SEC Network announces plans for media days coverage, including Nick Saban as analyst

Talkin’ Season officially got underway this week when the Big 12 converged on Las Vegas and Allegiant Stadium. It was the first of the Autonomous Four conferences to hold media days, the SEC is next on the circuit.

As teams get ready to head to Dallas July 15-18, SEC Network announced its full coverage plans. The headliner, of course, is former Alabama head coach Nick Saban as he goes through his first season with ESPN’s family of networks.

Saban joined ESPN in February after announcing his retirement from a 50-year coaching career and will be on the College GameDay desk this season. When the network announced his addition, the plan was for him to be at SEC Media Days, and he headlines the impressive list of analysts who will be at the event.

Greg McElroy, Jordan Rodgers, Roman Harper, Chris Doering, Benjamin Watson, Sam Acho, Cole Cubelic and Dusty Dvoracek are also on board, in addition to Saban. They will all be contributing to the network’s coverage, which begins Monday when Greg Sankey kicks off the week of press conferences.

All told, SEC Network is planning nearly 50 hours of content with its staple programs – SEC This Morning, SEC Now and The Paul Finebaum Show – will take over the network for media days. But there will also be some expanded content on ESPN2 as the SEC starts is new media rights deal with ESPN and ABC.

On Wednesday, SEC Now: Live from SEC Football Media Days will air on both ESPN2 and SEC Network. That program will start at 8 p.m. ET, according to the announcement. There will also be two Homecoming documentaries – narrated by Finebaum – celebrating Texas and Oklahoma, who are officially members of the SEC after leaving the Big 12.

Nick Saban received high praise after ESPN debut

Saban made his first appearance on the ESPN desk during the 2024 NFL Draft. He was in Detroit with the GameDay crew and made quite the impression.

Instead of seeing the stoic, all-business coach who stood behind the podium at Alabama, fans saw a different side of Saban. He was smiling, laughing and joking while providing in-depth analysis of the players who heard their names called in the draft.

Of course, Saban has done TV before with GameDay during the College Football Playoff. But his performance during the draft was still a welcome sight as he enters the next chapter of his football life.

“Hey, man, I love Coach Saban. You know I’m an Auburn guy, but Coach Saban is good,” On3’s Phillip Dukes told Andy Staples after the first round. “And then that moment was so real to me, because they knew. And then all the when he talked about guys that he actually had the game plan against, like hearing him talk about the game plan for Jayden Daniels you just say and, ‘I was just looking up at the ceiling at night. He had me shook.’

“Hearing Nick Saban kind of humanize himself, that was so cool to me. Because when you think about it, he’s probably on the Mount Olympus of coaching, period, not just college coaches. So you know, hearing him talk about what worried him, and what he saw in these players and the draftees, I thought that was awesome. Great pick up by ABC.”

SEC gearing up for new era in 2024

The SEC will take on a new look in multiple ways this year. On the field, the two new additions highlight the changes.

News of Texas and Oklahoma’s plans to join the SEC broke in Summer 2021, and it finally became a reality earlier this month. The conference hosted celebrations at both campuses around the July 1 start date with SEC Network hosting shows with an impressive list of guests.

But this year will be the first since the 1990s the SEC won’t have a weekly game on CBS. The new media rights deal means games will be exclusively on ESPN, ABC and SEC Network – a major change for fans used to hearing Brad Nessler and Gary Danielson call the game in the 4:30 p.m. ET slot.

It’s officially a new era for the SEC, and Media Days will be the unofficial kickoff. Games begin next month, meaning fans won’t have to wait long to see their teams back on the field.