MADISON, Wisconsin — It's an idyllic Friday night in Madison, and Gus Johnson is introducing Joel Klatt like he's the reigning undisputed champion.
Fox's main college football broadcast booth, consisting of Johnson, Klatt and sideline reporter Jenny Taft, is in its production meeting ahead of Wisconsin's matchup with Alabama.
The weekly meeting is similar to the walkthrough that football teams take to prepare for their game.
The announce booth and overall production, led by Fox veteran Chuck McDonald, who for years worked on the network's top NFL teams with John Madden and Pat Summerall and later Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, has ascended to the upper echelon of top-tier broadcast crews.
The production meeting illustrated why the booth is so lively and ready to go.
Johnson, in his bombastic announcer's voice, declares Klatt the “captain” of this meeting.
The roles are reversed from what we see on television: While Johnson quarterbacks the broadcast and leads the pace with play-by-play narration, Klatt guides the meeting like a professor lecturing to a small class.
He has a laminated sheet of notes on about 75 players, but he rarely looks at it as he goes through the in-depth, unit-by-unit breakdowns of the starters and reserves who are likely to see playing time, noting their histories, strengths, weaknesses and future career prospects.
Klatt has spoken to key players not only about their football but also their hobbies, noting at one point that Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Van Dyke was an avid golfer.
The two had plans to play golf for money, “and he has it,” Klatt said.
Throughout the meeting, Johnson asked Klatt follow-up questions about everything from X's and Os to narrative elements.
Here, he wondered, like the rest of us, about the overall market in NIL: How much are these guys really getting paid?
Klatt said a “run-of-the-mill” quarterback makes “six figures,” while an “impact guy” can make seven figures.
The structure is likely to change again soon, he noted, as revenue sharing begins and programs will have to decide how to divide up a proverbial salary cap.
NIL will still be allowed, but organized groups could be excluded by law.
(Unfortunately, the golf game will have to wait, as Van Dyke suffered a torn ACL in the first quarter on Saturday, and the future of the Badgers' offense for the rest of the season looks grim.)
Taft, who at one point served as moderator between Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe on FS1’s “Undisputed,” approaches the role of sideline reporter with rigor and has brought several elements to the meeting that she hopes to include on the broadcast if time permits.
He spoke to Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe, who told him matter-of-factly: “I've never been to Wisconsin. I want to go in, get a win and get out.”
Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams, a 17-year-old phenom, comes up again and again in the production meeting, and Taft reports that all of his teammates have relayed that he's been relentless in the gym because he feels a duty to live up to expectations.
“I always try to anticipate which players will step up,” Taft said.
“But then there's an emotional story, which may not fit, but I want to tell it if it works. Sometimes the conversations never make it to the air, but sometimes we'll have those teams again, so it's about creating those relationships.”
Johnson and Klatt began working together on Fox's top college football team in 2015, and Taft joined the team in 2017.
In 2019, Fox introduced the “Big Noon Kickoff” strategy, putting the best game of its package at noon ET, a time slot that had previously been reserved for the worst of all networks, and bolstering it with a pregame show that currently features Rob Stone, Matt Leinart, Urban Meyer, Brady Quinn and Mark Ingram.
For the past three years, the Michigan-Ohio State game in the Big Noon time slot has been the most-watched regular-season college football game each year on any network.
Beyond the individual talents of Johnson and Klatt, the secret to the stand is that they truly support each other.
“They complement each other very well,” said McDonald, the producer.
“But the other thing is that they like to spend time together – at lunch, in the car, in coaches’ meetings. The chemistry of that element – people probably think they’re all putting on a show, but that’s exactly how it is all the time.”
As a spectator, it's amazing how quickly Klatt can process what just happened in a football game with 22 moving pieces on the field.
“Nobody I've been around sees the game as quickly and can analyze it as well as Joel,” McDonald said, noting that Klatt uses a different telestrator in real time than anyone else.
“When you watch his telecast, he’s doing things that a lot of people would do after a commercial, but before the extra point is kicked. That’s a real indication of how well he sees the game. A lot of other guys have monitors that have five-second delays (and they ask the producer), ‘Was it 99 seconds at the end? ’ I’ve never had to confirm that to Joel in the 10 years we’ve worked together. He sees it now.”
An example of this was last year when Michigan running back Donovan Edwards Scored a 22-yard touchdown against Penn Stateand Klatt immediately broke down the offense and defense with different colors on the telestrator.
When other analysts pull out the telestrator after a commercial break, it's often something that was set up for them on the production truck, McDonald said.
McDonald said that besides Klatt, the only color commentator who could consistently have him choose from the production truck which camera angle, replay or graphic to show on the screen was Madden.
Johnson also praised Klatt, saying he should be viewed as a football savant, in keeping with the great young offensive minds in coaching, such as Ryan Day, Lincoln Riley, Sean McVay and, when they were young, Joe Gibbs and Norv Turner.
“He's a coach. He's a young, innovative mind who can decipher and present football at any level because he's an incredible broadcaster,” Johnson said.
Johnson got in on the joke first: “Why is he such an amazing announcer? Because I taught him!”
Johnson left CBS for Fox in 2011 with an aura of being ready for big moments, what Bill Simmons used to call the “Gus Johnson Law,” where it seemed like every game he called would come down to the final seconds and he would have the perfect pitch to fit the moment.
Counterintuitively, McDonald credited him with staying grounded unless moments really demanded he reach another level.
“He has more self-control than people give him credit for. He saves those big decisions for the big moments,” McDonald said.
In a group conversation with The Post, Johnson, Klatt and Taft were more interested in talking about what the other two do well than in promoting themselves.
“We are a team,” Johnson said. “We revel in each other’s excellence. We revel in the excellence of the young men and women we cover on the field and we revel in the excellence of the team. There is a selflessness here that is unparalleled in my broadcasting experience.”
“There’s a lot of trust,” Taft said. “We’re not a team that’s going to fool each other.”
Klatt credited Johnson with establishing a “rhythm” that he said viewers only notice subconsciously.
“He explained to me that it's like doing a double trick: you don't have to jump rope,” Klatt said.
Klatt immediately believed they were a good team, but his belief was confirmed during the Michigan-Ohio State game in 2021, when the Wolverines finally got over the hump to defeat the rival Buckeyes.
“I knew we had a really good sound, but you don’t really know until you do something that requires the stage to be great,” Klatt said.
“I thought in that game that what I know to be a really good team did an incredible job in a game that needed to happen. Great players have to be great when greatness is needed. That was the moment I thought we could get to that level when it was needed.”
Johnson noted that all three were Division 1 athletes: He played baseball at Howard, Klatt was a quarterback at Colorado and Taft played lacrosse at Boston University.
Sports fans crave broadcasters who share their passion for the game and communicate as if they're living their dream job.
Asked about bringing that energy to every game, Johnson gave a thoughtful response.
“My father was a janitor and security guard, who died with both legs amputated due to diabetes and never made it past the third grade. My job during college football season is to watch marching bands, cheerleaders, mascots and 18- to 25-year-olds who are doing everything they can to get an education and maybe pursue some of their dreams: college stardom or maybe professional football,” he said.
“I feel strongly that I have to walk in the light. I don’t want to walk in any kind of darkness. This is a blessing. Words can’t express the amount of gratitude I feel for being in this business and maintaining a career for over 30 years. I have no excuse other than to be happy. The people who watch these games, this is their free time. This is not ‘60 Minutes.’”
