ESPN's Rece Davis Gets Set for College Football Season | The Bret Boone Podcast

welcome to the Brett Boon podcast I'm your host Brett Boone today I'm joined by another friend of the show uh and you know when he comes on football is in the are is the host of college game day ladies and gentlemen welcome back to the podcast Rees Davis Reese thanks for joining me today always a pleasure to be with you boony great to see you uh all right big trip coming we're going to dble it was it was Corso's birthday a couple days ago now you're going to Dublin 16th of this month um I want to talk about okay I want to see what it's like for for ree Davis you've been doing this a long time uh very popular show college game day is it like is it like an okay I play a full season some some years play well enough and we get to go to the postseason some years we go home uh you know at the end of September usually at that point I love my teammates to death but I talk toing training when the season ends when the when the football season ends I know you go on to do some hoops and then get a little time off before the college the college season kicks up again uh do you guys stay in touch do you talk or is it hey we'll see you next year guys no we stay in touch I mean it it varies depending on the you know the individual relationship and it also kind of goes right and fits and starts and you probably know this from teammates too I mean there might be some week where you know I talk to Herby three times and then there might be you know three four weeks where I don't talk or text with him at all you know just because he's he's got stuff going on I've got stuff going on but I would say that for the most part we all stay in some degree of contact uh you know we'll we'll shoot each other messages you know I'll keep up with McAfee and you know you know if I see something funny which you often do not every time or I'd be texting him all the time you see something you really like on a show you know you hit him and let him know maybe if you haven't heard from Herby in three weeks maybe you bust his chops and ask him you know if he's still breathing or whatever um but yeah we stay we stay in in some level of contact that tends to ramp up a little bit more as the summer goes on then you do hoops and you got a little downtime um and I know for me once again I'm going to put everything relative to to my program and what I did so I get into the you know the off season for me I might have a hunting trip I might have a trip with the family uh and then it's getting close to Spring training for you we're getting close to the college football season again when do you start ramping up and kind of going okay it's about time we get going again well I started early this year I I started in late May um early June putting together and it's just a it's a primer basically uh of every team in the power conferences teams that I think will be good out out the group of five you know certainly included Washington State and Oregon State this year so I think I've got you know 85 90 teams in this spreadsheet that I do and I you know I'll track um I'll track coaching changes their quarterback situation who's portal in who's portal out guys they're counting on some pertinent stats I used to go through and like copy the stats but now we've got this great program uh at ESPN that you can break down stats every every way imaginable and I learned to hyperlink so I just hyperlink the stats at the top of this spreadsheet and it it sort of gets me ready for camp and so that I my goal every year is to have that done before before uh practice starts for the teams in the fall so you can update it you can start following along and you don't feel like you're doing this thing to have a functional knowledge of a wide array of teams now obviously teams that you need to know inside out of the teams that are at the top and you do that but you also want to be prepared if say for instance um Indiana that's a little bit of a stretch but I'm saying that because I've got buddies on the coaching staff there if Indiana turns out to be really good you want to have a functional knowledge of them so you're not starting from scratch but to sit here and say that you're diving into Indiana in the summer the same way that you would Ohio state is probably not based in reality and it's also not really productive because because you're not going to spend as much time on them unless they're good and once they become good then obviously you want to be prepared to to do that right and said it right at the last minute going wow I didn't expect that now I gotta now I gotta I gotta scramble yeah you want say at least you got a base yeah you don't want to say you don't want to say who who's who's playing quarterback you know for you know Arizona State or whatever you want to you want to you know have a good functional knowledge of everything body and then obviously teams that are at the top and their teams as the season goes on in contention you'll know them on a on a much deeper level well I'll tell you this year reys I didn't do my due diligence on the Chicago White Socks and you know what it paid off exactly I Scramble with uh with this show and and obviously with all the success it's had there's there's big expectations and and my uh you know I think about that all the time does is there do you feel the pressure uh man you do you've done so many how did how does reys Davis go about keeping it fresh that's a that's a great question and a great way to put it because keeping it fresh is what is what really has been a Hallmark of this show really throughout its entire run if you go back and look at the Early Show and I'm not even talking about when it started in the late 80s when they were still in studio but from the time it went on the road for the first time in '93 to what we do now and the incremental changes that have come along with it fresh is the right word so you always want to be true to your base you want to do the things that we do which is celebrate illuminate the pageantry the tradition the things that make college football special but you also want to do things that will open up avenues for younger fans new fans people who might not remember uh you know the 1984 Boston College Miami gameer people who you know might not remember U you know Mike Rosie or Sam bam Cunningham or somebody you want you want to be able to still touch that to show people why it's interesting to show people why you love it to show people why it's important but you want to find you you want to find new ways to do things so you always try to find different ways to present the information I think one of the things that we've done uh over the last couple of years is give more access and try