By Brad Hubbard | @bradhubbard
ESPN tried out its ‘Megacast’ for the BCS National Championship on Monday night. While you wouldn’t have noticed if you were watching the game on ESPN if you flipped over to ESPNews or ESPN2 you saw some experiments and one stood out above the rest.
ESPNews had the Film Room. This featured analysts Matt Millen and Chris Spielman along with current Head Coaches Kevin Sumlin, Paul Chryst and Joe Addazio and was hosted, more or less, by Tom Luginbill. The main shots they had were the wide side shot of the game so they could see the entire field and watch the plays develop and the skycam that would be directly behind the QB.
This was really for the super college football fan. Coaches talking about how timeouts effect momentum, blocks and situational play calling while Spielman, who got really excited about a textbook tackle at one point, and Millen would do most of the driving for the show. They would ask questions to the coaches and keeping them involved. This group would get so carried away that they even replayed a run play by Auburn where there were two really good double team blocks. Addazio, the former offensive lineman, got really excited when he saw that.
The experience was not without its flaws. The had to break at the same time as the main broadcast which limited the insight that the coaches could give and Luginbill really was kind of an add on. It appeared that the producers felt they needed someone there to control the clicker and to keep everyone talking in case the coaches and analysts clammed up. In the end, the show could have gone on without him but he did provide some insight on young players at times.
Regardless of what the ratings say, this Film Room concept was a winner for the hard core fans. It was insightful, interesting and a pleasure to watch. While at times rigid it still worked. ESPN obviously cannot do this for every game but at the very minimum having the wide shot of the field available on ESPN3 would be a nice takeaway.
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