Give Tim Tebow a ton of credit. After his NFL career fizzled out he went into television and got a job at ESPN. After having a fairly successful first season in front of the cameras, he could have coasted to a life of luxury as a famous former college athlete and television personality and lived quite comfortably for a good number of years. But Tebow still fought for one last shot at pursuing a career as an NFL quarterback. And even after showing some improvement in the preseason, he made it to the last cut with the Philadelphia Eagles before being released by the team.
Now that Tebow’s Eagles tenure is over and he went unclaimed on wavers, the question might have been raised where he would go from here. Try to latch on to another NFL team? Finally try the CFL? Well, it looks like Tebow’s football playing days may be done for good this time. This week he will rejoin SEC Network and pick up where he left off in his television career.
The SEC broke the news on their conference website:
Tim Tebow returns to ESPN this Saturday, Sept. 12, as an SEC Network college football analyst. Tebow resumes his role on the network’s two-hour traveling pregame show, SEC Nation. The show is live from Nashville, on the Vanderbilt campus, beginning at 10 a.m. ET (9 a.m. CT) prior to the Georgia at Vanderbilt football game.
“Tim quickly developed into an excellent analyst last year, and we were not shy about acknowledging his home at ESPN should he be available to return,” said John Wildhack, ESPN Executive Vice President.
SEC Nation debuted its second season last Saturday, Sept. 5, at Arkansas (ESPN Images), with host Joe Tessitore, analyst Marcus Spears, ESPN Radio’s Paul Finebaum, reporter Kaylee Hartung and new to SEC Nation, analyst Greg McElroy. With Tebow’s return, the show will now feature three National Championship winning analysts with a total of five SEC Championship wins (2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009) between the trio.
One has to think ESPN was always ready for this scenario and left a chair open for Tebow on SEC Nation even with the addition of Greg McElroy. Given Tebow’s youth in comparison to many other analysts, there’s no rush with his television career. Let him settle in on SEC Network once again and continue the development that started last season. If an opportunity comes to call a bowl game like it did last year or expand his role onto the mothership later on, that’d be gravy.
It’s easy to forget with all that was TebowMania that we’re still talking about a guy who was one of the great college football players of all-time. And if you remove the media obsession around him, he’s still a very affable personality that should resonate with college football fans moving forward, especially in the SEC. ESPN should be very happy that Tebow decided to come back after what might be one last hurrah in the NFL.
[SEC]
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