Rece Davis has been the host of ESPN’s College GameDay since 2015 when he took over for Chris Fowler. Fowler moved into the broadcast booth alongside Kirk Herbstreit for the ABC/ESPN Primetime Game of the Week. The timing leading up to the switch was an interesting one for Davis.
Davis joined The Press Box podcast with Bryan Curtis and talked about how he had entered some talks with CBS before getting the GameDay spot, but was never really close because ESPN called him and told him they would take care of him. Over the next year, he and his agent negotiated for one of the most prominent spots in college football broadcasting.
While Davis doesn’t remember the moment he signed, he does remember the moment the news finally got out.
“I was calling a basketball game in Ann Arbor (February 5, 2015). I had my iPad out and I was doing a SportsCenter hit about the game,” Davis recalled. “I look over, and my phone and iPad are at the broadcaster’s position, and they are exploding. Bzz, zz, zzz. I’m like ‘what in the world?’ I go ahead and do my hit. I don’t have any inkling that it’s gotten out yet. Obviously it had. I thought ‘okay, who’s going to be ticked off at me that I didn’t let them know it was coming.
