Gary Danielson has over three decades of experience under his belt as a color analyst across numerous networks. But the longtime CBS analyst was is not exempt from an early season misunderstanding of a basic rule, which was evident in Saturday’s Week 2 matchup between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Iowa State Cyclones.
In the second quarter of the game, Iowa quarterback Cade McNamara threw a pass out of bounds after rolling out and receiving pressure from the Iowa State defensive line.
It was your typical throwaway that you will see in any game. And the referees in the game did not call intentional grounding because McNamara both got the ball past the line of scrimmage and was outside of the tackle box pretty clearly.
However, Danielson adamantly protested that McNamara should have been called for intentional grounding on the play.
“Oh, that’s gonna be intentional grounding,” said Danielson. “There is nobody over there. I’m surprised they don’t look at… Where was McNamara throwing the ball to?”
After looking at the replay, Danielson finally seemed to understand that it didn’t matter that there was no receiver in the area for McNamara.
“I guess he’s outside of the pocket. They are gonna let him do that. Because there was no one there. That was a busted play.”
How wide does Gary Danielson think the tackle box is? pic.twitter.com/MzH1HUkiaE
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 7, 2024
Danielson is not the only broadcaster thus far this season who failed to portray the correct intentional grounding rules on the call of a game. Last week, Andre Ware also incorrectly protested for an intentional grounding call in the Week 1 game between Oklahoma and Temple before being corrected by ESPN rules analyst Matt Austin.
It is early on in the season. So mistakes are naturally going to happen. But with that being said, both Ware and Danielson played at the NFL level as a quarterback. So you would certainly expect their understanding of the rule to be much more precise than it has been thus far into the year.
[Awful Announcing on X, Photo Credit: CBS]
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.