I Hate You, John Crist: Myles Garrett-Booger McFarland dust-up a hot topic

My column Tuesday that covered the mini soap opera between Myles Garrett and Booger McFarland got nearly a hundred comments, which is a lot.

To summarize, the ESPN analyst has been critical of the Texas A&M pass rusher leading up to the NFL Draft. Garrett was supposed to be a guest on “Mike and Mike,” but once he found out that McFarland was guest-hosting, he bailed.

As is usually the case, the comment section was divided down the middle. Half the comments supported Garrett — fans of the Aggies automatically coming to his defense, naturally — and the other half skewered him accordingly. My criticism of Garrett revolved entirely around him welching on doing the show.

Nowhere in the column did I agree with McFarland’s assessment that Garrett fails to defend the run well and doesn’t always give max effort. I simply thought it was a bad look to duck a critic since he’ll have many more of them in the pros.

Here are some of my favorite comments from this past week. Believe it or not, a few A&M supporters managed to keep a level head.

Garrett gave the impression that he’s only interested in talking to people who think he’s great. Like you said, life doesn’t work like that.

When a player goes to ESPN for the “car wash” treatment through all the various TV and radio shows, it’s typically a softball fest. While “Rusillo and Kanell” asked Garrett about turning down “Mike and Mike,” everything else was pretty tame.

Additionally, it’s not like McFarland has ripped Garrett’s play at every turn. Still, he does have concerns — they’re quite fair for a prospect potentially being selected No. 1 overall — about his ability to be a down-to-down force defending both the run and the pass. McFarland is hardly alone in his assessment of Garrett.

So many Texas A&M readers responded with the accusation that McFarland is biased against Garrett, although not one of them could tell me why. You can’t just color every opinion you don’t like as bias against you.

McFarland was a defensive lineman and a first-round pick himself. His opinion should be respected as a result.

Now you can disagree with that opinion. Garrett clearly does, of course. But there’s no reason to believe that McFarland is slanting his view of Garrett’s play because he hates the No. 15 or doesn’t look good in maroon.

Assuming Garrett does indeed go at the top of the draft to the Browns, he’ll be greeted warmly by the Cleveland fan base because it’s one of the best in sports. That being said, if it’s Week 5 and he doesn’t have a sack yet, expect talk radio stations to be full of callers wondering if they have another bust on their hands.

Members of the media are no different. If Garrett is productive on the field and charming in the locker room, they’ll report accordingly. However, if he’s disappearing in games and aloof when talking about it, their coverage will reflect that.

Do I think this McFarland situation in any way hurts Garrett’s draft stock? Of course not. It’s a bad look, that’s all.

I was truly discouraged by what I saw during the first round of spring games, especially the one I covered in person at Florida.

During the pregame announcements in the press box, we were led to believe that the Gators would be focusing on the two-minute drill in the second and fourth quarters, plus an overtime period was to be played at the end.

Credit: Logan Bowles-USA TODAY Sports

None of that came to fruition, though. There was a running clock for all four quarters, so neither the Orange nor Blue team got a lot of snaps. Additionally, the second and fourth quarters looked exactly like the first and second. Coach Jim McElwain’s (above) plan to highlight the two-minute drill was apparently scrapped.

UF also decided against the OT format beyond regulation. After less than two hours, it was over. That was it for the 48,000 or so in attendance. Luckily, it was a beautiful evening in the open-air press box at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

However, the game itself was a complete bore. Both offenses went full vanilla, so there wasn’t much to satiate the desire for real football.

Had quarterback Feleipe Franks not connected with receiver Josh Hammond for a 46-yard bomb down the right sideline on his initial possession — it was a terrific throw — there wouldn’t have been much to cheer about at all.

McElwain told reporters that he didn’t want to put too much on tape with Michigan on the schedule to begin the 2017 campaign. Other coaches in the conference said similar things. I find the notion totally ridiculous that breaking down tape of a spring game is the key to winning an opener that’s still five months away.

But this is the world we live in now. Coaches are terrified of giving away any information that could be seen as an advantage for the other team, either real or imagined. And there’s no reason to think this trend will ever reverse course.

If all coaches care about in spring games is revealing as little as possible and avoiding injury, then why even play them at all?

I had a fantastic experience with former Texas A&M quarterback Trevor Knight this week, which resulted in a lengthy Q&A.

As I wrote in the story, I’ve done a million of these pre-draft interviews over the years. Some of them go well, but some of them don’t. Knight was as entertaining and engaging as could be, and I believe the Q&A reflected that.

Coincidentally, it ran just one day after the aforementioned Garrett column, when I was perceived to be siding with McFarland in criticizing the soon-to-be No. 1 pick. Just like every time I write something that’s anything less than cheerleader-esque, I was accused of being anti-Texas A&M since that’s what makes upset readers feel better.

So, yes, I suppose it’s understandable that Aggies fans were surprised — whether said surprise was “pleasant” or not is debatable — when the Knight story painted such a pretty picture. Just the day before, I was ripping his teammate.

I write stories as I see fit. It really is that simple. Positive, negative or something in between, it’s never more complicated than that.

If you go back and read much of what I wrote about the SEC heading into the 2016 season, I had A&M as a sneaky contender in the West. Even if the depth chart had some holes here and there, coach Kevin Sumlin’s roster boasted a ton of star power.

In the end, the Ags were the Ags. Sumlin and Co. raced out to an impressive start in September and October before crumbling down the stretch in November. We’ve seen this movie before, unfortunately. Nevertheless, at no point on the roller coaster ride in College Station did I experience any pleasure or pain. I write. I don’t cheer or jeer.

By the way, it’s worth mentioning that the negatively skewed Garrett column got about 10 times the comments as the positively skewed Knight Q&A. Also, the comments under the Knight story had nothing to do with the story itself.

Readers love to be offended so they can rage in the comments. But when they’re not offended, they don’t comment. They just click elsewhere.

John Crist is the senior writer for Saturday Down South, a member of the FWAA and a voter for the Heisman Trophy. Send him an e-mail, like him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter.