The inaugural Overtime Nationals High School Football Championship was what we expected from an on-field standpoint.
St. Frances rolled to a 37-20 victory over Corner Canyon at Under Armour Stadium in Baltimore. Not a surprise given SFA, effectively playing a home game, is a consensus top-5 team nationally. Corner Canyon is a powerhouse in Utah, but more of a top-30 to top-50 squad.
But the bigger story — at least for us here — was everything around the game, a partnership by Overtime and Peyton Manning’s Omaha Productions along with the worldwide leader in sports.
Some thoughts:
ESPN was clearly all-in: It had a big-name broadcast team — Joe Tessitore and Dan Orlovsky. Both were excited to be there, passionate about high school football and prepared with knowledge about both teams. It was far from the mail-in job other stars may have delivered. NFL scoop king Adam Schefter also blasted out a tweet promoting the game to his over 11M followers and other reporters in the ESPN universe pushed the game as well.
Overtime’s contributions were far less polished: It felt like there was some sort of technical issue or awkward change in energy each time Tessitore and Orlovsky threw the broadcast to field reporter “Overtime” Tom Weingarten, the platform’s chief growth officer. Nothing against him, but an ESPN reporter should have been working the sidelines. The consistent on-field audio cuts — presumably because coaches and players were using profanities — were less than ideal as well.
Some of the features felt out of place: The event was billed as a national title game. But the in-game player interviews, halftime commitment ceremony (which was very clunky) and celebration throne felt more like an all-star game or an exhibition. Overtime is geared toward Gen-Z and will obviously want to incorporate that approach into its events, but it is a very tricky balance when the bulk of the broadcast is being presented like a college or NFL game would be and then it suddenly transitions into feeling like TikTok.
A rule quirk: The fourth-and-15 “onsides play” is not a new idea — the concept has been out there for over a decade — but it felt strange to throw something that is not in the NFHS rulebook into a purported national title game. And it felt even more gimmicky when the St. Frances head coach was confused by how it works during the game.
Ratings? It will be interesting to see what the game posted. It was not going up against much competition on a Wednesday night and Corner Canyon was competitive despite the final score. The game did not truly get out of hand until the third quarter.
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