I was invited up to ESPN to cover their college football “car wash” where coaches from the SEC, Big 12, Pac-12, ACC, and Big 10 will go through a number of ESPN shows on TV and radio. The week has been much more than just covering that, so I thought I would break down my time here into two parts and give you all the behind the scenes look at what it is like to be part of this type of event.
On Monday morning I met with Mike Humes who works in PR at ESPN and is the person who invited me up for the event to get the day started. Paul Myerberg from USA Today was the other invited guest to Bristol for this event so the three of us would spend the majority of day one together. The very first thing I got to see what a quick peek into the brand new building where the new SportsCenter set is. We did take a look into the set, but they were doing a live SportsCenter at the time so we couldn’t do a tour. There will be more to come on the SportsCenter set as I did get a personal tour from David Scott but I will save that for a separate piece.
I spent most of Monday hanging out with the people who work in ESPN Images because each coach had to come through there and we figured that would be a good place for Paul and I to get a few minutes with the coaches. That turned out to be mostly true as I interviewed Mark Stoops, Hugh Freeze, Derek Mason, and Les Miles that day.
Here are some of the highlights from those interviews.
Mark Stoops on what he has seen from his team this spring to help take another step forward:
“I’ve seen improved leadership. Thats probably the most important thing. There is a little bit more accountability in our program and I’ve felt like our players have improved in that area. Obviously we are physically better, a little bigger and stronger and that should help but I am looking for a drastic improvement in the leadership area.”
Hugh Freeze on returning the most experienced QB in the SEC, Bo Wallace:
“I couldn’t be more pleased in what I see in his leadership. His confidence is very high and he’s finally healthy. That could make for a special year. We will find out though and time will tell but standing here today I am real confident in the guy we have that’s our starter.”
Gus Malzahn on Nick Marshall’s development as a passer:
“Coach Lashley has worked with our Quarterbacks on their balance and footwork. Nick has a natural release and a really live arm so Coach Lashley really focused on that. He’s come a long way and is throwing the ball with balance.”
Derek Mason on what he will bring from Stanford to Vanderbilt:
“Know who you are. Know your identity. Know what your branding is both athletically and academically and make sure that you recruit and built your program to that. A lot of program’s suffer from identity crisis and I think that generally going in, everyone has a pretty good idea of what they want to do and somewhere along the way it gets lost in the process of knowing you have to win. You have to make sure that the infrastructure of your program is in place.”
Les Miles on the lofty expectations for Leonard Fournette:
“All I can tell you is his approach is really good. He’s doing well in the classroom, doing well in the weight room. Once he comes humbly to the job, he will be fine.”
While we are on the subject of Les Miles, this moment of him watching himself on a This is SportsCenter commercial is amazing:
Les Miles checks out his own This is SportsCenter commercial during his visit today in Bristol. pic.twitter.com/1JyieHyrdH
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 21, 2014
Tuesday was a day where i didn’t get to spend time interviewing any of the coaches on campus but I did meet Kevin Sumlin, Nick Saban, and Steve Spurrier. Of course the Ol Ball Coach set the tone for the day when came in the building and said “I’m not taking shots, I’m just talking.”
I spent a lot of time on Tuesday shadowing College Football Analyst Rod Gilmore for a profile that you can read here. With College Football being my favorite sport and my area of expertise, being with him for a day and being able to watch College Football Live in person was a real treat. Things got interesting when Nick Saban and Steve Spurrier were on the same set together for the show and I took a couple pictures of the great television:
I also spent time interviewing Mo Davenport who is the Senior VP of ESPN Audio in an interview that will be out this week.
Day three in Bristol was all about one thing for me: interviewing Big 12 coaches. I spent a lot of time Rachel Siegal in PR, who coordinated which coaches would be available to me. I was able to get time with Paul Rhoads, Bob Stoops, Charlie Strong, and Bill Snyder.
Here are some highlights from those interviews.
Paul Rhoads on his choice of Mark Mangino to run the offense:
“He brings a wealth of experience to the job, our program, and to our staff. We had to defend him and coach against him during his final year at Kansas and they were hard to defend. It wasn’t just the personnel but it was what they could do scheme wise. I wanted other people to have to defend that. I wanted to work and not against him.”
Bob Stoops on momentum gained from beating Alabama in the Sugar Bowl:
“At the end it helped us finish recruiting in a positive way but other than that it’s more just about building on it. At the end of the day, that is sure not the end goal for us to win a Sugar Bowl or beat Alabama. We are about championships at Oklahoma so again it’s something that we want to build on.”
Charlie Strong on what he wants to instill in the Texas program in year 1:
“It’s all about putting the T back in Texas. When you talk about just toughness, trust, togetherness, and just being a team. Whenever you become a team, you will have some toughness within your program. Not just toughness when talking about beating someone down but go do the right things, go to class. When you look at trust it is all about do you trust in yourself because if you don’t trust yourself then no one will ever trust you. And when we come together, then we become a team.”
I have a bonus Charlie Strong quote. I asked him to finish this sentence. Texas will have a successful season if:
“We have to play hard, we have come together as a team. We have to develop team chemistry and leadership.”
Bill Snyder on what he hopes his team carries over from last year’s strong finish:
“I would like to see the young people in the program not take that finish for granted and realize what it took in order to finish the season that way, implement that in everything leading up and during our season. That means not taking anything for granted and not thinking that have arrived because they made the kind of improvement they made last season.”
The first three days of my ESPN experience have been wonderful and there have been so many nice people that have helped put all this together that I couldn’t possibly thank them all. There are lots of random encounters I could go into like seeing Colin Cowherd in the temporary ESPN cafeteria, spending an hour talking College Football with Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware, talking NFL football with Mark Schlereth behind the set of SportsCenter, randomly seeing new NFL analyst Mike Singletary getting a tour, or talking SEC football with Marcus Spears of the new SEC Network.
The first three days of my time here have been different than I though, but at the same time exactly what I expected. Stay tuned for part two of my week at ESPN recap.