Kevin Scarbinsky dares suggest that Verne Lundquist, Charles Barkley’s “the nicest man in the world”, might be the most hated figure in the SEC.
Uh, dude, here’s a hint: when’s the last time you heard anyone refer to the SEC Commissioner as “Uncle Greg”? And let’s not even get started on Saban’s nicknames. Or Lane Kiffin’s, for that matter.
The fact that Scarbinsky mentions Brett Musburger as a possible replacement is proof that he is an idiot.
+1
Any chance they will ever offer in game sound with no commentating? that’d be nice
Who gives a damn? I just want an ambient noise option. The tv broadcasters never offer anything worth listening too. I try as hard as I can just to tune them out. They are the basic equivalent of laugh tracks for sitcoms. The idiots at home wouldn’t know when to laugh without being told so they put in a laugh track. TV sports broadcasting is the same basic bullshit. Feed the audience nonsense so they’ll know what they are supposed to think. Put a microphone in Verne’s empty chair and shoot Gary and I’ll be good. Btw: I do like watching where Blackledge goes to stuff his face. That’s worthwhile knowledge.
It looks like Brad Nessler is going to be the guy to replace Uncle Verne
Man, I certainly hope so. He’s top notch.
Rumor is that CBS is hiring him for the NFL with the plan for him to replace Verne on retirement
Good — love Nessler. By the way, he’s very quiet about this…but he’s a big UGA fan, so subtly he’ll definitely be rooting for us.
You can tell a little when he does a Georgia game. He definitely seems to love Athens, but who wouldn’t?
He’ll be a upgrade for college hoops and I would love to listen to that voice in the Georgia pines of Augusta National.
For the record (and I know I sound like a broken record):
I love Uncle Verne and Gary Danielson. They’re my favorite broadcast team in any sport ever. I’ve never found them annoying in the least. Brent and Herbie on the otherhand……????
I’m guessing that you missed their incessant slobbering all over Tebow, right? If you like them despite that well, its better that I refrain…..
BTW: how does AJ get a celebration flag for looking into the crowd after a game winning TD (almost) while Tebow could jump up and down for 32 minutes after every 1 yard run without any official response? Is it the same reason that I can drive my truck without a seat belt and no one stops me but Juwan Briscoe can’t? Yeah, I think that’s it.
You’re telling me they talked up a Heisman winning qb who won two national titles and set an SEC rushing TD record? What a couple of hacks.
I’m telling you that it was grossly disproportionate to the point that most non-gator fans got sick of the kid. He deserved neither the degree of fawning he got nor the resultant hostility.
I think you’re being dramatic. I hated Tebow in college just as much as the next Georgia fan, but it had nothing to do with Verne and Gary talking about how great he was (and he was definitely great). If anything it was ESPN talking about him all week that made everyone hate him. Skip Bayless is your culprit, not the CBS crew who only had a few hours of air time a week.
Well, I don’t watch Skip Bayless so it couldn’t be that. I did watch the games. Skip wasn’t there. Nor was ESPN for that matter. I’m sure that there were others fawning too much as well, but the CBS crew were over the top as well. Two examples:
“He’s the quarterback you most want your daughter to marry.”- Gary Danielson
“Tim Tebow is not only the greatest player I’ve ever seen play football, but more importantly, he may one of the greatest human being I’ve ever come across.”- Verne Lundquist
Very measured and I’m being dramatic. Really?
Those are statements of opinion, and that seems to be the general consensus of everyone that know Tebow, so unless you know something that everyone else doesn’t then I would suggest taking a Zoloft.
knows tebow*
Oh, because its their opinion its ok and not vomit inducing no matter how overwrought? Gotcha.
For what its worth, people who are proud of, make public and seek to maintain their virginity well into their late 20’s make me nervous. I couldn’t relate to anybody like that and wouldn’t be excited about having anyone like that in my family so scratch Gary’s opinion as far as I’m concerned. There’s only so much evangelizing a person like myself can take. I’m not saying I’d discourage it but I’d rather have Tom Brady show up quite frankly. A guy that likes South American models is a guy I can relate to. Besides Tom can find a team willing to pay him to play QB.
As far as Verne’s statement: the greatest football player he ever saw play? Seriously? How old is the dude? I’m half his age and could name 2 dozen right off the top of my head, so he’s full of shit and I’ll give him a pass on the best human being thing because I don’t know who he’s come across. He’s from Dallas right so that might make some sense. Maybe he should get out more.
That fact is that the excessive Tebow love fest did more harm to him than good. He might have made a decent backup and maybe he could have gotten an NFL release over time but the “Tebow as Messiah” crowd (football and/or otherwise) made it untenable to have him on the roster. Verne and Gary played their part in that. I think they did everyone, including Tebow, a disservice.
Okay, I don’t really agree with much of what you said, but regardless that was like 7 years ago. Do you have any current reasons for hating them or do you hold grudges like a bitter, divorced aunt?
I don’t have any bitter divorced aunts. I have some bitter, still married to my uncle, aunt’s though. I really just despise the entire profession so there is certain level of hostility to anyone in TV sports broadcasting and radio sports talk too. In short, if you are paid to talk football and you aren’t Larry, I probably hate you for both good reasons and perhaps not so good.
Ha ha, fair enough on all counts sir. So it probably doesn’t help my position that I broadcast College football baseball and basketball on occasion. In my defense I am aware that I am not very good at it.
