Will you miss customized UGA football rebroadcasts?
Will you miss Buck Belue on the Georgia football rebroadcasts? (Rodney Ho / AJC)
As a UGA football legend, Buck Belue is beloved in the Bulldog Nation for, among other things, the comeback win over Tech during his freshman year and, of course, the 1980 pass to Lindsay Scott in Jacksonville.
As a broadcaster, though, there’s less of a consensus about Belue.
Some Georgia fans love Buck and his Valdosta drawl. Others I hear from can’t stand him as a TV color analyst (or radio talk show host, for that matter).
Well, the latter group won’t have Buck to kick around any more, at least as far as the CSS rebroadcasts of Georgia football games go. UGA associate athletics director Alan Thomas confirmed to Marc Weiszer of The Athens Banner-Herald that, as had been rumored for a while now, the CSS TV rebroadcasts of Georgia football games will simply be a repeat of the SEC broadcast rather than a unique production focusing on UGA.
That means the we’ll no longer have Belue paired with Matt Stewart or Bob Neal on the games.
Actually, Belue had hinted at this back in April when he wrote in his blog that he was debating whether to continue working the games on CSS because the logistics would be tough with him now doing the Braves radio pregame show.
Those fans not particularly enamored of Belue the broadcaster might hail this news, but I’ve always liked Buck and will miss having him do the games. Even more, I’ll miss the rebroadcast being a UGA-centric look at the game, especially since we get so little in the way of replays on Mark Richt’s TV show these days. (If you can remember back to those hourlong Vince Dooley shows, you know what I mean.)
What do you think of this move? Whether you’re a fan of Belue or not, do you think the Dogs program loses something by not having a customized UGA production on the rebroadcasts? Or in this DVR age is a rebroadcast even necessary?
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103 comments Add your comment
Ed
June 23rd, 2010
2:14 pm
Ron Franklin and Mike Gottfried calling SEC night games for ESPN was as good as it gets. Not sure whose bright idea it was to break up that team, but it was a big mistake. Franklin’s the best in the biz imo.
Delbert D.
June 23rd, 2010
2:18 pm
My current list of bad college football announcers: Lundquist and Blackledge, Blathering Bob Davie, and the all-time most irritating human voice, Brent Musberger.
The legendary Howard Cosell gets a pass, only for boxing. Definitely was a turn-down-the-sound guy on ABC Monday Night Football.
RxDawg
June 23rd, 2010
2:35 pm
“especially since we get so little in the way of replays on Mark Richt’s TV show these days”
Man, you ain’t kiddin. The Mark Rickt show could use a huge overhaul. It’s filled with junk filler and yeller wood commercials. I want more replay’s and commentaries.
I caught a UT show a few years ago, when Fulmer was still there. It was an hour long and with almost no fluff. The quickly showed just about every play and had Fulmer comment throughout it. I thought it was a great format and was a little jealous…….that quickly passed.
RxDawg
June 23rd, 2010
2:35 pm
Ooops, I misspelled Richt. I’ll go do laps now.
DCJohn
June 23rd, 2010
2:42 pm
Matt Millen and Sean Mcdonough are the two worst announcers. They would be far and away the worst, but Mark May and Lou Holtz are a close second. The best Jim Donnan memory I will ever have is when he called Mark May out for hating Georgia because his poor little Pittsburgh team did not get to play for the 1980 National Title.
Trev Alberts always seemed to love Georgia football. I have no idea why, but I really think it was because Mark May was such a hater.
magical
June 23rd, 2010
2:43 pm
I am thrilled that Buck is gone. What a horrible waste of air waves.
Coachdawg 2000
June 23rd, 2010
2:51 pm
Bob-
How can you listen to 790 The Zone.That station is the flagship for Tech and employ a great Dawg player but incredibly annoying broadcast David Pollack. Everytime he speaks on the SEC preview show my UGA degree loses 10% of its credibility. He was a great player but he is horrible on TV and on the radio teaming with the ultimate a$$clown Mike Bell. Also, Espn garbage broadcaster hall of shame Pam Ward, Andre Ware, Mike Patrick (who made the Britney Spears reference during ‘07 Bammer game), Mike Jones, Rob Stone, and virtually every sideline reporter. Remember the UF grad Jill Arrington calling David Poll-Lock after his miracle play against the chix.
