I don't believe there's a need for further definition of saturation, is there?
What about good footage?
As much as I hate the idea of the producers flipping to Johnny Cam with the video feed I can live with this.
There's a good chance we'll get "through his eyes" view of what our defense looks like when he's about to take the snap. This puts Danielson in his comfort zone. There should be some good observations heard in the game commentary.
Can you image what it would be like if we had this type of technology a quarter of a century ago? Imagine Steve Beuerlein with a helmet cam.
They are calling it Johnny Cam. For the mega-showdown this Saturday at Kyle Field between Alabama and Texas A&M, CBS Sports has added an extra camera that will focus solely on Texas A&M quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. "No matter where he is and no matter what part of the game it is, we will have a shot of it," said Craig Silver, the coordinating producer of college football for CBS Sports. "If he is anywhere in sight of that camera, we will catch it."
Welcome to college football's early-season Super Bowl, at least according to the tonnage of television units that will be in College Station, Texas this weekend. CBS will air the game at 3:30 p.m. ET and its pregame show will also be onsite. So will the sport's most famous program -- ESPN's College GameDay. While Florida and Tennessee drew early-season buzz for their September showdowns in the 1990s, the summer of Manziel and Alabama's quest to three-peat has college football media types frothing at the mic.
Silver said CBS viewers should not expect a dissertation on the off-the-field issues surrounding Manziel during the CBS game broadcast. "By the time we get to kickoff, this thing will have been talked about ad nauseam throughout the sports world," Silver said. "We are not judge and jury. It is not our place, especially within the body of the broadcast, to state whether he should or should not be playing, should have been suspended or should not have been suspended. The way I approach it is how has all this stuff affected him as a football player and affected his team."
Added ESPN coordinating producer Lee Fitting, the executive in charge of GameDay: "I can promise you the show won't turn into 'Manziel Mania' for three hours. Will the viewer get their fill of Manziel? Sure. Will we cover every angle of the game? Yes. But will we go overboard? Absolutely not."
Silver said he considered keeping an isolation camera on former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight when he produced CBS's coverage of Big Ten basketball, and credited CBS Sports executive producer Harold Bryant with the Johnny Cam idea. "The one analogy I can make in terms of covering someone is we obviously spent four years covering Tim Tebow at Florida," said Silver, who has worked on CBS's SEC package since 1996. "I was always careful as a producer and I think Verne [Lundquist] and Gary [Danielson] were as broadcasters too to make sure we treated Tebow fairly. But let's face it, the guy was touching the ball every snap. I think people sometimes see what they want to see or hear what they want to hear. My main goal of this game is to just remember there is a lot more going on than Johnny Manziel."
But that doesn't mean Manziel won't get significant attention. Silver said CBS requested an on-camera interview with Manziel, as well as the quarterback's presence for meetings with the CBS production staff this Friday. Silver said he has been in constant contact with Texas A&M officials including coach Kevin Sumlin over the summer and classified those discussions as having been professional and productive.
The network also requested Alabama coach Nick Saban as well as Tide quarterback AJ McCarron. (Silver said CBS asked for camera access in the locker room, which most SEC football teams usually do not allow.) Those requests will be decided by Texas A&M this week, and Fitting said ESPN has also requested interviews with Manziel and Saban.
The game presents a number of challenges for CBS. Not only is it network's college football debut -- which means the crew has not had reps in nine months -- it's also the first time this group has done a game from Kyle Field, which has a very high broadcast booth. Mistakes here, obviously, will be magnified.
As for viewer tune-in, the game is guaranteed to get monster ratings. Excluding last year's SEC Championship Game, CBS's most-watched college football game in 2012 was Alabama's win over LSU last Nov. 3. That game averaged 11.4 million viewers and this should easily top it.
What about good footage?
As much as I hate the idea of the producers flipping to Johnny Cam with the video feed I can live with this.
There's a good chance we'll get "through his eyes" view of what our defense looks like when he's about to take the snap. This puts Danielson in his comfort zone. There should be some good observations heard in the game commentary.
Can you image what it would be like if we had this type of technology a quarter of a century ago? Imagine Steve Beuerlein with a helmet cam.
They are calling it Johnny Cam. For the mega-showdown this Saturday at Kyle Field between Alabama and Texas A&M, CBS Sports has added an extra camera that will focus solely on Texas A&M quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Manziel. "No matter where he is and no matter what part of the game it is, we will have a shot of it," said Craig Silver, the coordinating producer of college football for CBS Sports. "If he is anywhere in sight of that camera, we will catch it."
Welcome to college football's early-season Super Bowl, at least according to the tonnage of television units that will be in College Station, Texas this weekend. CBS will air the game at 3:30 p.m. ET and its pregame show will also be onsite. So will the sport's most famous program -- ESPN's College GameDay. While Florida and Tennessee drew early-season buzz for their September showdowns in the 1990s, the summer of Manziel and Alabama's quest to three-peat has college football media types frothing at the mic.
Silver said CBS viewers should not expect a dissertation on the off-the-field issues surrounding Manziel during the CBS game broadcast. "By the time we get to kickoff, this thing will have been talked about ad nauseam throughout the sports world," Silver said. "We are not judge and jury. It is not our place, especially within the body of the broadcast, to state whether he should or should not be playing, should have been suspended or should not have been suspended. The way I approach it is how has all this stuff affected him as a football player and affected his team."
Added ESPN coordinating producer Lee Fitting, the executive in charge of GameDay: "I can promise you the show won't turn into 'Manziel Mania' for three hours. Will the viewer get their fill of Manziel? Sure. Will we cover every angle of the game? Yes. But will we go overboard? Absolutely not."
Silver said he considered keeping an isolation camera on former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight when he produced CBS's coverage of Big Ten basketball, and credited CBS Sports executive producer Harold Bryant with the Johnny Cam idea. "The one analogy I can make in terms of covering someone is we obviously spent four years covering Tim Tebow at Florida," said Silver, who has worked on CBS's SEC package since 1996. "I was always careful as a producer and I think Verne [Lundquist] and Gary [Danielson] were as broadcasters too to make sure we treated Tebow fairly. But let's face it, the guy was touching the ball every snap. I think people sometimes see what they want to see or hear what they want to hear. My main goal of this game is to just remember there is a lot more going on than Johnny Manziel."
But that doesn't mean Manziel won't get significant attention. Silver said CBS requested an on-camera interview with Manziel, as well as the quarterback's presence for meetings with the CBS production staff this Friday. Silver said he has been in constant contact with Texas A&M officials including coach Kevin Sumlin over the summer and classified those discussions as having been professional and productive.
The network also requested Alabama coach Nick Saban as well as Tide quarterback AJ McCarron. (Silver said CBS asked for camera access in the locker room, which most SEC football teams usually do not allow.) Those requests will be decided by Texas A&M this week, and Fitting said ESPN has also requested interviews with Manziel and Saban.
The game presents a number of challenges for CBS. Not only is it network's college football debut -- which means the crew has not had reps in nine months -- it's also the first time this group has done a game from Kyle Field, which has a very high broadcast booth. Mistakes here, obviously, will be magnified.
As for viewer tune-in, the game is guaranteed to get monster ratings. Excluding last year's SEC Championship Game, CBS's most-watched college football game in 2012 was Alabama's win over LSU last Nov. 3. That game averaged 11.4 million viewers and this should easily top it.
