CBS Sports college football analyst Gary Danielson had an opinion on Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium that didn’t sit well with Paul Finebaum, and as CBS prepares to say goodbye to its SEC rights, Finebaum had some parting words for Danielson.
Gary did an interview with the Knoxville News Sentinel ahead of this past weekend’s Tennessee/Texas A&M game that he and Brad Nessler called. In it, Danielson brushed aside the notion that the Volunteers would benefit from a raucous environment from the 101,915 fans surrounding their home field.
“This is not a criticism, just an observation. It has nothing to do with Neyland, per se, or any other stadium,” Danielson said. “It is about the same every week. Whether you’re playing at Ole Miss or LSU or Florida in The Swamp or Georgia … for a football player, loud is loud.
“I don’t know if it makes any difference if there’s 80,000 loud people or 100,000 loud people,” he added.
Gary later said that the college football is life mantra in SEC country is something fun CBS embraces from a production standpoint, and he said that part of it is fun. He also reiterated that the experience in Knoxville doesn’t usurp any of the other environments in the conference.
“Tennessee doesn’t have to take a backseat to anybody,” he said. “But to me, it’s just about the same (as other SEC stadiums).”
Finebaum, a Tennessee alum, opened The Paul Finebaum Show on Friday with reaction to reading Danielson’s comments.
Finebaum said Danielson stuck his foot in his mouth “by not praising the greatest stadium in college football Neyland Stadium.”
“That’s the part I don’t understand,” he added.
Paul said Gary is going to have to keep that same energy in a new conference.
“Next year when he’s doing the ‘Big Ten Saturday’ afternoon game of the week with Minnesota at Purdue when he’s in a cornfield in West Lafayette, he’s going to have to say, ‘This is like any other Big Ten stadium,'” he said.
Paul Finebaum just found it odd Danielson would take that stance considering he was in the building for last year’s Tennessee/Alabama game. But he said Danielson’s also been in Neyland Stadium for countless other games throughout the years and should understand that going to games in Knoxville is truly a unique experience.
“It’d be one thing if Gary just got this job and he’d been doing Premier League soccer,” he said. “But it is a fact Gary Danielson was in the press box a year ago this weekend and saw very possibly the greatest scene in college football history when 100,000 of those fans stormed the field in a very respectful way.”
