Notre Dame’s TV booth leaves much to be desired

What do you think of Notre Dame’s 2022 TV team?

I am typing the following hoping that when we reexamine this in a month or two that I’m proven wrong. However, the news Sunday morning of Notre Dame’s new television crew leaves a lot to be desired to yours truly.

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I was fortunate enough that my formative years came when Notre Dame began its TV deal with NBC. Charlie Jones had a majestic set of pipes that I’m certain were at least part of the reason I became a Notre Dame fan. His voice alone helped establish the bigness of a Notre Dame broadcast.

Legendary broadcaster Dick Enberg did more of the same when he was on the call for Notre Dame games, but Tom Hammond was about as exciting as an untoasted plain bagel without cream cheese. The booth in 2022 seems like it’ll be a second order of the same.

When Mike Tirico began calling Notre Dame games in 2016 a bigness came back to the broadcast that hadn’t been there in quite some time. I will not pretend that I always loved Tirico, but you can’t argue against what he brings to a broadcast.

With Tirico’s understandable move to the Sunday Night Football booth, NBC is going with Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett for the TV call in 2022.  I look forward to someone with a Notre Dame connection finally being in the booth (Collinsworth), but this feels like what should be a broadcast team for the least significant Big Ten game on a weekly basis.

I wonder if Jason Benetti, the Chicago White Sox and former ESPN announcer ever got a call from NBC before he recently signed to be second on the Fox Sports college football depth chart.

I hope I’m pleasantly surprised by this telecast in the home opener against Marshall comes on Sept. 10, but my expectations aren’t exactly championship level.

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