Danny ChaiFinally back home. Tons of thoughts about the trip. But instead of sharing them, I’m going to alienate all my readers save PChoi and talk about the LSU-Ohio State football game.
SN. It has come to my attention that Won Ho, who I have never met nor communicated with, reads my page. Drew still does also, even though now he’s an important pastor. I dunno, it surprises me that people still read this, as it’s gotten more boring through the years. I never look at my logs so I have no clue who reads, or how many.
SSN. I’ve said this before. But I think it’s important that men be into sports. Yes, important. Sports is one of those few things that represent a commonality that transcends social lines. If you’re into sports, you can have a good conversation with virtually any segment of society. There are precious few things in life about which that can be said. In a world where we’re becomingly increasingly fractured in our interests (another topic I’d like to write about sometime, the effect of the splintering of mass-markets into countless sub-niches on culture), having anything that many people can hold in common is a really important thing. You grow personally when you interact with people who aren’t like you. If you’re not into sports, you kind of miss out.
So the game. I was on a flight back from NYC, and was bummed because I thought it was going to be on ABC, which, curiously, JetBlue does not carry, even though it carries other channels (e.g. ESPN) that Disney owns. As it turns out, it was on Fox, so I got to watch the game in its entirety.
The outcome of the game was almost exactly what I feared. Unlike last year, when I saw the majority of their games, I didn’t watch any OSU games this year except against Michigan. Reason being, I knew they weren’t that good. They had lost too many key players from last year and the team was, in general, too young to be a national championship caliber team. My fear was that they would overachieve and make the game, which they did, get solidly beat, which they did, and get hammered by the sports media for getting beat like that two years in a row, which they did.
Honestly, they’re not that good, and (unlike last year) they simply got beaten by a better team. They’re a top 10 team, not a #1 team. Had they been ranked and placed in a bowl game accordingly, I think they would have done well. So they were overrated. My issue with everyone who’s getting down on OSU and Jim Tressel is, why are they blaming OSU? What do people expect them to do? Lose on purpose? The Big 10 was weak this year. It’s not OSU’s fault that they kept on winning and that every other team in the country lost multiple times. It’s not their fault that they were overrated. They made the best of their season and should be proud of it. The criticism that they were overrated and shouldn’t have been there, that’s not their fault, and it drives me crazy.
Furthermore, even though the game wasn’t close, it was, way below the surface, closer than you would think. Robiskie dropped a TD pass; the ensuing field goal attempt was blocked. That’s 7 points they should have had. Then in the 2nd half, the OSU defense stopped LSU, but made a stupid roughing the punter penalty that ultimately led to a TD. That’s 7 points LSU should not have had. Those 14 points represent the final difference in the score. So although the game actually wasn’t close, it could – arguably should – have been, although it’s OSU’s own fault that it wasn’t.
OSU wasn’t outcoached this year; they were outplayed by a better team. LSU’s corners were too fast for OSU’s receivers to gain separation and allowed LSU to stack the box against the run; OSU’s linebackers were too slow for LSU’s spread offense. Our QB is just not good enough. There’s no shame in losing to a better team. OSU overachieved this year and should be proud of what they accomplished. Sadly, the sports media is going to label them big losers. Pisses me off.
That’s the problem with 24/7 sports radio. When you’re on all the time, and constantly looking for reaction, reaction, reaction, you end up reacting to everything, no matter how relatively inconsequential, and are forced to overreact, because you have to fill up all the time. Back in the days when KNBR sports talk was only on in the evening, you could concentrate on the most interesting sports topics of the day, and even that was sometimes hard to fill. Now? It’s a Pandora’s box of uninformed and premature opinion that needs to be said to fill up airtime. It sucks.
People talk all the time about how sports or entertainment coverage is overexposed. How, for example, the media spends way too much time talking about Britney, or Paris, or Lindsay. Meanwhile, we see more and more 24/7 entertainment cable channels and celeb gossip mags / websites. Those things go hand in hand, people. As long as there are media outlets that must be filled with content, you’re going to have overexposure, and there is no way to stop the overexposure as long as you have 24/7 entertainment/sports channels. Such is life in our splintered media world.