Mr. Fiskers calls out Colin Cowherd for calling out Chris Petersen

ESPN radio personality and disagreeable person Colin Cowherd laid into Chris Petersen earlier this week for Coach Pete's comments about the BCS, comments that were universally praised by everyone with a brain. Cowherd won't get away that easily, especially now that Mr. Fiskers is back from an extended stay at the cat condo. Game on, after the jump.

Fisking is a point-by-point criticism that highlights perceived errors, or disputes the analysis in a statement, article, or essay. Mr. Fiskers is OBNUG's fisking cat. He has hyperthyroidism.

Colin Cowherd is known for stirring the pot and saying irrational things and using metaphors and analogies that make sense when he's yelling them but not when you've turned the radio off and actually sit and think about what he just said. NBA free agency is like the McRib? I don't follow.

He used his tried-and-true radio yelling strategies in his takedown of Chris Petersen, siding with the BCS and belittling the Boise State football program. Mr. Fiskers just so happened to be changing stations between NPR and Wild 101.1, Boise's party station, and he caught Cowherd's segment.

These are Mr. Fiskers' thoughts.

(HT to Mr. Fiskers' other dad, OBNUG's Nick, for the transcription.)

By the way, Chris Petersen comes out who is one of the best college football coaches in the country at Boise State. He is a great coach. I would hire him at UCLA, Arizona State, Penn State. He's great!

Quick! Change the radio station. It's all downhill from here. Take sanctuary at Merry Christmas with Delilah. It will be far less painful.

This is not an overview of Chris Petersen, the guy that's negative. But yesterday, he kind of took shots at the BCS and somebody asked him, "Well, what do you suggest, Chris, that everyone does then?"

Ut-oh. Cowherd is preparing to take the side of the BCS, a side that no one in their right mind would defend except for Jim Delany and spiders. I can't wait to see their Christmas card.

Note: The following is an audio excerpt from Petersen:

Petersen: "Probably the best model is something like the basketball guys do where you get a committee that's ranking these teams all throughout the year and every week you see where they are and maybe it's halfway through the season where they start ranking them as things fall out. Like we've said, ranking them early makes no sense. And you pare the bowls down. There are too many bowls. Then you probably play a plus one. You know, you get the top four teams and you know, that's still subjective but at least it's closer. Right now, everyone is going ‘nothing makes any sense.'"

To summarize Petersen's points before Cowherd goes and claims the opposite of what Petersen said ...

• Coaches should not be voting in polls. That's what committees are for.
• There are too many bowl games. 6-7 UCLA is in a bowl game. Proof, meet pudding.

• There needs to be a better system for determining the national champion. A plus one is a possibility. A Rook tournament is another.

Let the misconstruing begin!

But that doesn't help Chris Petersen!

Whaa ... ? Unless Mr. Fiskers just succumbed to his cat narcolepsy, he's pretty sure Chris Petersen wasn't trying to help Chris Petersen with his proposed reform. He was trying to help all of college football. And his system might actually help Boise State if and when the Broncos reach the Top Four in the final regular season standings, which non-BCS teams have done before.

One sentence into Cowherd's rant, and already things aren't making sense. Guinness Book of World Records for quickest idiocy. Make room, world's largest lasagna.

Cause you had 9 garbage wins and you played 2 decent teams and you went 1-1! So I wouldn't put you in a BCS bowl or a big bowl with that formula! That doesn't help you out any!

Mr. Fiskers, no! Put down that tazer! He only says these things to compensate for low self-esteem!

People are saying Boise State should be in and Michigan shouldn't be in a big bowl.

Mr. Fiskers has yet to meet any of these people. They must be The Others.

Michigan had 4 real wins against real teams.

It appears we are going to stick with this Michigan meme. Buckle up. It's going to be a wild ride. First stop: Defining real wins based on whimsy!

Notre Dame's a real team.

Nebraska, Ohio State -- those are real teams.

Mr. Fiskers will give you Nebraska. He will also give you Ohio State if you are talking about 2001 and not about the 2011 team that went 6-6 and had a five-point win at home over a Toledo team that Boise State beat by four scores on the road.

Boise State played two, one at home. And ended up 1-1, TCU and Georgia.

Translation: Colin Cowherd did not watch any Boise State football games this year.

They played one road game with over 45,000 fans. Michigan is playing at 90,000, 80,000, 70,000. Week after week.

I never thought this would actually have to be spoken out loud but stadium size has no correlation to the quality of a football team. This would be like claiming proximity to a Piggly Wiggly correlates to quality football teams or NFL alumni is a criteria for bowl selection. Perhaps Boise State played against fewer opponents with mustaches than Michigan did. Too bad for the Broncos. They are obviously terrible at football.

I mean, listen, Chris Petersen is the popular morning DJ in a small market who has chosen safe and comfortable in life and I'm completely okay with that.

And by his condescending tone when he says "I'm completely okay with that," Cowherd really means "chump."

Well, joke's on him. There's a Dairy Queen on every block here!

But you're not going get invited to the big national radio convention.

Analogy fail. Shouldn't every radio deejay be eligible to attend a radio convention?

If you want to go to the big boy table, you've been offered nine legitimate jobs. You passed on all of them. That's fine! I've got nothing against -- I think Chris is one of the top 20 coaches in college football, could be one of the top 10.

Seven of the nine legitimate job offers: "Hey, Chris Petersen, we will pay you five million dollars for the privilege of handling our rebuilding project. You have two years before the media eats you alive. Go."

