Mark Schlereth
I actually like Mark Schlereth. On the radio.
Seems like a nice guy on “Mike and Mike,” and on the various NFL shows he does for ESPN.
But boy, on the liveblog on Saturday, the complaints about Schlereth’s TV turn doin the UK-Florida game were frequent and feisty.
So how bad was Schlereth on the tube?
Don’t just vote in the poll, be sure and leave comments.
He did call the Fake FG play “goofy”.
I enjoyed the dissertation concerning Florida’s knowing everything Kentucky was going to do and even before we could do it. Sadly he was interrupted by Matthew’s catch in the end zone.
The play-by-play was just as bad. He has called UK games on ESPNU before, and once again, he said “they rolled the dice and it came up aces,” which is an annoying mixed metaphor. And, to continue with the cliches, that’s just the tip of the iceberg as far his lame calls were concerned.
How bad was Mark? Well, I sort of expected him to be body painted blue and orange and wearing a gator head as a hat when they did the booth shot. I noticed that someone else mentioned his comment about the “goofy” fake field goal, which wouldn’t have been so bad if his comments hadn’t left the distinct impression that he would have called it a stroke of coaching genius and a checkmate play had Urban Meyer made the call. The truth is that his gushy comments about the gators, when combined with his total lack of comment about the cats, made him sound like a star-struck teenage girl hoping to be the one after the game.
I lost count of how many times he said, “That’s what you do. You sit on the bench and get some of that Gatorade and that air cooling system.” whenever they showed Burton on the sideline. It was at least more than three.
I was more annoyed by the poor video quality when they would switch to the wide camera. Anyone else notice this?
Schlereth is great on ESPN doing pro football, and terrific on the radio, although his macho “o-lineman” schtick gets old, but he was AWFUL doing the UK game. I don’t know if he has done games before, but he was trying so hard to be enthusiastic (how many times did he refer to someone as “a football player!”). Too many cliches.
I also noticed the picture quality. Very poor.
I think we’re all discovering why his nickname is “Stink.”
It wasn’t really that he did a bad job commentating, but he did seem biased towards the Florida side. He was quick to praise the Gators, and not so quick to pat the Cats on the back. I’m usually not a stickler on this issue, but Saturday, in my opinion, it was very obvious.