The battle of the weekend was not Alabama-Georgia, Wisconsin-Iowa or even Rex Grossman vs. the world. In Stillwater, Okla., Jenni Carlson, a columnist for The Oklahoman, stirred the waters Saturday morning after writing a column criticizing Oklahoma State backup quarterback Bobby Reid.
It was a poorly written, confusing and potentially libelous piece that did nothing but get an out-of-line, stupid and potentially libelous response from OSU head coach Mike Gundy. If you haven't seen Gundy's tirade yet, stop reading right now and You Tube it.
I'm still trying to figure out what both sides are trying to prove. Carlson compared eating chicken to being a bad quarterback, and Gundy sounded like Ricky Bobby when talking about being a 40-year-old man.
That's how stupid this whole thing is.
Let's start with Carlson's column. The lead involves chicken. If you haven't read the story yet and you are wondering what the connection between football and chicken is, you will have to skip ahead to paragraph 20 where Carlson rips on Reid for allowing his mother to feed him.
Carlson writes: Does [Reid] have the fire in his belly? Or does he want to be coddled, babied, perhaps even fed chicken? That scene in the parking lot last week had no bearing on the Cowboys changing quarterbacks, and yet, it said so much about Reid. A 21-year-old letting his mother feed him in public? Most college kids, much less college football players, would just as soon be seen running naked across campus.""
Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts. First off, I love my mother. And guess what? She made me a lunch to bring to work every single day this summer. Why am I going to turn that down? And if she wants to bring me some chicken every time I finish writing a column, then that would be great too. In fact, why would a college kid ever turn down a free meal from his mother?
Obviously, that's not the point. Still, Carlson does cross the line as she criticizes Reid. If you want to criticize a quarterback, then bring some numbers to the table. There are only two numbers in her entire column and neither of them are football statistics.
Instead, Carlson goes after Reid for not having enough desire to play the game, for not having the fire and passion to be QB-1. Her proof? Well, besides letting his mother feed him, Reid apparently gets nervous before games, according to a quote provided by a different writer on staff, Andrea Cohen. Well, guess what? I woke up at 8 a.m. this past Saturday and couldn't fall back asleep because I was too excited for the Iowa game. If I get butterflies in my stomach, I sure as well hope my starting quarterback does too.
Then she writes, ""Word is that Reid has considered transferring a couple different times, the first as early as 2005."" Word? Whose word? I can see Katy Culver going nuts on the fifth floor of Vilas Hall right now.
That lack of attribution is exactly where Gundy comes in. Gundy claimed that many facts in the column were untrue and defended Reid, which is a great thing to do as a coach. But then he crossed the line. Gundy went on a huge tirade in front of the entire room full of members of the media, while looking at Carlson the entire time.
He attacked her credibility, but when Carlson asked him on Monday to tell her which claims were not true, Gundy replied, ""I don't have to.""
She asked again and he said, ""I don't have to. I'd rather just let it go.""
Pleading the fifth has never been and probably never will be the best way to back up a claim. I don't know what is the truth and what isn't, but to me, it looks like they both have some factual inaccuracies somewhere.
What I do know, however, is that Gundy and Carlson are both wrong. Carlson wrote a bad column about someone's passion and used chicken and someone else's quotes to back it up. Gundy, meanwhile, personally attacked her for personally attacking his player. Sounds a little hypocritical to me.
In the meantime, I'm going to go enjoy some chicken my mom made me last weekend.
If you would like to make Adam some chicken e-mail him at hoge@wisc.edu.
