Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas - 2006 Game Notes

2006 Game Notes

• On December 19, it was confirmed that Time Warner Cable will carry the NFL Network free for at least the duration of the game. On December 22, Cablevision agreed to carry the game. Neither cable company normally carries NFL Network. The announcements allayed fears that Rutgers fans living in New York and New Jersey would not be able to watch the game.

• New Jersey native Spero Dedes handled the play-by-play for the game on the NFL Network. However, his geographic knowledge of his home state was called into question, when he identified Rutgers being in "South Jersey" at least four times during the broadcast. He also referred to the main campus' location as "South Brunswick" instead of "New Brunswick". Although the Rutgers University system has a small South Jersey campus in Camden, it is a separate school and not associated with the main school's athletic program. (An equivalent would be comparing Penn State with Penn State Beaver.) The home stadium and the Scarlet Knights are headquartered on the flagship New Brunswick-Piscataway campus, which is in central New Jersey. Other gaffes included calling running back Ray Rice as "Way Wice" and tight end Clark Harris "Cliff" Harris (Harris was a safety for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s).

• The telecast had other missteps: the "1st & Ten" electronic yardage system malfunctioned several times and Marshall Faulk, who was scheduled to be the sideline reporter, did not show up; therefore, the game had no reports from field level, unlike most other college football telecasts.