Joe Schad: A Q&A With ESPN Reporter

One Great Season is marking its one-year anniversary this week with interviews of several sports media personalities. Today's subject is ESPN college football reporter Joe Schad, who does in-studio work as well as sideline reporting for the Worldwide Leader. Feel free to suggest future interview subjects by clicking here.

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

One Great Season: You've covered the NFL and both major college sports. It seems you've found a home with college football. What is it that you love so much about it?
Joe Schad: A lot of people would ask, "How did a guy from Queens, New York, end up covering college football for the biggest sports media entity in the world?"

It goes back to when the Orlando Sentinel sent me up to Gainesville. It was the first Division I game I ever attended. It was Florida vs. Florida State at The Swamp and it really opened my eyes. It was great to see 100,000 people descend upon one stadium, make a lot of noise and really cheer on a bunch of 18-to-21-year-old kids. There are many things about pro sports that are great, but they don't have the rivalries, traditions or the pageantry of college football.

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I've certainly found a niche. When ESPN hired me, they were looking for someone who had quality reporting experience who had previously covered college football, and could dive in and cover the sport and try to emulate people like (NFL insider) Chris Mortensen and (NCAA basketball insider) Andy Katz, both of whom came from the world of newspapers like I did.

OGS: There are so many great things about the sport but also some obvious imperfections. Expansion, television, growing controversy over the BCS -- all driven by huge dollar figures. Describe the state of college football right now as compared to 10 years ago.
JS: The executives at my company and the commissioners at various conferences and those who sell advertising for college football broadcasts will all tell you the sport has never been healthier. That said, it could be even better. I do think eventually we'll have a Final Four of college football or some kind of tournament format.

And there are some inequities from a financial standpoint in the same way as they occur in Major League Baseball. Perhaps it's not fair, for example, for Texas to get more money than, say, Iowa State does because of the frequency with which Texas games are televised. That's sort of the American way, and college football is America's sport just as much as baseball is. People like to talk about how college football is not as pure as it once was. There might be a little bit of naivete in that statement. The whole USC/Reggie Bush investigation has been a black eye, but those sorts of things were going on back in the day, too. It would be wrong for us to put our heads in the sand and assume that these imperfections are new to the landscape.

OGS: Some of these 17-year-olds certainly deserve to enjoy the recognition that comes with Signing Day, but the sports media has practically turned it into this absurd national holiday. What is your take on that big day every February?
JS: I was a part, for the first time, this year, of ESPNU's coverage of Signing Day. We parked the ESPN bus outside The Swamp and we brought in Urban Meyer and every time a fax was coming in, I was to be made aware of it. It was kind of a neat thing.

ESPN and Rivals and other companies like that are providing the information that many of their readers want, so in that way it's omnipresent.

It certainly affects the egos and mentalities of young athletes. If LeBron James wouldn't have been coddled from such an early age, perhaps he wouldn't have done what he did (two weeks ago) in such a way that Commissioner Stern criticized him for it.

OGS: What kinds of benefits are there to such exposure for these athletes at a young age?
JS: Part of the reason David Lee was so mature and was so eloquently spoken at a very early age -- and he still is -- was becasue of the national media exposure that he encountered. So I suppose there are some potential positive ramifications to early exposure to national media.

OGS: How did you react to Lane Kiffin's departure from Knoxville for USC?
JS:It obviously showed you a few things: How much passion the fans in Knoxville had. If they didn't want Lane Kiffin to be successful as their coach, they wouldn't have showed so much anger or dismay about his departure. It also shows how much the landscape has changed. It wasn't so long ago that a coach wouldn't have thought about leaving a traditonal power after just one season. I'll never forget asking Tennessee Athletic Director Mike Hamilton at a news conference to describe the Lane Kiffin era, and him responding: "Brief."

Lane Kiffin is an interesting case study in that he's gotten a tremendous amount of opportunity without a tremendous amount of experience.

