When all else fails, blame the Internet like Lou Holtz

November 28th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanR

Look: I understand messages boards and blogs and crazy Internet weirdos have changed the dynamic of the sports coverage landscape. And I also understand some people view this all as a negative — especially those in traditional media roles. I can sympathize with them. In some fashions, I even agree with them. Hell, I write a column every week about this kind of stuff and last week’s exploited this very notion to the nth degree.

That being said: not all blogs and bloggers are bad. Really, it’s true. So when I read what Lou Holtz said this morning on Mike and Mike (via our boy Larry Brown) it’s a tad disheartening.

Former college football coach and current analyst Lou Holtz was a guest on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Tuesday. Erik Kuselias, who was filling in for Greeny, was ranting about all the college football coaches that resigned were fired the past few weeks. As Kuselias said, and I agree, some of the coaches probably didn’t deserve to be replaced because they did a pretty good job. When Holtz was asked specifically about Arkansas getting rid of Houston Nutt, he answered with a broad generalization:

Kuselias: What do you think about the expectations at a place like Arkansas versus what they’re getting from a coach like Houston Nutt?

Holtz: Well the coaching profession has changed in this respect. It’s no longer just the sportswriters you deal with — you get the internet. The thing about the internet, they can put any rumors there, don’t have to sign the correct name, don’t have to hold an element of truth, not held accountable for. Consequently, there’s just a bunch of things that goes against you.

To be honest, I agree with Holtz here to an extent. It’s all part of the coaching game now. It’s rough, but it is what it is. But I want to believe us as media consumers are smart enough to realize a comment some random dude leaves on a blog post filled with rumor and speculation is just that: rumor and speculation. All the Internet has done has brought rumors that have flown for years via word of mouth to a printed, publicly accessible forum. There are people out there doing awesome work; it’s an exciting time to be a sports blogger. But I’m just worried if people like Holtz and Mike Wilbon — who put the attack on blogs yesterday during his Sean Taylor coverage –  continue to only point out the bad part of blogs and the Internet because they’re too old and near-sighted to see the bigger picture of it all, this is going to become the pervasive general opinion. All the good blogs are doing is going to be lost in the fray.

And that, my friends, just ain’t cool.