Did you know that David Greene and David Pollock played pee wee football together? Agree on A.J. And Briscoe btw.
Juwan was stopped for waving his empty wallet out the window.
As far as ambient noise, how about a soundtrack of wombs?
My preference would be crowd noise but nearly anything would be superior to those talking heads rambling on about nonsense. I think that you have to prove that your IQ is under 80 to be considered for broadcasting football games. I fear that one day they will say something so dumb that I’ll have a synapse break. The leader thus far is Troy Aikman who said:
“A pass can hit the ground so long as it doesn’t help the receiver catch it.”
Seriously? I have to have that piped into my home? Just give me crowd noise and some piece of mind.
You must not have been around in the fall of 2004. See, there were the two guys that played at UGA, and they were both named David…
Did you know they played Pee Wee football together?
Get out!
Damn, sorry I didn’t read all the way down!
Dude. I loved Tebow. Man’s a goober, but he’s a great athlete.
Verne and Gary are far and away the best broadcast team around. The people who don’t like them are paranoid weirdos who think all commentators (and journalists for that matter) hold a grudge against UGA if they don’t constantly praise the university.
That’s the problem with SEC fans — they listen to all the local homers… from the talk show guy, the TV news sports guy, and of course their local play-by-play guy on the radio, and thus they’re accustomed to such blatant homerism for their team. Then when they watch the national broadcast, suddenly that homerism is gone, which they immediately interpret as them not liking their team.
It sounds insane that people can’t distinguish between the two, along with the importance of the national TV broadcast remaining neutral, but IMO that is the main reason why so many feel that the national guys hate their team.
Pollack and Palmer get the honor of being the best. Verne and Gary can’t even get names right half the time.
You are literally the first person I’ve seen who’s praised Jesse Palmer as a broadcaster.
This is the most common criticism of Verne and Gary. Getting names wrong. Who cares? I don’t ever listen to a broadcast team and go, “Man, they’re great! They got everyone’s name right!” All I care about is how well Gary breaks down the “Xs and Os” (with which he does a phenomenal job) and that Verne breaks out an interesting/funny anecdote from time to time. Plus I love hearing the honest interchanges between them. When Verne says, “Gary, I’d be interested what your take is on that,” I know that Verne really does what to hear Gary’s take on something. Which tells me how knowledgeable Gary is, because Verne has been doing this forever.
I think Todd Blackledge is by far the best. Team him with Peyton Manning and I’ll listen (as long as Peyton doesn’t do the Tn/UGA game.).
Never was a Verne fan myself so no hard feelings here from me.
I know they are both color guys but put Mike Gottfried and Gary Danielson together for a game and I’d be pretty happy.
Man, Scarbinsky was a low-watt light bulb when I lived in Birmingham a decade ago and he’s apparently no better now. Is he still playing Captain Save ‘Em for Auburn, or has he dispensed with that, at least?
@Doug: no, he plays my head is up Bama’s ass and the rest of the SEC sucks. Auburn is okey dokey on some days.
People who hate Verne Lundquist take life too seriously, and if you don’t think Danielson knows how to diagram a play then you probably don’t know much football to begin with.
Danielson knows the game … No doubt about that. I’ll take Todd Blackledge any day of the week for his game knowledge and passion for the college game.
Meanwhile they’re jumping the ESPN ship like rats. Tirico, Bayless and now Nessler.
And no wonder. ESPN is total trash. Their game broadcasts (as I’ve often said) look and sound like something on a Local Access Channel. Let alone their other offerings…. I caught some of Mike & Mike this morning (outside of my control) at the gym. I couldn’t believe what the hell I was watching. I felt like I was watching two idiot co-workers go back and forth discussing their inane ideas about what to expect in the Draft.
YOU MEAN THE TWENTY DAYS OF MOCK DRAFTS AND WHO FARTED THE BEST DURING TRIALS. Go to font 400 and you have Espn. Baseball is a joke. There are teams outside of NY, I never knew.
Tv sound off, Munson tuned into the radio as you watch is how to do it when he was in the chair😉
Jeez, people, they’re calling the game, not refereeing it. It’s those false ejections for headhunting that get me excited, not what Verne had to say.
Scarbinsky is only speaking the voice of his people. Alabama folks (and maybe Auburn people?) HATE Verne and Gary. They are convinced that CBS and their broadcastin crew are out to get them.
During UGA home game broadcasts, Verne always praises Athens, Sanford Stadium and Uga, and was a big Munson fan. No way could I hate on him.
Scarbinsky is the king of regional newspaper trolls. It is a mistake to read anything he has written through a lens other than, “how many clicks is he getting from this?”
Love me some Verne. Hate to see age take its toll.
And what is his bonus for those clicks. Regional trolls, I like that.
I like Verne and Gary, as broadcasters go…but am I the only one that noticed that their performance got worse when the games were played later? They’re good at the 3:30 slot, but anything after that and they tend to be less focused, less energetic, and miss more stuff on the field. Example: Gary randomly bringing up Britney Spears when we were driving to beat Alabama in 2006. Just bizarre.
That was one of the WWL guys, Mike Patrick, I think.
To me, Mike $live is still the most hated man in the SEC for his idiotic expansion plan to turn the SEC into the CTZC – the Central Time Zone Conference – with the addition of Texas A&M and Missouri.
I don’t particularly care for Verne, but he’s nowhere near the top of the list of “most hated in the SEC”. There are guy’s no longer in the conference that are more hated than him (looking at you, Roy Kramer).