If you didn’t watch the Oklahoma/Texas Tech game Saturday night, you were likely enraged to the point of violence that ABC insisted on putting such piffle on in place of carving the country into three segments and giving we East Coasters what we craved: night-time ACC football, baby.

Actually, you weren’t, both because ACC games are hell to watch and purgatorially boring. Instead, you were treated to the Red Raiders’ upset of Oklahoma played to the accompaniment of the most anarchic crew in broadcasting, the Nessler/Maguire/Griese team of ABC. The anarchy comes mostly from Maguire, who’s game for anything: riding on the camera boom most of the day like The Watcher, chiming in on whatever strikes his fancy at the moment no matter what’s going on, and giddily living each second not paired with Joe Theissmann like it was his last.

Maguire even tried on the Red Raider outfit Saturday night, a getup made to look like a Zorro costume with a few extra swatches of red thrown in there. The original picture is funny enough, but we have yet to see a photo The Cheezburger Factory can’t improve on at least a little.


He is Paul Maguire, and he is here to steal your heart.