In addition to his role as one of ESPN’s top college football color commentators, Greg McElroy hosts a growing podcast with ESPN and Omaha Productions called Always College Football with Greg McElroy. The former Alabama quarterback spoke to Front Office Sports about the growth of his podcast, why he has eschewed having a traditional broadcaster as a cohost, the Big Ten vs. the SEC, and which young rising coaches he sees having big future success.
Front Office Sports: As we enter into the new college football season, what type of ambitions do you have for your Always College Football show?
Greg McElroy: I think the big thing for us is just continued growth. This was kind of a brainchild of [Omaha senior producer] Mark Kubiak and myself—years and years ago, at a bachelor party, where all great decisions are made. And we’re sitting there talking about, “What if we did a podcast? How cool would that be?” Because at the time, there weren’t a lot of [college football] podcasts that were serving the national audience.
I listened to a few, but I just wish there were more. This was probably seven, eight, nine years ago. We waited for a while, and we talked about it, and then it really became more about the partner. Who did we want to do it with? Once Omaha approached us and we had meetings with several other companies, it was like … This is the time. This is the group, this is the team. The rest has kind of been history. Omaha, and their alignment with ESPN, where I do most of my work, has been tremendous. We’ve had great support.
It’s just been a lot of fun because we started with a blank slate. I’d never done a podcast before. I’d only done radio, games, and studio television. So, a podcast being open-ended—and having some flexibility with time restraints not being there—and creating an audience has been really fun. To see it grow and to see the numbers up year over year since the time we started, even in doing fewer and fewer episodes, has been awesome. So I think the process of figuring out what works and what doesn’t was interesting in those first couple of years. But now that we kind of have a blueprint and a bit of a plan for how we approach every week, it’s been really helpful.
FOS: There aren’t a lot of former athletes out there who are solo hosts. What was your rationale in not having a traditional broadcaster as a cohost for this show?
GM: We had talked about doing it with a partner or with other people, and we even did some auditions. We wanted this podcast to be just a little deeper. There are a lot of people that do great podcasts, several of which I listen to, and I’m friends with many people that are in the industry. I really enjoy listening to the variety. I like the diversity that the podcast world provides the college football audience. But what I wanted is for it to be just the tiniest bit deeper.
I felt like the surface-level conversations were almost, in some ways, overserved. But those that wanted a slightly deeper understanding of football, a little bit more analytical, a little bit more x’s and o’s … This is not a podcast for coaches. This is a podcast for people that really, truly want to learn.
We go through it very unbiased, telling it how it is. We feel like we’ve captured a nice corner of the market. So that’s been the whole goal—to inform, to entertain, but to cut just a little bit deeper because there aren’t those time constraints that you have on television. On television, you kind of just have to play the hits. Whereas in the podcast platform, if I need to go five minutes explaining something, then we’ll go five minutes explaining something.
That way, you can get a little bit more digestible approach to a slightly deeper dive into what could determine the outcome this year, or what this transfer from one place to the next means, or why our top 25 is the way it is, why we tier every conference, what we like about certain schools—and what we don’t like about certain schools. So, it’s a little more nuanced than what you’ll find in other places as far as “national” shows, but that’s why we have enjoyed putting it together. I think it takes the listener a touch deeper and that’s not something that you can find many places.
FOS: Who would your dream guests on your show be?
GM: It’s a great question. I always find it fascinating to visit with people that have been out there on the field coaching. Obviously, Nick Saban is my mentor in football and I would always love and welcome his input if he was willing to come on, in a perfect world. I would love to have coaches on and we just talk ball.
We had a segment earlier in the spring where we had Pete Golding on, and I said, “Pete, I’ve just always been amazed by your football acumen. I just want to run a hypothetical by you. You’re playing Miami, you need to stop Malachi Toney, their elite slot receiver, do-it-all player. What do you do on third-and-four?” And he went [right into it mechanically]. So that’s probably my dream is to continue to inform and to make it digestible while still giving people a bit of a peek behind the curtain, meaning here’s what’s being talked about in coaching staff meeting rooms.
