Nine days before the Pinstripe Bowl, the game’s color
commentator was deep into preparation for the assignment.
He’d worked games featuring both Boston College and Penn
State during the regular season, was familiar with both coaching staffs and had
even requested the assignment (long before the matchup was set, more on that
later), but his preparation was important.
So, Matt Millen arrived at the Lasch Football Building at
Penn State at 10:27 a.m. Dec. 18. He was wearing a black Under Armour ballcap
and an unzipped black ESPN College Football jacket over an untucked blue
flannel shirt and gray T-shirt. In dark blue jeans and sneakers, he was
comfortable and ready to work.
After renewing acquaintances with Penn State video
coordinator Jevin Stone, Millen was set up in the wide receivers’ meeting room
and ready to get started.
A nearly hour-long meeting with coach James Franklin
happened first, though, as they talked about the bowl game, the season and
more.
Still, by noon Millen was seated, remote control in hand and
ready to watch game films from Penn State and Boston College. He was reviewing
both teams on the same day as part of a meticulous process that invariably
follows the same pattern.
“I watch home team offense, home team defense, then visiting
team offense and visiting team defense,” Millen said. Why? “Because you have to
start somewhere, and that’s how John Madden said he did it when I first started
doing this. That’s good enough for me.”
Millen will serve as the color commentator for the Pinstripe
Bowl on ESPN with play-by-play man Bob Wischusen and sideline reporter Quint
Kessenich.
At one time, years ago, Millen was generally recognized as
the second-best TV analyst in the business behind Madden. After his stint as
general manager of the Detroit Lions and over time, he has proven himself among
the upper echelon of college analysts, even as the prominence of assignments
has slipped a bit in recent years.
Still, he’s honest and opinionated -- something Penn State
fans got a taste of when Wischusen, Millen and Kessenich worked the Penn
State-Illinois game near the end of the regular season.
Millen brings the same forthright approach to watching film
that he practices on gameday. He usually watches film with his partners as well
as the game’s producer and director, a process that produces banter and interaction
that eventually helps inform and shape a broadcast. On, Dec. 18, though, he was
stuck with me.
Having worked the Illinois game (“One of the worst Penn
State games in years,” he said.), Millen watched Penn State against UCF, Ohio
State and Michigan State -- getting a taste of the team from the beginning,
middle and end of the season.
He said he focuses on a team’s schemes as well as who
coaches are trying to “hide” and they trust. By reviewing every play of each
game a couple times, he learns a lot. “Coaches tell you anything,” Millen said.
“The tape doesn’t lie.”
In Penn State’s case, that includes bunch sets for
receivers, something Millen said a team can because its receivers generally do
not separate well from defenders when running routes.
Mostly, the film revealed the obvious for Penn State, with
an almost porous and unpredictable offensive line at the center of the team’s
problems. Millen said a team can hide one weak offensive lineman, often at
right guard, but a team with more liabilities than that will struggle to find
consistency.
Also, Millen focused on schemes, wondering aloud whether
coaches were adapting to the personnel available or simply focusing on their
scheme. Like many, Millen sees the Pinstripe Bowl as an important part of Penn
State’s development.
“They have problems, but I expect to see some changes and
progress,” Millen said. “They should be better with a chance to get healthy,
get more coaching and practice a little more.”
Still, he knows some things will not change and fully
expects the Boston College to bring repeated blitzes to test Penn State’s
offensive line and quarterback Christian Hackenberg.
On “Hack,” as Millen invariably refers to him, the former
NFL GM sees untapped potential and a few problems for the quarterback. “He’s
made some mistakes, maybe more this year than the year before, and that’s on
him,” Millen said. “But, he still has a great arm and potential. He’ll get a
chance in the NFL. Put him behind a decent line, and he can be good.”
After Penn State, Millen’s film review process moved to
Boston College. His approach -- watch, rewind, watch, rewind, watch, rewind,
next play, repeat -- was interrupted only by an occasional call or text, when
he would pull the flip phone from his right sleeve and respond, if necessary.
He was in the building until 7:30 p.m., when “my wife made
me leave” and before a late dinner with good friend and teammate Dr. Paul Suhey
in State College.
At times, Millen pointed out “soft” or “undisciplined”
players who lazily tried to block or complete and assignment. In what amounted
to his most critical comments, he would flatly state, “my daughter could do
better than that.”
And mentions of his family define Millen as much as
anything.
He asked ESPN officials to work the Pinstripe Bowl so he
could spend the holidays with his family, getting as much time with all of them
and especially his West Point-educated son Marcus, who will be deployed to the
Middle East on Dec. 27.
“I wanted to do the game long before Penn State was in it,”
Millen said. “It’s nice that they’re playing, but it was really more about
having time to see my family.”
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