Jorge Sedano, the play-by-play guy for the ACC Network broadcast of the Virginia-Syracuse game last week, went out of his way to steer clear of the controversy over backup tailback Solomon Beebe, who was in the lineup for the first time this season, after having his “suspension” over criminal charges from an August arrest lifted.
“That pass was to Solomon Beebe, a seldom-used running back,” was how Sedano described a second quarter pop pass to Beebe, who got three offensive snaps and one snap on special teams in Virginia’s 28-25 win.
The pass, incidentally, went for a three-yard loss.
There is no way Sedano and the ACCN broadcast team – which included former Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson as the analyst, and sideline reporter Madison Hock – weren’t aware of the situation involving Beebe, who was arrested on animal cruelty charges involving allegations that he repeatedly hit his pit bull, Jeb.
From the archives
- Coverage of the Solomon Beebe case: click here.
Beebe was “suspended” from the team a week after the arrest, but the “suspension” was such that he was allowed to continue training, practicing and traveling with the team, before being formally reinstated on Oct. 1.
Beebe was reinstated after resolving the criminal matter by pleading no contest to one of the three charges, and accepting a sentence including community service and mandated mental health and anger management treatment.
When I say there was no way the broadcast crew wasn’t aware of what had gone on with Beebe, I’m speaking from the experience of having been an ESPN broadcaster for nearly a decade, and knowing the prep work that goes into a game broadcast.
Both programs give you game notes, but that’s just the start of it.
You do your own research, too, trying to find fun, interesting, informative tidbits to help tell the story of the game that you’re calling.
Because I was a color analyst, I tended to focus my research on the on-the-field stuff, combing through game, season and career stats; Wade Branner, my most frequent broadcast partner, the long-time play-by-play voice at VMI, specialized in digging up details on where the kids came from, who their high school coaches were, other personal details.
The acknowledgment from Sedano, the play-by-play guy for UVA-‘Cuse, that Beebe, at the time of his first touch of the season, was a “seldom-used running back,” is an indication that he was aware that Beebe was in his first game in the 2026 campaign.
I’m just curious if there was a directive from … somewhere … to not go into detail on why Beebe had, to that point, been “seldom-used.”
Animal cruelty would seem to be the kind of thing that ACCN and UVA Athletics would want to avoid being a focal point for even a relative few seconds of a game broadcast, because as we are all aware, college football broadcasts aren’t hard news – they’re infomercials.
If Beebe had missed several weeks because he’d rescued a puppy from a burning building, now, that would be different – Sedano et al would have made that pass for a three-yard loss into the second coming of the Immaculate Reception.
But because he missed time over abusing his dog, well, you know – best to get to what UVA needed to do to convert the third-and-long.
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Chris Graham
