The Big Ten Media Days, like those of other conferences, serve as the unofficial kickoff to the college football season. With fall camp just days away, the three-day media event serves as a reminder – and advertisement, in a sense – that the college season is just around the corner. But more than just an advertisement, the Big Ten Media Days are an up-close-and-personal introduction to the coaches and players that will be taking center stage this fall.
This year marks the tenth time I’ve been fortunate
enough to attend the Big Ten Media Days. I’ve followed the event from Chicago to Indianapolis to Las Vegas and back to Chicago – and I’ve enjoyed – and gotten a lot out of – every year’s event.
Getting the opportunity to interact with the current crop of Big Ten coaches and players never gets old. But what does such an event look like through the eyes of a first-time participant? Someone who is well acquainted with college sports but hasn’t been thrown into this thousand-person scrum before?
This year, I spent much of the week with just such a person. And here are some of their impressions.
The Scene
The first thing you notice is the atmosphere – which can be quite overwhelming. With the Big Ten Network studio crew and set in the center of it all, and cameras everywhere, the excitement is palpable. But it’s more than just Dave Revsine and his colleagues. Everywhere you look, you see a coach or player or media personality. Everywhere you look, you see someone being interviewed or photographed by someone.
Seeing someone like Jake Butt on your television screen is one thing. Standing next to him as you grab your morning cup of coffee is something completely different. It makes for an almost surreal experience.
Up Close and Personal
The informal interaction you’re able to have with coaches – and even more so with players – is one of the event’s highlights. The 30 and 45-minute afternoon breakout sessions provide a relaxed, informal setting to interact with players. It’s enlightening to spend a little time with the coaches and players and get a sense of their personalities.
Players
Two things stand out. First and foremost, their size. Not surprisingly, they’re an impressive lot, with many looking like NFL players already. But that’s not the whole story. Because while most players are as large or larger than you’d expect, some are much smaller than you’d expect. It makes you wonder how they survive against such giants – and makes their exploits on the gridiron even more remarkable.
But it’s not just their size that’s striking – it’s how fit the players are – even the big men. You’d think it impossible for a 300-pound man to look lean, but that’s exactly the case. A colleague remarked that it looks like these guys were created in a lab, and it’s an apt description. It’s the weight room, of course, and not a lab in which these players were created, but the results look the same.
They also look sharp. With tailored suits (often in school colors), eye-catching accessories and a fresh cut, you can tell the players take the event seriously and represent themselves well.
But it’s not just their appearance that makes an impression. The most noticeable takeaway is not how sharply the players are dressed, but how sharp they are.
In their introductory remarks, most coaches describe the players they bring with them as individuals who are even better people than they are players, and to spend a little time around them, you have little trouble believing that statements like that are more than clichés.
The common denominator among players, regardless of class standing, position or school, is how thoughtful, personable and likable these guys are. Any tired stereotype of a dumb jock disappears immediately. To be that polished, at that young age – as most are – is beyond impressive, and is the biggest takeaway from the week.
Hope Springs Eternal
What’s great about July is that everyone is undefeated. From Piscataway to Seattle, every Big Ten team believes it’s improved from the prior season. Every team has aspirations of playing for the Big Ten championship or reaching the College Football Playoff. Everyone is excited about the upcoming season.
“I haven’t heard any coach saying that they didn’t have a great spring,” Ohio State head coach Ryan Day said. And he’s not wrong. New Michigan State head coach Pat Fitzgerald took it one step further, telling reporters, “I think you’re going to have 18 head football coaches walk up here and have an expectation to win the Big Ten championship.”
For a week, at least, every team – and every fan base – is excited.
Final Word
In the end, the Big Ten Media Days succeed both in celebrating a conference that boasts the last three national champions and the reigning Heisman Trophy winner and introducing the next batch of great players and Heisman Hopefuls. But even more than that, shining a light on some of the personalities in the game while whetting the appetite for the upcoming season.
Which, believe it or not, is less than a month away.
