On November 7th, anyone who considered themselves a college football fan had their eyes glued to their TV screen as #5 Stanford Cardinal hosted the #3 Oregon Ducks. ESPN was lucky enough to have coverage of the game so I decided it would be a good idea to check out how they covered arguably the biggest game of this college football season so far.
The broadcasters for the evening were the usual Thursday night men: Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, and David Pollack. You could tell they had done their homework on both the squads playing that evening. ESPN has always been known to sports fans as the ultimate source for any storyline, information, or statistic, especially when it comes to big time teams which they chose to air on their networks. All three sportscasters were equipped with every tool they needed to make the broadcast as interesting as possible. Statistics, graphics, and quality player analysis had the viewers listening between every play to learn all they could about each team. Now having all of the tools which ESPN provided each telecaster is very valuable for those, but only if they know how to use it. Palmer and Pollack were always ready after each play with quality information and background on each player which they used as the game went on to develop the story into some sort of soap opera. The plot was the actions on the field, the characters were the players, and the tensions built by each member of the broadcast team came from their stories about this same game last year between the Cardinal and the Ducks. Even early in the first quarter, tensions were built as announcers questioned if Heisman Trophy candidate Marcus Mariota was suddenly in question about his nerves before this game. The last team he had thrown an interception against in fact was Stanford.
As the game moved from the 1st quarter, the background information on players faded, the broadcasters had set up the story successfully in the first quarter and it was time to move on to the new story which was already unfolding starting in the 2nd. As Stanford put up their second touchdown of the evening, right after QB Kevin Hogan almost tossed one up for an interception. Great commentary from the squad discussed how Hogan averaged "five bad plays per game" saying he could not have five bad plays against Oregon. The very next play (after his interception was nullified via defensive pass interference) Hogan took one in for a touchdown on a zone read option play similar to something we would expect from Oregon. The analysts quickly responded with "What bad play? All I see is a good play right there!" Even when Oregon was suddenly down by 2 scores, the announcers did a good job keeping things intriguing for fans watching at home, reminding everyone that although the Ducks have been slow starters before and letting everyone know how 14 points is nothing to this Duck offense.
Things eventually got out of hand, and the statistics started favoring the Cardinal.
ESPN does a good job at making their games interesting and informative by giving their broadcasters all the technical tools to do a good job. It takes a special trained crew, such as Davis, Palmer, and Pollack to make the magic happen however. Watching ESPN was never anything I thought twice about, but the way their broadcasters use the technology they are given, makes it the number one sports source to the world.
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