The color analyst for the games, Mark Fuller, is also the father of Auburn’s Game 2 starting pitcher, Brooks Fuller.
He’s showing that in his commentary. Which I would do if my son was on the team.
ok .he is doing a good job.
He’s also a former Auburn player and assistant coach.
Their bias is showing, but it’s not awful
I thought they did a good job - better than most SEC Plus hometown announcers. Actually had done their homework and knew stuff about Arkansas players.
I like to think Dolan and Ecklund make the same impression on other fans watching our home games.
They didn’t do a good job with keeping up with who had a hit at times and scrambled Heston’s last name! I do like them better than the crew in Baton Rouge
I thought they were much better today than yesterday. That might have been because we jumped on Aubie early & never let up. Fuller was complimentary of our team & program. I could still hear the bias, but it wasn’t unwarranted bias. I expect the hometown guys to be a bit biased for their team.
I thought it was pretty poor commentary throughout the series. I’m almost always at Arkansas’ home games, so I don’t hear the Arkansas broadcasts. Perhaps the bias is strong on those, too.
My observations were that the play-by-play man was often against calls that went against Auburn until he saw a replay, then would say something along the lines of, “OK, the umpire got that one right after all.” I can live with that, though; he’s feeding off the energy of the home crowd.
What I had the most issue with was the color analyst’s lack of knowledge about Arkansas, which was indicative of a lack of homework. For instance, he went on and on about Ezell looking like a second baseman playing first base without ever referencing the injury that has him playing the position.
I noticed they made a big deal about the Hogs not “throwing it around” after an out with nobody on. They suggested the Hogs wanted to speed up the game. I don’t think they ever do that.
Actually I thought the guy was very complimentary of us. I enjoyed the broadcast.
For me, it was calling Heston “Herstad”. Pick up the media guide if you’re not going to know the name of the All American that’s about to face your son.
The thing I notice about our announcers is that they at least try to combat the appearance of hometown. In fact, the little dude they had doing the PBP for years would do so to the point of over correcting (I always got the impression he was angling for a different gig that never came until he was shown the door).
We are pretty spoiled. We had Chuck and now Phil and the guy who does TV PBP now is a real pro.
I know there’s always going to be some. It’s when you cover 1 of the 2 teams all the time (on the TV feed) but I respect that our guys seem to try to be pros.
Obviously Eli Gold was very good for Bama, too.
The color guy – parent of the Auburn pitcher – was better than the play-by-play guy. The lead play-by-play is not what we saw two weeks ago with Eli Gold. Not in the same league. But few are. Eli is the standard for radio guys in most regards.
This is not what the SEC Network would want for the host team to do the broadcasts. But they don’t get to pick them, the host school does.
But remember this, it is the host school’s broadcast. For example, if you were from Auburn and listened to Phil Elson and Bubba Carpenter do the game, you’d think the same thing. As Bubba says “we” and “us” then you want to turn it off if you are not a Razorback fan. You don’t think anything of that. It’s who they are and I’m fine with that. An Auburn fan would not be.
Fuller did have the Auburn scouting report on Arkansas’ pitchers. He knew there pitch command and what they were going to do, so he got that from the Auburn coaches. It was interesting to hear the scouting report on the Hogs, especially that they are curve ball first pitchers. That’s the way of top level college pitching now, by the way.
That is what one major league scout told me was the major change after Wes Johnson got to Arkansas, that he called a lot of curves and breakers. Much more than Dave Jorn. Jorn was a fast ball guy, stressing location. I think Matt Hobbs is more like Johnson than Jorn.
I will say that I was pleased that Fuller wondered how Dave Van Horn got Matt Cronin away from FSU, Florida and Miami. And, eventually, he found out, noting that his family had Arkansas connections.
For those who have forgotten, his mother and all of her family went to Harding. She met her husband when he was stationed at the Jacksonville AFB.
And, the real truth on the recruitment, Matt showed up (and that’s about the best description for it) at an Arkansas baseball camp and basically left with an offer.
Matt told me that all of his friends were going to Florida State and he didn’t want to be like everyone else.
I thought the color commentator was very fair and very complimentary of our team, DVH, and Baum-Walker. H complimented our weight program and pointed out how much more muscular our guys were than Auburns. He really bragged on the atmosphere at Baum-Walker, particularly the RBI girls in the Daisy Duke shorts. Pointed out how DVH just reloaded from last year’s great team. I thought he was more than fair to us.
We haven’t done that in several years
DVH didn’t feel like there was any need to put any more stress on the catcher’s arm than necessary
Everything with DVH is pretty workmanlike, which is what makes him great.
I had missed the story that his parents met at LRAFB and his mom went to Harding. Of course DVH is more than capable of landing a top recruit from just about anywhere with no family ties to Arkansas.