OGS: You're a pretty big Twitter guy. How has the emergence of social media changed the way you do your job?
JS: There's no question that Twitter has become a scorekeeper for journalists. There used to be a time when whoever had it in the newspaper first was the one who won the story. Then it was whomever had it on the radio or the TV first, and now it's someone's blog. And all this increases the pressure on all writers to get it first and get it right. A mentor recently told me there are advantages for us that the public is able to watch the minute-by-minute developments of a story.

OGS: And surely there might be a few types of notes you feel are more suited to Twitter but maybe not your longer-form pieces on ESPN.com. What types of stories or notes go where for you?
JS: ESPN has a policy that it does not want us to break news via Twitter. They would prefer that news be broken via ESPN.com, ESPN TV or ESPN Radio. That said, there are times when breaking news on Twitter can be helpful. Sometimes I'll Tweet the information and that's how readers, maybe even other writers, will pick up the story.

Not only do social media platforms like Twitter create both great opportunities as well as potential headaches for reporters, but they do the same for public relations people and even coaches and athletic directors, who now all have to be prepared to react to what's being put out there.

OGS: What will you most remember about the 2009 season?
JS: One thing I remember was Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy leading the Tide down the field at Auburn. I did the game on the sideline for ESPN Radio. McElroy kept that perfect season alive, but much of the credit went to Nick Saban and Mark Ingram. Not much credit went to a "caretaker" type of quarterback. No one knew he could win a big game, but that's exactly what he did that day.

I also remember watching Colt McCoy bowing his head in prayer in a trainer's room, waiting for an X-Ray, as I was 10 feet away from him in the bowels of the Rose Bowl early in the national championship game. I supppose that will be a cool thing to remember for the rest of my life. I was the only person to witness that exact scene. Kind of neat. I also remember his dad runnning down past security to get to his son, and I remember telling them, "It's OK, that's Colt's dad." I don't think anyone was going to stop Brad McCoy from getting to his son at that point.

OGS: What stadium(s) do you absolutely love covering games from?
JS: There are so many stadiums I haven't been to that I still can't wait to cover a game from. But the ones I've been to, they're pretty much SEC schools -- Florida, LSU, Auburn and Alabama, in particular. Texas A&M is pretty neat, too. As cool as the atmospheres are at Ohio State, Michigan and Notre Dame, for my money, the atmosphere at a few of the SEC stadiums, especially at night, is incomparable.

OGS: What college towns have the best food?
JS: I'm a big ribs guy, so SEC and Big 12 schools get it done for me. I like Athens, I like Knoxville. And I like Baton Rouge, obviously, for the Cajun-style food down there.

OGS: What will be a few of the top storylines you'll be keeping a close eye on leading up to September?
JS: Quarterbacks are something people are always focused on, so how John Brantley looks in replacing Tim Tebow will be interesting, how Garrett Gilbert looks as the full-time starter at Texas, whether Landry Jones can be as good as Sam Bradford, whether Terrelle Pryor emerges as a complete quarterback and evolves into the Vince Young-type quarterback that so many have projected him to be.

I think Pryor has the ability to be as talented as Vince Young, but I don't know that he'll ever be the leader that Young was when he led Texas to the national championship, which, by the way, was also one of the cooler memories of my life. I was about five yards away from Vince Young when he scored that game-winning touchdown, and I'll never forget the look on the face of Lance Armstrong, of all people.

I'll also be on the sideline for the Boise State - Virginia Tech game at FedEx Field. It will be great to see if Boise can show itself as a national contender in Week One.

OGS: And who do you expect to be playing for the national championship in January?
JS: I think the winner of the SEC will play for the national championship again this year, and that will be Alabama. And they'll either play Ohio State, Texas or Miami.

OGS: So that early game between Ohio State and Miami might be worth watching?
JS: If Ohio State wins, they'll have an outstanding chance to play for the national championship. If Miami wins, don't be surprised to see them make a run at it either.

Wednesday's Q&A: Sports Illustrated college football writer Stewart Mandel.