ESPN’s Joe Tessitore eager for Media Days spectacle with SEC Network

FOR MORE YEARS than he can remember, Joe Tessitore’s late-July calendar has circled the dates of the SEC’s annual football Media Days in Hoover, Ala. This year will be no different – and yet, it will be very different.

The SEC Network, the ESPN-affiliated “all SEC all the time” project that hit the airwaves last fall, makes its live debut at Media Days this Monday-Thursday. Tessitore and co-host Dari Nowkhah will anchor 20 hours of as-it-happens coverage of the SEC’s preseason football gabfest.

If four days, five hours per day, of flying by the seat of your pants in interviews and analysis evokes a potential nightmare of the unexpected, then your name isn’t Tessitore.

“Maybe it sounds funny, but even though we’re broadcasting the entire day, in a way it’s easier” than covering a game or doing a pre-recorded show, the former ESPN regular said while en route to Alabama. “Yes, it’s a marathon, but I don’t find it stressful. The pure quantity of material – coaches making the rounds, the richness of resources; everywhere you turn there’s another interview or a coach at the podium – I personally can’t get enough of it.

“To a non-hardcore football fan, it’s ‘How can you talk about it four straight days, 14 coaches?’ For me, it’s incredibly fun and entertaining. I look forward to seeing who (USC coach Steve) Spurrier has pointed comments about.”

And, Tessitore insisted, an event that most media view as an ordeal of coach-speak can actually generate real news … sometimes.

“A couple of years ago, (then-Texas A&M quarterback) Johnny Manziel had just been kicked out of the Manning quarterback camp,” he said. “That was a circus, and it was national news to hear what (Manziel) would say.”

One of Tessitore’s favorite Media Days moments, in fact, came when ESPN/SEC Network’s resident curmudgeon, Paul Finebaum, offered his thoughts on Johnny Football. “Paul was on with me, being asked about Johnny, and he was taking some pretty sharp jabs – and Manziel was standing 10 feet away, waiting to come on.”

The vehicle for all this is “SEC Now,” which airs Monday from 12:30-5:30 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday will offer six hours each day, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., with a half-day (10 a.m.-1 p.m.) on Thursday. Monday-Wednesday, Finebaum’s simulcast radio show from Media Days will follow “SEC Now” and run until 7 p.m.

If that sounds like a glut of chatter, happening while most potential viewers are at work, Tessitore says he isn’t concerned. Sports are the one “DVR-proof” product on television, and if Media Days don’t qualify the way, say, an Alabama-Georgia clash would, it remains must-see TV for part of the fan base, he said.

“The expectation of the viewer is that if they turn it on, they’re getting every ounce of it (Media Days),” he said. “We’re covering every single thing in that room, at the podium, and delivering what they (fans) want.

“(With ESPN’s) SportsCenter, you’ll get edited versions of (Alabama coach Nick) Saban, but we’re there from start to finish.”

The coverage, in fact, might be better than actually being in Birmingham, he said. “If you’re there, you have to chase down who you want, whereas with us it’s being done for you.”

SEC fans, noted for their football passion, have plenty to anticipate. Every year, an issue or issues arise, but that’s not what drives Tessitore.

“I simply like starting to talk football: depth charts, who are the breakout players, the big expectations,” he said. “In the offseason, I focus on previewing teams, emerging stars, who we’ll be talking about nonstop come September-November.

“It’s a lot of fun; I mean, finally, we’re talking SEC football. This is like our political convention. Undoubtedly, there’s no way I could not be there.”

Tessitore has heard the cogent and the crazy of Media Days before. Spurrier “is always great,” he said. Saban is “very issue-oriented, thoughtful in what he says.” Tennessee coach Butch Jones “is all about his team, very rah-rah.” And there are the surprises.

“The guy who I think is fearless enough, bold and brash, is (Arkansas coach) Brett Bielema,” Tessitore said. “He doesn’t back down from anyone. Last year, he was pretty hot about the pace-of-play issue. He’s a bit of everything: he can take shots, do issues (and) be funny.”

Tessitore looks forward to learning more about new Florida coach Jim McIlwain. “He’s from Montana, looks at the world differently,” he said. Still, his live-interview choice is always LSU’s Les Miles.

“Last year, Les came on SportsCenter, and 10 seconds away from going live, he says: ‘Hey, what do you want to talk about?’” Tessitore said. “Before going on-air, we had talked about his family vacation and his daughter’s softball. So for the first five minutes, that’s what we talked about, and it was more entertaining than talking about college football.”

At the end of Media Days, Tessitore likes to unwind with a local beer (Good People’s Brewery’s brew called Steak Handler), and dissect the telecasts with fellow analysts (and ex-players) Booger McFarland, Marcus Spears and Greg McElroy. It’s work. It’s not digging ditches.

“Media Days is a smile on my face,” Tessitore said, and you almost heard one in his voice. “You ask us to talk football for five straight hours? We say, ‘Sure. It’s what we do.’”

This story was originally published July 12, 2015 at 9:27 PM.