Gary Danielson College Football SEC analyst. Photo Cr.: Craig Blankenhorn/CBS ©2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved MANDATORY CREDIT; NO SALES; NO ARCHIVE; NORTH AMERICAN USE ONLY

Gary Danielson, unfiltered: on Spurrier, coaches, gimmicks, the SEC West, and more

Gary Danielson joins Verne Lundquist this Saturday at 3:30, as the SEC on CBS broadcasts the Alabama-Texas A&M game from College Station.

At Awful Announcing, read what Mr. Danielson had to say about the broadcasting side of his work. This piece focuses on Danielson’s football-specific insights.

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When the name “Gary Danielson” is mentioned, what’s the first thing you think of if you’re not partial to the SEC?

The words “bias” and “editorializing” probably come to mind. “Corporate shill” is another likely answer.

In the linked piece above at Awful Announcing, I presented Danielson’s remarks from an extended conversation which delved into football and broadcasting in roughly equal measure. That piece is where you can read more about the broadcaster, but before that side of Danielson developed, he was a football player, and a good one, for many years. What you’re going to get here is a look inside the football mind of Gary Danielson, without the fog of SEC bias clouding the discussion.

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The visual image most commonly or prominently associated with Gary Danielson’s NFL career — one which lasted over a decade — is Lawrence Taylor of the New York Giants treating him like a rag doll in the Pontiac Silverdome. Yet, if you survive L.T. and the other beasts of the NFL for as long as Danielson did, you’re a pretty decent player. The NFL has long been a cutthroat league; you’re not retained if an organization thinks you can’t cut it.

Gary Danielson has studied football game films in a professional and highly visible capacity since 1976, when he broke in with the Lions and the NFL. Between his playing career and his (now) even more durable broadcasting career, the 64-year-old Danielson has spent nearly 40 years breaking down films and making sense of football for a living. When television viewers aren’t consumed by the SEC bias issue, they know Danielson is speaking from a highly informed place as a student and knower of football.

In a conversation earlier this week, I asked Danielson about a few football topics.

The analytical voice of the SEC on CBS had plenty of things to say about college football, especially in the SEC. He used his experiences in the NFL and elsewhere to inform his views, creating a highly integrated perspective on the sport which has always been a source of contentious debate since it rose to prominence in the 1920s.

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I asked Danielson to clarify his use of the word “gimmick,” which caused a considerable uproar when he used it a few years ago during a game. Danielson wasn’t referring to how (un-)common a formation was — that’s probably the way many interpret the term: a trick or an exotic. For Danielson, it’s not so much about a specific play or situation, but the larger approach or intent behind the formation:

“Gimmick” is sometimes used (probably wrong by me) in the heat of the game, but here’s what I mean:

When people feel there are shortcuts to success, and the way to get a “W” or create a champion or be successful in life, without doing the hard stuff necessary to be successful, that’s a gimmick.

Those are nice additions to your program, but it’s not something you can hang your hat on… this is from the coaches that were the foundations of football forever, and Jimmy Harbaugh’s doing it again at Michigan: blocking, know what your assignment is, that stuff. Marty Schottenheimer (Danielson’s coach when he played with the Cleveland Browns) had a definition of balance: being able to run the ball when the other team knows you want to run it, and being able to throw when the defense knows you need to throw it.

People believe teams are winning because of some magic plays being called. The hurry-up-no-huddle offense is given way too much credit – traps and screens can work, too.

Tempo has its use but not as a cornerstone principle. Take Urban Meyer — he was always brought up understanding exactly what it takes to win – chain of command, toughness, discipline, loyalty to the game plan, reaching out to be cutting edge… I don’t know if anyone gets it better than Urban.

All that came from a question about the use of one term in one situation on one CBS broadcast several years ago. Without reading anything more in this piece, you can already see that behind a lot of Danielson’s terminology is a very deep and developed philosophy of how football should be played, taught and coached. Television lends itself to the immediate reaction and to the handful of words said in real time, right after a play ends, but decades of film study — and accordingly layered explanations — accompany those few words on the air. It’s a revealing insight to come across as a viewer of football on television (and not from a stadium seat or the field).

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I distinctly remember Danielson — during his days with Brent Musburger at ABC — remarking on how the matchup between a receiver and a defensive back was one of the centrally exploitable matchups for offenses and offensive coordinators in college football. Has that matchup dynamic changed?

Here’s what Danielson said:

College football is different from any other sport because our great players can’t turn pro – the one-and-dones or the Jordan Spieths and the Lebrons turn pro. College football players have to play at least three years. A.J. Green was ready to turn pro after his first year.

(Regarding the receiver-cornerback matchup:) I call it the Randy Moss effect, the pressure point of what one of those players can mean. In football, they mean so much more. They can distort the defense and allow their other 10 guys to be way more successful.

How I learned this the most from when I played: (receiver) Brian Brennan of the Cleveland Browns. Every day in practice, Brennan complained about not getting ball – he was Wes Welker before Wes Welker. He dominated in practice, and said just throw me the ball. It made me realize that a good route and a well-thrown ball with an average wide receiver could beat the best defender. What could an elite wide receiver do to the third cornerback, as Lane Kiffin did with Amari Cooper (last season)?

The scoreboard changer in college football is the wide receiver-defensive back matchup. It was that way 30 years ago and it’s that way today. Rule changes (on defensive pass interference, defensive holding, etc.) have had an effect too, but the wide receiver-defensive back matchup is why the Baylors of college football have become so successful.

