Last season, host of ESPN ‘College GameDay’ Rece Davis didn’t vote Michigan football quite as high as many others had in the AP Top 25. However, he’s making up for it in the 2023 preseason.
Davis has been on record all offseason that the Wolverines are his preseason No. 1 overall team, and it wasn’t just bluster. He put his figurative money where his mouth is and gave the maize and blue his No. 1 vote in his AP Top 25 vote in the preseason poll. He was one of two who gave Michigan football a first-place vote.
Appearing on the Paul Finebaum show, he explained why the Wolverines over Georgia.
“I voted Michigan No. 1, Paul, in the preseason AP poll and you would have thought that I said Georgia was gonna go 5-7,” Davis said. “I did the Bulldogs the greatest disrespect one can imagine. I don’t believe in their program at all. I voted them all the way down at No. 2. And I think that probably speaks to the fact of the regard that I have for the entire roster. But I don’t know how productive Carson Beck is going to be at quarterback. I just want to see the quarterback play. And as I’ve said several times, if he plays extremely well, even against lesser competition, there’s a good chance — because I think they have the best overall roster — that I’d moved them back to No. 1.
“But I think Michigan has fewer questions going into Week 1 from a personnel standpoint. Apparently, they now have one in the head coaching ranks at least for a few games it would appear. But I just think they have fewer personnel questions and they don’t have a question at the most important spot which so many other teams do.”
So yes, he’s gotten quite a bit of pushback from those in Athens. But Davis says that’s part of what makes college football so great.
“I’m not really surprised because I think that’s what makes our sport a little bit different is that the fans take it so personally, it’s part of who they are,” Davis said. “It’s just not some pastime or something they enjoy they take it as a personal affront if you don’t feel about their team the way they do or if you don’t give their team the same respect that they think they deserve. And you know, Georgia fans spent 40 years wandering around seasons waiting on an anvil to fall on their head and ruin everything. And then the last couple of years they’re making up for that time by going, ‘Nobody had better say we’re going to do anything other than win the national championship.'”
Watch below:
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