I hope to be in college football forever.

I have a job to do, and my job is to analyze the game.

I think James Franklin is a great coach. I'm a huge fan.

I ended up doing a job that I absolutely love. I grew up a college football junkie.

I think that college football is still a sport where fans really feel urgency every week.

Players have exams, banquets, awards, and holidays, so it's easy to slip up and lose focus.

My dad played at Ohio State, my dad coached with Woody Hayes. Ohio State's always been Ohio State.

I probably need to get a few more hobbies besides sports because that's pretty much what I've done my whole life.

I happen to be a really good sleeper on the plane. I'm pretty good at catching up on getting as much rest as I can.

When I would play in big games at Ohio State, if the Goodyear Blimp was there, you knew it was a big-time game against a big-time opponent.

It's one thing to be a cynic or an opponent of Jim Harbaugh if you're a fan of Ohio State or Michigan State or Penn State or an SEC school.

It's hard to describe to people unless you're a college football fan, the energy of it, the pageantry, getting onto a college campus in the fall.

I'm a sports fan of all sports - college basketball, MLB, NFL - and as a fan, the only sport I feel every week I feel urgency is college football.

One thing about bowl games for me is that big time programs might rank higher, but I love the regional match ups. The bragging rights are on the line.

Part of what makes college football great is what you learn playing it. Being selfless, learning how to go through adversity as a group, learning about perseverance.

When you are the Super Bowl for every team you play, you're going to have a game or two where you don't have the fast ball working, and you're going to get some scares.

I have four boys - two of them are 18 - and I have to protect them sometimes from themselves because they're not emotionally mature enough to always make great decisions.

I think Jameis Winston will be a superstar in the NFL. I think all his off-the-field problems that he's had will push him in a position to grow up and learn the hard way.

I just don't think enough players realize the power of these programs and the doors they open for you if you go about your business right and take advantage of being at great school.

Typically, Disney provides one of their charter planes to get me from one spot to the other. A lot of times, if we go to the hotel at the game site, I'll take a shower and change and head over to the game.

College football, for me, was sacred. Right away, first time I watched it on TV, there was just something about the passion, the energy that was just different. It always just felt right when I watched it.

And now we're in a world where players are skipping some of these bowl games, people are talking about the only bowl games that matter are the playoff, and I just happen to disagree with that wholeheartedly.

Like a lot of people, I'm getting up there in age. Before I ate anything and everything. I just inhaled food. I enjoy eating, and I used to be the guy who works out just to eat. Now I'm much smarter about what I eat.

I just wanna see where the college game is when we get on the back end of this COVID and how the game changes, if it does at all, with the powers that be, the realignment, the conferences and where we're headed as a sport.

Because I put in so much time and preparation, when I'm in the booth during a game, I see X's and O's. I just see football, and I remove my emotion from anything I ever do, whether it's my kids playing, Ohio State playing.

With the Capital One Bowl, the average fan might think whoopty do. But if you are a team member, you win that game and you see how much momentum that gives people going into winter conditioning, recruiting, and spring football.

I think it's really important as a parent to be present, and I really, really worked hard because my dad struggled with that. And it really bothered me as a kid that I would want to share something with him, and he didn't hear me.

I love going to Columbia, Missouri. That is a really underrated campus. It shocked me when I went there because I really didn't know what to expect. I have four boys, and if they ever ended up saying they wanted to go to Missouri, I'd be very happy for them.

I love fan bases where it matters so much. In that state, with both Alabama and Auburn in the same state, it just makes that rivalry so unique. You guys live it 52 weeks out of the year. Ohio State fans live it 52 weeks out of the year, but their counterpart, Michigan, doesn't.

We try to put on a show that people can be proud of whether you are in Tuscaloosa, Baton Rouge, Austin, Tallahassee or Columbus, Ohio or wherever you are. We try to be symbolic of where you happen to be that Saturday. You tune into it, you see the energy, passion and love we have for the sport.

I don't know if anyone's ever done that, where they do a big college game and then do a game in the NFL. It would have to be a Monday game, obviously. If it were a Sunday game I wouldn't be able to do college and pro. Ideally, in a perfect world, I would love the challenge of trying to do both.

In 1996, we go on the road and there would be a couple of hundred people around the desk. It just kept growing and growing. I think the year it changed was when Michael Vick was at Virginia Tech and Frank Beamer was the first coach to recognize the benefit of having College GameDay come to your campus.

So to me, life is more than just money and making it to the NFL. Life's about memories, life is about experiences, and I feel like when players just plug in for three years and run to the NFL as quickly as they can, I feel like they're, without knowing it until they get older, taking themselves away from a really good memory.

Share This Page