Coachdawg 2000
June 23rd, 2010
2:57 pm
I agree 1000% about tweeking the coaches’ show.I’m not real fired up about Chuck Doodle on the Mark Richt show.He should go back to doing High Q and not the coaches show. At least Loran was one of us! For the love of Erk Russell no more water-girl!
B. Scott
June 23rd, 2010
3:02 pm
Yes, I will miss Buck. He’s a pro and does an awesome job!
Delbert D.
June 23rd, 2010
3:07 pm
Picking up on Old Dawg’s comment about Craig James and CPJ’s offense, Bob Davie has done the color on several Georgia Tech games over 2 years, and he still calls the offense the Wishbone. Wrong. The wishbone looks like a Y, with 2 halfbacks lined up behind the fullback, to the sides. The ‘Bone usually employed 2 tight ends or a tight end and WR, as well. Not at all like Johnson’s spread option. Johnson’s “A-backs” are wingbacks or slotbacks, just behind and outside of the OTs (strictly speaking, straight T wingbacks are halfbacks lined up to their side outside their tight end; slotbacks are lined up between their side OT and a split end.)
It has also erroneously been called the Veer by Craig James. The veer has no fullback, just the two wishbone halfbacks. It usually has 2 WRs and a tight end. Johnson does not use tight ends. Some announcers call it the Flexbone, which is more similar, but different. Johnson doesn’t really call it anything, other than the spread option (he uses variable line splits, and 2 WRs. Not to be confused with the Florida-type spread option with the QB in a shotgun.
These guys, especially former players or coaches ought to do some simple homework.
Coachdawg 2000
June 23rd, 2010
3:12 pm
National guys are never that good. Verne always seems to talk about other teams during our games Gary Danielsen is actually the better of those two but I prefer Blackledge to him (although taste of the town is uber-lame). I also would like echo the sentiments that Ron Franklin and Mike Gottfried was as good as a national broadcast gets. Franklin went to Ole Miss and Gottfried lived in Alabama. Therefore it wasn’t a Notre Dame trail of idiots ex-coach or some washed up mental midget from the big ten. Does anybody really find Kirk Herbstreit entertaining? He always seems to be spewing hyperbole about who ever the team-dejour is. I used to hate Lee Corso until he made the comments about Spurrier taking the job at Sout Carolina “he can coach at South Carolina for 400 years and they will never win an SEC Championship!” That gives him an eternsal pass in my book.
Coachdawg 2000
June 23rd, 2010
3:14 pm
Delbert-
The Tech offense can be called either the flexbone or the doulbe wing. But no it should never be called the wishbone or the veer.
Delbert D.
June 23rd, 2010
3:16 pm
Munson was the guy who could make you feel desperate with a 21-7 lead while the other team had the ball.
Coachdawg 2000
June 23rd, 2010
3:19 pm
DC John-
Is Matt Millen good at anything other than playing MLB. He was a horrible broadcaster-turned football GM-turned horrible football broadcaster. Colin Cowherd was horribly bad in his painful attempt at play-by-play on ESPN 360. Most of ESPN is now cartoons. The one upside to Georgia State hiring Curry is at least we don’t have to hear his jealousy of UGA or his wornout stories about Lombardi,Dodd,or Shula.
Albert DeSalvo
June 23rd, 2010
3:22 pm
“Didn’t have gotten?” Did someone here really sit down at a keyboard and type “didn’t have gotten?” Who let the Tech “grad” in here?
puppydawg
June 23rd, 2010
3:24 pm
The best way to improve CMR’s show is to get rid of that bigmouth, know nothing Chuck Doodle. Does he get paid by the syllable?
Scott W.
June 23rd, 2010
3:29 pm
A thousand apologies…
Delbert D.
