Saturday, September 5, 2009

Week 1 Channel Surfing

We'll try to do one of these each week, going from channel to channel on the DirecTV here. I'll have this as a running entry for Saturday and, for this week, Sunday and Monday.

Please be aware, I might leave the house, take a nap, have a life...

11:20pm
  • They talk about how Husky Stadium will often noticeably shake when the crowd is really hot there and with an opening score against LSU, its no different. Lot of LSU fans in Seattle too.
  • Just showed Nick Holt on TV. Holt had an interesting set of job changes in 2006, resigning as Idaho's head coach to take an assistant coaching job with the St. Louis Rams on 2/6/06, then resigned from the Rams a day later (no signed contract) to take the defensive coordinator job at USC.

8:10pm
  • SEC regional cable telecasts debuted and both entities that broadcast these games (Fox Sports regional and CSS) are using the ESPN look and feel instead of using the FSN and CSS graphics. The FSN game was branded as SEC College Football Saturday, similar to FSN's other franchises, Big 12 College Football Saturday and PAC-10 College Football Saturday.
  • I really wish Florida would have found a better FCS team than Charleston Southern.
  • Unexpected surprise: The national telecast of Alabama - Va. Tech is on ESPN360.com which I didn't see noted on other listings.
  • Never noticed the Cougar helmet stickers for BYU.
  • Nice touch for HBCU fans. Prairie View A&M - Texas Southern is airing live on ESPN360.com where it will be aired on delay on ESPNU.

6:04pm
  • Took the afternoon off for a nap. Either way, I'm not quite buying the HD that FSN Northwest was selling for the Stanford-WSU game. Portland St.-Oregon St. looked like HD, this looks like widescreen, kinda.
3:22pm
  • Couple nice finishes in the Big Ten: Navy - Ohio St. game where you had to figure the Mids would bring it and they did. Then Northern Iowa with the wacky finish when they had their game winning FG blocked but recovered it behind the line, so it remained UNI ball. Took about seven minutes to finally rule. And...they blocked another kick.
  • Doug Marrone coached in the pros and he has to know prevent defense prevents wins.

2:20pm
  • Flipped on the FSN Northwest pregame show for their doubleheader. Looks like both games in HD as the pregame show appears to be in HD, or at least in widescreen. Looks like we'll see a fair amount of regional FSN games in HD.

1:18pm
  • SEC Network looks sharp. Looks like ESPN, sounds like Raycom, at least with Dave Neal at the mic.
  • While it isn't appearing on their own website, Zap2it.com is reporting that New Orleans' based RSN Cox Sports TV (CST) will also air the Western Carolina-Vandy game tonight.

12:54pm
  • ECU finally appears on MASN, with a telecast that so far has no PxP. Feels like the scoreboard feed. But then after commercial we get announcers and a welcome regarding the MASN telecast.

12:42pm
  • ECU fans outside of the WITN broadcast area must be wondering where their MASN telecast is. MASN hasn't even put up a courtesy crawl in the event there is a problem providing MASN the game
  • Taking the SEC pregame show must be an option. Doesn't look like MSG picked it up but Fox Sports Detroit did.
  • Primary game on the tube is the Minnesota-Syracuse game, which seems to be taking a long time. At least the dome seems to be into it.
  • My 1st extended use of ESPN360.com since I moved to a house that was able to get AT&T DSL. I like it, even if it seems to be about 5 seconds behind live action. Nice to quickly switch between games.

1 comment:

jason202 said...

Re: the noon SEC Network game on 9/5: This game was listed for weeks in the listings for Comcast Sportsnet Mid-Atlantic. While it was still showing up on zap2it and on the cable guide, it disappeared from the schedule on CSN's Web site, and was replaced with some Maryland Terrapins program and volleyball, with no explanation. The 9/19 North Texas at Alabama SEC Network game is still listed on their site, but who knows if that will change.