Howard, Zeier Back in the Booth

I sort of buried the lead in my "Odds and Ends" post earlier today, but here's the official word on the UGA radio team...

Georgia's broadcast booth went through some major shake-ups last season, but 2009 will begin with the same announcing team that ended the 2008 season.

Longtime broadcaster Scott Howard and former Georgia quarterback Eric Zeier will be the Bulldogs' permanent radio broadcast team, the school announced Friday, as the team readies to kick off its first season without Larry Munson in 44 years.

"This is a proven broadcast team," Georgia athletics director Damon Evans said. "Scott is a Bulldog calling Georgia Bulldog games. He's been one of our radio personalities going on 20 years and has done an exceptional job with all the Bulldog sports he has broadcast over a long period of time. Eric gives us not only a former Bulldog player but the special analysis that a former quarterback can bring to the table."

Howard took over play-by-play duties from Munson early last season after the longtime broadcaster announced his retirement following a series of medical issues. Howard had manned the booth for all road games in 2007 as well.

While Howard and Zeier will provide some consistency to Bulldogs broadcasts, plenty of other shake-ups are in store.

A new media rights deal with ISP Sports was announced earlier this week, giving ISP control of the radio broadcasts for the first time. ISP quickly announced an added hour to the team's pre-game show and said a number of other upgrades to the broadcasts are in store – including adding some new faces to the broadcast team in the roles of sideline reporters and pre- and post-game hosts.

"The other positions that we have from a sideline perspective, from a pre-game show, from some of the ancillary programming that we have with this new hour," ISP general manager Jeff Huffman said, "we're working closely with UGA to determine who those talents are going to be, but we haven't released that yet."