June 23rd, 2010
3:31 pm
Coachdawg 2000 – Good call, coach. I played straight-T and straight T triple option years ago in HS, so long ago that our arch rival ran the single-wing my junior year. A couple of years before that, under a different coach, we ran the TCU spread. about half the time the QB would take the snap, and the other half, he’d line up slightly to the right side of the center with hands ready to receive the snap, and he’d take it, or it would go to the FB/passer, who had a great arm. One afternoon during PE class, some of us were tossing around a baseball, behind one of the goalposts. I asked him if he could throw it through both sets of posts. He said sure, and he split both sets of uprights and over the fence into the parking lot. Signed a pro baseball contract as a pitcher. He started 2 games and relieved the other 2 to win all four games in the state championship his senior year. Beat a bunch of boys, cousins and brothers, named Reeves from Americus.
Dawg H8R
June 23rd, 2010
3:37 pm
Hey, Bill King! I don’t get posted like dawg lovers!
I won’t lie and say that “I Luv dem dawgs”, because I don’t!!
I have respect for INDIVIDUALS like Mr.Belue,Hines Ward,even the
slightly overhyped David Pollack(Not his fault SC and Vandy made
him famous for not being able to block!!!). I knew some guys in SC
that were from Lincolnton,home of Scatback Hearst.
Perhaps Jawja would benefit from going back to a conventional
run heavy offense; instead of the pass-happy, FSU inspired, have more
talent than the opponent crap you have with Richt. That’s why
you guys stink. Seriously.
Bring back Ray Goff,fewer criminals in the program.
#1 BAMA FAN
June 23rd, 2010
3:46 pm
I do not listen to Buck but I do agree with the bias of some ESPN and national broadcasters. Vern is usually so drunk he doesn’t know who has the ball or the names of the players. I almost fainted when he said “Alabama Tigers” during the Iron Bowl. RTR
Old Dawg
June 23rd, 2010
4:00 pm
Delbert D. Back when Georgia Southern picked up football in the early 80s the offense was called the Hamm Bone because of Tracy Hamm’s exploits. But you’re right. Some folks call it the flexbone, which is what the Air Force Academy used in the past. If you’re going by the coaching profession’s textbook name, it’s the spread option.
Delbert D.
June 23rd, 2010
4:31 pm
Old Dawg – I remember Tracy Ham, as I moved back to Georgia in 1980. Erk starting the football program, and the NCs that followed. Adrian Peterson, too. Johnson coached both of them. I’d never heard of Johnson until he came back as head coach at Georgia Southern and took them to 2 more NCs.
BugKiller
June 23rd, 2010
7:57 pm
What the hell?
Why the heck was my comment not posted?
Why hasn’t anything posted since 1630?
Dawg Stephen
June 23rd, 2010
9:03 pm
Buck Belue is a pompous jerk, and I am glad i dont have to listen to him. I always loved Scott Howard on the radio, and if you dont like it when he gets excited…then you dont know what he is excited about. he is excited, because he is twice the homer Munson ever was, and Larry was and is a DAWG. I like Scott Howard, and would love to hear him over the TV people.
GoDOGS1
June 23rd, 2010
9:06 pm
Dawg H8R – Lincolnton is in GEORGIA, you stupid fricking moron! You can’t even get your 13 year boy smack talk correct. Jacqoff!
jackson
June 23rd, 2010
10:06 pm
I will miss the CSS rebroadcasts but even they lost something when Bob Neal replaced Matt Stewart on some games. He is bad on Talking Football and Sportsnite as well. I enjoy CSS during season for the coach’s press conferences and all the replays–not just the Dawgs.
Billy O
June 23rd, 2010
10:09 pm
Most of the people who don’t like Buck are GT fans…..they hate him for what he did to them on the football field……for the rest of them……who cares…..Buck is an icon in GA.
Dawg Stephen…..always enjoyed your blog….sorry you feel that way about Buck…..sure you have your reasons….my Dad always used to say if you don’t like someone, it’s best to keep it to yourself.
