Is poor. Very, very poor.
Maybe I’m just paying more attention this year than in recent years, but the inability of announcers to follow what is happening on the field, to consistently get calls incorrect (including whether someone gains a first down or not), and to botch instant replay predictions is amazing. They still get stuck trying to fit games into their pre-conceived, pre-game analysis, not matter what happens in the actual game, but they’ve been doing that for forever.
Even though it has been more than a week, take a good example from the Rutgers-North Carolina game a few Thursdays ago. North Carolina put a beatdown on Rutgers, beating them in every aspect of the game. There were a couple of lucky bounces that went NC’s way, and a couple of unlucky bounces that went against Rutgers. The announcers (Tirico’s team) decided to ‘analyze’ the bounces ad nauseum and that’s fine. But then, there was a punt, and NC appeared to down it on the 6 inch line. The announcers go nuts and go on and on and on, with multiple replays, analyzing footwork at the goal line, blah blah, ‘isn’t it amazing how every bounce is going there way’, etc. etc. etc. Except in every replay, the referee was clearly signalling a touchback. 60 seconds later, play resumes. At the 20. Because it was a touchback. NONE of the announcers point this out, even though they just rambled for 90 seconds about how NC downed it inside the one.
One thing that is pretty obvious at this point is that they don’t have a screen that shows the electronic first-down line, because they seem to be way too inaccurate in figuring out whether a play gained a first down or not. “And he makes that extra move to gain a first down.” Uh, no, he’s a yard and a half short.
And one other thing. Pay attention to the officiating crew. When the officials are all in a huddle, that’s usually a sign there was a penalty, you might want to bring it up and stop showing multiple replays of a play that’s coming back. If they signal incomplete, that means the receiver didn’t catch the ball. If they signal a catch, it isn’t incomplete.
And so on.