The highly anticipated showdown between Alabama and Texas A&M is less than a week away, and the buzz surrounding the game has already begun. Last year, Johnny Manziel and company shocked Alabama in Tuscaloosa to hand the eventual national champions their only loss of the season. When Manziel looks to do the same this year, he will have his own personal camera.
According to SI.com’s Richard Deitsch, CBS Sports has added an extra camera — called the “Johnny Cam” — for Saturday’s game that will focus strictly on Manziel. Still not convinced that this kid is larger than life?
“No matter where he is and no matter what part of the game it is, we will have a shot of it,” Craig Silver, the coordinating producer of college football for CBS Sports, told Deitsch. “If he is anywhere in sight of that camera, we will catch it.”
Saturday’s 3:30 p.m. game between the Aggies and Crimson Tide is sure to be one of the most highly-rated games of the season. There is no arguing that Manziel makes for great television, whether you’re interested in seeing the Heisman Trophy winner’s electric playmaking ability or being entertained by similar antics to the ones he busted out against Rice.
Given the autograph scandal that surrounded Manziel this offseason, viewers are interested in following his every move more so now than they ever were. However, Silver said the CBS broadcast team will not be harping on his off-field issues.
“By the time we get to kickoff, this thing will have been talked about ad nauseam throughout the sports world,” he said. “We are not judge and jury. It is not our place, especially within the body of the broadcast, to state whether he should or should not be playing, should have been suspended or should not have been suspended. The way I approach it is how has all this stuff affected him as a football player and affected his team.”
Silver added that his “main goal” on Saturday is for viewers to remember that there is a lot more going on outside of Manziel. There’s Nick Saban, AJ McCarron, and an Alabama team that has won back-to-back national championships. But still, there is only one “Johnny Cam.” I think that says it all.
