I seriously hate piling on in cases like this, and the video from last night almost stands on its own, buuuuuut FOX is getting absolutely destroyed this morning and I just have to talk about it. Most networks fail on just one thing when broadcasting Football. It’s either the announcers not knowing what’s going on, the camera crew can’t keep up, or the production truck is behind. It’s rare that a broadcast achieves even two out of those three, but that’s where FOX’s BCS games come in.
I’ll get to my review in a second, but first I wanted to share what others, on both the Internet and in Print, are saying….
Richard Sandomir, NY Times: “Having to pay attention to two or four shots at once, live, with a play about to begin, is needless. Sometimes, Fox lingered too long in a four-shot, almost missing going to a full-screen for the snap. One particular shot in the quadruple screens — of coaches’ signals from the Oklahoma sideline — would have been useful to dissect as a replay; but in a quarter-screen, it looked like the coaches were playing pat-a-cake.
Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: “Brennaman settled down after a shaky start. Davis was decent. But a “no-frills” performance for the network’s last title game anytime soon. Nothing special, nothing awful. Nothing to be missed.”TBL: “Can someone please check Thom Brennaman’s identification? Seriously. We’d like to see his social security card and passport. We firmly believe he is in some way related to Mountain-Mover/QB Tim Tebow.”
Mel Bracht, Oklahoma News: “Brennaman and his Fox cohorts went overboard in gushing about how great a man Tebow is off the field. His comments would have been more fitting on a feature story than a game broadcast.”
Fanhouse: “What I do know is this: Brennaman was so far over the top in his pro-Tebow hyperbole on Thursday that the game became darn-near unwatchable unless the volume was off. Not only did Brennaman go on and on about what a remarkable man Tebow is, but he backed Tebow against Oklahoma cornerback Dominique Franks — who said Tebow would be no better than the fourth-best QB in the Big 12 — stating that was “probably the most ridiculous statement ever said.”
Neil Best, Newsday: “Fox’s Thom Brennaman often seems to be doing a clever parody of an old-time sportscaster, except that he’s serious. His outing with analyst Charles Davis for Fox’s third and final BCS Championship Game was particularly amusing, especially his over-the-top deification of Tim (Superman) Tebow. My favorite moment came late in the game, when – just as it seemed Brennaman and Davis were ready to bronze Tebow on the spot – the saintly quarterback was flagged for taunting an Oklahoma player with one of those Gator chomp motions.”
Spencer Hall, Sporting News: “Assumptions one should not make about this game: 1) Bob Stoops always loses big bowl games. Untrue. By the record, he only loses 66% of them. 2) All Big 12 defenses are uniformly awful. Inaccurate. This proves only that the defenses Oklahoma faces are uniformly awful, which means all Big 12 defenses save Oklahoma, which kept Florida’s offense in check for most of the game. 3) Fox puts on an incompetent broadcast. No. Incompetent doesn’t cover how inept their clodfooted work on the BCS has been.”
Ever since the network took over the BCS, you could immediately tell that they were going about the production all wrong. On top of that, it has almost gotten worse over the last three years. The first problem is that the people in the booth don’t get subjected to any College Football during the year. Sure you can follow along at home, but most NFL announcers are preparing all day Friday and Saturday for their game on Sunday. Now that isn’t the case for every team that FOX put out there, and you would think Brennaman and Davis’ work on the Big Ten Network would help them, but alas….it doesn’t seem that it does.
The second problem is the sheer madness that is created between plays. The production truck is certainly talented because they can jump between 40 different shots between snaps, but their looks are beyond unnecessary. It’s almost as if they enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the College environment rather than the actual game.
The biggest problem though? They don’t listen. People have been saying the same things above for the past three years and the only thing that changed was that they showed us more cheerleaders this go around. Of course, none of this matters because FOX only has one more year of driving us crazy during Bowl Season. Thank God! Oh and one last thing…..EVERYONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS THAT THE CLOCK STOPS ON A FIRST DOWN IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL! If you want to tell us once, that’s fine, but forty times is just downright maddening.
Oh and as far as Thom Brennaman goes, I think this screenshot of his Wikipedia page after the game, sums up his night perfectly (click for larger)….
(Wiki page edit “rumored” to have been done by this guy)
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