Rece Davis drops huge CFB advice after Duke-Michigan MBB game hits 4.3 million viewers originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
ESPN’s Rece Davis didn’t hold back when reacting to the Duke Blue Devils’ 68-63 win against the Michigan Wolverines this past Saturday.
Advertisement
Davis’s remarks were less about the game itself and more to do with the fallout from it. The game was a smash hit, as 4.3 million people tuned into ACC-Big Ten matchup. Davis was complimentary of both programs for putting on the one-off neutral-site game and suggested college football teams should make it a regular habit.
Davis addressed this further during a recent addition of the “College Gameday Podcast.”
“The one thing I thought of as we started through this was the direct contract in the approach and thought process of [Duke head coach] Jon Scheyer and [Michigan head coach] Dusty May about playing this game at this point of the season, and the college football schedule and the conundrums we’re seeing around the country with athletic directors and coaches evaluating whether they should play difficult non-conference schedules,” Davis said.
Davis said if schools were more willing to do what Duke and Michigan did, it would become more of an acceptable occurrence every year.
Advertisement
MORE: SN’s latest forecast for NCAA tourney bracket
“I think it’s a terrible idea and precedent for athletic directors and coaches to try to approach scheduling from the standpoint of ‘I’m worried about failure.’ If you approach anything in life from the point of “I’m worried I might fail,’ it’s almost a guarantee that you’re going to. There have to be some kind of standards.”
Without calling any schools out directly, Davis said the more initiative taken, the better off.
“This idea of bagging these big-time non-conference games that people want to see… these games need to be played. They need to be played for the good of the enterprise.”
Advertisement
It will be interesting to monitor whether the trend fully continues.
MORE: NCAA’s Charlie Baker should check the current bubble
