No, not Ed Hochuli.  Ed Cunningham.  He might be the most awful commentator for college football of all-time.  He makes Bill Curry sounds intelligent, John Madden sound insightful, etc, etc.  And yes, this is not the first time we have ranted on Ed Cunningham.  We did so in this post from last season.

Last night, Ed was calling the Alamo Bowl with Ron Franklin.  Franklin was really bad for some reason, constantly missing what down it was, how many yards were gained, among other things.  But two long periods of discussion by Ed were enough, in our opinion, to keep him off the air for forever.

(1)  With about 8 minutes left in the first quarter, Northwestern has the ball on its own 11 and completes a long screen pass to Tyrell Sutton.  At the end of the play, Sutton fumbles near midfield, and it’s recovered by Missouri.  However, there is a flag on the play against Missouri for offsides.  The ref then announces that the play will be reviewed, which seems to be customary on fumbles.  Ed and Ron start wondering why in the world they would review the play.  At no point do they consider the play being ruled not a fumble and Northwestern declining the penalty.  Instead, they engage in a 5-minute discussion of whether Northwestern would (a) accept the penalty, keeping the ball and making it 3rd-and-4, or (b) decline the penalty and let Missouri have the ball at midfield - since that would be 40 yards farther down field.  Amazingly, they came to the conclusion that Northwestern should accept the penalty.  We’re not kidding - this actually happened.

(2) This conversation was just as egregious.  Missouri had the lead 20-16 late in the 3rd quarter.  Northwestern scores a touchdown on a long pass to take the lead 22-20.  Before the extra point is kicked and while the play is reviewed, we get about 7 minutes of Ed telling us why the Wildcats should kick the extra point instead of going for 2.  We assume that he was misreading the score and thought Northwestern was now down by 2, not up by 2.  Or he really has no concept of how to play football.  Either way, there is no excuse.   Ed has two possible defenses to his inane argument - (a) despite watching the game for nearly 3 quarters, he had the score wrong, or (b) he really does think a team should go for 2 to try to increase it’s lead to 4 instead of kicking the extra point for a 3-point lead.  And seriously, he spent 7 solid minutes giving us the pros and cons of going for two.  Wouldn’t you think at some point that someone would jump in to tell him the score?

So this is our plea… take Ed Cunningham off the air.  He is horrible.  This guy makes listening to the game call a harder effort than a Dick Vitale basketball game.  On a scale of 1 to 10, the entertainment value of the actual game played last night was about an 8.  Back and forth, overtime, all that.  The entertainment value of the game when you factor in the announcers: 3.

On Saturday night, we decided to stay up and watch the Hawaii vs. Washington game on ESPN2.  Apparently, the folks at ESPN did not expect many other people to stay up that late.

Why?  Because they stuck some guy named Ed Cunningham as the commentator.  (And yes, now we will make the appropriate “Happy Days” joke.)  We think Richie Cunningham would have done a better job than this guy!  Or hell, even throw Randall in there, since ESPN thinks all former athletes are experts on their sport (see Emmitt Smith).

Anyway, from all his awful analysis, one thing he said stood out to us the most.  Colt Brennan completed a pass to Jason Rivers in the end zone that cut the Washington lead to 28-21.  At first, the ref on the field ruled that Rivers was out-of-bounds, so no catch.  As they show the replay, the fans at the stadium start moaning and cheering for a replay challenge.

At this point, Ed Cunningham emphatically explains to everyone: “You cannot challenge an incomplete pass in college football.”  He says that it’s going to be tough luck for all those Hawaii fans and that they’re griping will go unanswered.  He had no doubt in his mind about this rule, no question about whether this could be challenged.  It could not.

Guess what happens?  The ref announces the play is under review.  After moments of thinking how to cover this obvious gaffe, Cunningham explains that in college football, he has just been told, you can challenge an incomplete pass only in the end zone.

What?  This is another falsity covering up his previous totally incorrect statement.  And this is the last game of the regular season!!!

Are you telling us that Ed Cunningham has not watched a college football game this year where an incomplete pass was reviewed by the replay booth?  That’s not possible - is it?

This guy is getting paid to give commentary on a major college football game and he does not know the basic rules?  It’s not like this was a complex call, such as some slightly illegal formation.  Or a missed yard line, giving credit to the wrong receiver for a catch.  These are understandable to us, as we know calling live action is not easy.

But to not know the rules at this point in college football, come on.  After this, we expected Cunningham to start questioning why the clock did not start immediately after the kick-off.

So Ed Cunningham, do us a favor and learn at least some basic rules of the game before you ever get up in the booth again.  You are an embarrassment.