OU Football 2013 | The Local Sports Anchor Doing What Local Sports Anchors Do

Sigh.

Seriously, guy?

Look, I'm not saying Bob Barry Jr.'s source is wrong.  You would like to think he had to be pretty confident in them to go on television Monday night and give a report on Oklahoma's starting quarterback before Bob Stoops has even hinted at who might be the choice.  But then again, what would the repercussions really be if Barry Jr. is wrong?

His reputation is damaged?

What reputation?

He suffers some sort of ridicule?

Does anyone take local sports anchors seriously enough to even ridicule them in the first place?

Case in point:

I'd felt all along Blake Bell made the most sense & would be named starter. And very well could be. But I'm now 51% Trevor Knight. #Sooners

— Dean Blevins (@DeanBlevins) August 19, 2013

If you're lived in Oklahoma or at all familiar with the local sports scene, you'll be able to appreciate just how classic that tweet from Blevins truly is.

The point is there really isn't much risk in making a claim such as this one, especially if you're a local sports anchor. So what if Knight is not actually named the starting quarterback?  Barry Jr. can simply come out and say his source got it wrong.  Or that something changed, like Knight had a bad practice or whatever sounds plausible at the time. The fact is we would never really know and Barry Jr. has been in the local sports game plenty long enough to realize that.

This isn't intended to be an attack against Barry Jr. or local sports anchors, although it probably reads like that.  He's just trying to do his job and breaking the story on who the starting quarterback for the Sooners is going to be would certainly be a big story in the state of Oklahoma.  And maybe he'll be right whenever Stoops announces who he and the coaches have chosen.

Admittedly, it's easy for someone like myself (someone not connected enough to really have "sources") to sit here and second guess someone else (who is supposedly connected enough, or just been around long enough, to have "sources).  I'm happy to acknowledge that, so don't think I'm up here in my ivory tower lecturing anyone.

I guess my issue with this is it just seems like someone desperate to be first, a common problem in the media world we live in, because they know even if they are wrong there will be little, if any, repercussions.

For whatever it's worth, Jason Kersey of The Oklahoman has already somewhat refuted Barry Jr.'s report with this tweet Tuesday morning.

Regarding last night's report on the #Sooners QB battle: Two solid sources told me this morning that nothing had been decided

— Jason Kersey (@jasonkersey) August 20, 2013

Color me unsurprised.