GAINESVILLE, Fla. – If 2020 was anywhere in the same ballpark as "normal," then the Gators Radio Network broadcast team of
Mick Hubert, Lee McGriff, Jeff Cardozo, Tate Casey and in-game producer Steve Egan would be at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday for Florida's season opener against Ole Miss.
Instead, veteran play-by-play announcer Hubert will be positioned at a table inside Weimer Hall at UF's College of Journalism. He'll have a computer monitor in front of him with live stats and two large TV screens on the wall to watch the action. He'll have his thick game notebook – Game No. 395 as he prepares for his 32nd season opener as the "Voice of the Gators" – handy for research and quick reference. Across the table will be McGriff, a former Gators receiver and longtime radio analyst. Meanwhile, Egan will produce the show from a seat between them, safely social distanced and wearing a mask to protect everyone's health. In a nearby glass booth, Cardozo (host) and Casey (sideline reporter) will do their work.
They will be joined by bottles of hand sanitizer, disinfect tissues and additional headphones so they each have their own pair rather than sharing when it's their turn to go on air.
It all sounds like something that could make up a new advanced course in the J-school: RTV 2020 – broadcasting amidst COVID-19.
"There are so many things we're doing for the first time,'' said
Alicia Longworth, associate athletics director who oversees GatorVision and broadcasting for the University Athletic Association. "The safety of our student-athletes and staff has always been the top priority. Not having our radio crew on the road, a month ago, I would have thought they would have traveled. We started talking through it and it didn't make a ton of sense.
"It feels different than being in a full football stadium, but they have all the resources that they need right there at their fingertips."
Hubert and McGriff are both 66 and healthy. Still, COVID-19 remains a threat and has been most threatening to people 50 and older.
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Gators play-by-play voice Mick Hubert, back to camera, during a recent "Gator Talk" broadcast from inside a studio at Weimer Hall, where Hubert and analyst Lee McGriff will broadcast Saturday's road game against Ole Miss. In-game producer Steve Egan, in mask, and Gator Radio Network host Jeff Cardozo are pictured with Hubert. (Photo: Forrest Gmitro/UAA Communications)
They would rather be in Oxford doing what they do the way they normally do it, but like the global coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we do so many things, it has altered the way the Gators will broadcast the season opener and likely the road game at Texas A&M next month.
Hubert, known for his attention to detail and booming "Oh, My!" calls, has spent the week preparing much the same way as usual. How much of a stickler for details is Hubert? He knows his career record at Florida (290-103-1) and that Game No. 400 is scheduled to be Georgia in October.
"I don't have any real issues in doing it this way,'' Hubert said. "I wouldn't want to do a lot of games this way. Like I've told people, I'm not in love with this concept, but I'm confident that in 40-plus years of broadcasting I know how to call a game watching it off television. I don't have a problem doing that, and for a play-by-play guy, the ball is always going to be on the screen and you've got to follow the ball."
For the arrangement to come to fruition, the UAA leaned heavily on the technical expertise of GatorVision engineering/technical coordinator Bob Hasentufel, and Randy Wright, who is executive director of media properties in the College of Journalism. Hubert and McGriff will watch a live video feed from a production truck located in Oxford to be able to call the game in real-time and avoid the delay that is typical of a standard TV broadcast.
While Hubert normally watches the live action through a pair of binoculars from his perch in the press box, he and McGriff are accustomed to relying on video monitors for replays to help expand on details during broadcasts.
"In my 30-plus years I've been at Florida, I incorporate the TV monitor as a part of my second set of guys,'' Hubert said. "I watch the game in the stadium with my eyes and binoculars, but I also know there is a time when it's best for me to concentrate on the monitor. Much of Lee's analyst work, he uses the replay and can analyze a lot off the TV monitor. He's very good at that.
"Mick and Lee, they're not going to have any problems working the game off TV because we've done that, but I have talked to some announcers, some play-by-play guys who would be terrified doing it off the TV because that's not really a part of how they call the game. I can tell that a lot of times if you're paying attention listening to a radio broadcast of another game."
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Hubert said his main focus will be to make sure he is consistent in knowing the exact line of scrimmage where each series starts. Normally, he keeps an eye on a scoreboard and double-checks the sticks on the sideline. Not being in the stadium will force him to develop new habits quickly.
"That is something that is typically not presented graphically on TV. That will be different,'' he said.
He'll be doing so during a season in which his game book, stuffed with pages of each team's depth chart and detailed notes on every player and an assortment of various reference points for both teams, will be thicker than normal due to players' eligibility status not being impacted in 2020. In other words, a true freshman can play in more than four games this season and not lose a season of eligibility in the future.
In addition, teams have cross-trained more players in case they have to shift players around unexpectedly due to players being absent due to COVID testing.
"As we move forward, the roster will never be pared down,'' he said. "I can't remove anybody from the roster this year. COVID could be doing the removing. There could be some fourth-string guys who become third-string guys and so on. That's what COVID has done, it has made me sharpen that."
Saturday is going to be different for everyone. For players. For fans. For Hubert and Co.
His top priority is simple: to make sure no one can tell a difference that he and McGriff are not at the stadium, where they will be next week when the Gators host South Carolina in the home opener at the Swamp.
The fact they will be in the same room together is crucial in Hubert's view. Unlike baseball, where the action is slow and there is more talking, football broadcasts are fast-paced and rely on a shared energy with your partner.
"We've got to have eye contact,'' he said. "In football, we can't back off and have five seconds of dead air or we'll miss something important. I'm confident we'll have natural sound mixed in. You put 15,000 people in there with the Ole Miss band, you are going to have some ambient noise. The parabolic mics, the field mics, you can hear the foot hit the ball on a punt. You'll be able to pick up a lot of that stuff. The trick is that you don't want that stuff to be so loud that it overrides the announcers. If we mix that in there, I would challenge most people to know that we're not there."
That is Longworth's goal, too.
"There's going to be an authentic feel to it,'' she said. "It's just that Mick and Lee will be in Weimer doing it."
For a normal road game, Hubert and McGriff typically attend a staff dinner on Friday night and then retreat to the hotel to rest and prepare for the broadcast. For home games, Hubert and wife Judi like to go out to dinner and then get to campus early Saturday and hang out in his office until it's time to go on air.
In 2020, they plan to open the season with their home routine for the Gators' first road game.
Hubert's opening script reads something like this:
Today the Gators and the Ole Miss Rebels kick off a new season at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in Oxford. We come to you live from the Gator Network Studios.
"I've never missed a Gator football game and I'm not saying I'm missing this one,'' he said. "It will be different, but I am still calling the game."
Game No. 395. One to highlight in his book.
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