College GameDay, ESPN’s college football pregame show which has become as much a part of football Saturdays as hot dogs and beer, is off to its best 4-episode start ever. ESPN shares the show has averaged 2.2 million viewers through four weeks and that the final hour of the show is just under 3 million viewers.
The show features returning starters Rece Davis along with Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit. Many are talking more about the new recruit, former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who many believe has been a terrific addition to the show which started in 1987.
Davis was a recent guest on The Paul Finebaum Show and talked about working with Saban.
“I talked to Nick last week about some of the elements that we wanted to do in the film room to make it as elite as it could possibly be, and he’s all in,” Davis said. “Constantly learning, always wanting to be great and be perfect, and not one time has he come across in such a way that he’s like, ‘hey, look at my seven championship rings and everybody listen to me.’ He would certainly have the resume to do so and the credentials to do so if he wanted to, but he hasn’t approached it that way.”
Davis told Finebaum that in a recent meeting, Saban had told one of the producers she needed to get a meeting back in line and gave her some coach talk when he said she needed to, “confront and command.”
Davis added, “The rest of the weekend we were busting his chops a little bit about ‘confront and demand.’ But he’s been great, and everybody’s just had a blast working with him.”
