Kirk Herbstreit hates ASU and the Pac-10

Well, maybe "hate" is a bit extreme, but if anyone watched ESPN's Holiday Bowl broadcast, it's hard not to walk away thinking that Herbstreit, one of ESPN's top college football analysts, has some bias against the Pac-10 and ASU.

I've had a week now to get over the thrashing the Longhorns put on the Devils. Unfortunately, this loss has some long-term ramifications for me personally. Living in the Austin area and working with several Longhorn alums, it will be a while before I can talk trash against the Longhorns. I will continue to proudly wear the maroon and gold but do so knowing that every time I do, some random Longhorn fan will be quick to remind me of their pinnacle moment from what was ultimately an underachieving 2007 Texas football season for them.

Before ranting further on the broadcast of the game, here are some of my other random observations:

• How does an offensive line with the experience that ASU's had (three grad students starting) have such awful pass protection. I have always heard from people who know much more about football than I do that talent is a critical piece, chemistry on the offensive line is equally important. This line has played together for a few years now so it would seem chemistry should not be an issue. That means there was either a lack of talent/depth on the O-line or....
• Horrible O-line schemes and coaching. The Washington State game in early October was really the first game I can remember where our pass protection weaknesses were exploited and continued to get worse throughout the remainder of the season. Why didn't the coaching staff ever adjust? Would it kill them to use an H-back or plug one of our linebackers in at fullback to block?
• I really hope Erickson makes the QB competition wide-open come spring practice. Rudy should assume nothing, hopefully he will mature a bit more during the off-season. Danny Sullivan showed some poise in his few series but keep in mind the game was pretty much over by that point, but he did at least make it somewhat interesting, cutting the score to 10 with a few minutes left.
• If Kyle Williams can play well more consistently than he did this season, the Devils should have one of the top two receiving corps in the Pac-10. Seemed like the WRs were bailing Rudy out time and time again. A stark contrast from last season. This group of receivers definitely matured a lot over last season.
  

Now about the broadcast. I was really fired up going into this season that ESPN was going to start broadcasting Pac-10 games and we wouldn't have to continually endure the high school quality broadcasts on FSN. Unfortunately after having to listen to Herbstreit and his ongoing bias toward the Big 10, consistently picking against ASU and then his apparent lies about Rudy Carpenter's trash talking during the Holiday Bowl broadcast, I was actually missing Petros Papadakis.

Note to ESPN, just because Bob Davie's kid is a walk-on at ASU, it doesn't mean you have to make the guy your second string sideline reporter since he happens to be at the game.