Jim Brandstatter Almost Unlistenable
I listened to the Penn State game on the radio this past weekend. I really hate to dog him out because he is such a great representative of the University, but man, Jim Brandstatter is almost unlistenable as a play-by-play announcer.
Forget that he doesn’t have the classic voice or the proper intonation of a PBP announcer. The sheer number mistakes he makes when comes identifying players is astonishing. Constantly mixing up McSorely and Stevens is one thing. Not being able to tell the difference between Higdon and Evans or Long and Hill is inexcusable.
The University has really done a disservice to Brandstatter—a lifelong Michigan Man—in installing him in a role he is so ill-equipped to handle. After serving the University so well for so long, he deserves better. It’s time they made things right by hiring a true PBP man so Brandstatter can move back where he belongs as the color commentator. Keep Dan Dierdorf around and have a three man booth for all I care. Just please, for the love of god, take the PBP duties away from Brandstatter. It’s so, so, so bad! Sorry Jim!
November 6th, 2018 at 9:24 AM ^
I like Brandy, mainly because he is such a good ambassador for the program. However, I HATE, HATE, HATE “sack time.”
November 6th, 2018 at 9:26 AM ^
"And Uche gets SACK TIME!"
It's so bad and so forced. Please make it stop.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:26 AM ^
Sack Time sounds like an ad campaign for White Castle.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:28 AM ^
I really love Brandy, but agree with his PBP limitations. And frankly, as a media professional, I'll bet (hope) he realizes it, too. He (and Dierdorf) is tailor-made for color and was great at it with Beckmann. I would not be surprised to hear that a change will be made next year. Not sure of Dierdorf's long term plans, but I think he's had some health issues and may not want to stay on too many more years. Maybe a national championship will allow him to say, thanks and see ya.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:30 AM ^
I miss Beckman. Too bad he had an opinion about something another guy said about Tiger woods liking fried chicken and the thought police got him.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:33 AM ^
He has good intentions, but even on Inside Michigan Football, he doesn't come across well.
November 6th, 2018 at 11:26 AM ^
Thank god Jon Jasen is waiting in the wings. I can only imagine Jon will take over when Brandy retires.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
He was great at color but he is horrible at PBP. If any of us were that bad at our jobs we'd be axed in no time.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:35 AM ^
I hate listening to a guy who wants to do something well so badly and can't. While the thing he can do well (color), he's being paid not to do. Given all the colossal failures of the Dave Brandon era, Brandstatter's selection for PBP goes kind of under-the-radar as a real unfortunate choice. JB deserves better and so do the fans.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:35 AM ^
This thread proves the old adage that Michigan fans are only happy when they are unhappy.
That said, I would replace sack time with "sack down Michigan" or maybe "sack-o-rama-ding-dong".
November 6th, 2018 at 10:35 AM ^
Sack a lacka Bing bang!
November 6th, 2018 at 9:46 PM ^
Stop.
This thread proves Michigan fans know a bad play by play announcer when they hear one.
Great guy, great ambassador for U of M, very good color commentator. Really, really bad play by play guy. And no, he's not getting better.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:36 AM ^
SACK TIME!!! hahaha, he's so horrible. He called the wrong name out 10 times. Time for a change, guys.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:39 AM ^
Yeah I love Brandstatter, but even when MgoBlue puts out the highlights from the past weekends game, he gets a ton of players names wrong just in that 5 minute highlight reel. I really wouldn’t mind Jon Jansen taking over PBP and having Devin Gardner come in as the color guy in the future. Really love listening to both of them talk about the game.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:41 AM ^
Brandy was the first to tell me JBB was starting
Brandy was the first to tell me that Gary was in there.
Yes, he misses many players, but he gets the O line right.
And he has improved. GET OFF HIS BACK.
Dierdorf is Excellent and Honest in his assessment.
Go Blue.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:47 AM ^
BTW , the spotters are mrs bandy and mrs dierdorf, Perhaps we can get some help there.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:47 AM ^
I am retired and will willingly take that job over.
November 6th, 2018 at 9:49 AM ^
Yeah he's awful...I had to listen to the first few minutes of Michigan/ND on the radio and my friend (who is not a Michigan fan) immediately was like "who is this pbp guy? He's terrible!". And he was right. Dierdorf isn't doing him any favors, either.
He was more equipped to be the color guy like he was for the Lions but even then I don't think he was real great.
I think the best thing would be to hire a new PBP guy and move Jon Jansen up to the booth as color analyst. Let Brandstatter do the halftime radio show maybe and keep him on Michigan replay.
November 6th, 2018 at 2:40 PM ^
I think JB does not give Dierdorf time toto to anything. Seems like he does pbp and analyst together
November 6th, 2018 at 10:04 AM ^
I agree.
Gary Dolphin, the Iowa play by play guy is incredible, and his son is/was a Michigan fan. How do I know? I got a bunch of hand me downs from him years ago that was all Michigan gear. Maybe we should go get him for radio broadcasts.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
Totally agree. This is so obvious and I don't see why they don't fix it.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
I think that's why we're seeing Jon Jansen added to Inside Michigan Football. Probably make some changes for next season. I always wish they could find someone like Ufer, hard to find that mix of passion, intelligence and effort. Ufer put a huge amount of preparation into the announcing. Creating poems, knowing the players, and just loving Michigan. He was both play by play and color commentary.
im guessing Jansen will take color commentary and someone new will b picked for plat by play.
November 6th, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
Let's have tryouts. All are welcome!
