Fox to use sideline veterans in college football coverage

Fox Sports president Eric Shanks, talking college football coverage plans that will be formally announced today, says one new wrinkle seems obvious: Use people on sidelines who've been there a lot.

Fox will use ex-Minnesota coach Tim Brewster as a sideline analyst. "It makes more sense to have people who've spent the most time watching from that angle," says Shanks. Brewster will be more of an analyst than reporter. "He'll be like a third man in the booth," says Shanks, but won't have an open mike so announcers Gus Johnson and Charles Davis "don't have to wait for him to chime in."

Says Brewster, debuting on FX's Tulsa-Oklahoma game Sept. 3: "I'm less into talking to coaches and more into describing situational football."

Johnson and Davis are lead voices on Fox's ramped-up college football this season as the network carries the debut Big Ten and Pac-12 title games. Its FX cable channel begins game-of-the-week coverage, mostly Pac-12 and Big 12 games, as a precursor to weekly coverage of Pac-12 games on Fox next year, Johnson, who left CBS NFL and college basketball games to join Fox, said Tuesday the transition isn't taxing: "The biggest change was moving from New York to Los Angeles. Here, it's 82, no humidity and the wind is blowing."

Also new: NFL rules analyst Mike Pereira will be used in what Fox bills as the first rules analyst on TV college football. And on weekends with FX doubleheaders, game announcers will be Fox Sports Net's Craig Bolerjack and Joel Klatt, who Shanks calls "the best analyst nobody has heard of."

Not surprisingly, Fox's dive into college football will include the animated Cleatus robot character that it parades on its NFL coverage and hawks to consumers as an action character. Says Shanks: "We'll have team-specific robots. Cleatus will be going to school, visiting campuses. On the NFL, Cleatus will have a son." Sounds like hijinks will ensue.

Fox P.S.: Shanks says Fox's recent pitch for future Olympics, in bidding ultimately won by NBC, included casting Joe Buck as Olympic host and supplemental narrow-casting such as the Fox-backed Big Ten Network carrying Olympic coverage focused on that conference's athletes. And on the MLB playoffs, Fox won't resurrect last year's idea for a cable-cam rolling over the playing field — which never got beyond off-air tests. Says Shanks: "We took our best shot. You can't fly something over the field and not interfere with the game."

NFL Net going live: This week last year, NFL Network had one hour of live shows each day. This wild week, it will go live for at least 12 hours starting at 9 a.m. ET — and could go live through the night Friday to cover free-agent signings starting at 6 p.m. ET. Says NFLN executive producer Eric Weinberger: "That night, we can go live, basically, endlessly."