to make sure that we get more players on and fewer coaches not not because we're trying to diminish the coaches but if you go through a show and you've heard from six coaches and no players then that's probably you know it's probably not the best way to go about it a college is a little bit different than professional sports although college football is largely a professional Enterprise now but there are still coaches who are really hesitant about letting their quarterback do a quick interview when he gets off the bus some will most won't so sometimes we are limited by that you know you might think well I heard ree Davis on Brett Boon's podcast say they wanted to have players and they had all coaches probably not from lack of asking you know a lot of times the players or players would be willing to do it coaches are a little more hesitant they're afraid it'll you know get guys out of their routine or whatever but the one I point to was I think it was two years ago when Michael Mayer was at Notre Dame they Notre Dame was gracious enough to allow him to you know he had his phone had the um airpods on as he walked the field in his suit when they arrived we were able to talk to him live before they played Navy I don't think it hurt his performance you know it wasn't a long interview was probably you know three minutes two to three minutes but those little things I think give flavor and access and um you know it sort of shows how the how the show has evolved and it'll take on another chapter this year we bring Sab in we're certainly going to highlight Nick's ability to um to explain football at a very high level yet make it very understandable for people who who might well be knowledgeable fans of the game but there as you well know from from baseball and everything else you can be a knowledgeable fan and there are still really deep intricacies of the sport that you kind of have to live it if you if you have a day job if you have a day job and a family no matter how much baseball you watch you probably don't understand everything about it and the same is is true for football I think yeah you know the the thing that's interesting to me and the farther I get away from being a player and especially in the modern era I see a lot of ingame activity with coaches players when I was a player those days where they said hey boy can we Mike you up for a couple Innings that to me was like man this is really cramping my style I'm here to work 7 o'clock that national anthem goes off it's all business for me and I don't have time for this entertainment but the farther I get away from the game and now I look at it from a different perspective perspective I'm not the player in the grind I see I I see what they're going after and I think it's a real positive I think if I could transform back in the to a player right now I think I'd be much more welcome to to the ingame because that's what fans want to see and that's how you grow the game so when you talk about having that coach walk onto the field and you don't think it affected his I think it's nothing but a positive giving the fans an inside look letting them behind the curtain it does nothing but do great things for the game and and I thought you know I see managers now on in the baseball Arena seventh inning of a playoff game and hey Skip what do you think about you know I mean we're on pins and needles and they're doing this but I understand and I think wow this is great uh it's not really something he wants to do right now uh it's in the middle of a big time but in the big picture I I I think it opens it up to so many more viewers because that's what viewers want everybody's on their couch yelling at the TV whether it's football basketball baseball but to let them in a little bit really I see the upside is is so much greater than no we're business as usual which in my generation it kind of was I mean you asked to you were asked to put a a mic on and it really disrupted your day but but that's because that wasn't the norm then I think now I I think it's great when they do these things and I know how uh inconvenient they may be but if you look at the big picture uh not only college football NFL uh college basketball Major League Baseball man the fans love it and you because you really feel like you give them an opportunity to be in The Dugout with you it and you know I think the Generation Now Brett I think they are so accustomed For Better or Worse to putting everything out there you know and and they are sharing what they think on a regular basis they're you know they're very comfortable in front of cameras and you know and being recorded or being on live streams or whatever it may be so I I think this generation views it a little bit differently than ours did you know whether it was you know me covering it early on or when when you were playing so I totally get that because it was I I also think it's a little bit it was you know what probably even 10 years ago it was more of an undertaking to put on that microphone and one of the things weren't many good things that came out of the whole you know lockdown situation from a TV standpoint but one thing that we did learn is that we can we can go with less than pristine technical quality audio and video we did we did a number of um during the the pandemic year in 2020 when they played we did a number of coaches on you know setups like like I'm on right now on my laptop or on their cell phones and I remember one with dbos Sweeney particularly the feed was terrible but he was good and you could hear him and there you know there were some good moments in it and one of the things that occurred to me immediately after that watching the show back is like prior to this there's no way our technical people would have let this on television we would said this quality is not good enough we're not going to do this and I think that type of that people accept it now it's not people aren't bothered by it you know I think prior to that people were like what's wrong with the feed why does the picture not look great and now there's so much video out there just at people's fingertips on their phones that they aren't as they aren't as bothered by it they prefer the access over the pristine look yeah and I mean you're just I mean they love that both they' love that vot but but if given a choice they'll take the access right and I think the the you know in this day and age for a for a sport uh to to kind of poo poo it and not give full access I mean today's modern-day consumer is going to go wait a minute you're not going to give us access we get access to everything all right we'll move on scroll for the Casual fan obviously the the big-time fan doesn't matter what you do they're going to be sitting on their