November 6th, 2018 at 10:21 AM ^
I'll take him every day of the week and twice on Saturday over the ESPN, Fox, and BTN talking heads who can't just call the game; they spend more air back seat coaching than they do announcing. And Herbstreit is still an OSU homer, he just works hard to try to hide it.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:55 AM ^
But he does try to hide it. More importantly, he’s polished and NOT doing PBP. He’s staying in his lane.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:26 AM ^
It’s bad. To say it has gotten better is like saying the weather is warmer—it went from 35 degrees to 37. He used to confuse Jake Butt and Jake Rudock. Now the pauses, like DPJ’s score against Sparty, the Mmmmichigan thing, and wtf is ‘sack time’? That sounds like something that gets you kicked out of a fraternity or fired from a job and #meetoo’d. I want no part of sack time. He’s an analyst.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:31 AM ^
I listened to JB this week. It was remarkable how often he’d describe a play in the vaguest possible terms, without even describing which player had the ball. Witnesss the Brandon Watson int. It takes halfway thru the return before he tells us Michigan intercepted the ball. Then we don’t know it’s Watson until he scores. Unbelievably bad and amateurish. Does he not have a spotter?
November 6th, 2018 at 10:42 AM ^
I hate to agree with this, but he is really bad a PBP. I was listening to the MSU game on the radio and he has not developed the skills for PBP. Listen to the DPJ TD and he never says who made the catch or what happened until the play is over.
November 6th, 2018 at 10:58 AM ^
The player misidentification I will remember for a long time is when he called Grant Perry 'Chris Perry'. Not that we all haven't done that, haven't we?....
November 6th, 2018 at 11:10 AM ^
Chris Perry, Grant Perry, Grant Mason, Perry Mason...pretty much the same player.
November 6th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^
Agree that Brandstatter is a very good color guy, but PBP is not his forte. If they want to keep him, they should force him to listen to recordings of Bob Ufer doing games, maybe 3 hours a night during the week before a game. He forgets that he is on the radio & we would love to know what is the yard line(he misses that call often) down & distance etc - he gets too excited and forgets. He needs to discipline his mind. Listen to Ufer --balanced line, Leach under center, Lytle close...that guy was a true homer, but he was able to make the calls every time & make it exciting(also, you knew who was winning, just by the tone of his voice)--because back then, we only got to see 1 or 2 games a year on the TV--so he had to be good--we are spoiled now. As for a replacement--we had 2 guys Ufer & Beckmann for over 40 years? Like replacing Harwell for the Tigers--they had to make a safe choice after Beckmann, but you would hope that they have someone in mind--I never thought Beckmann would be good at UM football, but he was - so maybe Dickerson, add in Crash & Jansen if Brandy & Dierdorff retire --have to be careful with who they bring in--lots of history and tradition here--
November 6th, 2018 at 11:48 AM ^
agreed :/ Matt Shep is the best guy for the job in my book
November 6th, 2018 at 12:04 PM ^
and WTH is 'sack time'? horrible call. I thought they should have given the job to Shep. Maybe they offered and he wanted to stick with bball. He would have been pretty good IMO. But yeah, JB needs to move over a chair for someone else.
November 6th, 2018 at 12:15 PM ^
M fans not happy unless they can complain about something.
Brutal
November 6th, 2018 at 1:29 PM ^
So correct. I couldn’t believe how many mistakes he made during the PSU games. We deserve better. So does Jim.
November 6th, 2018 at 2:19 PM ^
Happy to have a familiar, partisan voice. He's good enough because he tells me what is happening. People are too picky.
Keep on keeping on Jim and Dan.
November 6th, 2018 at 2:51 PM ^
Sack Time!
November 6th, 2018 at 2:52 PM ^
Unfortunately the University isn't a fan of Beckmans Politics. I am #MAGA baby #VoteRed
November 6th, 2018 at 4:10 PM ^
Beckman has a political radio show for many years while being an announcer without it being a problem. The issue came when he decided he should start weighing in on things like black people and fried chicken.
When other schools can start recruiting against you by playing radio clips of what your announcer is saying about black people, it tends to become a problem.
Beckman was a fantastic announcer. Unfortunately for him, he decided that his political show was more important to him.
November 6th, 2018 at 4:56 PM ^
I agree with all the brandstater comments. I like him as a color guy, but he sucks at PBP.
On that note, I really hate what the lions have done over the years. Getting rid of brandstater as a color commentator for Lomas Brown is terrible. I really dislike Dan miller as well. He’s too positive when the team sucks so much. Mark Champion was great at telling it how it was, but the lions organization didn’t want him telling the truth (that the lions suck donkey balls).
November 6th, 2018 at 9:51 PM ^
You bring up a good point about Lomas Brown. Who is worse, Brandstatter at play by play or Brown as a color commentator?
November 6th, 2018 at 9:58 PM ^
Agreed. We have Matt Shepherd, why not use him for football too?
November 7th, 2018 at 10:08 AM ^
late to this thread but Brandstatter is pretty rough as PBP. I'm not at the point of wanting him replaced, but getting players wrong is very irritating, yeah. Get some new glasses or ask for a bigger monitor in your booth or something. You'd think he'd have learned what good PBP is from Beckman.
November 17th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
He is a total disaster. I’m sure he is a nice guy and a Michigan Man, but he is completely unprepared to do his job. Every play call is late, names are wrong and many times the play is over before he even makes the call.
We neen something better than this.