{"id":257983,"date":"2025-10-29T04:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T04:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/257983\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T04:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T04:31:07","slug":"rece-davis-pushes-back-on-idea-espn-college-gameday-is-sec-heavy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/257983\/","title":{"rendered":"Rece Davis pushes back on idea ESPN College GameDay is ‘SEC-heavy’"},"content":{"rendered":"

With November on the horizon, ESPN\u2019s College GameDay has put up record TV ratings<\/a>. The show continues to see a viewership surge ahead of Week 10, which will take place ahead of Cincinnati<\/a> at Utah<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But host Rece Davis has heard the discussions about whether College GameDay is too \u201cSEC-heavy\u201d this year. He predicted there could be some surprises in store for November.<\/p>\n

Davis thinks College GameDay could head toward Big 12 or even American Conference games throughout November. Through the first nine weeks, the show has seen SEC teams play in seven games. But over the final games, he pointed to other notable matchups, starting with Week 10 at Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been some consternation in some quarters that it\u2019s been SEC-heavy,\u201d Davis said Tuesday on The Paul Finebaum Show. \u201cYou look at the projected sites for the month of November and I think you\u2019re going to see a lot of Big 12, I think there are some American places that are on the docket and maybe also some potential for really off-the-radar places. We\u2019re still covering the breadth of the sport. And I think a theme of \u2018road test\u2019 this week is kind of where we are with Cincinnati \u2013 one of the surprises, sort of the opposite of the imploding teams that we\u2019ve talked about, the teams that have sort of quietly gotten themselves in position in the last month of the season. Now, they have to go pass a big road test, and we\u2019ll be there for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the fact that people get upset about it. I don\u2019t love that they are upset, but I love the fact that they care enough about watching the show that if we don\u2019t go to where they think we should be, that they raise a ruckus about it. That\u2019s kind of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018We don\u2019t have to avoid a place just because somebody lost\u2019<\/p>\n

Rece Davis also acknowledged the amount of surprise results this year, notably with top teams. He specifically pointed to this week\u2019s Penn State<\/a> at Ohio State<\/a> game. During the offseason, it was seen as a potential Big Ten Championship preview. That\u2019s no longer the case amid the Nittany Lions\u2019 struggles. But at the same time, he said sometimes the storylines change things.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have to avoid a place just because somebody lost,\u201d Davis said. \u201cIt was probably a fair critique that we didn\u2019t go to Tallahassee, but you kind of understood in the moment after they lost that game to Virginia<\/a>, things changed a little bit. Vanderbilt<\/a> was a big story. It kind of made it, instead of an absolute easy choice, it made it a little bit of a push.<\/p>\n

\u201cPenn State\u2019s implosion certainly changed the site this week. You look at this in August and you\u2019re like, \u2018Well, first Saturday in November, we\u2019re in Columbus, for sure.\u2019 Now, instead, we\u2019re in Salt Lake City.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With November on the horizon, ESPN\u2019s College GameDay has put up record TV ratings. The show continues to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-257983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-football","11":"tag-ncaafootball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}