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January 7, 2014
College Football
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Let’s Talk About #TitleTalk

Title TalkThe BCS National Championship Game, the final computer- and poll-generated practice in automated futility before the FBS’s playoff system comes to fruition next season, played out last night in operatic, storybook fashion. Heisman Trophy winner Jameis Winston, Florida State’s redshirt freshman quarterback, led an 80-yard, 58-second final drive which concluded in a two-yard touchdown pass to Kelvin Benjamin, sealing an 18-point comeback victory on Winston’s twentieth birthday. The SEC’s seven-year run of preeminence in college football came to a close, at least for the moment, and a valiant performance from Auburn will surely be lost to the annals of time. No one ever remembers who finished second.

While all of that is well and good, including the 100-yard Kermit Whitfield kickoff return which brought the Seminoles back to within striking distance late in the fourth quarter, the real story happened on ESPN2: the BCS Title Talk portion of ESPN’s BCS MegaCast, an all-eyes-on-us cavalcade of programming which included the game itself, analysis from college coaches and, of course, Title Talk. Jemele Hill and Michael Smith co-hosted a quasi-ESPN office party complete with appearances from country singer Taylor Hicks, actress Cheryl Hines, SEC Network poster boy Tim Tebow and Texas A&M renegade Johnny “Football” Manziel. For the first quarter of the game, Rece Davis and Jesse Palmer seemed entirely uninterested in being there, carrying on side conversations between themselves. Smith spent most of the game attempting to hand out sliders and other finger foods, creating the illusion of a jovial atmosphere. In typical conglomerate fashion, ESPN attached the hashtag #TitleTalk to the program and to the game in general, which elicited a wide variety of responses from participants and onlookers alike.

ESPN personalities and guests, it seems, were required to use #TitleTalk in tweets.

There is even a Johnny Manziel parody slider account now in existence, @manzielslider. But then, of course, there are the reactions, which Awful Announcing did an excellent job of covering earlier today. In the interest of fairness, a lot of people seemed to enjoy the presentation, either in earnest or in jest, but this will focus on the mostly negative responses:

https://twitter.com/David_Boreanaz/statuses/420368786122739713

https://twitter.com/Carteagathekid/statuses/420417161312882690

https://twitter.com/Cawley5/statuses/420399639502680064

https://twitter.com/TheIndyKid/statuses/420406630996787200

https://twitter.com/KnucklePuck_56/statuses/420380846282252288

And then, finally, the tweets which used #TitleTalk but were either semi/entirely unrelated or complained about how ESPN2 was ruining the game by not showing the regular coverage. The latter group seemed not to realize that the game itself, with Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit commentating, was broadcast on ESPN. There was even an account, @BrandyInFL, which spent its time telling people who didn’t know the difference to switch to ESPN:

https://twitter.com/BrandyinFL/statuses/420370079474515968

https://twitter.com/HurCalise55/statuses/420431988043288576

https://twitter.com/micahbmx/statuses/420420543209168896

https://twitter.com/jojoellestad/statuses/420410090177327104

https://twitter.com/EllisJasen/statuses/420405643921485824

https://twitter.com/Joe_Gibbons/statuses/420408661769748480

And it just keeps going…

https://twitter.com/lcbCali/statuses/420418703549689856

https://twitter.com/BizzaroJerry/statuses/420401207614533632

https://twitter.com/fauxbastianich/statuses/420391414870990848

https://twitter.com/janesinsane/statuses/420366648999047168

https://twitter.com/T_B_Anderson/statuses/420409183503020032

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