Todd Blackledge

He had it.

I mean, hell, that doorknob Todd Blackledge was busy circling and drawing like Picasso.

You had Western in a couple of man-on-man downs, back to quarterback.

It's third and six, you gotta take off and go.

And I think my problem with someone like Clark Hunt is – A lot of us have been waiting, literally waiting our entire lives for Patrick Mahomes.

The last time they even tried to get a Patrick Mahomes was 1983 with Todd Blackledge.

And we've been waiting for this guy.

And this guy is not an opportunity to make more money.

We kick it to the command center and immediately we're hearing what the refs are talking about.

If the Big Ten and NBC had that, I think a lot of this chaos is avoided because you would have heard in real time and Ian Eagle and Todd Blackledge would have heard in real time, hey, we see one second on the clock.

And so even if you're seeing on your television screen, it's all zeros, but you're hearing the refs say one second.

I think, sure, there would have been pushback and we would have been still talking about the tech.

Damn.

Is he doing, is he doing Saturday night wherever NBC is, with Blackledge?

I mean, you'd think he is.

That's a quick turnaround.

That's a long, long ways.

NBC's got Iowa State at Iowa.

That's Paul Burmeister and Todd Blackledge on that call.

Okay, so, so they gave it off.

Tremendous job by Noah Eagle, who has blossomed into that role.

This is his fourth season now for the Big Ten Saturday night game on NBC with Todd Blackledge.

We've had Noah on the podcast before talking about it And being in that role.

Uh, he was tremendous right off the bat on, on whether it, there should be a second put back on.

Like, the public gets the last word.

Let's bring it back to something else everybody's talking about is the end of the Michigan, Western Michigan football game on NBC, and shout out to Noah Eagle with the great call.

He and Todd Blackledge at the end of the game, and they got Terry McAulay, the, uh, referee, their referee analyst, to come in and, and say, and actually it was the second time that he came back on.

The first time he defended it as, "Hey, this is the correct call because the player's out of bounds and he's touching the ball, and they're gonna put a second back on the clock." But then he came back after the fact, after the Hail Mary as well, and said, "Okay, this should not have happened, and here's why." Their rules analyst was saying it on the broadcast.

Uh, all the spreads in the Iowa-Iowa State game have been four points or less ever since that game, until this one, 14 and a half.

Uh, Paul Burmeister, uh, on the call, on the main play-by-play call for, uh, NBC, along with Todd Blackledge and Catherine Tappen.

So that's your announcing crew.

Uh, let's get into our five big questions, Tyler, and let's start with a quarterback question right out of the gate.