Watching television as a youngster in the early 1980s was a massive pain in the ass.
I vividly remember one morning in 1983 when 9-year-old Jeremy wandered out of bed early Sunday morning because he had learned a broadcast of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was airing on a random station. When I reached the channel via a cable box that looked like something scavenged from the Mir Space Station, my hopes were dashed. The picture was scrambled.
Irritated, yet undeterred, I began tinkering with the fine tuning, as well as the horizonal and vertical controls. (Remember those?) As I stared deeply into the soul of the massive console and fiddled away with the control knobs, a fleeting glimpse of something appeared — between the waves and blurs of the scrambling — that made me gape in awe.
“Is that … could that be … is it … a pointed ear!?”
Yep, for a moment, I saw a blurred, wavy image of the top of my favorite Vulcan’s head. It came and went like a fart in the wind, yet I still felt vindicated and encouraged enough to continue tinkering with the TV, hoping — fruitlessly, it turned out — for another glimpse of something Star Trek.
I can’t help but think my friends who subscribe to YouTube TV have felt the same way about viewing college football the past few weekends.
Until reaching an agreement late Friday, YouTube TV and the Walt Disney Company had been embroiled in a public spat since Oct. 30 about subscriber fees, distribution costs, whatever, who cares, yada, yada, yada, MONEY. The reasons were incongruous and unimportant to your average college football fan, although the result for the public was akin to my 9-year-old self when he attempted to watch Star Trek.
Some of my friends dashed to Cowenstan National Stadium on Saturdays to watch games, because the home of the Fightin’ Cowens subscribes to Sling TV. Others ventured off to visit other friends, family or to even what remains of the sports bar industry.
I can’t help but chuckle at the inanity of it all. Disney — and by “Disney” I really mean “ESPN,” since it’s the main subsidiary in the organization that wants increased fees — finally encountered a foe able and willing to stand up to the House of Mouse. Disney/ESPN had blackmailed many a content carrier in the past, pulling programming while demanding higher fees. Most of the standoffs lasted mere hours, as various companies/carriers caved in the face of subscribers dropping away like flies at the first sign of missing their favorite sports team in action.
YouTube TV, however, is a completely different creature. It’s backed by powerful parent company Alphabet, which also owns Google. Alphabet has deep-enough pockets and a big enough “who-gives-a-damn” attitude toward losing a few million dollars that it meant Disney/ESPN finally met its match.
As Qui-Gon Jinn said in Star Wars: Episode 1 — The Phantom Menace, “There’s always a bigger fish.”
I’ve already devoted enough brain space and column space to explaining what it all basically boiled down to: MONEY. The problem is, as usual, the real losers were the average Joes and Josies in the world. Many of us missed a large portion of football-related proceedings each weekend while the brain trusts at YouTube TV, Google, Alphabet, Disney, ESPN and ABC tried to figure out whether to light their cigars with a $20 or $50 bills.
It all reminded me of the tomfoolery Major League Baseball inflicts on the world each spring and summer.
So, while many sports fans finally avoided huddling in front of a static-filled TV screen this weekend, not unlike the little girl in Poltergeist, I hope when they did have to do so, they at least spotted the stitched seam of a football, or even a glimpse of a cheerleader, anything that rewarded their efforts and gave them hope.
I know it did it for me back in ’83.
So with clear hearts and clear channels, it’s time to lean my beer-buzz-fuzzy head into deciphering the week’s Hangover Highlights for everyone!
- I thank the television gods that things were cleared up by Saturday afternoon, or else many would have missed, to this point, the crowning achievement of Brent Venables’ head coaching career — and some classic shots of sad Alabama fans.
- I’ve been tough on Venables the last few years, but let’s give credit where credit is due: Saturday’s 23-21 win in Tuscaloosa against Alabama was the biggest of his career, and the most important by an OU football team since Ohio State in 2017.
- Yes, Saturday’s victory was bigger than wins against Baylor, Texas Tech, TCU or even Oklahoma State, all of which happened after the Ohio State game. I’m sorry, but if you win against a name-brand team like Alabama on the road with more than 100,000 fans in attendance for do-or-die for playoff berth pursuit… yeah, it’s the biggest win.
- OU’s defense deployed a risky, yet ultimately rewarding strategy. The Sooners basically gave Alabama the running game and the short passing routes. Instead, they sat back in a zone, blitzing here and there — but not too much — and waited for the Crimson Tide to make impatient mistakes.
- Which they did.
- The Sooners scored 17 points off turnovers, 10 directly from defensive plays — including an 87-yard pick-six by Eli Bowen. An intelligent and athletic move by OU defensive lineman Taylor Wein blocked an Alabama field goal just before the half, preventing three ‘Bama points in a game OU won by two.
