ESPN College Football Announcers for 2010

Posted on August 5, 2010 by Sandlapper Spike

ESPN has released its assignments for its college football game coverage, as well as its studio coverage.  As always, there are some new crews.  Highlights:

— Among the tandems that work the high-profile ESPN/ABC games, the one significant change is in the “west coast” team, where there will now be a three-man booth — Carter Blackburn, Brock Huard, and Mike Bellotti.  The former Oregon coach is in his first season as an analyst; he works with Huard, who was the analyst for the SEC ESPNU primetime game last year.  Blackburn called mostly west coast games on the U last season after moving over from CBS College Sports.

That team essentially replaces the Terry Gannon/David Norrie duo from 2009. Gannon is not listed on this year’s release; he may just have too much already on his announcing plate (Dave Lamont filled in for him a few times last season as it was). Norrie is going to ESPN Radio, replacing Dennis Franchione as Bill Rosinski’s analyst.  Norrie will also work a few midweek TV games (along with Robert Smith), teaming with Beth Mowins.

— That’s right, there is now a second woman play-by-play voice calling college football for ESPN.  Mowins will apparently have a limited schedule.

Pam Ward is still around, and presumably as intolerant of injured players as ever. However, she’s been moved from the noon ET ESPN2 slot to 3:30 pm ET on ESPNU, much to the relief of Michigan State and Northwestern fans everywhere.  Her analyst will be Danny Kanell.

— Kanell, the former FSU quarterback, also will do some studio work.  He’s the breakout star, I guess, of the multitude of game callers/analysts who worked ESPN360 (now ESPN3.com) games last season.  What does that say about the talent featured on ESPN3.com in 2009?  Well…

The release doesn’t mention anything about who will work ESPN3.com games this year; it does note that “additional commentators will contribute throughout the season”.  There will be a lot of “additional contributors” both on ESPN3.com and on the regular TV platforms.  Week 1, for example, will include 11 games that will be shown live exclusively on ESPN3.com.

— Erin Andrews will be hosting the first hour of an expanded College Gameday (that was announced last month).  She will also be the sideline reporter for the game site from which the program originates, assuming it’s on ABC/ESPN/ESPN2.

That means the other high-profile game tandems will probably flip-flop sideline reporters a bit more often than normal, although most of the time Andrews will likely work with Brent Musberger and Kirk Herbstreit.  Last year, the sideline reporter with that duo was Lisa Salters, who will not be back this year.

Quint Kessenich moves from the Big East regional game of the week to a national gig; his replacement on the sidelines for the Big East games is Eamon McAnaney.  I think there is a lacrosse announcer quota involved in that switch, but I’m not sure.

Andrews won’t be roaming the sidelines on Thursday night any more.  “The new EA” is Jenn Brown, who like Andrews is a Florida grad, blond, and destined to become a sports blog/message board favorite.

— The other change on Thursday nights is Rece Davis taking over play-by-play duties from Chris Fowler.  I like Davis, although he isn’t really a natural at play-by-play, but I’m not a fan of the Craig James/Jesse Palmer dual threat.  I find their combined analysis rather banal; at least James wears a properly sized tie.

— Fowler remains the ringleader for College Gameday, with Lee Corso (who I hope has now fully recovered from his stroke), Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard.  There was little change in personnel for the major studio shows. That’s right, another year of Dr. Lou (with Davis and Mark May) and The Bachelor (with John Saunders).  Robert Flores takes over as the new update guy on ABC.

There were some moves on the SEC-on-ESPN desk.  Dari Nowkhah will now be the syndication studio host, as Rob Stone will call games on ESPNU (he’s working the noon U game with David Pollack).  Another change of interest for SEC fans is the new primetime team for that league on ESPNU.  Clay Matvick and Herm Edwards will replace Eric Collins and Brock Huard.  Edwards may be a San Diego State alum, but he strikes me as a natural pick to analyze SEC action, as teams in that conference definitely play to win the game.

As mentioned earlier, Huard is working west coast games this season, while Collins has apparently moved to the Big 10 Network.  If I see a release listing announcers for the BTN/CBS College Sports/etc., I’ll post it here; the other BTN announcing news of note I’ve seen suggests that Tom Hart will be joining that network.

Edit (8/25/10) — Here is the BTN release, with Hart and Collins listed as announcers:  Link

Another non-ESPN announcing note:  The ACC game of the week, produced by Raycom, will have a new analyst this year, with David Archer replacing Rick “Doc” Walker.  This, if not a national tragedy, is at least a regional outrage.  I need to know which ACC players are actually cyborgs.

