ESPN on Wednesday revealed the announcing crews for all of its bowl games on its platforms, including the 2022 Birmingham Bowl between East Carolina and Coastal Carolina, set for a Tuesday. Dec. 27 telecast on ESPN at 6:45 p.m. ET.
Tiffany Greene will have play-by-play coverage, with Jay Walker as the color analyst. Jalyn Johnson will cover sideline duties. It’s part of a four-game bowl coverage day for ESPN. The action gets started at 12 noon in the Camellia Bowl in Montgomery, Ala., when Georgia Southern and Buffalo do battle. Memphis and Utah State follow at 3:15 p.m. ET in the First Responder Bowl in Dallas. Following the East Carolina-Coastal Carolina game, the Guaranteed Rate Bowl will kickoff at Chase Field in Arizona between Wisconsin and Oklahoma State with Beth Mowins handling play-by-play duties, and Kirk Morrison the analyst.
Greene and Walker have done several HBCU college football games this season and will also call the Celebration Bowl between Jackson State and North Carolina Central on Dec. 17. Greene is the first African American woman to serve as a play-by-play announcer for college football on ESPN. She has also called NCAA Women’s Division I Basketball Tournament, NCAA Softball Regional and Super Regionals, as well as NCAA Volleyball Regionals. Greene started working at ESPN in 2012 as a sideline reporter.
Walker joined ESPN in 2005 as an analyst. He attended Howard and was drafted in the NFL, where he played a few years. In addition to his commentating duties, Walker is CEO and President of Walker Financial Services and has been a member of the House of Delegates in Maryland since 1997.
Johnson attended Missouri and Mississippi State and has been working with ESPN since 2021.
The matchup between East Carolina and Coastal Carolina is set to be played at Protective Stadium in downtown Birmingham, on the campus of UAB. It’s the third time the Pirates have played in the Birmingham Bowl. They participated in 2006, in the inaugural game against USF, when it was the PapaJohns.com Bowl. In 2014, ECU returned to the Birmingham Bowl and took on Florida. The Pirates are 0-2 all-time in this particular bowl.
This will be the first time the Pirates and Chanticleers match up in football. ECU is 7-5 overall and will be playing in its first postseason game since the Birmingham Bowl in 2014. ECU was selected to last year’s Military Bowl against Boston College, but the game was canceled the day before the game due to COVID issues on the Eagles’ end.
Coastal Carolina went 9-3 this season, starting 9-1, but losing its final two games of the year to James Madison and Troy, the latter of which came in the Sun Belt championship game. Chanticleers head coach Jamey Chadwell has since taken the head coaching job at Liberty and will not be coaching in the bowl game.
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