AEM

http://unc5corners.blogspot.com/2008/09/espn-isnt-world-leader-in-blogging.html

Exactly on point. ESPN was dragged kicking and screaming into the blogosphere. The folks in Bristol dislike bloggers because they upset the media boat and gave me an alternate viewpoint. So ESPN finally decides they need to get into blogging and when they do they basically take mainstream journalists and repackage them with a blog. That is what Dinich is anyway. On top of that, there is no way they cut her loose to do what JP Giglio does in terms of taking shots at various teams.

The bottom line is she does a fairly poor job covering everyone equally and in my opinion she is not that knowledgeable. Maybe she will get better…only time will tell.

Even worst for the Big East, where there is 16 teams. The world leader in sports needs to become a bit more Y2K when it comes to blogging. I think what they need someone like Heather Dinich to do is find good blogs (such as this one) and bring them into the ESPN family and let them go at it.

Imagine being a blog that can get some inside info because you have ESPN backing you? That is what would work well. Making a reporter into a conference blogger is a good way to cover up the fact you don’t really want to invest into it. It is already evident that one person can not keep up with the ACC for football. Come basketball time it is going to be funny (and sad) if there is only one person covering the league once again.

And am I somewhat bitter? Yeah, because having a blog myself if I had the resources and inside info that someone like Dinich does, I would have a lot more to say than she does. Once again… Oh well!

AEM

Hopefully she’ll get over that. But with ESPN’s track record of not giving a damn about its analysts having open biases, I doubt it.

I have been more annoyed with her persistent love for Paul Johnson. Going to the GT opener against Jacksonville St seemed odd considering the NCSU-SCAR game going on but she posts a lot about him. I think the Baltimore-Sun connection also has something to do with that.

She is basically saying you need at least one legit top five team or if possible two top 10 teams so you can have a fighting chance in the big bowls. The ACC has a lot of parity right now but everyone is 2nd tier. She is essentially arguing that parity is not all it is cracked up to be if you cannot run on the top tier. You can have a lot of evenly matched teams but two of them need to be studs.

The extension of that is those two studs need to be traditional powers like FSU/Miami. In other words if UNC or Wake or NCSU or even Clemson are you top contenders then the ACC will not be what it needs to be in terms of playing with the big boys.

That is the way I took it…I could very well be wrong.

I think the better example of her bias is simply the lack of coverage of UNC in general this offseason. If you read her blog, there were numerous breakdowns of other teams but only a few on UNC, including one strictly about Marvin Austin.

That said, I think her post today was not saying “this league won’t be good until FSU and Miami dominate.” The idea was that right now the league doesn’t really have an identity, which frankly, it doesn’t in football. It’s not like basketball, where we have an obvious identity in terms of Tobacco Road. The league is still trying to regain the days when FSU was the ACC in football. I think her point is, if FSU and Miami, which are clearly still the name brands of ACC football, can make major marks, it helps the league.

Example, in 2001 when we beat FSU, that was huge. It was talked about everywhere and, at the time, it was seen as a sign that UNC was recovering well under you know who and was on its way to being a good program (Ironic, huh?). That’s because at the time, FSU was still dominant (though in its last throes). Last year when we beat Miami, it was talked about a little bit, but forgotten by the end of the season because Miami sucked.

I think her point is also that if the ACC is to get any respect THIS YEAR, then we need those two teams to step it up. The rest of the country and, particularly, the sports media, are hesitant to acknowledge any teams other than the traditional powers in the conference as quality. Look at Wake. They won the conference two years ago and everyone laughed at it as a sign that the ACC was dead. Only now, after Wake had a respectable showing last year, is the sports media giving them their due.

We do need Miami and FSU to step it up this year so that when something happens like us beating one of them, it makes a bigger mark nationally. We need a win over Miami to be a “Oh man, look at UNC taking out Miami, they’ve finally arrived” reaction. Not a “Carolina beat Miami, but then again, who hasn’t at this point?” reaction.