ESPN Struggles

[RE Tycoon]

Was anyone else annoyed by ESPN constantly missing the start of a play? I understand at the beginning of the game trying to get used to the flow of the game and Tech's hurry up offense, but they were constantly missing the snap while panning around that ugly stadium and showing the West Texas hillbillies.

[soccermom]

Yes, we noticed that but as I posted on another topic, it bugged the daylights out of me that their announcers were so HORRIBLE!! Called Potts Padron and didn't know much about the game of football in general!Oh well.........we were on t.v and made an impressive showing.

[The PonyGrad]

Yes, we noticed that but as I posted on another topic, it bugged the daylights out of me that their announcers were so HORRIBLE!! Called Potts Padron and didn't know much about the game of football in general!Oh well.........we were on t.v and made an impressive showing.

Called Tech - Virginia Tech

Stupid comment about how it was a touchback since the ball broke the plane!

[SMU89]

At one point, I think they missed an entire play. Might have been coming back from commercial.

Early on, camera work was terrible.

[soccermom]

When he was quickly changing his analysis of that (ball breaking the plane) and saying the exact opposite, his "knowledge" of the game, that supposedly qualifies him for the job, was evident.

[MiracleOnMockingbird]

I found it odd that every time an "SMU fan" shot was called for they cut to that same kid with long hair and glasses.

[soccermom]

and that shot was still, by far, better than the one of the tt boys ringing bells!!!!!There is no way either of my sons would be caught dead ringing bells in the stands-------unless they were paid LOTS of money!!!

[mustangxc]

The most blatant mistake was when ESPN was still running a promo as SMU scored it's last touchdown, All we got to see was the actual catch!

[Big Hoss]

Scary thing is that one of the announcers was Bob Davie, former Notre Dame head coach, and Texas A&M assistant coach.

[mustangbill67]

Watching the late Sports Center last night and one of the guys mentioned Padron about 4 times but mis-pronounced his name so badly that without the video clip you would not have known who he was talking about. Just reading a script, probably for the first time, while caring less about the quality of his presentation.

[Longtime]

Announcers are bad everywhere.

Most annoying thing to my eye was that after all these years, ESPN still uses the wrong SMU logo, the Phony Pony (see my avatar). How in the h-e-double hockey sticks does SMU allow this to happen? What other school in the country would allow ESPN to use an improper logo?

Second most annoying thing: The length of the game. ESPN's commercial breaks were ridiculously long. And the breaks between the quarters were even longer. Don't blame it on all the passing, the blame goes squarely on ESPN. I really felt for those folks broiling in the stands while ESPN ran promo after promo.

Even at home, it's hard to maintain 100 percent interest for four hours and waiting through all those long breaks. College football will never address this issue unless people stop showing up or tuning in, but it really hurts the quality of the product.

[Three Putt]

Stupid comment about how it was a touchback since the ball broke the plane!

Actually, that is correct. If a scrimmage kick (punt) breaks the plane, it's a touchback. If a free kick breaks the plane, it's still a live ball, however, it becomes dead once it touches in the end zone.

[newshound]

Funny thing is, they had the right logo on ESPNEWS. Don't know about SportsCenter. How does ESPN have two DIFFERENT logos?

[sail420s]

They mentioned SMU missing "Shawnberry" McNeal. There was also two fouls that were called that were never mentioned. While they were scanning the crowd, the little yellow "flag" box popped up in the corner of the screen. When the camera came back to the field, the ball was moved five yards. No video of the ref signaling the call or mention of it by the announcers.

[Alysa]

Yes. It is very annoying and disrespectful.
I think that they show us what they think we are interested in seeing.

They do that to us in track. They don't really show us racing much on tv. They show cameos of the athletes and commercials and the tv analysts make up silly stories like a curve of doom (on a track).