Grown-man football

When the cameras panned to A.J. McCarron's girlfriend the other night, the natural reaction from, oh, 99.9 percent of male viewers went something like this:

Daaaaaaaang son!

Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit just happened to be speaking into microphones when they voiced their reactions.

It got a little awkward when Brent and Herbie wouldn't let it go, provoking a period of silence in which their producers probably said something like: "Dudes ... there's a game going on here."

But is it really that big a deal? Big enough to elicit an actual apology from ESPN?

“We always try to capture interesting storylines and the relationship between an Auburn grad who is Miss Alabama and the current Alabama quarterback certainly met that test. However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that.”

It doesn't take long for stories like this to crumble into total absurdity, and you just knew it was only a matter of time before news outlets would start quoting people from Mars on the outrage of two men complimenting an attractive woman ... an attractive woman who, in addition to being the girlfriend of a guy who just won back-to-back BCS titles, is a former Miss Alabama contestant.

The New York Times found some journalism professor at Michigan State named Sue Carter who actually said this:

“It’s extraordinarily inappropriate to focus on an individual’s looks. In this instance, the appearance of the quarterback’s girlfriend had no bearing on the outcome of the game. It’s a major personal violation, and it’s so retrograde that it’s embarrassing. I think there’s a generational issue, but it’s incumbent on people practicing in these eras to keep up and this is not a norm.”

And then this:

“I think because sports has been such a male-dominated domain, he obviously felt license and privilege and he’s been able to do that for years. But the masculine aspect of sports is changing.”

The New York Times then managed to find another journalism professor, this one at Alabama:

Even on Alabama’s campus, there were those who felt Musburger went too far.

“Football is a male domain,” said Jennifer Greer, the chairwoman of the journalism department at Alabama. “And the role that women play even in the journalistic respect is in the supportive role, the mom, the hot girlfriend, the sideline reporter. They’re accepted in this world, but in particular roles. It reinforces this stereotype of the hot model girlfriend attached to a quarterback and the maleness of sports that is hard for serious female athletes.”

Goodness gracious. "Even on Alabama's campus, there were those..."

The more fair and accurate introductory paragraph would be: "Though almost no one in Tuscaloosa had a problem with the comments, we found another journalism professor who hates football to give us some quotes criticizing it."

Almost everything about college football coverage is catering to the male demographic. You think it's an accident that the army of camera guys at every game just happens to zoom in on the most attractive women in the stands during breaks in the action?

Katherine Webb didn't seem bothered at all about fulfilling the supposed "hot girlfriend" stereotype. And why would she? According to this article, she had 526 Twitter followers on Dec. 26 and had more than 148,000 on Tuesday. She considers herself a beautiful woman. She has put herself in competitions with other beautiful women. And now she's supposed to be offended because two announcers remark about her beauty on national television?

One of McCarron's teammates, center Barrett Jones, joked Tuesday in an appearance on CNN's "Starting Point" that he was jealous of Webb's sudden fame.

"Where's the love for the actual players?" he joked. "She is certainly very pretty. But I just think Brent needs to share the love a little bit, that's all I'm saying."

That's the right treatment on this issue. Laugh about it and move on.

The only "personal violations" that occurred Monday night occurred on the field, where Alabama violated Notre Dame so personally and thoroughly that announcers had to come up with something to talk about.

LW