The pass was thrown on a line and a bit high. So Wisconsin’s Jazz Peavy jumped to catch it. The play was self-evident, the kind we’d seen hundreds of times. He jumped, caught it.
But these are different times, thus ESPN/ABC analyst Brock Huard explained it for us, “He goes up and high-points the ball.”
And away we go.
FOX’s Gus Johnson said wide receiver KaVontae Turpin is a player TCU “wants to get in space” because, “he’s difficult to tackle in space.” If by “space” Johnson meant open, I’d imagine Turpin’s impossible to tackle in space.
Harvard yanked the plug on its men’s soccer team for sustaining its low, wise-guys tradition of vulgarly “rating” the sexual appeal of the women’s team. Think Harvard would’ve done the same had its football or men’s basketball team behaved similarly? Neither do I.
The Syracuse Orange played on ESPN/ABC dressed in an array of who-are-these-guys? colors, none of which appeared to be orange.
For a consecutive week Baylor played on national TV — ESPN, then FOX — to hints that something not nice was going on with the Baylor “program.” But it couldn’t have been much or we’d have been given the particulars, right? Must’ve been parking tickets, something like that.
It’s the alleged rapes, domestic abuse and sexual assaults of 17 women by 19 Baylor football players since 2011. No big deal. Go Bears!
And so Baylor, school colors green and gold, wore their bad-boys black uniforms. Gus Johnson confessed they made it tough to ID the players by number, while the names across the back were nearly invisible.
And then TCU and Baylor, church-affiliated colleges, played a game between student-athletes that often appeared like gang warfare.
When Rutgers intercepted an Indiana pass, Big Ten Network’s Wayne Randazzo, the Mets’ radio pregame and postgame host who came loaded with meaningless stats, said, “That was their 10th red-zone stop of the season. Rutgers leads the Big 10 in that category.”
Seriously? RU was 0-5 in the conference, soon 0-6, and had lost three straight by a total of 160-7, meaning opponents’ red-zone visits were brief, en route to long TD runs — or had many more opportunities than 10 to score from the red zone. Those with football sense wouldn’t have spoken that stat unless it was a kidnapper’s ransom demand.
The World Series ended — here at 1 a.m. — with appropriate new-age senselessness. The winner was Aroldis Chapman who earned that historic status with a blown save. Chapman wouldn’t have been allowed the honor had Joe Maddon, trying to patent the inflatable anchor, not removed starter Kyle Hendricks after 4 ²/₃ innings, up 5-1.
Naturally, MLB’s first act after the Cubs won their first World Series since 1908 was to cover their uniforms with T-shirts and replace their caps with 2016 Champs merchandise — on sale, now!
Indiana, winners of eight NCAA soccer championships since 1982, has a football team unable to kick extra points and field goals.
As seen on TV, Mississippi St., school colors maroon and white, Saturday wore black uniforms (I hope my late father, MSU, Class of 1939, wasn’t watching), while Arkansas, school colors red and white, wore either light black — is there such a thing? — or dark gray.
At halftime of Michigan St.-Illinois, ESPNews showed clips of players showboating while the network added rap music. A graphic identified the cut as the work of “Jeremiah, Young Thug and Swizz Beatz,” adding that it could be found under “DJ Snake” on “ESPN Music” at espn.com. Young Thug. Isn’t that sweet?
Dan Hawkins, the game’s analyst, offered this insight about Illinois: “Somebody’s gotta step up! … Someone’s gotta make a play!”
As the prohibitive cost of college education is an election issue, SUNY-Albany this week tweeted about its women’s field hockey team: “Begins its title defense today, playing UC-Davis, in California, in the @AmericaEast quarterfinals.”
On successive plays Vanderbilt QB Kyle Shurmur threw out of bounds to avoid a big loss, then, on third down, hit a receiver with a perfect first-down pass that was dropped. Although Shurmur was flawless, ESPN’s stats indicated failure.
Reader Brian Lamb asks why TV now simultaneously gives down-and-distance with superimposed on-field graphics, repeating that info at the top or bottom of the screen? Doesn’t that further reduce the view with unnecessary screen clutter?
That’s one way to look at it, but it also gives those who tuned in to watch something else to read.
Tough-guy act has got to go!
Much of the pathetic garbage that has rendered NFL games insufferable was on display in the first minutes of Jets-Dolphins. Sadly, CBS’s Greg Gumbel and Trent Green pandered to it.
A childish, weeklong trash-talk match between Jets receiver Brandon Marshall and Miami cornerback Byron Maxwell carried into immediate physical hassles to which Gumbel and Green chuckled.
Then a post-play macho mingle led to a 15-yarder against Jets’ DB Buster Skrine, producing lesser chuckles.
Next, on the same, bad-behavior-gifted Miami TD possession — the Jets would lose by four! — safety Calvin Pryor was flagged for taunting. That finally inspired Gumbel and Green to identify uncivilized stupidity as uncivilized stupidity.
Why, even once, protect professionals who further diminish their sport as a sport?
Given Rutgers had a good shot to beat Indiana on Saturday, one senseless but now common play stood out as a killer.
At 7-7, IU had third-and-11 from the RU 35. A pass over the middle was caught at the 20 by Ricky Jones, who was in position to be easily tackled.
But the nearest RU defender, Anthony Cioffi, wasn’t interested in tackling; he wanted to crush him. So he lowered his head, kept his arms and hands to himself and tried to shoulder Jones flat. Jones bounced off, ran for a touchdown.
Neither BTN announcer, Wayne Randazzo nor analyst J Leman, spoke what seemed impossible to miss.
Joe Buck finally runs out of things to say
At 21-10, Giants, 9:28 left in the first half, FOX’s slick, stat-parrot Joe Buck, in need of a bye week, said to analyst Troy Aikman, “I think we’re in for a shootout here, today.” Aikman said, “Well, yeah.”
For a guy so peace loving he wouldn’t dine with West Point cadets, Joakim Noah, playing basketball, grows enraged often and easily.
Patrick Forrestal, Navy’s nose guard in its win over Notre Dame, is a third-generation Midshipman and football player. But it seems he’s not related to James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy during World War II.
Tuesday’s election? I’m voting for Gracie Allen, 1940 Presidential candidate of the Surprise Party. You can look it up!
