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Sunday, Jan. 11, 2009

Fox too sugary sweet on Florida quarterback

By Jay Adams

jadams@macon.com

The obsession is becoming really, really annoying.

It’s tough to watch ESPN, or any other sports channel for that matter, without being blindsided by coverage of a short list of sports stars some media outlets think the vast majority of the viewing public wants to hear about.

Perhaps it got no worse than during Thursday night’s broadcast of the BCS national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma.

Maybe it should have been expected considering Fox only broadcasts a handful of college football games a year, thus leaving its commentators without a whole lot of perspective. Nevertheless, listening to Thom Brennaman go on and on about Florida quarterback Tim Tebow was excruciating and nauseating to the point where the game actually became much better with the mute button engaged.

Brennaman, it seems, could barely control his emotions for the Florida star throughout the broadcast. Every chance he got, he would give Tebow another pat on the back for being such a prolific football player and an upstanding citizen, and the more I listened, the sicker I got.

Look, I don’t have a problem with Tebow. I think he’s a lot of what people say he is, but he’s not infallible, he’s not the second coming and, despite popular opinion, he couldn’t part the Red Sea with the help of Charlton Heston’s ghost.

Brennaman, however, seems to believe that Tebow is one minor miracle away from being the next Mother Teresa. At several points during Thursday night’s broadcast, Brennaman’s comments were so over the top that they made switching over to the Lifetime channel seem like a much more exciting endeavor.

Between plays during the fourth quarter, Brennaman went on and on about how he had never met Tebow until last week. The experience, apparently, left him weak in the knees as he proudly proclaimed earlier in the night that anyone who is so fortunate enough to spend five or 20 minutes with Tebow is better because of it.

Unfortunately, it didn’t end there. Brennaman went on to say that Tebow might be one of the finest 21-year-olds to ever live. Brennaman also seemed to take extreme offense to a comment by Oklahoma’s Dominique Franks earlier in the week that alluded to Tebow being the fourth best quarterback in the Big 12 if he played for any one of those schools. Brennaman stated that Franks’ comments, “might be the most ridiculous statement anybody has ever uttered.”

And if that wasn’t enough, there was the unsportsmanlike conduct penalty that Tebow was called for in the fourth quarter. Knowing that the action would completely contradict any of his previous glowing statements about Tebow, Brennaman tried to save face by saying the penalty was probably the first thing Tebow has ever done wrong in his life.

Spare me.

Brennaman’s lovefest for Tebow all but ruined a game that was completely capable of ruining itself. Perhaps we can take solace in the fact that the BCS national title game will now be broadcast on ESPN.

Let’s just hope Brett Favre doesn’t make a return to college football.

Contact Jay Adams at 744-4401 or jadams@macon.com