ESPN goes overboard for BCS title game

If rights to big-time events were awarded based on quality of telecasts and not just money, ESPN would be hyping its upcoming, exclusive coverage of the Fixodent Last Roundup Super Senior Rodeo, Mid-East Regionals.

ESPN’s game plan for the LSU-Alabama national championship Monday night was painfully obvious, painfully ESPN: Load everything and everyone they’ve got into 18-wheelers, send them to New Orleans then dump everything and everyone into the Superdome.

Swallow the game, whole. Pregame through postgame, don’t let it up for air. Smother it. Drown it. Hype it far beyond what it could possibly be. Kill it. Never let it stand a chance as a football game. Remember, at ESPN, doing much too much is never enough.

The stench of dysfunction-by-excess was overwhelming throughout a one-hour pregame that included the on-site presence and input of at least 12 ESPN college football hosts, analysts, sideline reporters, plus guest analysts.

And nearly all repeated the same dead-wrong, silly-headed and contradictory things:

1) Unlike their first game, this season — a 9-6 LSU overtime win — field goals won’t cut it; tonight ya gotta score touchdowns (“roll sevens,” “take it to the house,” “find the end zone”).

2) Both teams have superb defenses.

OK, but if both have superb defenses, why would either team have to score TDs? Why wouldn’t field goals be enough (which they were)? No one explained that, they just kept repeating 1 and 2.

And, because ESPN adheres to the individual star-hype formula, we were endlessly told to always keep at least one eye on LSU CB/KR Tyrann Mathieu and at least two on Alabama RB Trent Richardson.

Heck, Kirk Herbstreit pulled out the old backwards “umbrellas cause rain” equation when he told us Richardson would need “25-30 touches and over 100 yards” for Alabama to win.

But Mathieu wasn’t a factor and by the time Richardson (20 carries for 96 yards) got moving, it was 15-0, Alabama, clock-kill time — ’Bama winning the game with defense and field goals.

Sooner than later ESPN’s 67 left hands inevitably lost track of what its 64 right hands were doing. With both teams warming up, pregame host Chris Fowler reported, “[’Bama coach] Nick Saban has ignored [LSU coach] Les Miles. He did a half-lap around him. The coaches never said hello.”

But minutes earlier ESPN showed Myles and Saban standing together, chatting, smiling.

Fowler can be confounding. Also in warmups, when Alabama crossed paths with LSU, one of these pathetic, gang-style stand-off, stare-downs, trash-talks ensued. Fowler seemed delighted: “Look at this!”