Gary Danielson will be on the call Saturday for CBS’s broadcast of Texas A&M at Tennessee. And while most broadcasters would want to try to hype up the game they’re calling, Danielson took an odd tact earlier in the week, playing down the effectiveness of the crowd at Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium.
“This is not a criticism, just an observation. It has nothing to do with Neyland, per se, or any other stadium,” Danielson told Knox News. “(Home-field advantage) is about the same every week. Whether you’re playing at Ole Miss or LSU or Florida in The Swamp or Georgia … for a football player, loud is loud. I don’t know if it makes any difference if there’s 80,000 loud people or 100,000 loud people.”
Danielson later doubled down on that sentiment, saying Neyland is no different from any other stadium in the conference.
“I get that. It’s a way of life. We embrace it from a production standpoint, and it’s fun,” Danielson said. “I love it all, the pomp and the circumstance and the storylines. Tennessee doesn’t have to take a backseat to anybody. But to me, it’s just about the same (as other SEC stadiums).”
CBS' Gary Danielson said Neyland Stadium's environment doesn't make any more of a difference than others around the SEC.
This comes after Josh Heupel said he wants the fan base to be a factor on Saturday.
Heupel: "In this one, anticipate it being a great environment here in… pic.twitter.com/ANQOefhKh8
— VolReport.com | Tennessee Volunteers on Rivals.com (@TennesseeRivals) October 12, 2023
Those comments irked a lot of Tennessee fans, naturally, and they were joined in their disdain for the much-maligned color commentator by ESPN’s Paul Finebaum.
Finebaum began Friday’s episode of The Paul Finebaum Show with Adam Sparks of Knox News, saying that “many are really looking forward to seeing him do Big Ten games next year.”
“There’s kind of an unwritten rule if you’re not so full of hubris and arrogance and think you know everything — it’s not like Gary got stopped at the Atlanta airport and said, ‘What stadium do you think?’ He was being interviewed by a reporter who works in Knoxville for the Knoxville News Sentinel and (Danielson’s) coming to Knoxville,” Finebaum said. “Only Gary could stick his foot in his mouth by not praising the greatest stadium in college football Neyland Stadium. That’s the point I don’t understand.”
The good news for his critics is that Danielson will be calling Big Ten games full-time next year as CBS’s deal with the SEC is ending. Finebaum wondered if Danielson would rethink his opinion once he’s calling games in Indiana.
“Next year when he’s doing the ‘Big Ten Saturday’ afternoon game of the week with Minnesota at Purdue when he’s in a cornfield in West Lafayette, he’s going to have to say, ‘This is like any other Big Ten stadium,'” Finebaum said to Sparks. “… I may never get over that interview you did with Gary Danielson.”
It’s natural that Finebaum would take this personally as he’s a UT grad, though he says that his reaction to Danielson’s comments is not based on personal bias. Instead, he’s just flummoxed as to how the broadcaster would say what he said.
“You could say I’m biased, but I’m not,” Finebaum said. “I go to every one of these stadiums and there’s nothing quite like as unique as Neyland Stadium. It’s a standalone football stadium.
“It’d be one thing if Gary just got this job and he’d been doing Premier League Soccer. But it is a fact Gary Danielson was in the press box a year ago this weekend and saw very possibly the greatest scene in college football history when 100,000 of those fans stormed the field in a very respectful way.”
