Rob Hyland knew the backlash would come. Hyland, who has run NBC’s coverage of Notre Dame football since 2009, is a veteran television producer who understands that we tend to consider the elements of our favorite sports broadcasts to be sacred — even though we don’t consider those elements at all until one of them changes.



Then we freak out.



Hyland knew the decision to use the sideline skycam, a rig hanging 40 feet above the field that allows the crew to push in and zoom out while still following the action, as the primary start-of-play shot for Notre Dame’s home opener against New Mexico would elicit a reaction. For the entirety of our football watching lives, the vast majority of from-scrimmage plays have started from the same view using either a set of cameras mounted in the mezzanine area of stadiums. We all know this view, even if we’ve never thought about it. It’s horizontal and slightly angled. It shows the far sideline but...