Grading the SEC Network: Week 1
By Jerry Levi
So what happens when you give the head cheerleader the school microphone before the start of the day? She tells you how great her life is.
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Every…single…stinking…detail of it. Which is where we start when describing the SEC Network’s first couple of days of coverage since the college football season started. By all accounts its been a success. Their first game was Texas A&M at South Carolina. Who knows, maybe the SEC Network brass will look back fondly and say, ‘Our very first game was Kenny Hill’s first game into SEC greatness.’ But we’re getting WAY ahead of ourselves. Let’s go through some of the upside and downside of having the SEC Network and how their first week graded out and if they can sustain it. But more importantly, if you should keep it with your local cable provider.
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Commentators
Brent Musburger
When I first heard Brent Musburger’s voice come over the airwaves on Thursday night to cover the Texas A&M/South Carolina game, I thought to myself that the SEC Network and ESPN were going with a ‘seasoned’ veteran in Musburger and that they were ‘getting it right.’ But let’s be honest, Brent Musburger’s time has come and gone. If the SEC Network is supposed to be this ‘hot’ and new product that we the viewer are supposed to come onboard with, then it might be time to send Musburger to pasture. Now if Keith Jackson were still broadcasting, it wouldn’t even be close. “Woah Nellie!” Maybe ESPN was playing it safe and needed a safety valve in Musburger, a familiar voice to college football.
Jesse Palmer
Opposite Musburger in the booth is exactly what the southern SEC belles were clamoring for: a little eye candy on Saturdays in former Florida Gators QB Jesse Palmer. But look past the model looks and sculpted hair and ‘The Poor Man’s Herbstreit’ Palmer seems to know what he’s talking about and he’s not afraid to drown out Brent Musburger in the booth to do so. All in all, Palmer is a good fit for SEC fans and college football coverage in general. Good pickup SEC Network. But it begs the question: When is the network going to replace Musburger with an SEC familiar face like Joe Tessitore in the booth? Don’t be disappointed though, as Tessitore has his own preview show, SEC Nation, that debuted on the 28th. Still, Joe Tessitore seems like a natural fit in the booth for all the major SEC football games.
Analysts
Greg McElroy and ‘Booger’ McFarland
After watching the whooping Kenny Hill and the Aggies put on South Carolina, I stayed up for another half an hour and forced myself to watch the analysis of the game. Greg McElroy was contrite but to the point and Anthony ‘Booger’ McFarland complemented him well. However, how much can you go over in terms of analysis of every little thing that went on in the game? And are the ESPN brass going to hire anyone else that weren’t former SEC players to be commentators or analysts? McElroy played QB at Alabama, McFarland was a DT at LSU. Let’s not get started with Tim Tebow since I didn’t get a chance to see him on air but you know he’s going to be a fixture.
Intangibles
On Friday night I happened to switch over to the ‘SEC’, as I’ll call it now, and there was a weatherman reporting the weather for every SEC game on Saturday. Wow! They aren’t kidding around and certainly aren’t getting cheap when it comes to every detail. Props though for the ‘SEC Weather Department’ in calling the Florida/Idaho game a ‘probable downpour,’ which it was. No doubt we’ll get 2 hours of coverage on the postponement of it.
Saturday morning saw me switching over to see what was on and there was a 30 for 30 on Bo Jackson. It was great. My thinking is that ESPN has so many programs to put on the SEC Network that it would be decades before they ran out. So just based on Thursday through Saturday in that ESPN and the SEC Network really did their homework, I give them a B+. Just hire more people outside the SEC in order to not alienate the college fan. And by the way the Johnny Cash SEC commercial is epic…