For SEC fans, the first Saturday in December meant a four-hour date with CBS and a mental coin flip determining whether they’d love or hate Gary Danielson that afternoon.
CBS owned the rights to the SEC championship from 2001 through last December, when their mutually beneficial relationship concluded. This week, CBS returns to the championship spotlight by airing the Big Ten title game in prime time. Danielson and play-by-play partner Brad Nessler have called Big Ten games in the midday window all season, but this is the first time the league championship has moved away from Fox. With No. 1 Oregon (12-0) facing No. 3 Penn State (11-1) in Indianapolis, it’s also the highest-ranked Big Ten game airing on CBS since 1985, when No. 1 Iowa faced No. 2 Michigan.
The vibe will be different from what they previously experienced in Atlanta, which Nessler and Danielson acknowledge. Unlike in the four-team College Football Playoff era, zero-sum consequences won’t define this championship outcome. But the broadcasting team expects the interest and intensity on the field to mirror what they covered as a tandem together at the SEC championship for seven seasons.
“I look forward to it, most of all, just to feel what the contrast is like for the game,” Danielson said. “The SEC game, that championship, means a lot to that league. And I think because it’s not the East and West, I think (the Big Ten championship) could have a little bit more pizzazz to it.”
This is the second year for Big Ten football on CBS but the first season with a full schedule. CBS will air two Big Ten title games during the current media rights contract, which runs through the 2029 season.
It wasn’t always a guarantee that Danielson and Nessler were going to call this game. When the deal was announced, speculation swirled that CBS might replace the duo, who have worked together since 2017, for new Big Ten voices. Instead, the network doubled down on its venerable tandem.
“I took it as a real compliment for as long as I’ve done it that CBS wanted Brad and I to initiate the transition from the SEC to the Big Ten,” Danielson said. “The Big Ten people called us SEC people, and then SEC people really called us Big Ten people for 18 years. I was always in the middle of that, and I really did not know if we were going to take that transition.
“I didn’t know if CBS was going to go, ‘Hey, we need to revamp it. We need somebody new, somebody, quote, unquote, not connected to the SEC.’ And when Sean (McManus) called and said, ‘We want you to start this thing for us,’ and we were going to have the championship, I felt really good about that.”
This season has consisted of nostalgia and new memories for Nessler and Danielson, both of whom are Midwest natives. As youngsters in the 1960s, Big Ten football ignited their lifelong passion for the sport and ultimately led them to their broadcasting careers.
Raised in St. Charles, Minn., a town that has doubled to about 4,000 since he lived there, Nessler had the perfect nurturing experience to become a lifelong broadcaster. On Saturday afternoons he huddled around a transistor radio and listened to the baritone delivery of Gophers radio announcer Ray Christensen, whose steady consistency behind the microphone was authentic and comforting.
On Sundays, Nessler and his family watched their beloved Minnesota Vikings or the NFL regional broadcasts with CBS’ Ray Scott, whose understated delivery on television parallels Nessler’s straight-ahead demeanor.
“The two Rays probably had the biggest influence on me wanting to do this,” Nessler said. “Stylistically, I’m closer to Ray Scott probably than Ray Christensen, but that’s because he was doing radio, and he was painting a picture. Ray Scott didn’t have to paint the picture. He just had to say, ‘Starr … Dowler … touchdown.’ That’s all he had to say. He’s still one of the greatest ever, if you ask me.”
Nessler, 68, attended Minnesota State University in Mankato, called Atlanta Falcons games after college and later the Vikings at WCCO in the Twin Cities before moving on to ESPN.
Danielson, 73, grew up in Detroit in the 1960s playing hockey. As an 11-year-old, he and his family went to his uncle’s house on New Year’s Day in 1963 to watch the Rose Bowl. His uncle had a color television set, and that afternoon changed Danielson’s life.
“It was Wisconsin versus USC and Ron Vander Kelen against Pete Beathard,” said Danielson, who later played alongside Beathard in the World Football League. “I became hooked. On the way back, I told my dad, ‘I’m going to play Big Ten football someday. That is what I want to do.’ It was that game on TV.”
Danielson later had scholarship offers from several Big Ten universities but chose Purdue, which is known as the “Cradle of Quarterbacks.” In the first college game he attended, Danielson watched teammate Mike Phipps throw five touchdown passes to outduel future Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett of Stanford, 36-35. As a freshman, Danielson was ineligible to play but later started three seasons.
Following his Big Ten career, Danielson signed with the World Football League, then joined the Detroit Lions in 1976. He moved on to the Cleveland Browns in 1985 until retiring after the 1988 season. During his NFL days, Danielson worked part-time as a broadcaster and then joined ESPN after his retirement.
Nessler and Danielson broadcast together for a year at ESPN in the 1990s, and both called Big Ten contests before Danielson became the SEC’s lead analyst at CBS alongside Verne Lundquist in 2006. Danielson endeared himself to the SEC and antagonized his old Big Ten friends in his first year when he called for SEC champion Florida to meet Ohio State for the BCS title, instead of pushing for a Michigan-Ohio State rematch.
Although every group of SEC fans has accused Danielson of negatively criticizing their team, Michigan supporters have held a grudge against him since 2006. When CBS acquired Big Ten football rights beginning in 2023, a question from a reporter kind of set Danielson back.
“One of the first questions was, you’re kind of a villain here in the Big Ten,” Danielson said. “I was like, ‘I’m an announcer, I’m a football player. I just try to call them like I see them basically.’ But when you’re talking about which team belongs and which team doesn’t, that has ramifications. So, I felt going in that was still the case, until we did the Illinois-Michigan open.”
A century and one day from Red Grange’s six-touchdown performance to lead Illinois past Michigan at Champaign’s Memorial Stadium, CBS aired a 4-minute, 11-second open this October that paid homage to that epic day. Both wore popular 1920s attire with Nessler donning a fedora and attached press card while Danielson displayed a newsboy cap.
“I think we became a Big Ten network after that,” Danielson said.
We’re taking you back in time to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Red Grange’s breakout performance against the Wolverines.
It’s No. 24 @UMichFootball at No. 22 @IlliniFootball on CBS and @paramountplus pic.twitter.com/tkcjj4ejUq
— CBS Sports College Football 🏈 (@CBSSportsCFB) October 19, 2024
Nessler has lived in Georgia longer than in his formative years in southeast Minnesota. Since replacing Lundquist in 2017, Nessler became a target for SEC fans on Sundays at his local pub. He’d walk in, and the questions started almost immediately.
“I’d get it from all sides, because I go and watch Falcons or NFL football, (with) my buddies, and I was getting blasted every time I walked in there,” he said. “It was either something I did right or didn’t do right, or their team was this, or their team was bad, or their team was great. So, I was living the SEC thing.”
Now, the comments are fewer, and Nessler’s Sundays are calmer. As for his Saturdays …
“I’m in my own little heaven,” Nessler said. “Whether it’s SEC heaven or Big Ten heaven, it’s still heaven to me.”
(Photo of Gary Danielson: James Black / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
