East Coast blasé: How the College Football Playoff selection committee’s early bedtime has resulted in ZERO West Coast representation

The good thing about the BCS before it morphed into a #fourteamplayoff was at least the computer didn’t have to go to bed early/wasn’t too blacked out from the Mississippi State/Ole Miss tailgater to make somewhat lucid decisions not based on whether you say y’all unironically.

By Andrew Pridgen

Of the dozen College Football Playoff selection committee members only ONE has any semblance of a notion the Louisiana Purchase ever took place.

That man is Tom Jernstedt, an (alleged) Oregon grad who has been lapdogging so long for the official brand of indentured servitude the NCAA that he can’t be trusted any more than an e-vite to a dinner party at Lando’s Cloud City condo.

Before we look at who the committee is, this is how they voted for the first official 2015 ranking. Conspicuously absent: Any state west of Carrie Underwood’s last tour stop.

1. Clemson: In what world is Clemson ever number one besides in: Warped head coach’s delivering of a strange brand of Christianity to a secular locker room and locals putting weird ‘ps’ between syllables. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but mightily looking forward to watching Florida State roll those tigers this weekend. Oh wait, (scroll down) your AD is on the fucking selection committee? You don’t say!
2. LSU: Fine, put the undefeated SEC team up there, but maybe do it after they beat a ranked team that’s not Florida.
3. Ohio State: Not going to hate on a team that’s undefeated out of the B1G, but what about Michigan State?
4. Bama: See: LSU but with a loss to Ole Miss.
5. Notre Dame: No fucking clue. Even God is annoyed by this domer love and that’s why he’s giving them the gift of Stanford on Nov. 28.
6. Baylor: SMU, Lamar, Rice, Texas Tech, Kansas, Iowa State. Pretty sure Fresno State could run this schedule thus far. Thank God for the great state of Oklahoma.
7. Michigan State: I can’t be mad at a program that had a .02 percent chance of beating Michigan in the final seconds—and did. Why not switch ‘em up with OSU?
8. TCU: See: Baylor, but with more close-calls than dating Chelsea Handler in her 20s.
9. Iowa: Indiana, Nebraska, Purdue and Minnesota to go? How does one get such a patsy schedule in such a strong division?
10. Florida: Clearly there’s got to be something wrong with the stakeholders here (note to self: check out Gatorade prospectus and cross-reference selection committee with current board members.)

Now, onto this klatch of Sonic gift card recipients, Duck Dynasty box set owners and self-anointed deciders:

• Jeff Long, Director of Athletics, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville: I’m assuming Arkansas-Fayetteville is your first-choice school when you can only draw, not spell, Razorback.

• Barry Alvarez, Director of Athletics, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Seems like a friendly sort until you check out the WSJ’s strange cabana-centric puff piece followed by a make-up expose of Alvarez claiming he “didn’t know” and didn’t take action when John Chadima, his former associate AD and known crotch-grabber, supplied alcohol to underage students using funds from donations to the department. After he got all hammered, Chadima would make sexual advances toward male student employees and then threaten to fire them when they didn’t comply. Why’d you put Notre Dame up so high Barry? I don’t know! I’m in the cabana!

• Lt. General Mike Gould (ret.) Fmr Superintendent of USAF Academy: Military guy. Fine, gotta have someone around to take the Qdoba order.

• Kirby Hocutt, Director of Athletics, Texas Tech: Apparently Jeff Long didn’t cover the Red Neck quota.

• Tom Jernstedt, Former NCAA Executive VP: On here between dry cleaning runs for Mark A. Emmert; hard to believe Jernstedt is actually interested in a sport that doesn’t involve shredding documents.

• Bobby Johnson, Former HC Vanderbilt: Good ol’ Boy Archie Manning’s good ol’ replacement on the committee.

• Tom Osborne, Former HC University of Nebraska: Oh my god, I was just playing the legendary college football head coach dead-or-alive drinking game. I guess I had Osborne confused with Bo Schembechler.

• Dan Radakovich, Director of Athletics, Clem(p)son: This is starting to make more sense…

• Condoleezza Rice, Stanford professor/professional endless war starter: No wonder the woman responsible for the birth ISIS is involved in this mess.

• Steve Wieberg, former reporter USA Today: I remember trying to read one of his columns in the amount of time it took me to take a dump at the Courtyard Scottsdale Salt River. Let’s just say, he flushed the lede.

• Mike Tranghese, Former Commissioner, Big East: Not sure how a former commissioner of a former conference is in a position to make real-time decisions about things that exist… besides the fact that his fax machine resides in the right time zone.

• Tyrone Willingham, former Notre Dame HC bust: Those who can’t coach for God then get their contracts bought out and vote for him. Excited for Charlie Weis to take his spot on the committee next year.

 

5 cable alternatives that have sunk SportsCenter into a ratings coma

Like CNN’s Headline News, ESPN’s SportsCenter has been relegated to the cable network show of choice for the business traveler.

By Andrew Pridgen

Viewing a snippet of SportsCenter is acceptable only in one of the following three scenarios:

1) You’re stuck in a domestic terminal when your phone is at 10 percent battery and already on airport mode. There’s an hour delay because the connector is delayed from Dulles and you’ve already finished your Rolling Stone and don’t want to go back to the news stand on the off-chance you’re tempted to buy a Barely Legal from the top shelf and a shot glass for your roommate.

