Shill Factor Can’t Be Underestimated

There has to be a better way, it has to be said, after a weekend spent watching football studio analysts in between timeouts to close all the windows, turn up the thermostat, fire up the tea kettle, pull on an extra sweatshirt and periodically scream at the television, “YOU’RE STUDIO ANALYSTS! GET INSIDE THE STUDIO ALREADY!”

But, no, there were ESPN’s Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit shivering outside Arrowhead Stadium late Saturday night, wrapped in heavy long coats and wool scarves, their breath fogging in front of their faces, looking like Green Bay Packer lineman at the Ice Bowl as they discussed the ramifications of Oklahoma’s 27-24 victory over Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game.

And there, on Sunday morning, was CBS’ quivering quintet of Jim Nantz, Mike Ditka, Craig James, Randy Cross and Jerry Glanville, huddling close together for warmth outside Trump Plaza as they attempted to analyze the day’s upcoming NFL competition.

Ditka: “It’s cold.”

Nantz: “We understand the wind chill here is about 15 degrees right now in the Plaza in New York.” James: “I’m cold.”

Quick now, these nanooks of New York work for:

a) The official network of the American Football Conference.

b) The official network of Super Bowl XXXV.

c) The Weather Channel.

Confused viewers were soon scrambling for their local listings, and their calendars. If this is the first Sunday of December, and that is New York City, what is Ditka doing outside, his hands jammed inside fur-lined gloves, his flying-wedge hair freezing into the shape of a snowplow blade?

It’s entirely insane, of course, but the network executives who make these kind of decisions from inside their comfortable climate-controlled offices love this sort of thing. Send the talent out to mingle with the masses, spruce up with some “on-site authenticity,” lap up round after round of cheap applause.

Network executives love cheap applause. Instant gratification, much more immediate than overnight ratings. Saturday night, the game plan worked to perfection, with hundreds of Oklahoma rowdies milling around ESPN’s arctic outdoor set. The basic formula:

Analyst: “And this, without a doubt, proves that Oklahoma (RAUCOUS CHEERING) is champion of the Big 12 Conference (RAUCOUS CHEERING) and has an awful (INTERMITTENT HISSING AND BOOING) good chance of winning the national championship (UPROARIOUS UNBRIDLED CHEERING).

So what if Corso can barely get a word in edgewise?

(So that’s the master strategy . . .)

Damn the thermometers!

Chattering teeth ahead!

For the University of Miami football team, the imagery was bone-chilling. Because guess who really got left out in the cold?

The Hurricanes, despite finishing the regular season with one loss (same as Florida State) and 10 victories (including one over Florida State), got shut out of the bowl championship series title game, its place in the Orange Bowl taken by Florida State.

“The bowl championship series was created to ensure the nation’s two best teams would meet on the playing field,” began the narration to ABC’s “Tostitos Bowl Championship Series Selection Show.” “So far, the BCS has achieved its goal: An undisputed champion.

“But this year, the BCS will face its toughest challenge yet. There are more viable contenders than every before.”

Yeah, at least three that belong in the title game.

At that point, ABC’s cameras took us to studio analysts John Saunders and Terry Bowden, this time actually keeping them inside the studio. Free from meteorological worry--no chance that their tongues might become permanently bonded to a frigid headset microphone--Saunders and Bowden were able to think straight and ask the right questions.

“There’s going to be controversy,” Saunders warned from the top, and it made for a great piece of television: Bowden grilling his father, Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden, about whether his Seminoles truly belonged in the BCS title game.

Terry: “Dad, I got to ask you this question: I watched you lose head-to-head to Miami. Tell us all right now why you deserve to be in the national championship game.”

This was good stuff. On the split screen, you could see Dad wincing every slightly.

“W-e-l-l,” Bobby replied, dropping back into his good-ol’-boy prevent defense, “everything was run through the computer. We had nothin’ to do with the computer . . . It came out ranking us second.”

Bobby managed a nervous chuckle. “So, anyway, we’ll accept that. I’m not gonna turn it down.”

Saunders tried to stir the pot with Miami Coach Butch Davis, left in the Sugar Bowl looking in, but Davis wouldn’t bite. He said all the right things--he felt his team deserved a spot in the Orange Bowl, his team did everything it could have on the field, but there are two other deserving teams that feel the same way. Later, Davis did let down his guard long enough to say that the BCS computer component that weighs margin of victory “might not be in the best interest of a program” concerned with such old-school principles as sportsmanship and clearing your bench during blowouts.

ABC brought out graphics that supported Florida State’s case: Florida State was ahead of Miami in margin of victory (32.1 to 27.1) as well as top-25 teams defeated (four to two).

It also had some fun with the head-to-head argument, carrying it out to an absurd extreme: Florida State lost to Miami, which lost to Washington, which lost to Oregon, who lost to Wisconsin, which lost to Purdue, which lost to Penn State, who lost to Toledo, which lost to Western Michigan, which lost to Central Michigan, which lost to Kent, which lost to Youngstown State, which lost to Southern Illinois--setting up a rightful title game matchup between 12-0 Oklahoma and Southern Illinois, a Division I-AA school with a 3-8 record.

“All I can say,” Terry Bowden said, “is, Go Salukis!’ ”

Off camera at this point, Miami’s Davis probably wasn’t laughing. His team, ranked No. 2 and ahead of Florida State in the Associated Press poll, was stopped short of the big game--not by Florida State, not by any conference opponent, but by a dog pile of decimal points and computer printouts.

It’s a cruel new world out there in BCS land.

Cold too.