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‘College GameDay’ host’s homecoming
Miami grad Chris Fallica is GameDay’s stats guru
College GameDay host and stats guru Chris Fallica will experience a first on Saturday, after 21 years at ESPN: He’ll be working a game at his alma mater, the University of Miami.
Chris Fallica didn’t get it at first when Lee Corso bestowed the nickname on him. In Fallica’s view, there was only one Bear in college football and that was the legendary coach Paul Bryant.
Similarly, Fallica never envisioned himself becoming recognizable to fans nationwide as the lovable, huggable, opiniondecade. ated Bear of ESPN’s iconic “College GameDay.”
None of that was foreseeable when the native of East Moriches, N.Y., graduated from the University of Miami in 1994, and a couple years later, joined Corso and cohorts on a remarkable run with the sixtime Emmy winning football pregame show.
Fortunately, Fallica is more prescient when it comes to making game predictions and offering stats-driven analysis, as he will do when “GameDay” broadcasts from the campus of his alma mater for the first time Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. Six previous South Florida episodes of the show were at the Orange Bowl, not on campus.
For the record, Fallica is predicting an upset victory for the No. 7 Hurricanes against No. 3 Notre Dame later that night at Hard Rock Stadium in the biggest UM game in more than a More on that later.
Fallica said he expects a lively scene of sign-waving ’Canes fans, and on a personal level is looking forward to “walking [on the Coral Gables campus] and reminiscing and seeing how the school has
grown in the 20-some years since I’ve been there.”
Those intervening years have been a remarkable journey for Fallica as an integral force behind the rise of “College GameDay” as a Saturday morning phenomenon. The show is best known for Corso’s weekly prediction of the featured game, the 82-year-old coach donning the headgear of the mascot of the team he favors, and the analysis of Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard and others over the years.
But Lee Fitting, former producer of “College GameDay” and now ESPN’s vice president of college sports, said: “There’s no one more important than Fallica in shaping the three hours on a given week. The show wouldn’t be the same without him.”
Much of Fallica’s contribution has been behind the scenes, his forte in research and statistical analysis. Working seven days a week during the season amassing stats, graphics, notes and other valuable information to fortify “GameDay” broadcasts since 1996 has made him “an essential pillar of the show,” former host Chris Fowler once said.
Bettors’ perspective
The phenomenon of the Bear emerged in 2013 after Fitting, Herbstreit and others prodded Fallica into an on-air role dispensing the sort of insights they’ve been hearing off camera for years.
His depth of knowledge of sports betting and comfort level in talking about it has enabled “GameDay” to expand content for the serious gambler. Fallica’s picks on the Bears Bank segments serve those who like to place a wager on games as well as the more casual fan.
“By no means are we a gambling show,” Fitting said. “The main analysts don’t get into the points spreads the majority of the time. We leave that to the Bear. But there’s great value there when he does it. He can talk the language. Too often you see people on sports television try to talk that Las Vegas lingo, and there are very few people who are well enough versed in it to talk it.”
It was a role Fallica didn’t seek, and no one is more surprised by his popularity than he is.
“I still get baffled every now and then,” he said of being recognized by fans who want him to pose for photos and talk football and gambling away from the set. “I do enjoy it. I love talking to people, I love interacting with people online.”
That he is not a typical sports talking head makes Fallica relatable to many viewers.
“I say this in a good way, he’s a character. He’s sort of the every-guy fan and he comes across that way. Yet he has the knowledge at the most expert level,” Fitting said, adding, “Fallica is exactly the same person off TV that he is on TV.”
A self-described “Northeast cynic,” Fallica can also be counted on to lob alternate viewpoints at the panel from his corner of the set.
“I like when someone will say something on the set, and I kind of disagree with it,” he said. “I just view it as me having a conversation with the guys on the set who I’ve known forever. It’s just friends talking to each other about college football and issues in college football that I would think fans are interested in talking about on their own.”
Fallica’s presence and persona as the Bear adds to the formula of “GameDay’s” success that Corso continually reminds the crew is about entertainment — yes, that was the octogenarian crowd-surfing during the recent broadcast at Penn State.
It was also Corso’s instinct for sizing up the moment that turned Fallica into the Bear. It occurred while “GameDay” was preparing for another big game involving Miami, the showdown with Ohio State for the national championship at the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.
Fallica and Herbstreit were enjoying a multifaceted breakfast when Corso happened upon the scene after his morning walk.
“We like to sample a lot of different things, so our table was probably pretty full of food that morning,” Fallica recalled with a chuckle. “Coach pauses and looks and circles back to me and says, ‘Look at you, Fallica, you’re just like a big bear. All you do is eat, sleep …’ ”
Fallica was like, yeah, whatever. But Bear stuck, and he gradually embraced it.
“Now very few people call me by my real name,” he said. “A lot of times I’ll even get Bear at home. It’s funny how it’s caught on.”
Much like “College GameDay” itself. When Fallica began as a researcher the same year that Herbstreit joined the panel, the show was an hour long and didn’t go on the road each week. Now it’s a fastpaced three hours and a coup for every school that gets to host it.
High on UM chances
This week the show is in Miami on a Saturday morning for the first time since 2001 — it made a non-traditional stop at the Orange Bowl in 2006 on Labor Day Monday.
Fallica, who worked in the UM sports information office during the Hurricanes’ 58-game winning streak, isn’t summoning nostalgia when he touts a Miami win Saturday — despite being a three-point underdog at home and prevailing sentiment skewed strongly toward Notre Dame, as he noted in a Tweet.
“There is a reason the city of Las Vegas exists. The public is wrong more often than they’re right,” he said.
With all of his picks, Fallica applies a wealth of statistical data as well as schedule comparisons and historical factors.
In this instance he sees an improving Miami team that built confidence on a string of comebacks and close calls before putting together its most impressive win of the season last week against Virginia Tech that nonetheless left room for improvement.
He wonders how the Irish will handle the heat and humidity in the most hostile atmosphere they have faced this season, and he likes the match-up of Miami receivers against the Notre Dame secondary. He also points out that Miami’s success is incumbent on containing a Notre Dame running game that has overwhelmed opponents all season, except for a onepoint loss to Georgia.
“I think Notre Dame is really, really good, but I think Miami, after what we saw from them last week, is better than a lot of people anticipated and even still think they are,” Fallica said. “I like the atmosphere; I think the crowd will impact the game. I think Miami will win a really good, tight, exciting close game.”
In other words, one of those throwback games in the rivalry long before Fallica became the Bear of college football.