I asked Danielson to comment not just on college football as a whole (specifically through the lens of the receiver-defensive back matchup), but on the SEC and what it has taught Danielson over time.

When asked to name a few of the SEC coaches or coordinators who taught him the most during his tenure at CBS, Danielson provided this list:

David Cutcliffe at Tennessee – he’s one of the most demanding football coaches I’ve ever been around. You can’t run your route eight yards if he’s demanding 8.5; the same is true for a four-step slant instead of three. People have no idea of the level of sophistication he brings to the table – Peyton Manning was so lucky to have been coached by him.

Kirby Smart and his combo coverages with Nick Saban – Kirby was able to defend the spread with his combo packages.

Dan Quinn at Florida – a very bright young coach (who helped Florida make the 2013 Sugar Bowl; he’s now with the Atlanta Falcons after being a Super Bowl champion defensive coordinator with the Seattle Seahawks).

I spent a day and a half with Gus Malzahn – I met him first at Arkansas, and I think he was cutting edge in how he wanted to dress up his formations but embrace the the fundamentals of football. Gus understands this better than others.

Which coaches (as opposed to executives or administrators, whom Danielson mentioned in the broadcasting-specific piece linked to at the beginning of this story) did the most to change and shape the SEC we see today?

Danielson’s response:

Within the league, the person who really made the future is Steve Spurrier. When he broke into the league, it was tailback, wishbone, punt, field position. Steve was brash. He threw it. He didn’t apologize. He brought modern football to the SEC. His battles with Florida State and Peyton — if you were to script it out you couldn’t have done it any better if you tried to create a product. It was like a planned (assembly-line) rollout and it just happened.

The next important guy was Nick Saban. He brought the understanding that this (the SEC) was a nationally attractive conference. He left the Big Ten to go to LSU. He broke salary ceilings, he hired the (Will) Muschamps and (Jimbo) Fishers, built facilities, upped the arms race in the SEC, and brought in NFL-style recruiting.

Lastly, Urban Meyer — he embraced the newness of college football, which means he embraced the idea that there were different ways to play and didn’t have to be cookie cutter. Meyer, Saban, and Les Miles all had roots in Ohio (Saban was born in West Virginia but went to college at Kent State, in Ohio, and was mentored by Don James, who had Saban work for him as a graduate assistant for multiple seasons) and all made their names in the SEC.

When Urban came to Florida, he thought they were soft. He built his program around Tim Tebow’s toughness – they had to demand that everyone had to be as tough, it had to be matched throughout the team. You couldn’t be weak in that program, they brought the stuff from Woody Hayes and Lou Holtz.

It’s all about competition with Urban – you don’t make the guy fit the system, you make the system fit the guy. You figure out a way to give Percy Harvin the ball.

When Florida beat Oklahoma for the national championship in the 2008 season, that game with OU and the Miami-Ohio State Fiesta Bowl (2003) had the most talent on one field I’ve ever seen.

My final question was aimed at setting up this Saturday’s Alabama-Texas A&M game in a larger context. I asked Danielson what the SEC West was going to look like five years from now; what big-picture question or idea is going to shape the division going forward?

Here is Danielson’s answer:

Never underestimate the power of an individual – my high school coach was Bill McCartney. He built Colorado into a national power. Barry Alvarez was told by Lou Holtz that Wisconsin is a dead-end job, don’t take it. The power of an individual can trump all the cirucmstanes of college football – one individual can change the dynamic.

John Elway beat us in Cleveland (in the 1986 AFC Championship Game). One individual can change everything.

I’ve never used the eyeball test – I’ve been studying game tapes since 1976. I remember reading that 43 of 44 experts picked Alabama to beat Ohio State because they thought by tape they knew who was the better team. I don’t use tape to say who the better team is.

That said, I don’t know if Hugh Freeze isn’t the next Barry Alvarez or Bill Snyder… because of his drive, energy, and his ability to make Ole Miss into something. I don’t know if Kevin Sumlin is going to stay at Texas A&M for the next 20 years. How long will Les Miles stay at LSU?

I feel this: all those programs have the foundation of being the team to do it (win the SEC West). Alabama has a slight edge because of recruiting, but not that big an edge to the point where the right guy can’t take over at those other programs.

A final insight I gleaned from my conversation with Gary Danielson is that his experiences — in life and football — have been shaped by the Midwest. He is a product of that region, as a player and a person. That’s where he was born, where he grew up, where he played in college (Purdue), and where he played professionally (Detroit, Cleveland).

The fact that Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, and Les Miles — indisputably accomplished SEC coaches in the present or past tense — are all products of the Ohio Valley is revealing. So is the fact that Lou Holtz won big at Notre Dame before he went to South Carolina. (When he coached Arkansas, the Hogs were in the South-WEST Conference, not the SEC.)

If coaches with Midwestern roots can make their way to the SEC and feel at home, why couldn’t the same be true for Gary Danielson? Even as he works in an SEC stadium on autumnal Saturdays, football remains football no matter where it is coached, taught, played, or learned.

Danielson is so often tethered to the SEC by the public, but his knowledge base is national in scope, and it reaches very deeply into the sport’s history — roughly 40 years in Danielson’s career of film study, but so much more than that when one considers his interactions with other football lifers.

No conference breathes in the history of college football more deeply than the SEC. Gary Danielson’s broadcasting career at CBS has two very healthy lungs — the breadth and depth of his football knowledge indicate as much.

About Matt Zemek

Editor, @TrojansWire | CFB writer since 2001 |

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