There is another football game being played this week at NRG Stadium.
On Friday, members of Houston’s Willowridge High School football team will run plays on the field that two days later will host Super Bowl LI. There will be no crowd in the stands, no millions watching from home, but it will be closely watched by those behind the scenes at FOX.
The producers will use that action to study how camera angles will look when the Falcons and Patriots play for the Lombardi Trophy on Sunday.
“I am not exactly sure how it started,” said Rich Russo, FOX’s lead game director. “This is my third year directing a Super Bowl and we have always brought in a high school team. They’ll run some plays for an hour and we look at the extra cameras we have on the goal lines, the end lines. Basically what I do is come up with a complete camera layout and plan. We do the whole rehearsal with them from the opening announcements, national anthem, everything.”
The high school game is part of the delicate balance Russo and his crew are walking this week as they try to install a sense of normalcy, while implementing the extra cameras and crew that come with covering the most-watched telecast of each year. Russo estimates there will be 50 cameras for the game, about triple the amount they normally would have.
“We try and keep the preparation the same as we do for game on any Sunday. Obviously, it’s an enormous event and a huge spectacle, but once that ball is kicked [off], we have to treat it like a football game,” Russo said. “There’s a lot more manpower and a lot more equipment, but you have to go into the biggest game of the year comfortable with all the equipment.”
The schedule leading into the game is fairly standard for the crew: a meeting with the NFL on Monday, a walk-through on Tuesday, observing a Patriots practice and meeting with them on Wednesday with (game producer) Richie Zyontz, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, same with the Falcons on Thursday and then the full-speed session with Willowridge on Friday.
“Saturday is pretty relaxed unless there’s any fires to put out,” Russo said.
This is the third Super Bowl for Russo as game director and the same can be said for his fellow New Jersey native, Rich Gross, who is the Tape Associate Director. Gross is in charge of having any highlight reel involving the Patriots, Falcons or past Super Bowls on hand and finding the ideal moment to utilize them.
“The preparation is vast,” Gross said. “For the Patriots it’s a little bit more [because we haven’t had them as often]. For the Falcons, who we had in the NFC Championship, we are retrieving and updating packages. There are a lot of people who are watching the Super Bowl who don’t often watch football, so we are trying to get them a gist of what’s going on and make it a little simpler for the people who are watching. As soon as the championship game ends, we hit the ground running.”
The last Super Bowl FOX had was three years ago at MetLife Stadium, where the Seahawks bludgeoned the Broncos, 43-8, in Super Bowl XLVIII. While there was no blackout (Super Bowl XLVII) or wardrobe malfunction (Super Bowl XXXVIII) it did present certain challenges from an entertainment standpoint. Gross recalls hunting down the highlights from Super Bowl XXIV, when the 49ers destroyed the Broncos, 55-10, one of 60-75 reels he had at his disposal.
Russo remembers hoping for a comeback that never came.
“I remember it was 22-0 at halftime and I turned to Richie [Zyontz] and said, ‘Maybe we’ll get the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history.’ Then Percy Harvin returns the second half kickoff, and I said, ‘Well, maybe we won’t.’ ”
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