College football needs more of what Keith Jackson and Beano Cook brought to it.
Both have been gone for years, but the qualities that made them great should still guide how we cover this sport: preparation, curiosity, storytelling and a deep affection for its traditions.
Instead, television executives seem increasingly convinced that the future looks like Dave Portnoy and Pat McAfee.
I keep wondering why what gets attention on the internet has become the blueprint for what everybody supposedly wants on Saturday morning. Some of us want things done well. We want preparation, storytelling and a little respect for the thing we gathered to celebrate.
We want somebody to explain why a place matters. Why a rivalry matters. Why a grown adult gets emotional when a marching band comes around a corner playing a song they have heard a thousand times.
College football has enough personality of its own. The people covering it don’t always need to supply more.
Keith Jackson understood that.
So did Beano Cook. So did Chris Schenkel.
They could make a game feel enormous by helping you understand everything that surrounded it.
The campus. The people. The history. The stakes that existed long before somebody invented an engagement metric.
They were stewards and storytellers. I miss that.
When did everything become an audition to go viral?
Pat McAfee has an audience. Dave Portnoy has an audience. Obviously.
They have built successful businesses, and plenty of people enjoy what they do. There is room for their brands of entertainment in sports, including college football.
My question is why that sensibility has become such a prominent part of the mainstream presentation.
McAfee’s bouncing, shouting, hyperventilating energy changes the feel of College GameDay for me. Sometimes it feels like the show is waiting for the next eruption.
You might love that.
I miss Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit at the center of it all.
That show was funny. It was lively. Corso could be wonderfully ridiculous. Nobody needed to remind him to have a personality.
But the personalities brought you into college football. The campus was a character. The traditions were part of the story. You finished watching with a greater appreciation for wherever they had taken you that morning.
I still find GameDay entertaining.
I also find myself asking whether it consistently captures what I love about college football.
Those are different questions.
The internet rewards the thing that makes you stop scrolling. An outrageous opinion. A confrontation. Somebody behaving like the world is ending.
Television executives see the numbers and apparently decide that is the assignment.
But a click tells you somebody looked. It doesn’t tell you what they want to spend their Saturday with.
How many people quietly want a thoughtful, beautifully produced college football show? How many would happily watch somebody tell a great story without treating every segment like an opportunity to become the main character?
I’m one of them.
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You can still do this well
Watch the CBS studio coverage with Adam Zucker, Rick Neuheisel, Brian Jones and Aaron Taylor.
Prepared. Funny. Comfortable. Knowledgeable. The kind of television I enjoy spending time with.
And yes, Rick is my friend and radio partner. You know where I stand on him.
But what I appreciate about that group goes beyond my affection for Rick. They trust the game and their ability to discuss it. Their chemistry grows out of knowing something, listening and having a good time together.
There is an audience for that.
I wish more executives would remember it.
The word “college” should still mean something
This gets into something deeper for me.
College football’s roots should always run back to the university.
And yes, college matters.
One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing people dismiss higher education because somebody else made a fortune without finishing a degree.
Can you become successful without college? Of course. A diploma is no guarantee of wisdom, kindness or a good life. Plenty of people gain a tremendous education through work, reading, service and experience.
But reducing college to a salary calculation misses so much of its value.
Education can introduce you to a world you didn’t know existed. It can challenge an assumption you have carried around since childhood. It can help you understand another culture, consider another explanation or recognize that a problem looks different depending on where somebody is standing.
Sometimes what gets dismissed as dangerous is simply an encounter with a perspective outside your bubble.
That matters to me.
I earned my bachelor’s degree at Middle Tennessee and went back to earn my master’s at Alabama. I value what those experiences gave me beyond anything that appears on a résumé.
Curiosity. Perspective. The opportunity to keep growing.
We should celebrate that.
For all the ways college football has fallen short of its educational promises over the years, the promise itself was worth having: go to class, make progress toward a degree, represent your school.
There was supposed to be a university at the center of this.
Now, when academics enter the conversation, they can feel like an administrative inconvenience somebody needs to handle before the real business resumes.
That makes me sad.
If we’re going to keep calling it college football, I would like us to retain some affection for the college.
Animal House has taken over the broadcast
Sometimes modern college football coverage feels like Animal House has commandeered the studio.
Blutarsky and Eric Stratton are running the pregame show, and the people who might explain the history of the place are waiting outside.
I love a good laugh. I make my living having fun talking about sports.
But I also believe there is a responsibility that comes with being handed the microphone at one of these places.
Learn what makes it special. Be curious about it. Give the audience a reason to care.
Beano Cook could make dotting the “i” in Script Ohio sound like the pinnacle of a person’s life. That was part of his gift. He understood how something that might seem small to an outsider could mean absolutely everything to the people involved.
That is the job.
Tell me why somebody has waited their entire life for that moment.
Make me feel it.
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The traditions are the attraction
I was in Knoxville for the Third Saturday in October, and I’m still thinking about what I experienced.
The Power T. The Pride of the Southland Band. Families gathering across generations. People returning to a place that holds pieces of their lives.
That is powerful stuff.
So are the Golden Dome and Touchdown Jesus. Script Ohio. A familiar fight song that can take you back thirty years before you even realize what is happening.
Floyd of Rosedale. Paul Bunyan’s Axe. The Old Oaken Bucket.
We have people pouring their hearts into the pursuit of a bronze pig, an axe and a bucket.
How can you not love this sport?
Those objects carry stories. The songs carry memories. The campuses give people somewhere to return.
Bear Bryant, Knute Rockne, General Neyland and Woody Hayes belong to histories that deserve to be understood in full, including their imperfections. Their influence reached beyond Saturdays and into the identities of schools, communities and states.
The old storytellers helped us understand those connections.
There is still so much material there. More than enough to fill a television show.
And I think about how much of that I experienced in Knoxville while working for Morgan Wallen Radio, talking with people in the tailgates about why they loved the Vols, the music and the game.
You didn’t have to manufacture emotion.
You just had to ask a question and listen.
Give the game a little reverence
Fox’s decision to end Portnoy’s appearances on Big Noon Kickoff gives me some hope that these choices can be reconsidered.
But my larger concern goes beyond one personality or one network.
I want television executives to understand that college football has an identity worth protecting.
It can be funny, messy, loud and wildly entertaining. It can welcome new fans and new voices. It can evolve.
It should also have room for reverence.
When I say college football is something like a church of academia, I’m talking about the feeling of entering a place that means something. A place that existed before you arrived and will hopefully mean something to people long after you’re gone.
The people entrusted with telling its stories should feel some responsibility toward that.
I want more voices who can look at a campus, a band, an old rivalry trophy or a stadium filling on a fall morning and help us understand why we love it.
Give me a little more Keith Jackson.
There is still an audience for somebody who knows what makes Saturday special.
Keep reading
My trip to Knoxville reminded me why Rocky Top is so special. The Third Saturday in October made a lasting impression on my college football-loving soul.
I hated the 24-team playoff. Then Saturday happened. Why the chaos made me reconsider what an expanded playoff could offer.
The Titans finally won. But that’s… My latest on the Titans, hope and what fans need from this franchise.
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Watch and listen to Show Pony Live
Watch today’s conversation with ESPN’s Heather Dinich. We discuss college football’s chaos and the headache facing the playoff committee.
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