b*tch...shaking Corso's hand... like he had done something. Or inside saying welcome to the good side or seeing the light.

I'm not saying OU-USC doesn't deserve the Orange Bowl, because in my opinion they do, right along with my Tigers. I'm still so angry over this that I can't even finish this...

[chinook 0]

the article failed to mention herbstriet is an "the ohio state" moron bias homosexual.

[AUesquire 1]

My biggest problem with Lee Torso and Jerk Turdstreet is the flip-flopping in their opinions from game to game. No consistency.

However, I bow to King Trev

No, not cause' he's been backing us, and quite vehemently I might add, but because he's been right on about us since the start of last year. We hated him for saying we were the most overrated team. Number 1 to 8-5 proved that. He says we're the best team in the country. We proved that, but unfortunatley, the rest of the college world didn't agree.

[Weagle98 119]

What got me was Kirk Hersuck saying AU was #2 after the Bama game and then during the Bye week for both Oklahoma and AU he moves us back to #3. WE DIDN'T PLAY YOU IDIOT. I have no respect for Kirky.