Today I’m going to pat ourselves on the back for a change.

I thought NSN’s coverage of the Shrine game was top notch. The camera work was excellent, the replays were great! Also kudos to Brett Franklin who was on the broadcast for the first time. We had never worked together and believe me it is a lot harder than it looks.

I had a private face book chat with the line coach who watched the replay and was critical of the way one of Vermont’s touchdowns was called. He later published the play on face book complimenting the linemen on a perfect play and mentioned that only coaches and linemen understand. Brett and I get that. We get what the linemen are doing, but when broadcasting a game especially on radio as was the case with the Shrine game since there were radio stations picking up our video cast , you just don’t have time to get into detail as to what happened behind the scenes on a TD play. You have to call the TD, make sure you give the distance, time and score first, then a quick color analysis which has to be first about the players who handled the ball. After that its commercial break time. You’re not dissing the linemen, but you just don’t have time. In the case on Saturday when NSN was showing the replays radio stations were taking commercial breaks.

So if coaches can say only coaches and linemen understand, which isn’t completely true,those of us in the broadcast media can say categorically only broadcasters can understand about what it takes to broadcast a game.

By the way the linemen were given tons of credit during the game. They were not being overlooked. Also on the play in question which was Dylan Ellis’ 17 yard touchdown that iced the Vermont victory with 9:02 to go in the game, I was told by the coach that it was a counter play, not an inside hand off which is what I said. Let me say that it was an inside hand off and I called it as such. Yes I could’ve said counter play and I might call it that way in the future, but at the time calling it an inside hand off was just as accurate.

Only broadcasters would understand that! As Simon and Garfunkel once said ” A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.”

Yes every single broadcaster who takes pride in his or her work will always say they can do better and will continue to strive for that perfect game, but  I can say the NSN production of the Shrine Game was pretty damn good!