My Unscientific Unempirial Totally Ridiculous But Halfway Serious 2011 College Football Predictions: Big 12 Conference

In 2009, I went through all the major BCS conferences and created some semi-amusing, totally off-base and (eventually) inaccurate predictions and bowl projections for the upcoming college football season. In 2010, I was working nonstop throughout the summer without a break and never had the chance to put together some predictions. So now that I have some free time on my hands, it’s time to do some predictions – and I’ll start with the conference I know best, the Big 12. Read the rest of this entry »

PA guys in Big 12

I’ve been fortunate enough to watch enough Big 12 football in my career at Mizzou to hear most of the stadium PA announcers either in person or on TV. Here’s a quick list of how they stack up, in my boredom.

1) Randy Wright, Missouri: Of course he’s a huge homer and I’m totally biased towards him but he does an excellent job both feeding off the crowd and getting people fired up at football or basketball games. He rarely makes mistakes with players’ names/numbers and usually has pretty good phrasing for plays. I’ll give him and the Mizzou marketing people credit for coming up with the “First down, M-I-Z” – you can hear him around :15 in this:
2) Name unknown, Oklahoma State: This guy has an AWESOME voice. He uses a few quirks in his announcing – i.e. instead of the overused, cliche “That’s good for a [insert team name and wait for crowd to yell 1st down]” he says “Oklahoma State 1st down and ten”. He also doesn’t use the opposing team’s name – simply saying, for instance, on defense “3rd down and 3…for the visitor.” Definitely a fan. You can kind of hear him in this
3) Name unknown, Kansas: The state of Kansas is pretty good for PA guys. Like OSU, this guy has an great voice. I haven’t been to a game in Lawrence but having heard him in the background on TV and the radio, he doesn’t get too fired up and lets his inflection carry the enthusiasm, instead of yelling or sounding crazy. It sounds like he avoids cliches and sticks to the basics, and, gets them right. I’m guessing he’s an old-school guy and he does a good job.
4) Name unknown, Kansas State: Also has a great voice, but uses too many cliches/overused phrases to try and fire up the crowd i.e. “That’s another WILDCAT [pause while waiting for crowd to yell "First Down"]” I also noticed several crucial errors in identifying opposing players – for instance, identifying Aldon Smith as someone else, or completely missing Sean Weatherspoon for someone else. Not sure if you can hear him in this, but it’s worth a try.
Schools I have not heard: Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor, Nebraska, Colorado. For the sake of this article, we’ll assume they fill slots 5-11 as I leave the schools below out for a reason.
11) Name unknown, Oklahoma: Not a very good voice, occasionally to the point of irritation for listeners and fans. His voice was monotone and lacking depth. He had decent form and phrasing, but I do recall him saying Chase “Daniels” instead of Daniel, a crucial mistake for any announcer’s credibility. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but he sounded like a less enthusiastic Alex Anthony (New York Mets’ PA announcer)
12) Name unknown, Iowa State: Probably the worst PA guy I’ve heard call a football game at any level. While it could be a symptom of a bad sound system, the guy sounded like he was literally screaming into the microphone. To make matters worse, he used every cliche in the book – from “THAT’S ANOTHER CYCLONNNNNNNNNNNNEEEE FIRST DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!” again, literally SCREAMING into the microphone, while on defensive 3rd downs, shouting “IT’S 3RD DOWN AND ___ MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!!!” Overall, very irritating – and it’s unforgivable to announce like that if you don’t have the voice for it. You can kind of get a sense of this guy from this:

November update

This is the 1st Friday I’ve been free since the start of the semester! I’ve shot football games just about every Friday night, and with high school football just about over, I’m pretty much free now on Friday nights. I’m gearing up for a trip to Manhattan, Kansas tomorrow for Mizzou’s game against the Kansas State Wildcats. This will be my 2nd road trip (3rd if you count the Illinois game) for Mizzou football, and I’ve shot every game except for Nevada. It’s been a blast to shoot all the Mizzou games, despite the disappointing record and tough home losses. I can honestly say I’ve shot in all weather conditions this season – from torrential rain and cold during the Nebraska game, to warm and humid during Bowling Green and Furman, and plain ol’ chilly during the Oklahoma State game. Tomorrow looks to be in the 50s and overcast, so it should be comfortable. Meanwhile, producing sports has gone well. I’ve definitely improved since I began. It’s VERY easy – much easier than I thought. I’ve even gotten to the point to where I think “Hey, this isn’t so bad, I could do this for a living” until I realize it’s still not the greatest place to be. But hey, at least I’ve gotten some experience in it and had some fun with it.

I noticed my last update came after the Nebraska game. I traveled to Oklahoma State the next weekend to shoot the game down there – also really cool but a disappointing result again. I was greatly impressed with the quality of Boone Pickens Stadium – insanely nice overall. The attention to detail is immaculate – everything from deluxe catered meals for the media to OSU engraved elevator buttons. Clearly, ol’ Boone is sinking money into his namesake’s building, and I can definitely see the results. However, I thought the crowd would be a lot louder than it was – perhaps because the stadium’s capacity is around 55,000 – but after experiencing OU in 2007 I expected the same outrageous decibel level in Stillwater. It only got really loud after Gabbert’s pick-6 and OSU’s TD towards the end of the 1st half. Their student section seemed into the game the whole time, and their odd paddles certainly made a lot of noise. But, I can definitely say Boone Pickens Stadium, while VERY nice and luxurious, is not nearly as tough to play in as I’d expected.

I’m curious to see if Bill Snyder Family Stadium is any more hostile! I’ll be sure to take plenty of pictures and such of the journey. Will Maetzold and Brandon Spiegel are joining me on this trip – Maetzold hitching a ride and covering it for Palestra.net, Spiegel also with KOMU.

Check out my Youtube for some of my packages – here’s an embedded link.