ESPN’s ‘Bear’ prepares for crazy Saturday, starting in Baton Rouge

If you think your regular workday is hectic, check out the Saturday schedule of ESPN College GameDay research producer Chris “The Bear” Fallica.

After an early reporting time on the LSU campus for College GameDay, Fallica will join Kirk Herbstreit and Maria Taylor on a charter flight from Baton Rouge to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to work the Penn State-Michigan game, which kicks off less than four hours after GameDay signs off. Then, after the game, Fallica will catch a flight back to Connecticut.

“It’s an all-timer,” Fallica said Thursday afternoon, shortly after arriving in Baton Rouge. “As long as we have no delays, the flight is about 2 hours and 5 minutes. We’ll be ‘wheels up’ pretty quickly (after College GameDay ends at 11 a.m. local time). The game’s at 3:45 (Eastern time). We should make it with at least 35 minutes to spare.”

Of all weeks for the No. 1 team of Chris Fowler, Herbstreit and Taylor to broadcast an afternoon game, it’s this week – not just because of the travel, but because of the Breeders’ Cup at Churchill Downs.

“I’m dying because I’m going to miss most of the races on Saturday,” said Fallica, a good racing handicapper in his own right. “It’s going to be hard to have a pari-mutuel interest.”

But first things first, and that is the buildup to Saturday night in Tiger Stadium that ESPN will help provide with its signature pregame show.

“From about 2010 on, (Alabama-LSU) has been the biggest game in college football,” said Fallica, who then threw out an interesting thought on this year’s game from a national perspective.

“Maybe it’s taken a little step back” in 2018, he said, “because Alabama is seen as so dominant and so invincible. At the same time, I would  argue that there’s a little more drama and curiosity because where LSU was thought to be at the beginning of the year and where they are now.

“We all pretty much figured Alabama would be controlling its destiny for the College Football Playoff and the SEC West come Nov. 3. I don’t think many people thought LSU would. If we get an upset on Saturday night, it sure would be an interesting, and I think a welcomed, twist for some people.”

Fallica’s last hours before College GameDay on Saturday is spent fine-tuning research on show features, which will include looks back at the history between Northwestern and Notre Dame and the great games in the history of the Alabama-LSU series.

One of the notes Fallica has for Saturday is a graphic of the largest point spreads in meetings between teams ranked in the top 4. “I think Alabama fans don’t want to know the last time there was a double-digit favorite in a top-4 matchup – the “Kick Six” game in 2013,” Fallica said.

The College GameDay staff meets on Friday to go through the rundown of the show. “We’ll get some general ideas about what people want to talk about,” Fallica said. “We don’t necessarily want to know specifics; we like the spontaneity of live television.”

After working behind the scenes on College GameDay since 1996, Fallica has taken on a front-facing role in the show in recent years with three against-the-spread selections on a board behind his position on set, known as “Bear’s Bank.”

“It’s been a dramatic change for me,” Fallica said. “It used to be that you can make a vague reference to ‘the guys in the desert’ or ‘closer than the experts think,’ but not straight Vegas lingo. Three or four years ago, when I started doing the board, we needed to understand that people are betting on these games and they want the information, they know the terminology.

“We can present that in a fun, unique type of way that resonates with handicappers and the casual type of fan.

“The appeal of the board and putting three picks up – it’s been great for me on the show and we really drove a lot on ESPN on how we go about tactfully doing it.”

This spring’s Supreme Court ruling that opened the door for legalization of sports gambling in states other than Nevada has opened the door to more gambling-related content across ESPN’s numerous platforms.

“Now, with the legalization,” Fallica said, “it is something that I think the company realized is an uncharted avenue for people to come now to ESPN for information like this instead of going elsewhere.

“It’s been great for me to be able to utilize the show I’ve been passionate about for (more than) 20 years, that (people are saying) ‘this guy knows what he’s talking about, I want to listen to him.'”

Fallica credits states like Mississippi and West Virginia for what they’ve done in the realm of sports gambling.

“Mississippi wasn’t the first to unveil gambling,” he said, “but I think they were able to see some of the mistakes other states made. I think they’ve done a really good job.”

There are two questions everyone wants answered in advance of Saturday morning’s show: Who will be the celebrity guest picker, and what headgear will Lee Corso put on to close the show?

“I honestly don’t know who the guest picker is,” Fallica said. “I’m usually the last to find out. The end of the show is always great.

“We’ve always said that I’m replaceable, hosts are replaceable, analysts are replaceable, producers are replaceable,  (but) the one irreplaceable part of College GameDay is the final minute, minute-and-a-half with Lee Corso and his headgear pick. He missed his calling as an actor in the entertainment business.

“I would be surprised if he didn’t pick Alabama, but he hasn’t been bashful picking underdogs this year.”

We’ll have to tune in Saturday morning to find out.