Vic Purvis, Ladies And Gentlemen

I think I just got a glimpse of what it's like to listen to Hawk Harrelson call a game when you're not a White Sox fan.

It takes someone like Purvis and his entertaining case of crotchety-old-man-itis to give you the proper perspective sometimes. But for his consistently snide remarks, I'd have turned off the audio long before the end of the game. The officials made a couple of calls right off the bat that he didn't like, and boy were they gonna hear it from that point forward.

If he wasn't going nuts over supposedly-bad spots, he was heaping backhanded praise on NC State (like when he said he thought the Wolfpack o-line was doing a good job, whether "legally or illegally") or ranting about imaginary penalties that--for some reason--weren't being called.

When Southern Mississippi committed its only turnover of the game--a fumble near midfield--Purvis rolled his eyes and pointed out that, "being on the ground only applies if you're wearing a white jersey." Later on, the radio crew's sideline reporter informs us that the USM player had in fact fumbled on the play. Purvis has no comment.

Other select comments from the evening at the ball yard:

"That's a pretty marginal one there," said after a USM third down conversion was brought back by a holding call.

On the first-half play where pass interference was called on both the USM receiver and NC State defensive back: "should be pass interference, but don't bet on anything..."

Once he heard that call was offsetting and not just defensive PI, he said the call was "unbelievable." I was laughing too hard to watch the replay, so I don't know--maybe it was.

After the USM QB sneaked the ball on third-and-short, the play-by-play guy indicated that USM had enough for the first down. He was answered with another "don't bet on it."

The gem of the broadcast probably came in the first half when Purvis said that NC State's receivers were the biggest bunch of crybabies he'd ever seen. Yeah, Vic, speaking of crybabies...