2) You’re at an empty lobby hotel bar close to closing time suffering through post-game analysis of the the Pistons’ 83-77 loss to the Magic as you wait for the bartender to finish hooking up with the server girl in the janitor’s closet in hopes of getting one more Stella pour before he cashes you out.

3) You wake up with it still on and a blazing hot hungover at quarter to noon sleeping sideways on a sweaty floral comforter of a La Quinta Inn queen in Palmdale realizing you completely spaced the groomsmen brunch/golf scramble.

And that’s it.

The sad truth for the network that gave us Cold Pizza, Bonds on Bonds and Bill Walton’s Long Strange Trip is there aren’t enough Hampton Inn manager’s happy hours or Sky Miles Plus lounges to keep the backlit neon circa 1998 set glowing in Bermantown.

The downturn has been as dramatic as it is dismal: Thus far in 2013, ESPN has been down 32 percent in primetime and 20 percent in total average viewership year over year from 2012 and SportsCenter’s decline was a deciding factor.

This year, the early edition of SportsCenter — ie, the one where you have no chance of seeing any West Coast action on the reel, and the grand narrative of ACC basketball is covered better than the ’82 Corvette in your neighbor’s driveway — has averaged 650,000 viewers through August, an 11 percent decline from 2012.

The prime time/11 p.m. EST broadcast of SportsCenter, the one that leads with the one of Kobe’s sad-injury tweets from the bench, is an even more severe case, down to 855k viewers through August, an almost 22 percent fall from last year.

Daytime TV editions of the show are only off 10 percent from 2012, perhaps because its a strong draw for the unemployed and the only alternative to filling out that EDD form or scraping enough change to grab a bite at Jimmy John’s with the possibility of summoning the courage to submit an assistant manager application on the way out.

Perhaps it’s time to bring in Bruce Vilanch to punch up the dried-out wit and replace with pun-inspired t-shirts the sharkskin suits of Scott Van Pelt, John Buccigross, Robert Flores and Steve Levy. Or maybe it’s time to bring in Deborah Norville as host and snuff the show out altogether so Arsenio can have a shot.

In any event, based on a straw poll of three guys I work with (two of them in my fantasy league), here are five strong cable alternatives currently chipping away at SportsCenter’s share in their non-Neilsen households:

• Golden Girls triple-shot on LOGO TV: For some reason the episode where Dorothy is dating an ex Mob accountant/informant airs at least once a night; there’s also the ground-breaking Blanche’s daughter gets a baby from the sperm bank (20 years ahead of its time on network) half hour that gets in the rotation weekly. Drink every time there’s robes, coffee and cheesecake in the kitchen.

• OWN’s ‘Where are they Now’ featuring Oprah Winfrey interviewing people like Jenna Jameson, Debbie Matenopoulos and Sully Sullenberger who don’t quite get that the fact they’re on a Where Are They Now show implicitly means people haven’t exactly been keeping tabs on their whereabouts. (Hint: when you’re writing a biography, but it’s a cookbook, that’s when people have forgotten about you.

• HGTV’s House Hunters: I’ve yet to talk to a dude this year who says he doesn’t prefer this show over watching LeBron doing that chalk thing …again. Pretty much there are about 400 episodes of this in the HGTV rotation and every one is the same with varying degrees of incredible: Crabby young couple on the verge of their first divorce decides digging half-a-million dollars in debt for the prospect of granite countertops, stainless steel appliances and a great room that would be wonderful for “when we have company” (hint: nobody wants to come visit you) is an incredible idea. The realtor leading the charge simply is seething in his or her JC Penny slacks and just hoping the cameo pays off because no single commission on a $335k home is worth dealing with this woman and her Perfect Home Binder. Watch for whenever the guy gets his way, you can pretty much start the separation agreement paperwork along with the escrow docs.

• Modern Family re-runs on USA. Just a little mortality check in because you still think of Modern Family as a new show when, in fact, your first exposure to Sofia Vergara’s twin talents (physical comedy and incredible timing) was in the fall of 2009, back when Julie Bowen had just finished growing her hair out from Happy Gilmore and Ed O’Neill was still a shoe salesman living next door to Ted McGinley. Yes, it’s been almost five years …but at least you no longer feel as bad when you look at Sarah Hyland (now 23) that way.

• Chelsea Lately on E!: If only to re-affirm the sheer number of single women out there waiting for you by sitting on their couch in their old Juicy sweats slurping down Yellow Tail Shiraz with a straw and debating whether eating Skinny Cow ice cream actually helps them lose weight like the girl from HR said. This same girl, after watching her 1,000th Chelsea panel puke out the highlight reel from that day’s Perez in between Match or Zoosk or eHarmony ads, decides it’s finally time to pick up the computer and see what’s out there. Sadly, the answer is: your sorry non-SportsCenter-watching-ass regrettably drinking Shock Top because it was on markdown. That’s what’s out there.

…So there it is to the bosses in Bristol: If you can somehow find a way to incorporate Betty White, giant-but-seemingly accessible sitcom breasts, a nagging wife and a closted-husband bickering over backsplashes and a segment on bloated and blob-tatted former porn stars who complain because they have gotten more DUIs than dates in the last calendar year, you may have found your recipe for success.

Otherwise, see you at the bottom of the ratings pile spooning RuPaul Drag Race and Guy’s Big Bite.

Dah-na-nah, dah-na-nah.