Dr. Lou Holtz

First, I have to commend Lou Holtz on an incredible showing in the Week 3 Pammy Awards. Bravo, sir. Sweeping the top 2 positions without even calling a game this weekend, that is just pure dedication to be the best. Anyways, I was going to write a mock interview of Awful Announcing presenting him with the week 3 Pammy Award where he would “thpeak like thith” for the entirety of the interview. It got kind of old after about a sentence and I decided to nix it. It’s still gotta be said; what exactly is the point of Lou Holtz on ESPN? It certainly isn’t for his unbiased football opinion, certainly not his thpeaking ability. Is it his unintentional comedic value that he brings to each and every one of his broadcasts? I believe so.

I’ll admit it. I’m as big a Michigan State fan as you can find and I have been conditioned to dislike anything Notre Dame my whole life. Initially, Lou Holtz on ESPN made me sick. I couldn’t believe a guy who was fresh off putting South Carolina on probation would be one of the lead opinions on College football. These days, Lou Holtz is can’t miss TV for me. I seek him out. I Tivo shows he might potentially be on just so I can bask in the hilarity of a Dr. Lou segment or, if I’m lucky, a pep talk that would most likely make Larry David cringe from the awkwardness. They are all gold, AA. Gold! You almost feel compelled to treat a Lou Holtz segment like a Gallagher concert. Lou is on your TV slobbering and spitting everywhere. It almost seems sanitary to cover yourself up and wipe down your TV whenever he is done speaking.

Most on-air TV commentators go out of their way to hide their allegiances to the school they came from. Not Lou. Notre Dame could be playing the 2007 Patriots and Lou would still look straight at the camera and say “Noder Dame ith too talented for the Patritoth.” Then, they’d pan over to Mark May who would be on the brink of having an aneurysm and expect him to respond sanely to the lunacy that Lou just spit out.  This blatant homerism would be INCREDIBLY annoying if not for the fact that the Domers are currently in a stretch of unprecedented mediocrity. Everytime they lose to Navy, I’ll find Holtz on TV that night looking supremely confident telling everyone with a straight face that Charlie Weis is a genius and will turn it around against USC the next week. It’s good stuff.

Lou’s winner this week had to do with him complimenting ND’s fake field goal defense on MSU’s game-winner in OT. I was there; that play happened about 40 rows in front of me. Charlie Gantt could have moonwalked those final 10 yards and still scored untouched. Nothing against ND at all there, a 4th and 14 fake field goal pass in OT literally almost killed our coach. No one saw that coming. Still, Lou wants everyone to know that ND had that play well in hand. And then everyone laughed, and that is why I will continue to support Lou Holth on my television.

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