A NBC score bug as seen on their Navy-Notre Dame broadcast. (@scorebugwatch on Twitter.) A NBC score bug as seen on their Navy-Notre Dame broadcast. (@scorebugwatch on Twitter.)
College FootballNBCBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Whenever networks change their score bug design, it tends to spark a decent amount of chatter. That’s the case for the changes NBC has made for their college football score bug, which they unveiled Saturday on their broadcast of the Navy-Notre Dame Week 0 game in Ireland. Here’s what the new score bug looks like:

And here’s last year’s for comparison:

This looks much closer to their NFL score bug then their previous college football approach:

Here’s some of the reaction the change has drawn:

As noted by some there, this change comes around a dramatic shift in NBC’s college football inventory. This season will be their first broadcasting Big Ten games (under a deal that runs through 2029-30) as well as Notre Dame games. And that’s led to notable change in who’s calling games as well: the team of Jac Collinsworth, Jason Garrett, and Zora Stephenson will continue to call Notre Dame games, but will also call selected Big Ten games.

Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge, and Kathryn Tappen will call most Big Ten games for NBC this year, while Mike Tirico, Chris Simms, and Lewis Johnson will call a Peacock-exclusive Toledo-Michigan game on Sept. 2. Brendan Burke, Paul Burmeister, and Andrew Siciliano will also be involved as play-by-play voices, with Joshua Perry, Michael Robinson, Kyle Rudolph, and Anthony Herron as additional analysts, and Carolina Pineda as an additional sideline reporter. And now we know what the score bug will look like for this newly-expanded NBC college football coverage.

[Scorebug Watch on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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