Though Cowherd would hate to admit it, Boise State is a legitimate job. The Broncos are a top 20 program now, and I think that becomes apparent each and every team a Bronco coach leaves for supposedly greener pastures.

But if you choose Albequerque's Best Rock 96.5 where you're a big fish in a small pond and you have offers in L.A. and New York and Dallas and Houston and Minneapolis and you keep passing on them, don't complain when you don't get invited to the big radio convention in the sky.

The big radio convention in the sky? Must one also be dead to attend this convention?

Cause you're not going to get them! Okay, people have choices in life. If you choose small, you get small.

Before Cowherd gets more off track than he already is, let's bring this argument back to where it started. Chris Petersen is unhappy with the way the BCS works because it goes about determining a national champion in the stupidest way possible. He is not advocating that Boise State get a BCS bid every season. He is advocating that a fair system be put in place where coaches don't have to vote for teams they aren't familiar with, where rankings 7-10 actually matter for something, and where the national champion is decided on the field to a greater degree than it is now.

The radio convention analogy works if the convention chooses its attendees based on weird formulas and backdoor deals. The BCS is no Comic-Con, that's for sure.

If you don't like the school your kids go to, what do you do? Private school or do you move? Move!

What is private school in this analogy? The WAC?

I mean Boise State is a one trick pony. They play one good game a year, maybe two.

No, Mr. Fiskers. Put down those vampire teeth. He's not worth it! Not when I just bought you wet cat food to eat!

They're not a complete athletic department. Nothing else makes any money.

Nothing else makes money? Why that makes Boise State's athletic department like 90 percent of all other athletic departments in Division I-A.

They don't have any other programs of note.

*cough* wrestling and gymnastics *cough*

It's a football only school. It's a small stadium, small booster group, loyal fans. They're really, really good. But in the end, you play that, "Well, Colin, we want to get into other conferences." Well, you're not going to. It's not academically good enough to get into a major conference. So deal with it.

Awkward.

You're going to be the program that wins a bunch of games and has rotating coaches. Or you can have Chris Petersen who is amazing and I'm a huge fan of, but you can't sit in Albuquerque or Iowa and complain, "I don't get invited to the national radio convention!" because you're in Iowa. Okay? That's the way the industry works!

Yes, Mr. Fiskers, Cowherd did just use Iowa as part of his analogy for the BCS, even though Iowa is in a BCS conference and could go to a BCS bowl game any time it wanted. Nuts to the Z-105 radio guy, though.

P.s. This national radio convention sounds awful. They should hold a webinar instead. Or a playoff.

So he keeps turning down all these jobs. I got news for ya. Go to UCLA. Turn it around. Go to Arizona State. Turn it around, and you'll get invited to BCSs when you go 11-1!

Your family will resent you forever, but at least you'll be in the Fiesta Bowl at least as often as you are currently.

I mean, you're complaining about a system -- I got news for ya. You've benefited from the system! You can play a dog schedule and get to BCS bowls. (Laughing)

Sure, Boise State has benefited more under the current system than it would have under the past system. But that still doesn't mean the current system is good or even passable. There are better ways to doing these things and anyone that tries to justify the BCS by saying it's better than what we had is just sticking their head in the sand. No one liked the national radio convention when it was held via an AOL chat room. But that doesn't mean the current convention is any better. Especially not when Colin gets too many Shirley Temples in him.

I mean, and, and you can say, "Well, he's (inaudible)." All I'm saying is this: he's saying the system is broken. No it's not!

It gave us Bama-LSU. That's who should play for the national championship. Last 10 years I think they've gone either 9 of 10 or 10 of 10.

Where has Colin Cowherd been living for the past 10 years? A rock? Albuquerque? Colin Cowherd Mindland?

There's not even a consensus that Alabama was the right choice this year, not when you had compelling arguments to be made for Oklahoma State as well as teams like Stanford also with only one loss.

And as long as the system gives us close enough, it's easy to forget the debate that raged years later. How about an undefeated TCU team being left out last year? Or undefeateds Boise State and TCU in 2009? Rarely has No. 1 versus No. 2 been uncontested, on earth at least. Maybe Cowherd is thinking of BCS selections on other planets.

It's not that broken! It's not perfect, it's not ideal, but I've looked at all the bowl games we've got this year and they're great! It's the best year of bowl games I've ever seen in my life! I can't wait to watch Stanford and Oklahoma State and Wisconsin and Oregon and LSU and Bama. Those are great games!

Great games that ultimately mean nothing. Possibly even the LSU-Bama one, should Bama win and there's a split national champion. Hooray for bowls!

I get Ohio State and Florida. Great game! Or two great programs having off years.

Just kidding about that Ohio State - Florida game, I guess.

(Note: For those of you still with us, Cowherd used Ohio State in his argument for how touch Michigan has had it this season. Those Buckeyes do play in front of 80,000-person crowds regularly.)

Michigan State and Georgia is a great game. So, you can complain about it all you want! But I'm, I, as I've said before, I can respect something in life but get tired of hearing the same song. You know? After awhile it's like, sorry, you know, that's the breaks!

In summary ... "I personally believe that U.S. Americans ... and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over HERE in the U.S. ... . Good night, everyone!"

So there you have it. Cowherd's complaint with Petersen was a rambling, rollicking mess of strange metaphors, circular reasoning, bias, and radio yelling. Petersen is the voice of reason in all this, decrying a BCS system that everyone else is happily decrying. He coaches a football team in the FBS that simply wants to compete for an FBS championship and, if that's not possible, he at least wants to live in a world where college football makes sense.

Poor Colin Cowherd just doesn't get it. Guess all those national radio conventions take their toll after awhile.