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Last week, ESPN shocked the college football world by installing Rece Davis as the new host of College GameDay, announcing that Chris Fowler no longer will be affiliated with the show.
The stunning move coincided with a new contract with ESPN for Davis, whose previous deal was set to expire.
For his part, Fowler cordially promoted Davis as a smart next move for the show and publicly claimed that he never intended to pull double duty with his newfound play-by-play broadcasting role on Saturday Night Football.
RELATED: Rece Davis to replace Chris Fowler on ESPN’s College GameDay
But what really happened behind the scenes? Did Davis give ESPN an ultimatum about GameDay, or else he’d leave for another network? Was Fowler honestly ready to give up the ghost?
Either way, it seems like the GameDay offer was an essential part of Davis’ new contract.
“I had several meetings over the course of that time spread out over a number of months and expressed my desire to have as prominent a role as possible in college football,” Davis said, according to For The Win.
“I already had a prominent role in the studio, and an important one, but I thought it was time for a growth opportunity … never a particular show or a particular game assignment, but it was more about what could I do and what role would be the right one in order to have as prominent a place in our coverage as I possibly could.”
Now the real question surrounding college football’s most prominent show is how will it change?
Lee Corso will celebrate his 80th birthday before the start of the 2015 season. It’s a challenge to execute GameDay in front of thousands of screaming, possibly inebriated college students while discussing dozens of games in detail. In a way that’s both inviting, irreverent and smart.
Can Davis manage all those moving parts? And is the show on the edge of a major evolution?
For his part, Davis insists he’s not trying to revolutionize GameDay.
“But I think it’s also true in television if you’re not constantly looking to improve and looking to maintain your edge and by definition that means changing things from time to time, you’re probably not going to be as successful as you can be,” Davis said.
Previously the host of the college basketball version of GameDay, and a fixture as a studio host on college programming for many years, the University of Alabama graduate insists chemistry won’t be an issue, citing his already-formed relationship with Corso and Kirk Herbstreit.
“I think the No. 1 thing is we all love college football and we love the opportunity to present it on college football Saturdays,” Davis said. “I don’t feel like a stranger to the viewers at home. I’ve been in the college football studio in some capacity for 17 years, so I don’t think that there will be this huge adjustment, like: ‘Who is that guy?’”
An itinerant journalist, Christopher has moved between states 11 times in seven years. Formally an injury-prone Division I 800-meter specialist, he now wanders the Rockies in search of high peaks.
