MADISON, Wis. — On an idyllic Friday night in Madison, Gus Johnson is introducing Joel Klatt as if he's the reigning champion.
Fox's top college football broadcast booth, consisting of Johnson, Klatt and sideline reporter Jenny Taft, is holding a production meeting ahead of the Wisconsin-Alabama showdown.
The weekly meetings are similar to the walk-throughs a football team goes through to prepare for a game.
The announce booth and overall production was headed up by Chuck McDonald, a longtime Fox alum who had worked on the network's top NFL crews with John Madden and Pat Summerall, and later Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, working his way up into the upper echelons of major broadcast crews.
Production meetings showed why Booth is so energized and ready for kickoff.
In his bombastic on-air voice, Johnson declared Klatt to be the “captain” of the meeting.
The roles are reversed from what you see on TV: Johnson is the broadcast host, setting the rhythm with play-by-play, while Klatt leads the meeting like a professor lecturing to a small class.
He has a laminated sheet of notes on about 75 players, but without really looking at it, he goes into detail about each starter and reserve who is likely to get playing time, detailing their background, strengths, weaknesses and future pro prospects.
Klatt spoke with key players not only about football but also about their hobbies, once pointing out that University of Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Van Dyke was an avid golfer.
The two were going to play golf for money, “and he got the money,” Klatt said.
During the meeting, Johnson asked Klatt follow-up questions about everything from Xs and Os to story elements.
Here he, like the rest of us, wondered about the general market for NIL: How much are these people actually being paid?
Klatt said a “medium-average” quarterback can make a “mid-six figures” salary, but an “impact player” can make as much as seven figures.
He noted that the structure will likely change again soon as revenue sharing kicks in and each program has to decide how to distribute the so-called salary cap.
NIL will still be permitted, but organized groups may be excluded by law.
(Unfortunately, the golf game will have to be postponed as Van Dyke tore his ACL in the first quarter Saturday, casting a bleak picture for the Badgers' offense for the rest of the season.)
Taft, who previously hosted FS1's “Undisputed” between Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, is strictly committed to his role as a sideline reporter and has brought along some elements of the meeting that he would like to include on the air if he had the time.
She spoke with University of Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, who said matter-of-factly, “I've never been to Wisconsin. I want to go there, win and get out of there quick.”
Ryan Williams, the 17-year-old phenom wide receiver at the University of Alabama, is often mentioned in production meetings, and Tuft says that all of Williams' teammates have told him that he feels an obligation to live up to those expectations, so he's been relentless in the weight room.
“I'm always trying to predict which players are going to do well,” Taft said.
“But there are emotional storylines too. It might not be a good fit, but if it works, I'd like to do it. Sometimes the conversations don't go well, but then again, we become that kind of team, so that's how the relationship is formed.”
Johnson and Klatt began working together on Fox College Football's top team in 2015, and Taft joined the team in 2017.
In 2019, Fox introduced a “Big Noon Kickoff” strategy, placing the best game of their package at noon Eastern time, a time slot previously reserved for all networks' worst games, and augmented it with a pregame show that now features Rob Stone, Matt Leinart, Urban Meyer, Brady Quinn and Mark Ingram.
For the past three years, the Michigan-Ohio State game, broadcast in the “Big Noon” slot, has been the most-watched regular-season college football game of any network each year.
Beyond Johnson and Klatt's individual talents, Booth's secret is that they genuinely root for one another.
“They play off each other really well,” said producer MacDonald.
“But the other thing is, they love spending time together, whether it's at lunch, in the car, or in meetings with their coaches. That chemistry is what everyone probably thinks they're acting out, but it's just the way it is all the time.”
As a viewer, it's remarkable how quickly Klatt can figure out what happened in a football game with 22 moving parts on the field.
“Nobody I've ever worked with can understand and analyze the game as quickly as Joel,” McDonald said, noting that Klatt uses a different telestrator in real time than anyone else.
“When you look at his telestration, he's doing what a lot of people do after the commercial break and before the extra point is kicked. That's a real testament to how well he watches the game. A lot of other guys have monitors with a five-second delay. [and ask the producer]When I asked him, 'Do you think he got 99 points in the end?' Joel replied, 'I've worked with him for 10 years and it's never happened, but now he knows.'
Last year, Michigan running back Donovan Edwards He scored a 22-yard touchdown against Penn State.and Kratt quickly disassembled the attack and defense with the different colors of the Telestrator.
MacDonald said that when other analysts pull out the telestrator after commercial, it's often one that was assembled for them in the production truck.
MacDonald said that other than Klatt, Madden is the only commentator who can always get it “right” when it comes to choosing from the production truck which camera angles, replays or graphics to put on screen.
Johnson also had high praise for Klatt, saying he should be viewed as a football genius in the same vein as young offensive leaders like Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, Sean McVay and a young Joe Gibbs or Norv Turner.
“He's a coach. He's a young, innovative mind that can interpret and communicate football at any level. He's also a great announcer,” Johnson said.
Johnson concluded: “Why is he such a great announcer? Because I taught him!”
When Johnson left CBS for Fox in 2011, he exuded an aura of being there for the big moments, something Bill Simmons called “The Gus Johnson Law”: Every game Johnson called seemed to be decided until the final seconds, and he would deliver the perfect tone for that moment.
McDonald praised him for staying grounded except for those moments when, counterintuitively, he is actually expected to reach the next level.
“He's more disciplined than people realize. He holds back from making big decisions in big situations,” McDonald said.
In their group interviews with the Post, Johnson, Klatt and Taft seemed less interested in promoting themselves than in talking about the areas the other two excelled at.
“We are a team,” Johnson said, “and we rejoice in the excellence of others. We rejoice in the excellence of the young men and women who cover the field. We rejoice in the excellence of our team. There is a selflessness here that is unmatched in my experience as an announcer.”
“There's a lot of trust,” Taft said. “We're not a team that sacrifices for each other.”
Klatt believes it was Johnson who established a “rhythm” that viewers only subconsciously notice.
“He explained to me that it was like double Dutch and you had to try not to trip over the ropes,” Klatt said.
Klatt was immediately convinced this team was good, and that belief was solidified when the Wolverines finally got over the hump and beat the rival Buckeyes in the 2021 Michigan-Ohio State game.
“We knew we had a really good sound, but you never really know until you're on stage doing something that requires you to play great,” Klatt said.
“That game made me think: OK, a really good team that I know did a great job in a game that was meant to happen. Great players have to be great when greatness is required. In that moment, I knew I could get to that level when I needed to.”
Johnson noted that all three were Division I athletes: Johnson played baseball at Howard University, Klatt played quarterback at the University of Colorado and Taft played lacrosse at Boston University.
Sports fans crave announcers who share their passion for the sport and communicate as if they have their dream job.
When asked about bringing that energy to every game, Johnson had a thoughtful response.
“My father was a janitor and security guard, but he lost both his legs to diabetes and died before completing his third grade education. My job during college football season is watching the marching band, cheerleaders, mascots and spending time with young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who are working hard to get an education and pursue their dreams of becoming a star in college or professional football,” he said.
“I feel very strongly that I have to walk in the light. I don't want to walk in any darkness. This is a blessing. Words can't express how grateful I am to be in this industry and to have had a career that has lasted for more than 30 years. I have no excuse other than to be happy. For the people who watch these games, this is leisure time. This is not '60 Minutes.'”