UGA VIII
June 23rd, 2010
10:16 pm
I like the UGA centric re-broadcasts. Don’t care that much for Buck and I don’t like Scott Howard so much either. They are both great UGA guys, just don’t like their broadcasting. Howard really gets on my nerves. Due to the delay on digital TV and Howard, I have just about quit listening to the radio. Munson spoiled me. He can’t ever be replaced.
BT
June 23rd, 2010
11:05 pm
Bill, why are we having this conversation? Doesn’t this sound more like something we would hear in a high school lunchroom? “Some people like him and some people can’t stand him.”
Really?! Bill, you haven’t made it to the big leagues yet, you’re a frieking blogger! So again, why not stick to football and get off this “he-said-she said” garbage!
I like Buck’s work. He has a dry sense of humor that plays well on the radio, a tremendous wealth of sports knowledge, and he speaks like a local. That means he has a southern drawl!
There are some people from the South who are proud to be from the South! Those who “can’t stand” Buck are probably transplants! This is Atlanta. We haven’t looked the same since the Olympics.
Savannah Dawg
June 23rd, 2010
11:46 pm
Really like the rebroadcasts from a Georgia perspective, whether it’s Buck or someone else. Buck had credibility since he has been there and done that.
Could not agree with you more on the CMR show. It is about 12 minutes of material, much of it useless. Why listen to Mrs Richt ask why the players wear black under their eyes? In years past her question was always the toughest, but in bad times (last year), she tossed softballs. I like CMR and his wife and even Chuck Dowdle for that matter, but that show sometimes makes me question why.
Bulldog
June 24th, 2010
12:43 am
With all of the profits being made in college football, I guess they can’t afford a team-centric replay.
Makes sense to me, I guess.
Bulldog
June 24th, 2010
12:49 am
And since The Vince Dooley Show was brought up, I’d rather watch re-runs of Vince than The Mark Richt Show any day.
No Mo
June 24th, 2010
2:40 am
Can the Dawgs get rid of scott howard? He’s terrible! Buck’s OK on this replay–better than the options available.
TommyP
June 24th, 2010
7:00 am
If you think Buck has a “wealth of sports knowledge”, you’re not much of a sports fan.
He might be the worst in the business. He says absolutely nothing you didn’t already know and does it in that weird, strange way he talks. If he wasn’t married, I’d swear he was, well, you know.
You people keep bringing up Mike Patrick’s weird Britney conversation but Buck does that kind of weird stuff all the time during these broadcasts. He’ll start raising his voice talking about nothing out of the clear blue. One very strange guy.
Just shows you that you can have plenty of work the rest of your life if you just QB the Dawgs to a national championship.
People in the industry think he’s a joke as well.
OrlG8r
June 24th, 2010
7:05 am
Nobody really watches the Dawgs, do they?
T'VILLE DAWG
June 24th, 2010
7:45 am
I t sucks like Obama telling the truth, if it were true you could actually here him like a coming tornado it would be unprecidented.Played against Buck in the day. I just hope he can’t be bullied into leaving it all together.
JY
June 24th, 2010
8:44 am
Thank you GA State for hiring Bill Curry. He trashed every coaching decision anyone made that was not what he thought should have been called. Some coaches should stay in coaching.
hop
June 24th, 2010
8:55 am
the mark richt show is a no-show.the broadcasting product put on by daman evans is horrible and with all the money that is being made at uga ,one would think the tv coverage would be a far better than we are getting today.
the radio broadcast is horrible with the new carrier ISP.
there are so many ads running now you neve get much uga news so i have turned off that as well!
Ted Striker
June 24th, 2010
9:25 am
It’s a minus, not a plus.
Gbal
June 24th, 2010
9:37 am
I like the rebroadcast but dont really care who calls it.
The Mark Richt show is an absolute BUST. I watch half of one show per season ..(the first one) … see nothing has changed and do not tune in to another one the rest of the season.
It is ashame that UGA can not put something together that is football oriented and covers the games and team. The is really what fans want to see. Also imagine recruits tuning in to catch up on the dawgs game and see the likes of Chuck Babble, The Water Girl, Band pieces…. just an absolutely, no questions asked, boring as H4ll, no content production that appears as though it was produced in the 1960’s.
