Who would have thought Katherine Webb would have been the most talked about individual emerging from this year's BCS National Championship Game?  The girlfriend of Alabama QB A.J. McCarron and Miss Alabama was shown during the first half and quickly became the story of the game as Brent Musburger waxed poetically about her beauty.

Brent & Herbie's excitement over Webb was a distraction from an otherwise hideous game.  But as the clip went viral, Musburger's admiration in particular took a strange turn.  ESPN went as far as to publicly apologize for the comments saying Musburger went "too far."  (Which begs the question as to why the network didn't apologize for putting her on screen repeatedly or included Kirk Herbstreit in the apology.  Also, what about ESPN pumping out articles about Webb getting noticed?  If you really want to get deep in this analysis, is it solely an age factor that has created this huge rush of attention towards Musburger?)

Sure it was a little awkward, perhaps even over-the-top, but Brent's admiration for Webb didn't seem to be enough of an issue to warrant such serious public scrutiny and a public reprimand.  After all, if ESPN had to apologize for Musburger's comments on Webb… what about his stalking of the Honey Badger in last year's BCS title game?  That was way more overboard than anything he said about Webb.

The people with the best perspective on this just happen to be Katherine Webb and A.J. McCarron.  Webb appeared on the Today Show this morning and gracefully defended Musburger calling the apology unnecessary.  McCarron appeared on Waddle & Silvy on ESPN 1000 in Chicago Tuesday morning and had fun with the story as well.  The short interview is worth a listen in its entirety, but at the 4:30 mark the hosts play the audio of Musburger's commentary for the Alabama QB for the first time.  McCarron's reaction is pitch perfect:

"I love those two guys, they're always very helpful to me and giving me a lot of insight. I really do like them, but I'm going to have to tell Musburger he's going to have to step back next time."

[Waddle & Silvy, ESPN Chicago]