FOX is apparently digging in to give ESPN’s College GameDay its strongest challenge yet. FOX has signed former Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer and former USC running back Reggie Bush to be a part of a brand new pregame show FOX is organizing for the 2019 season. FOX has confirmed the lineup for its new show.
As announced by FOX, the new college football pregame show airing on FOX, and not on FS1, will air at 11:00 AM eastern and lead right up to the noon kickoff scheduled for that week.
“With a head coach that won three national titles in 10 years, two of the most successful college quarterbacks in recent memory and one of the sport’s most electric running backs, our new college football pregame show has the game covered from all angles,” FOX Sports National Networks President Mark Silverman said in a released statement. “Not only will this all-star cast resonate with viewers because of their recent on-field accomplishments, but this group is going to have a lot of fun discussing the games each week.”
This will mark a return to the broadcast arena for Meyer, who spent one season working for ABC and ESPN after his first retirement from Florida in 2011. After one year in the booth as an analyst, Meyer returned to coaching at Ohio State in 2012. Rather than hit the road for a game of the week for Meyer, this time it seems he will likely limit his travel to a studio for pregame conversation with a panel organized by FOX. Along with Bush, the former Heisman Trophy winner even if that Heisman Trophy has been vacated, Meyer will join Matt Leinart and Brady Quinn with host Rob Stone. This will remove Quinn from game duty that he handled previously for FOX. Bush has been doing work for NFL Network to get his feet wet in the broadcast game, so he won’t be coming in as a fish out of water either.
There is no indication this pregame show will travel similar to ESPN’s College GameDay, but having some sort of pregame presence for a sport FOX has heavily invested in recent years makes sense. Moving the pregame show to network TV as opposed to cable on FS1 would follow in the footsteps of FOX’s longtime NFL pregame show that helped drive FOX’s NFL coverage over the years. The quality of FOX’s NFL pregame show has certainly been on the decline over the years, but we’ll have to wait to see how this college football pregame show fares.
FOX’s pregame lineup certainly has some star power with a pair of former Heisman Trophy winners, a national championship head coach, and Brady Quinn.