I think when you listen to our show, you really get a player’s perspective, a coach’s perspective of why things are the way they are.
FOS: What do you make of the argument that the Big Ten has passed the SEC?
GM: I think it’s 100% justifiable and understandable.
When you look at it, it’s all a matter of perspective. So, what is it that you value in determining quality? I’ve always determined quality [by] how many teams in the league can win the league. But, while an indicator of depth is great, that might be an indictment on the teams at the top. Maybe they’re not quite as strong as they once were, so therefore they’re more “gettable”, which would lead to more parity in the league.
I think in the court of public opinion, this would lead people to believe, well, they’re not very good because we have long been told in college football that wins and losses are what determine greatness, which is totally fair and completely understandable. So I think that the Big Ten, especially with the top three teams and what we saw the last couple of years at Ohio State and Indiana and of course Michigan at the top have been stronger than the SEC, which has only perpetuated the belief the Big Ten is stronger.
However, if you want to go eight or nine deep, I think the SEC would win in quality throughout the regular season. With bowl games now, it’s difficult to draw conclusions. There’s too many moving parts and opt-outs. It’s hard to gauge whether a team’s motivation in those games is there.
So, I think the SEC is still deeper, but if you want to make the case that the Big Ten is stronger at the top, and therefore stronger overall, I can’t push back on that. The other thing I’d say about the Big Ten this year in particular, I think teams four through seven are stronger than they’ve been the last couple of years. The schedules that the top three teams are having to play are actually more difficult than they’ve been in recent years. So this year, probably more so than even the last three, you probably have a better argument for the Big Ten being the better league.
The gap between one and nine in the SEC is more narrow than the gap that might exist in the Big Ten between one and nine.
FOS: If you were buying stock and young coaches right now, who are some people that aren’t head coaches in the SEC or Big Ten yet that you think could win big there in the right situation?
GM: That’s a great question, and it’s funny because I felt like for a very long time, the up and comers were very obvious. For me, at least, I just knew Marcus Freeman was going to be good when you met with him behind closed doors. When he was the defensive coordinator, even at Cincinnati was when I met Marcus for the first time, he just had this gravitational pull about him. It’s like, I love this guy. I don’t know what he’s going to end up doing, where he’s going to end up, but this guy’s going places.
I had the same feeling about Dan Lanning when he was at Georgia. Like, ‘I don’t know what it is about this guy, but he is next level. I just love his energy, his competitiveness’. You could just sense that those guys were going to do big things. They since have.
We only remember the ones we were right about. I’m never going to remember the ones I didn’t get right. But those two guys were very obvious. I feel like it’s been harder these last couple years.
So if I were to identify a defensive coordinator, if we’re going to go in the same line as Dan Lanning or Marcus Freeman, it’s Bryant Haines at Indiana. I think he’s next-level. That guy is so smart and his scheme is so difficult to play against, and they are so well coached, and their talent evaluation on that staff is amazing. He’s going to do something. I don’t know what, but he’s going to get a job at some point—And when he does, look out. It’s going to be amazing.
As far as other young coaches that I’ve been very impressed with, I love Rhett Lashlee at SMU. I think he does a really good job. SMU is a really attractive place to be. They obviously have tremendous resources, and they have already carved out such a really good spot in their league right now where every year they can compete with the top of the ACC. They even beat Miami last year in their head-to-head game against the Hurricanes.
Going back to another coordinator that I really like is the offensive coordinator at Miami.
That’s Shannon Dawson, who I think is just a really, really smart coach. He does a really good job and has a really good scheme. He’s very player-friendly, but also knows what the players want to of get the most out of them. I’ve seen him develop quarterbacks in different ways over the last couple of years. Cam Ward two years ago, to Carson Beck last year, to Darian Mensah this year. Now, in some cases, those guys were finished products by the time they arrived at Miami, but to see the offense evolve to what those guys do well is something that’s been very impressive to me.
So that’s three names kind of off the top one head coach and two coordinators that I think at some point in the future will get an opportunity to lead a school and lead a program. And I think they’ll do a great job when they get that chance.
