I just finished listening to today's ESPN College Football Insider Podcast (link) with Jim Donnan, Michael Kim, and Bruce Feldman. They said very nice things about LSU (around the 17 1/2 minute mark): Donnan> You know, the one thing that everybody's forgetting that I'm sure both of you guys are aware of, the team that gonna have a tough game is Michigan against LSU. Kim> Yeah, that's true. Donnan> Come on now, if there's one team that looks about as pretty in a uniform as I've seen in a long time and had so many good players. I talked to Lloyd Carr this week, of course nobody can say for sure if they're playing in the game, but I do know that pretty much that's gonna happen. Coach Carr asked me about LSU, and I said, "Congratulations on playing in the game, but you're not gonna like it when you look at the field." Kim> Man, they got some speed, they have power. It's a shame that they have that extra loss there because you know, you're really seeing here in the last couple of weeks what they did to Arkansas, for example, where you know they just really brought it. Donnan> They're a team that's a victim of 9 turnovers. I mean you look at the way they lost to Florida and they still had a chance, and the fact that they did not score a touchdown against Auburn and gave up one and lost 7-3. Kim> That defense hits so hard. Donnan> I would say without question in my mind they're one of the top 5 teams in the country. Feldman> Yeah, I would agree. To me, on paper and just in terms of what you see coming out of the locker room, I think when they're on, I think they're as talented as anybody cause they just have waves and waves. I mean they're kinda like what Miami was 3 years ago.
Feldman> Yeah, I would agree. To me, on paper and just in terms of what you see coming out of the locker room, I think when they're on, I think they're as talented as anybody cause they just have waves and waves. I mean they're kinda like what Miami was 3 years ago. Goodness, what praise. Makes you feel kinda proud, don't it?.
I guess all the talking heads are not against LSU. Especially when the play well. I remember in 2003 the game day crew spent the season praising Oklahoma and Southern Cal. As the championship game grew closer, suddenly they began to bail and pick LSU.
ESPN = little or no credibility This ship is sinking fast. If we only had competition for a sports network. Anybody else notice that ESPN starting to go downhill as soon as they bedded with ABC? Coincidence, I'd like to think not.
How could you not notice? It's terrible. But, being as ESPN pretty much pioneered their market, it's going to be a very long time before they have any real competition.
They "innovate" so much that they're constantly ahead of the field. They made money with an innovative product, and then used the money it had as an advantage against all competitors to make more innovations and perfect the art of sports broadcasting (technical-wise). We are now in the same position, as sports fans, as the computer industry was in the 90s. There is only one real choice as far as we can see, and that is ESPN. They, in fact, know that we think they're biased, and they make fun of that. They cannot cover all the teams all the time, they cover the teams that are hot, newsworthy. They cannot report on LSU all the time. However, this isn't for the fan- it's for the advertisers and the eyeballs. The more sets of ocular organs are trained on their station watching all of that sports-related programming, the more money they make, and the louder, brighter, and more attractive the programming becomes. It's a broken system that will not change until the point where someone likes CBS who already has a proven formula and CG set steps up and ramps up the attempt to wrangle with the beast. FSN won't work because they insist on that garbage covering regions. Good concept, make more localized content to have to cover fewer teams. But in reality they blanket markets that actually HATE the teams they cover. EG, Baton Rouge and FSN Southwest. They do a lot of things right, but they do even more things wrong- including boring anchors (except for when they had Lisa Dergan for a little while, she was good even when doing real sports news) and no HD (which is the knife in the back).
i was sad when cnnsi went off the air (atleast off my dtv). didnt like them so much, but the competetion will make them all better.
If you get ESPN News, it isn't bad. They pretty much give you the scores, the story, minus the inane dribble.
I originally posted this because folks like Jim Donnan (who I actually like) were saying very complimentary things about LSU, not to bash ESPN. What can they do to please folks? If they ignore LSU, they're bad. If they criticize LSU, they're bad. If they jump on the bandwagon, they're bad.
