Networks Need a Separation of Sports and State

From morning in Los Angeles to midnight in Tallahassee, a nation waited . . . and waited . . . and waited, tapping fingers on armrests and glancing at the clock on the wall and surfing from network to network, hoping against hope for some sort of deliverance.

Deliver us, oh lords of Rivalry Saturday, from the congestion and confusion at the top of the BCS rankings.

Or, failing that, could you at least deliver us from pundits punning right, punning left, punning every which way about the stalemated presidential election and the ongoing recount in Florida?

Final totals after 12 hard hours in front of the tube: Nation, 0 for 2.

Florida State, we were told, again and again, had to beat archrival Florida to move up to No. 2 in the BCS rankings, the magic number for a berth in January’s national championship game at the Orange Bowl. Florida State did just that--pounding Florida, 30-7--and remained right where it began the day, stuck at No. 3 behind Oklahoma and Miami.

Oregon and Oregon State, we were told, again and again, were playing the most important game in the long history of the Civil War, with Rose Bowl ramifications riding on the outcome. Oregon State won convincingly, 23-13, to run its record to 10-1 . . . and Washington is going to the Rose Bowl (barring a very unlikely call-up to the BCS title game).

And all through the day, as we witnessed mountains of hype being reduced to molehills of reality, football announcers across the land could not restrain themselves when faced with the apparently irresistible mix of two teams from Florida playing a big game in the capital of a state that has sent its presidential election into quadruple overtime.

On the West Coast, groggy television viewers were awakened to Rivalry Saturday by a caffeinated ESPN GameDay teaser: “Finally, in Florida’s capital city, a decisive solution to the stalemate. Count on this: For one contender, the campaign for the crown ends tonight.”

From there, GameDay host Chris Fowler picked up the ball and refused to let go, referencing the election five times in the next hour, with field reporter Tony Barnhart chipping in with another.

Fowler, kicking off the show: “After the political brouhaha in this town, gentlemen, it is time to set aside our differences and to focus not on Bush versus Gore but on Bowden versus Spurrier. Not on the struggle for the White House, but on the struggle for the Orange Bowl.”

Fowler, segueing into an update on the BCS derby: “Just like the recent court fight . . . “

Fowler, again, setting up the Alabama-Auburn game: “The Crimson Tide last week made like an overseas voter and mailed it in.”

Barnhart, wrapping up a segment on the wild SEC race: “A week from today we will have a winner. No recounts.”

Which inspired Fowler to ask Florida State Coach Bobby Bowden: “Speaking of the state of Florida, there’s been this big debate. This is not a day to politic and campaign--there is enough of that going on up at the capitol here. But in the BCS, if you get this win, do you deserve a shot at the title game?”

Bowden, in the homespun, roundabout manner that has endeared him to so many poll voters, said yes, stunning the nation.

Fowler, however, wasn’t quite finished. One more urge, one more quick surrender: “Down in Tallahassee, [it’s] a day for football--the court decision put on hold until Monday. In the Big Ten, this is Decision Day.”

Mercifully, GameDay lasts only an hour, so eventually the boys had to set aside their toys and give the political football a rest.

Over to you, Brent Musburger, who opened ABC’s telecast of the Florida-Florida State game with a breathless “Decision 2000! Florida is deciding the fate of the U.S. presidency! Tonight, something even more important! This contest is not for politicians, lawyer or hanging chads. Welcome to Florida versus Florida State . . . There will be no recounts tonight!”

Of all the rotten luck. Kansas State played Missouri Saturday--why couldn’t those teams have been ranked 3 and 4, coming from states where the presidential votes were tallied long ago? (OK, we all know the answer to that: Larry Smith coaches Missouri. Or at least did; Smith was fired Sunday. Bad example.) Or why couldn’t the recount have happened in a state where nothing big or important in college football was happening Saturday. Say, California.

While Stanford was holding off Cal to move into fourth place in the Pacific 10, local television viewers joined USC-UCLA in progress, with 11:37 left in the first quarter--the telecast of the 70th renewal of the biggest football game in Los Angeles delayed, on a regional cable channel, by a hockey game.

Pay attention, all you future Trojans and Bruins waiting to watch with your parents: This is what happens when you don’t learn how to tackle. Your biggest game of the year not only gets bumped to Fox Sports Net 2--Fox Sport Net’s second string--but it takes a back seat to the Kings and the Avalanche. No one could play any defense in that one, either. Kings 6, Avs 4.

ABC, the big college football network, dispatched its camera crew and its blue-ribbon play-by-play man, Keith Jackson, instead to Corvallis, Ore. This was unprecedented on Rivalry Saturday, which no doubt contributed to pregame hysteria not usually seen for a contest played to determine who won’t be going to the Rose Bowl.

ESPN’s Lee Corso was so excited about this game he predicted both teams would win. First, he tabbed Oregon State: “Poor Oregon. They’ve got to go into Corvallis. I don’t see how they can do it. They’ve got two chances: Slim and none.” A few minutes later, he picked Oregon: “I think the Oregon Ducks will slip into old Beaverville and upset the mighty Beavers.”

On several levels, this amused fellow analyst Kirk Herbstreit, who laughed and wisely retorted, “O-h-h-kay. We’ll let that one go.”

ESPN’s Web site, caught up in the frenzy, enlisted author Ken Kesey, an Oregon grad, to write a pregame column about the Civil War--headlined “One Flew Over The Ducks’ Nest,” of course. Kesey related how he grew up in a fervent Duck household, where “every fall was full of Duck talk.” “I can remember long, drizzly, cold Saturday afternoons, shivering in the car with my father and brother, parked somewhere along the river with our shotguns between our knees, watching for ducks as we listened to the Ducks on the radio. ‘Yep, we’re rootin’ for ‘em and shootin’ for ‘em,’ Dad used to say.”

Kesey’s words were juxtaposed by the literature of Beano Cook, who waxed about the Ohio State-Michigan rivalry in a style reminiscent of a young Hemingway: “I have to see them dot the ‘I.’ ”

Amazing achievement of the day: ESPN completed an entire interview with Oregon State wide receiver Chad Johnson without one reference to Chad being dimpled, dangling or--in what would have been the scoop of the season--pregnant.