College Football Broadcast Comments From This Weekend: Citing A, B and C of Ineptitude

During the annual Ohio State/Michigan regular season finale game, a graphic posted by ABC-TV indicated that on four previous occasions Michigan had beaten Ohio State to spoil a perfect season for the Buckeyes. The information was not accurate. In 1973, one of the four times indicated in the graphic as a year Michigan beat Ohio State, The Wolverines tied–that is not beating–Ohio State (10-10).

The factual mistakes continued on ESPN2 when Mark Jones working the Penn State/Wisconsin game decided to embellish on a graphic indicating years USC spoiled unbeaten Notre Dame seasons. He said his favorite moment was when Anthony Davis scored six touchdowns vs “The Fighting Irish” in either 1970 or 1971. The correct year was 1972.

At night on ABC-TV, studio host John Saunders was doing the highlights of the UCLA/Stanford game.   Saunders said “Stanford trailing 14-10” when actually Stanford was ahead 14-10.

Mark Jones