rece davis: Is Rece Davis leaving College GameDay? Looking at latest updates amid Fox Sports rumors

Is Rece Davis leaving College GameDay? Looking at latest updates amid Fox Sports rumors

NCAA Football: Rose Bowl-Ohio State at Oregon - Source: Imagn — Rece Davis will remain at ESPN. - Source: Imagn

Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported on Sunday morning that college football studio host Rece Davis will remain at ESPN after being strongly recruited by Fox.

"NEWS: After a big recruitment by rival Fox's "Big Noon," Rece Davis has decided to remain at GameDay on a new seven-year deal for tens of millions, The Athletic. Full story and some more college football TV transfer portal news," Andrew Marchant posted on X.

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According to Marchand's post, Rece Davis signed a new seven-year multimillion-dollar deal to remain with the "Worldwide Leader." Davis has been the host of the "College GameDay" pregame show since 2015, when he took over for Chris Fowler. The deal runs through the 2031-2032 season.

If 59-year-old Rece Davis had left the four-letter network for Fox, he would have hosted "GameDay's" main competitor on Saturday mornings, Fox's "Big Noon Kickoff" show. It's also likely that Davis would have been involved in college basketball and the 2026 FIFA World Cup coverage.

The move would have also created a ripple effect for other hosts, including Fox's Rob Stone, the host of "Big Noon Kickoff." It remains to be seen if the network's push to sign the ESPN host will affect Stone's role or his relationship with the network.

Fox and ESPN have had some sort of "arms race" with their pregame show. ESPN's "College GameDay" has added Pat McAfee and Nick Saban in recent years to a crew that already had Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and former Heisman winner Desmond Howard.

"Big Noon Sunday" is anchored by Stone, who is flanked by Urban Meyer and former players Mark Ingram and Brady Quinn.

Both pre-game programs travel to campus locations to preview the week in college football.

Rece Davis would have joined some former ESPN workers at Fox

This is not the first time that Fox has looked to sign ESPN employees or former employees. Reporter Tom Rinaldi and analyst Chris "Bear" Fallica were signed away from ESPN's college show.

Former Florida Gators head coach Urban Meyer also used to work for ESPN, but he left the network after a year to become the Ohio State Buckeyes head coach ahead of the 2012 season. He is in his second stint as a Fox college football analyst.

With Davis' decision to stay at the Bristol-based company, it remains to be seen if Fox will look to add anyone to the panel for the 2025 season.

The 2025 college football season will kick off on Aug. 23.

About the author

Allan Wolburg Robles is a College Sports journalist at Sportskeeda with over 17 years of experience in the field writing for publications including Reforma, Yahoo! OddsShark and Apuesta. Allan studied Communications at Anáhuac University, where he learned what would become the basis of a trade that was already a dream of his before starting college.

His favorite team is Army West Point as when he was young, Allan lived in West Point for a couple of years, went to pretty much every home game, a couple of Army-Navy games and even got to meet some of the players.

Allan's favorite players of all time include Tommie Frazier, who was unbelievable during the Nebraska dynasty of the early 90's. Tim Tebow was also a favorite, mainly because of his leadership skills, although he was also awesome on the football field. As a fan of defensive football, (or what's left of it), Sean Taylor could take over a game for Miami.

Allan has always considered himself a student of the game more than a fan of it. So the historical part and evolution of the game, as well as the ins and outs of what happens on the field, and being able to put it into words for the audience, are his biggest strengths.

Besides sports, Allan enjoys reading books, watching movies and spending time with his dogs.

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Edited by Victor R. Lopez M.