Cue to ESPN ‘Analyst’ Jesse Palmer pre-game. You remember Jesse from ‘The Bachelor’? Me neither. I had to look it up.

“So Jesse, what are you looking forward to seeing in this game tonight?”

“You know, I feel like Washington gets no respect,” says Palmer. “I feel like, at the start of the season we’ve all had our eyes on USC and Sam Darnold, then they lose to Washington State. Washington State has kind of stolen Washington’s thunder. This is the defending Pac-12 Champion, a playoff team. Excited to watch them go tonight.”

At halftime, ESPN was promoting an interview with UW Head Coach Chris Petersen. It never came. Instead, ESPN sideliner Quint Kessenich stumbled through some obvious points he gleaned from Cal Head Coach Justin Wilcox about how they had to protect their quarterback, Ross Bowers, better.

Next scene: cue to ESPN ‘Analysts’ Palmer and Joey Galloway during halftime. No talk about the game currently in progress. Instead they spend a segment talking about the Big 12 probably being on the outside looking in when it comes to the College Football Playoff because of Oklahoma’s loss at home to Iowa State in their ’Takeaways’ portion of their halftime coverage.

“I think with Oklahoma losing to Iowa State, that really hurt the Big 12’s chances of having a team reach the playoff,” Palmer says. “I think there are so many good teams in that conference. TCU, Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Texas is getting better, even West Virginia, Kansas State and Texas Tech are teams that I think, on any given Saturday, could jump up and bite someone. They’ve got a conference championship game again, and the plan there was to help strengthen the strength of schedule as an argument to get into the (College Football) playoff. But I think now the Big 12 is the one conference that is most likely, out of the Power 5 conferences, to have a two-loss champion. I think that’s going to hurt their chances of getting into the playoffs.”

Next scene: cue to ESPN ‘Analysts’ Palmer and Galloway post-game. Here’s where they give their snapshots as to who they think are currently in the College Football Playoff, and who is just outside at the number-five spot.

First off Joey, who is on the outside looking in?

“I really like the way Washington State is looking this season, but I’m going to stick with Washington as my number five,” says Galloway.

Jesse?

“Alright, I’ve got TCU as my number five,” Palmer declares. “Their defense continues to create takeaways. Offensively they are still able to run the football. Impressive win at home against West Virginia.”

Palmer then picks Georgia using some transitive reasoning: Michigan State beat Michigan, Notre Dame beat Michigan State and Georgia beat Notre Dame. Voila! Georgia is in. How simple.

Joey also picks Georgia, calling them the ‘second-most physical team in the country’. I wonder who is number one? That would be Alabama. But Alabama is only at number-two, despite Clemson only winning by 14 over Wake Forest at home and losing their starting quarterback Kelly Bryant.

Did you get all that? Okay. Because that wasn’t a reenactment. That was ESPN at their most probative and cogent Saturday night during Washington’s 38-7 win over Cal.

Palmer said UW gets no respect, then jumped TCU over the Huskies in his top-5 rankings. He said at halftime the Big 12 is probably the one conference in jeopardy of not being represented in the College Football Playoff, but then put a Big 12 team ahead of a Pac-12 team in the same rankings?

But the ESPN hacks were just warming up. After Petersen had caused the hairs on Kirk Herbreit’s neck to get all agitated by offering up an apology to Washington fans for the consistent late night starts (heaven forbid, an apology!), Herbstreit declared Saturday morning during College Game Day that the Pac-12 should be thanking Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott for having a relationship with the entertainment behemoth. You can see his full display below.

Kirk Herbstreit says Washington "should be thanking ESPN" for airing Washington games, regardless of kickoff time https://t.co/54Hu34AA1N pic.twitter.com/w8l6TsSzde — Deadspin (@Deadspin) October 7, 2017

The next ESPN assault on Petersen’s comments came after Washington’s very first possession of the game. They showed Pete’s Monday sound bite about people on the east coast not staying up to watch games, which equates to a lack of national exposure, and they trotted out a stat that showed 38 percent more viewers watch Pac-12 games after 6 pm than before.

Well, no freaking duh Sherlock. Is anyone really surprised by that stat? You shouldn’t be. That number can be explained so easily, but the most important thing? It doesn’t address the sound bite from Petersen. Of course more people are going to watch the late games out west. Those are when the best games are selected to be seen.

For example, USC hosted Oregon State at 1 pm on the Pac-12 Network. Oregon hosted Washington State at 5. Anyone care to take a giant stab at which game got higher ratings? Why do you think FOX, who had first pick over ESPN this past week, chose that game instead of California-Washington? These are rhetorical questions.

‘Analyst’ Rod Gilmore, part of the on-site crew with play-by-play man Mark Jones and Kessenich, argued that this arrangement was better for the Pac-12 because even the late-night times for east coasters was better than nothing at all, because they didn’t have the option before.

Hate to break it to you Rod, but there was a reason for that. No one watches college football games out east that start at 10:45 at night. Unless you are an alum, and even then you can watch the game in your man cave and then stumble the 10 feet or so into your bedroom.

For those that actually want to enjoy the game in person? It’s a little tougher.

If that wasn’t enough, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott then showed up on the TV feed and riffed on some softballs from the ESPN crew, doubling-down on how the late game times have benefitted the conference.

And then there was Mr. Kessenich and his props. He’s college football’s Gallagher but without the sledgehammer. He could do with the sledgehammer.

Well into the third quarter and the Huskies up 31-0, it was time for Kessenich to dig deep into his bag of tricks. I mean, he came up with a block of Swiss cheese at Colorado/UCLA, so how could he possibly outdo himself?

Well, he tried.

