Fox on Unfamiliar Turf with Bowl Games

Terry Bradshaw hasn't worked a game as an analyst in 17 years. Howie Long never has. Neither has ever done a college game in any capacity. And yet, for Fox's telecast of Wednesday's Allstate Sugar Bowl, the network's two premier studio personalities will be the voices in the booth along with play-by-play man Kenny Albert.

"Pray for us," was said by Bradshaw. There is little anxiety here. The biggest attaboy we can get is if folks are on the street the next day, are the opinions of most announcers. Such is the quandary Fox faced when it acquired the rights to the Sugar, Fiesta and Orange Bowls plus the first stand-alone BCS championship game in a four-year, $320 million deal. ABC retained the Rose Bowl.

For Fox, that's four games over the next eight days, starting with the Fiesta Bowl. Though Fox airs other big ticket items like the NFL, Major League Baseball and Nascar, it has no national regular-season college football coverage, except for games on its regional networks. But, rather than turning to those resources, it has fashioned a mixed bag of announcing teams, combining names from the NFL like Bradshaw, Long, an Jimmy Johnson (who will be on the pre-game and halftime shows) and baseball (Fiesta bowl and title game play-by-play man Ton Brenna man) lineup, two borrowed from other networks (Orange Bowl analyst Pat Hayden and title game analyst Charles Davis) and new-comers like former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez, who will do commentary for the championship game.

It's a significant challenge, according to Fox Sports President Ed Goren. it remains to be one of the first year they took on NA SCAR and the first show was the Dayton 500. This is like doing four Super Bowls without a regular-season build-up. But what you hear and see will be college football, no doubt about that. Still, the games promise to have a different feel from the ABC versions, just as Fox brought a different feel to NFL and baseball broadcasts.

One change is that pre-game shows will originate from the four bowl sites rather than New York as was the case with the previous eight years of BXS games. Pre-game host Chris Rose and Johnson will travel from Phoenix to Miami to New Orleans over the next three days before returning to Phoenix for the title game. Former Notre Dame Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown will be the guest host for the Sugar Bowl pre-game. Also, Goren promises there won't be any ill-advised segments like the Jessica Simpson half-time show from the Orange Bowl two years ago.

Last year at the Fiesta and noticed the band members from Notre Dame and Ohio State stretching before the game just like the cheerleaders because they're part of the flavor and tradition of college football. It's not just about the players on the field. Fox is devoting playoff level cameras, microphones and other technology to the telecast. And it's not like Bradshaw & Co. will just wing it. They have done a couple of mock games using soundless feeds, which Goren said surprised him with their quality. To Bradshaw, the mock broadcasts were a great learning tool.