Clueless at the Superdome
Matthew Ralph

Anyone who watches sports with any regularity should be accustomed to obvious bias in television commentating. But the one-sided Charlie Weis-worshipping affair by color commentators Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long on Jan. 3 reached a new low.

If there were Razzies for sports commenting, it would have to go to the consistently dimwitted and annoying pair of Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw on Fox's broadast of the All-State Sugar Bowl in New Orleans earlier this month. Notorious for relating anything and everything back to their playing days, Long and Barnshaw, who in their defense spend most of their time on the pro game, were essentially Fighting Irish fanboys much of the game.

Through much of the broadcast, particularly in the third quarter as LSU started running away with the game, the pair had almost nothing to say about the Tigers, who proved their superiority against an overrated Notre Deam team by the tune of 41-14.

As former NFL running back Robert Smith said best commentating after the game on ESPN, Notre Dame was likely only in the game to sell tickets. Their season schedule sure didn't show they belonged. Sure, they made mincemeat of the military academies as they do every year, but when it came to playing ranked teams Notre Dame and their darling quarterback Brady Quinn simply didn't show up.

Tradition or not, anyone following the college game this year knew the Irish didn't belong and could easily predict that they'd end up on the short end of a lopsided score.

But Bradshaw and Long apparently didn't do their homework. Even as the game became more of a joke, the best they could come up with about anyone on LSU's team was that one of their linemen was one of the biggest babies ever born in the state of Louisiana and that one of their wide receivers dumped his girlfriend after getting Lasik surgery.

As for the Irish, nearly the entire broadcast was a lovefest for their head coach, who apparently has plenty to love. A novice college football watcher likely would have surmised that Charlie Weis was a star player his name was mentioned so much. Did I mention Weis used to coach in the NFL with Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick? It was mentioned at least four times in the broadcast.

I know this because out of curiosity and in an interest of being fair, I downloaded the Fox broadcast from iTunes and watched the game over again with my notebook in hand. Charlie Weis, the coach of a team that would end up losing 41-14, was mentioned at least 50 times. Les Miles, the coach who helped orchestrate the blowout, was mentioned by name less than 20 times. Incredibly, his first name mention was with 11:30 left in the second quarter.

From a broadcasting point of view, the game plan seemed to be to talk as much as possible about Charlie Weis, no matter how bad his team was getting beat or no matter how stupid one of his calls was. During the broadcast, Weiss was praised for his aggressive play calling on a stupid fake punt try deep in his own zone and then praised again when Les Miles' succeeded with a fake field goal deep in Notre Dame territory.

It gets better. As LSU, already leading 27-14, was orchestrating another scoring drive, we learned from the broadcast how many Notre Dame seniors have a GPA of 3.0 or higher and how much Charlie Weiss stresses academics as part of the "Notre Dame experience." We also got a touching story about a Louisiana kid fulfilling his dream to play in the marching band at Notre Dame. We never did learn anything about the GPA of the Tigers or about any of their marching band members. Oh, but we did learn about how one of the guys get run over defense had a loose connection to NFL coach Jimmy Johnson.

That LSU was driving and scoring another touchdown didn't seem to matter much. There was hardly even a murmer each time LSU scored. Just awkward silence followed by a line about how Charlie Weiss had said he didn't want the player who just burned his cornerback to beat him.

In the end, the broadcast proved a couple of things. Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw have no business commentating on the college game.That and no matter how overmatched and undeserving Notre Dame is of a bowl game, people paid to give a fair and even account of a game can't stop talking about their darling used-to-be-in-the-NFL head coach and about all of the tradition that gives Notre Dame an automatic invite to a bowl a more qualified team (did someone say Rutgers?) deserved to be in.

posted [01.19.07]

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