In case you wanted to see the cupcake schedule thing for yourself: pic.twitter.com/U5RXEqwRDi — Kevin Shockey (@KevinShockey) October 8, 2017

And you can hear Jones chuckling along like a drunk Santa Claus, finally chiming in with his own zinger: they look soft!

The implication? ESPN thinks Washington’s lack of competition in their non-conference schedule will hurt them come time to talk playoffs. ESPN has thrown their hat in the ring with an opinion that would surprise absolutely no one.

Harry the Husky made quick work of those cupcakes, by the way. Rumor has it they were tasty. Cupcake Royale, perhaps?

Another quick question Quint. When is your cupcake world tour going to make its way to Tuscaloosa or Happy Valley? Or how about Madison, the home of a team Washington would have played next year if the Badgers hadn’t backed out of their agreement? It was slightly humorous to hear Jones and Gilmore talk about how Washington traveling to play Auburn next year is great for the game, but they didn’t mention anything about the Wisconsin game that was also scheduled for 2018.

I can’t wait to see those creamy cupcakes on the sidelines of another top-10 team soon. I’m sure they’ll go over just as well as they did in Seattle, especially considering all of this is against a team whose schedule is clearly back-loaded in terms of strength. Is UCLA, Oregon, at Stanford, Utah and Washington State strong enough for you, ESPN? Will they have done enough to satisfy you? Does it even matter?

And I know it wasn’t your fault Quint, but the multiple mis-spellings of Petersen’s name was also a fitting touch from a production team that clearly couldn’t stop yawning long enough to care.

All of the smoke and mirrors from ESPN and their sham of a production couldn’t obfuscate the issue that brought all this nonsense on, one which Petersen made clear Monday and then again Thursday: late games don’t help the fans that would normally be in the stands on game days. And when the stadiums aren’t filled to the brim for one of the top teams in the country, that’s a problem.

And don’t forget, ESPN’s brand of retribution Saturday night - the stats and the talking head snark and the commissioner and the cupcakes - all came about because of an apology Petersen made to the fans, as well as the UW Head Coach not taking the time to meet with the ESPN crew in person ahead of the game.

Pete never mentioned ESPN. He never brought up FOX, or the Pac-12 Network. He offered to do a phone call for all the background material the ESPN guys would need - standard practice for Petersen. He wasn’t being ‘irascible’. He was being consistent.

If Mark Jones took that as a sign of Petersen being ‘irascible’, then Pete is ‘irascible’ toward every broadcast crew in America.

So my advice to you, Mark Jones. And you, Rod Gilmore. And definitely to you Quint Kessenich…stay in your lanes. Cover the game. If it’s slow, come up with funny or poignant human interest stories. You did a couple with Dante Pettis. That was good stuff. Stick to that. It’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to take tacky shots at the team you’re covering. It was unnecessary.

Here’s a thought - how about delve into a defense that’s setting team records and is showing itself to be one of the best in the country. How about a feature on Ryan Bowman and his quest to earn a scholarship? I have a lot of ideas if you want to get in touch. I’m easy to find.

When you start turning the pointy end of the media on the team that is the focus of your coverage, it looks less like entertainment and more like an agenda. As in, Petersen didn’t give us the attention we were looking for, so we’re going to act like grade schoolers and show him what we think of that. We’re going to throw out meaningless statistics and sight gags to distract you from the fact that you hurt our feelings.

But if there’s one other actor in this multi-scene play that really deserves to be thrown under the bus, it’s Larry Scott, aka ‘Backhand Larry’. Here was Scott’s answer when asked about ESPN taking Petersen to task for his comments on scheduling:

“Coach Petersen is a great guy. We’re fortunate to have him in the conference. His heart is in the right place and I appreciate him being sympathetic to fans. I know he only wants what is best. I don’t think anybody should be taking shots at him. By the same token, these agreements were made by all of our schools before coach Petersen got here. It’s a vast improvement in terms of our revenue and exposure as a result of these new agreements.”

It’s interesting. Apparently Scott can use the ‘you weren’t here’ argument to prop up his side of the story, but Pete can’t do the same when it comes to scheduling. He’s pointed it out in the past, but just like with late night games, he knows no one is interested in hearing what he has to say about it.

What Scott is basically saying, since Pete wasn’t at UW back in the day this was all agreed on, he should just stay in his lane and coach and let the more important people do the heavy lifting. What Backhand Larry doesn’t get is that this is Pete’s lane. Anything that has to do with his program is in his lane. And these late times directly affect the program.

And let’s be crystal clear: no one is questioning the bottom line of all this. No one is disputing the Pac-12 is in a much better financial condition as a result of the TV deal - one that allows networks like ESPN to act like 10-year olds whenever they want to. They bought that right. But Scott is absolutely hiding behind the mandate he was given from the conference to ‘show them the money’.

“All of our schools went in with their eyes wide open, but that was going to mean some tradeoffs and some pain points for fans,” Scott said. “That was a conscious decision.”

Pain points, Larry? Is that what you call them? When fans get poked in the eye every single week, they usually come to the conclusion that they don’t want to get poked in the eye anymore. So while they sit at home and watch the games comfortably from their man caves, a whole generation of younger fans (aka children) miss out on the college game day experience. They miss out on what Steve Sarkisian calls the ‘pageantry of college football’.

And we’re not even talking about how this wonky scheduling affects the players, the ones at the center of all this.

“That is college football, and if that is turning people away, then I think (Pac-12 officials) need to look at this and there needs to be a solution,” Petersen said earlier in the week. “I know there are a lot of smart people in this business that can figure some things out if they really wanted to.”

If ESPN’s display Saturday night is any indication, not only do they not care about figuring this out, they are only interested in one thing: their little piece of turf. And they’ll bully and belittle anyone that doesn’t fall in with their line of thinking.

And if you stray from your lane? Quint Kessenich might show up on your sideline with a ham sandwich or something.