— Anish Shroff will take over from Charlie Neal as the play-by-play man for ESPNU’s Thursday night games.  Luckily, CitiField will not host a football game this season.

— Joe Tessitore will call the Friday night ESPN2 games with Rod Gilmore again, but Tessitore (who I find enjoyably bombastic) will also be the play-by-play voice for the ESPN-3D games, which will feature separate production teams for “regular” and 3D broadcasts.  He’ll work with new analyst Tim Brown and sideline reporter Ray Bentley (who had worked with Pam Ward for the last three seasons).

— The noon ESPN/ESPN2 games will each have Grieses in the booth.  Bob Griese returns with Chris Spielman and Dave Pasch on ESPN, while the ESPN2 game will feature Brian Griese (who had a promising debut last year) with play-by-play man Bob Wischusen.

Pasch and Wischusen are both guys who could/should work higher-profile games, but each is a radio announcer for an NFL team (the Cardinals for Pasch, the Jets for Wischusen) and are basically limited to early-afternoon Saturday games on ESPN.

— Ron Franklin, who was planning on retiring, is back and working again with Ed Cunningham.  I hope that team gets some heavy-duty games this year.

—

Getting closer to kickoff…

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The Big XII really needs a better TV deal

Posted on October 27, 2008 by Sandlapper Spike

A few observations as I look over my TV listings chart for the upcoming college football weekend:

— The Ivy League will have one conference game not televised this week (Princeton-Cornell).  The Big XII will have two games not televised this week.  One of those games, MIssouri-Baylor, features the 14th-ranked team in the BCS facing a team led by an outstanding young quarterback (Robert Griffin).  It’s sure to be a wild shootout, like almost every other Big XII game this season, but it won’t be on TV.  The other game, Colorado-Texas A&M, isn’t much of a game, but in this day and age a major conference should have every one of its conference games on TV.  The Big XII’s current contract with Fox runs through 2011 and its ABC deal lasts through 2015, so I’m not sure things are going to change much for the next couple of years.

— I just realized the Southern Conference will also have two games not televised this week.  Clearly, the SoCon needs a better TV deal.  Having a deal comparable to the Big XII’s won’t cut it…

— The Pac-10 doesn’t have the greatest TV deal in the world either, but this week, it’s just as well.  Stanford-Washington State is not on TV, to the relief of Cougar fans everywhere.  Winless and soon to be Willingham-less Washington isn’t so lucky, having to travel to L.A. to play Southern Cal in FSN’s game of the week.  ABC snagged the solid Oregon-Cal matchup, so the only other game Fox had available was Arizona State-Oregon State, which will be its late-night game, so as not to offend east coast viewers.

— ESPN made Andre Ware’s travel plans much easier by assigning him Northwestern-Minnesota (with Dave Pasch).  Ware is also the radio analyst for the NFL’s Houston Texans, which are playing the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday.  If he wanted, he could sleep in the MetroDome, since both games will be played there.

I can’t remember exactly what he said, but during last week’s Texas Tech demolition of Kansas, Ware said something to the effect that his coaches at Houston, Jack Pardee and John Jenkins, didn’t try to run up the score when he was in the game.  I remember Houston beating SMU 95-21 the year Ware won the Heisman (admittedly, he didn’t play in the second half).  Jenkins, of course, was the coach when David Klingler threw 11 TDs in a game (against I-AA Eastern Washington).  Maybe they didn’t let Andre run up the score, but to be honest, that’s probably a subject he should avoid.

— I am assuming we are in for another fabulous “Interactive Tuesday” broadcast for South Florida-Cincinnati on Tuesday night.  Rece Davis and Lou Holtz (but not Mark May for some reason) call that one, with the current king of blowout fodder, Rob Stone, roaming the sidelines.  Personally, I don’t think Interactive Tuesday is the same without having Todd Harris doing play-by-play.  It’s much better when it’s a complete train wreck, as opposed to just a minor derailment.

— The best pre-Saturday game is without question an FCS game, the matchup between #2 Appalachian State and #3 Wofford, on ESPN2 Friday night.

— Florida vs. Georgia.  Florida State vs. Georgia Tech.  Big games in their respective conferences, a state of Florida vs. state of Georgia matchup in both cases, and naturally taking place at the same time.

— Pam Ward will be calling a Michigan State game for the fourth time this season.  Ray Bentley has actually called five Michigan State games, as Pam had WNBA duty for one game (Clay Matvick filled in for that one).  My sympathies to fans of the Spartans.  Hey, at least you’re on national TV every week.

— The most intriguing thing about Michigan-Purdue this week is what hair color Charissa “Not the porn actress” Thompson will be sporting.

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