- While Alabama moved the ball successfully on offense — the Tide didn’t punt from 10 minutes left in the first quarter to four minutes remaining in the third — it only added up to three touchdowns total in the game and a one-point lead going into the fourth quarter.
- The final Alabama drive stood as an absolute testament to the culture change at OU over the past four years. The Tide took possession at their own six yard line, with almost half the fourth quarter remaining, trailing by just two points. From there, it became an absolute SLOG for the Tide to move the ball. Incredibly, it took SIX minutes to go fewer than 40 yards.
- After all that effort, the drive finally bogged down and died — along with Alabama’s chance to win — following a sack by OU’s Kip Lewis and a couple of incomplete passes.
- I really felt OU had a good matchup coming into this game. The Tide had seemed one-dimensional on offense and really good … but not great … on defense. Do I think the Sooners got lucky? Sure, I guess as much as a person thinks turnovers in a football game are lucky. Personally, I do attribute a significant portion of turnovers to luck, as evidenced by the fact OU didn’t create one in its first four games of the season, despite having one of the best defenses in the country.
- Still, OU had a defensive gameplan to force negative plays, and it paid dividends.
- Before I move on from the Sooners’ big victory, I want to point out the Sooners won with 100,077 in attendance at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. It marked the fourth-highest attendance for any game in OU history, just behind trips to Ohio State in 2017 (109,088), Tennessee in 2015 (102,455) and Tennessee earlier this season (101,915).
- The Sooners’ record in those games? 4-0.
- Riding an emotional high from the OU game, let’s stay positive while we discuss Oklahoma State! Someone dressed as the Kool-Aid Man in the stands! It was a beautiful day outside! The Cowboys lost 14-6 to Kansas State, but they easily covered a 19-plus-point spread!
- Seriously, though, I want to give OSU kudos. There’s no reason for it, yet the Cowboys have gotten better as the season has progressed — enough so I felt they had a legitimate chance against Kansas State on Saturday. I think they also have a chance in both games to finish the season.
- I just don’t know what it all means. Back in 1995, a woebegone OSU rebounded from a slow start for a memorable defeat of OU and a burst of momentum. It gave the Cowboys four wins in ’95, which led to five in ’96 and a really nice eight-win season in ’97.
- But in today’s college football world, building behind promising freshmen or good recruiting classes is more difficult than ever. OSU has already seen several players hit the transfer portal. So, while it’s fun to watch this year’s Cowboy team show pride, what will it mean for OSU in the long run? Hard to say.
- In the rest of the Big 12, BYU (9-1) blasted TCU (6-4) to stay in strong contention for the conference championship game. Texas Tech (10-1) did the same to UCF (4-6). Utah (8-2) put up 55 points against Baylor (5-5). Arizona and Arizona State both won and moved to 7-3.
- The emotional roller coaster Texas A&M put its fans — hell, EVERYONE — on with its 31-30 victory against South Carolina could not be solved by umpteen doses of Prozac. Despite playing maybe the worst half of football by any top-five team in the history of college football, the Aggies rebounded from a 30-3 halftime deficit for the win.
- Between interceptions, fumbles, missed tackles, embarrassing plays and policemen making absolute asses of themselves, the first half of the game was the epitome of Battered Aggie Syndrome.
- But it was almost like a completely new team took the field in the second half. I have to say, anyone who faces A&M in a College Football Playoff game this season will have to wonder which half of the Aggies from this Saturday they will get.
- Texas had its brief stay in the stratosphere short-circuited after a 35-10 defeat at the hands of Georgia. Somehow, someway, the Longhorns had snuck into the playoff prognostications despite a resume that included sneaking past cellar-dwellars Kentucky and Mississippi State. I guess a win against a tired Vanderbilt team, in Austin, was enough to turn the college football world on its ear.
- Reality crashed into the Longhorns’ lap when they were run ragged by the Bulldogs on Saturday. The truth is, Texas’ best wins were against an Oklahoma team compromised by an injured quarterback and a Vanderbilt squad playing on the road for its fourth-straight game against a ranked team.
- Finally, the weekend kicked off with a minor upset, as Clemson downed 20th-ranked Louisville on the road, 20-19. It’s weird to say “minor” upset when a below-.500 team beats a ranked squad on its home field, but the point spread was only two in Louisville’s favor. It tells me Las Vegas has little respect for what passes for the “upper” echelon of ACC teams these days. I have a feeling the playoff committee will concur with the boys in the desert come (irritating and irrelevant) rankings time Tuesday.
