TheFletch from AWeek ago

Sorry it is a bit late. I forgot to post it this past Monday. Enjoy the shot at Georgia Tech!

College football is BACK and soon the National Football League will be in our living rooms, in our mancaves and in our sports bars. Thank goodness Labor Day is past us (one of my favorite holidays because it means the start of football), because now football is upon us.

Several quick thoughts from the opening weekend of college football: Nessler is great and Pollack is SO much better on television than on the radio. First off, Brad Nessler made watching the second half of the Boise State/Georgia game tolerable (for me as a Georgia fan at least. I am sure Georgia Tech fans loved watching the Georgia game for different reasons, those that weren’t consumed with watching their own game on the web or attending DragonCon). Nessy is of course lives in Georgia so when he talks about the Bulldog program, you get the sense that he actually knows what he is talking about instead of what he crammed in a two-hour interview the week of the game. At one point he discussed Mark Richt on the hotseat and how the “radio stations were sure to heat up” and odds are he probably does listen every now and then to the local two sports talk stations when in town and not out on assignment. Later he talked about the Buford/Carver-Columbus game from the night before and it was just nice to hear someone nationally speaking about a local high school game. It gave me, as a Georgia high school football fan, a bit of a thrill to hear it talked about nationally.

I also enjoyed watching former Georgia All-American and former 790 The Zone personality David Pollack on ESPN Gameday. He seemed far more comfortable in the three-minutes-at-a-time spots on ESPN opposed to how he sounded nervous/uncomfortable most of the time on 790 The Zone. Perhaps he had a better rapport with his co-hosts on Gameday moreso than he did with Mike Bell, but this appears to be the better fit for Pollack and it is good for him that he found it.

Speaking of Mike Bell, he and David Archer are now officially a team on 790 The Zone’s afternoon drive slot, bringing up an interesting shift between the two local sports talk stations. When Bell was teammates with Pollack and up against 680 The Fan’s Buck & Kincade, Pollack & Bell seemed to skew more towards the younger demo and court the 25-39 audience. Now that 680 moved Chuck & Chernoff into that spot, the younger audience (myself included) is likely flipping back and forth more often between the two. Ever since Arch & Bell has been on though, has the dynamic completely flipped in that 680 is going after the younger crowd with 790 featuring the two 40+ guys going after the older end of the demo? It seems like a strange flop but Arch & Bell keep throwing out movie/music/television references from before my birth and playing the “back in my day” card. My, how the tides quickly change.

GPB has been all over the 2011 high school football season so far and don’t look for the coverage to ramp down at all with the region matchups beginning soon. Gil Tyree and Dave Hunter were joined in the booth last week by Trey McDaniel, and having worked with McDaniel before I can say that his presence was a great addition. McDaniel called games for years on 790 The Zone and his voice is professional-grade and his high school football knowledge is first-grade. Dave Hunter offers a true former-coach-in-the-booth view and he can break down how the safety came up to fill the gap like no other in the state. On the web side, Bob Houghton and I have had two great finishes so far this year and if last year is any indicator, the great finishes will last throughout the entire season. Be sure to log on this Friday as Kell travels to Woodstock. Word is the Wolverines will have a special 9-11 tribute before the game. Two years ago we webcasted the 9-11 tribute also at Woodstock then watched a tremendous game where McEachern’s Rajaan Bennett rallied the Indians to an overtime win.

I’ve managed to catch a few of the other high school football broadcasts (thank you Charter DVR!) and I must say that we are in the golden age of GHSA football coverage. WSB’s Zach Klein has teamed with the AJC’s Michael Carvell and the two are getting a feel for each other, though Klein is really talented calling play-by-play. The WSB broadcast has improved over last year’s coverage ten times over and the Thursday night game concept is really clever as to not get lost on a triple-digit channel number on a Friday night. Meanwhile CSS has rotated its crew a bit the last few weeks but the games have been entertaining and it is interesting going with Barton Simmons, a full-time recruiting expert as your color commentator, but he is providing some great recruiting background on the players involved. Matt Stewart continues to roll on without missing a beat as one of Atlanta’s broadcasting treasures.

Finally I was a little disappointed after listening to Yahoo! Sports Radio for over a month and not hearing much of a change from Sporting News Radio. 790 The Zone goes to Yahoo! Sports Radio for its after-hours programming and I listened in on August 1, 2011 when the change was officially made as SNR became Y!SR. I thought that perhaps more of the Yahoo! Sports writers (who are actually becoming better at writing about sports rather than just pushing agendas cough-ESPN-cough) would get airtime to break down the day’s top stories and biggest rumors. No luck though. So far the same shows are airing under the company name Yahoo! Sports Radio instead of Sporting News Radio. I am a bit disappointed. If I listen to overnight and weekend programming I am still listening to ESPN radio. I would have loved if Yahoo! had tried to steal away some of that airtime but alas.


Can You Believe He Said That
"So much for 'halftime adjustments,' eh? And so much for Joe Tereshinski’s conditioning methods."
Mark Bradley of the AJC seems to enjoy needling the Georgia Bulldog football program, but I must agree with his thoughts here. Why did Todd Grantham not make the adjusts after Boise State adjusted to him? And why were Georgia’s players cramping up so much IN A DOME? They weren’t outside in the heat. It was night…in a dome. What is up with the fatigue in the team’s first game? Lots of questions after that one.