What do you do if you’re a local television anchor and the team you cover won’t let you into a scrimmage to snag b-roll and talk about how the squad is playing two weeks before the season opener?
If you’re Will Manso and Clay Ferraro of Miami’s Local 10 News, what you do is re-enact the scrimmage on your set, in suits!
This is a fun way of telling a team “hey, let us cover you.” But a few things about their re-enactment cause some concern.
First, this always works better with Legos.
Second, this is, to my knowledge, the first time one of the “dudes in suits” re-enactments has taken place with jackets on. As the talking heads at the major networks show us every Saturday and Sunday morning, when you get out onto the fake field, proper fake-field uniform attire is shirt and tie, sans jacket. This is a local move, guys.
Third, the re-enactment gets a little confusing when Manso and Ferraro vacillate between being teammates and opponents. At one point they’re completing a 50-yard catch (that goes no more than three yards, come on guys) and on the next play, Manso suddenly switches from quarterback to defensive end, sacking Ferraro with ferocity. Then, after a handoff from Manso to Ferraro for a goal line score, the duo turns around and the quarterback is suddenly a defender again! Get it together guys, this is vital re-enactment continuity you are screwing up for your audience.
Fourth, and yes there is a fourth, the local news apparently needs two—two—anchors to cover the Hurricanes in Miami, despite not having any access to the practice session they were attempting to cover. The lesson is clearly that when you have too many anchors and not enough content, it’s always good to go “dudes in suits”.
Again, if nothing else, this was a cute way for some in the local media to tell the Miami football program they are frustrated with the lack of access. It’s understandable why a television network trying to cover a team would want the ability to actually film the team’s scrimmage, but there is little to no benefit for Miami to allow media to do that.
Some programs do let media into scrimmages without cameras rolling, so for Local 10 News to have zero access to the game is understandably frustrating. That is, until Manso or Ferraro re-enact an amazing fake field goal flee flicker the team has been working on this week and every reporter gets banned for the rest of the season.
This is a perfect example of a “we need you more than you need us” relationship between a school and local media. Manso and Ferraro spiked the football before walking off their set, but this is a contest against Miami they are never going to win.
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About Dan Levy
Dan Levy has written a lot of words in a lot of places, most recently as the National Lead Writer for Bleacher Report. He was host of The Morning B/Reakaway on Sirius XM's Bleacher Report Radio for the past year, and previously worked at Sporting News and Rutgers University, with a concentration on sports, media and public relations.