Id rather see a replay with coaches doing a general analysis of the plays – What went right, wrong, …. or no comentaty or the original SEC announcers.
But the RICHT show is about as silly as some of Lauren’s comments on the sideline. I would absouletely say worse, abd the Richt Show is actually planned…. Stuff just comes out of Lauren’s mouth and you never know what it might be.
Gbal
June 24th, 2010
9:53 am
Sorry….LORAN
UT96
June 24th, 2010
10:09 am
Guys, answer me this: If you’re a Georgia fan or fan of any other team for that metter, Why wouldn’t you want your team’s announcers to be “homers”. It seems all I hear these days is that announcers are supposed to be “unbiased” in calling a game. I say BS, if a school’s announcing team is calling a game for their school, shouldn’t they be biased towards their school. I can’t Larry Munson or John Ward calling a game and being impartial. BTW, I used to love Larry doing the Falcons game because he would get so excited when the Falcons would do something good. Was he homer? you bet, and I loved it!
Gbal
June 24th, 2010
10:14 am
UT -
You do expect your home team announcers on your radio stations to be biased towards your team, but on national TV broadcasts such as CBS ESPN… you would expect announcers to be impartial.
Billy Jack could fight
June 24th, 2010
10:17 am
Kevin Butler and Matt Stewart were the best broadcasting duo on CSS….IMO
SJLong
June 24th, 2010
10:17 am
One thing to consider – will there be a CBS broadcast of every game? I would think not. That means that all the small games that we used to be able to watch on CSS will not be available to view. I hope something was left out of the description of the coming change – i.e. CSS will not produce their Dawg centric show when other networks are already showing the game – but on games when no one else they will still be doing it.
I’m with everyone else – no reason to use Comcast anymore if they stop showing UGA games that are hard to find.
UT96
June 24th, 2010
10:41 am
For the folks griping about Scott Howard, no one is ever going to be able to relace a legend like Larry Munson. We have the same issue with Bob Kesling, who sucks at calling football but pretty good at calling basketball games.
Coachdawg 2000
June 24th, 2010
11:54 am
Scott Howard is boring and then screams. He offers little in the way of setting the stage for the ball game, but you are right he is up agianst in my “homer/biased” opinion the greatest ever. So he should understand that you never want to be the guy who follows “THE MAN” you want to be the the guy who follows the guy who followed “THE MAN”. I.E. if Ray follows Donnan(who follows Dooley) then he probably has a longer tenure as HC. But I just find the radio play-by-play horrific.
ugaclassof2004
June 24th, 2010
10:29 pm
I’m not really a fan of football commentators in general. However, when it comes to a big game, nobody does it better than Keith Jackson or Brent Musberger. Those guys voices are like butter! I know that I won’t make a lot of fans with the comment: but I never enjoyed listening to Larry Munson. All my friends would watch the game and then turn on the radio broadcast just to listen to him, and I just never got it. Munson was great for those special moments ( Hobnail Boot, Run Lindsey Run etc.), but the other 90% of the time I found him to be a bit melodramatic, not to mention that he really wasn’t a great play by play guy. As for the current crop, Scott Howard is a goon but he’s much better than Buck Belue who just wasn’t that great. I also like listening to Eric Zeir. He’s got a lot of knowledge about the game, unlike guys like Gary Danielson who say things like ” You can’t put it away and just hand the ball to Moreno”, and then Knowshon scores on the next play. Eric seems to understand what is going on in a coaches head, and most of the time his observations are dead on.
longtimedawgfan
June 25th, 2010
8:21 am
personally, I will miss him greatly….he was first class, a 100% pro-bulldog first and last, and his cogent comments came through plain and clear, whether color or as “the voice”….he will be missed….like all other good things, noone will realize how much they miss him until he’s been gone awhile….good luck to him….maybe he will be back…we can only hope that a new swell of support will rise up…
Bill King
June 25th, 2010
7:38 pm
SJLong:
The SEC deal is with CBS and ESPN. Every game except one per season for each team is televised. And they usually do pay-per-view for that one.