couch on on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon but the Casual fan will keep scrolling they'll find something that intrigues them and uh you know so I I think going forward I think this is the way to go and I've I'm as old school as they come but I I found myself to be opening up to the the new ways of the world in the modern-day athlete and uh I look at it from you know we never like change but I'm seeing change and I'm actually embracing some of the change and thinking wow uh it's I have a little bit more of an open mind now and I'm willing to accept things and and see if it works I think it's not going to work and then all a sudden I'm pleasantly surprised to go wow I didn't want that see that change but it was pretty cool yeah I you have to you know continually do that in our business and I think you make a great point about the Casual fan and the hardcore fan and one of the things that we strive to do as I talk with our producers and we start planning big picture for the season in the show and then individually each week is you never want to alienate your dedicated hardcore audience yet you also appreciate and take advantage of the fact that they will give you some latitude I mean you don't need to explain things to fans as if they were kindergarteners and had never seen a snap but at the same time if you can do something that might appeal to a more casual viewer and you know something that might be more in the human interest realm now a great story is a great story when you know game day has a rich history and Legacy of telling these uh remarkable stories that occur away from the field that's not even really what I'm talking about but if you you have something maybe a hobby something that's a little bit eccentric or offbeat about a player and you showcase that even the people who really want to know what percentage of the time USC is going to Blitz Now with an Lynn as defensive coordinator you know they will forgive you for that and they will take that in stride the Casual fan that you would like to expand your audience to if you're just talking about Blitz packages and Blitz pickups and and third down offense you know you don't have a chance to bring them into the fold and then hopefully engage them on those hardcore topics later so it's uh that's something we strive to do each week is find a balance I can remember we had a we had a really good show at appalachin State a few years ago we felt like it was a really good show but as we as I went back and looked through it again I said you know I think we had one too many you know offbeat weird things you know they were they were all good I know exactly what you're talking about yeah they were individually they were all worthy of being on the show they were all well done they were all good big picture maybe one too many so you're constantly evaluating that and trying to find the right balance yeah it's amazing when you when you know and maybe everybody maybe they do understand what you're talking about but I get it it's subtle and maybe everybody doesn't pick it up but you who do this all the time you picked it up right away like yep we went over the limit and it was too much and probably 90% of the audience doesn't think it was too much but I know for the when I when you give individual ratings that made me deduct a few points because man I just went over that I know exactly what you're talking about and and it is a balance beam isn't it because you have to consider the hardcore viewer the real knowledgeable fan but you have to also consider that casual fan that when you get too technical you lose them it's kind of like okay I don't know what he's talking about let me Me Turn the Page here whereas that hardcore fans engaged and it really is loving those intricacies so you're right it's a Balan beam act it's tough and uh you know you you got to walk it but but as the longer you do it you become good at it and and you've definitely uh definitely found a way to make it work Rees going to Dublin we open the show with that uh little different going overseas are there more challenges for the crew uh for every everybody involved in just a normal College college game day when you're going to you know you're going to Notre Dame is there a difference going to Dublin what more goes into it I I think logistically in terms of just getting the things that we need there obviously there are some challenges but because the footprint of the set is going to be a little bit smaller just by necessity because it's you know across the ocean and it's a one-time preseason deal in a smaller space we'll have basically one stage set up B on typical week we'll have three you know we'll have the you know the demo area you'll have the you know the Octagon area we'll have a big screen area and then have the main set um so you know that might have been four but sometimes those are a couple of those I mentioned are different names for the same thing but um here it'll be one one set but I think logistically um it'll be it'll be easier to ex execute the show once everything's in place for the technical people if that may if that makes sense you know getting the things in place will be the more the more difficult thing they're already they're already on it there have been site surveys dating back to the spring so they're a well oiled machine and figuring out how to how to do it but um you know I think that just logistically getting everybody over there some of the guys have other commitments and you know I'm going a week early so I can spend two or three days there with my with my wife and daughter sort of exploring the area I've never been there before so um we'll get to do that other guys are having to kind of come in you know because they have some other responsibilities um I think Kirk has an NFL preseason game on Thursday night before Dublin so he's gonna be in a tight turnaround situation but um it's you know I think that all in all the show will come off well but getting there you know is is something but when you undertake something like this that we were supposed to do in 2020 actually that was when this the origin this idea came about we were going there for the Notre Dame Navy game and um back then there had been so much planning that had gone into it that we were able to build on some of that planning and you know update it and different things in terms of logistics and and how to get from point A to point B and all of that and we were talking about keeping it fresh this kind of has a built-in keep it fresh because it's something you don't normally do so just being there is going to be stuff to talk about that you that you you you won't have to think about oh how do I how do I keep it fresh this week it's already built in