Maria Taylor: Meet ESPN College GameDay’s newest member

Maria Taylor is the new reporter for ESPN’s College GameDay and told FanSided what it takes to host the show while looking ahead to Florida State and Alabama.

College GameDay is a staple of the college football season, and Maria Taylor is now a member of the crew, transitioning to reporting duties for the iconic ESPN show. But what does that mean? And what does she expect from the 2017 college football season?

FanSided spoke to Maria to talk about what her College GameDay role entails, preview the Week 1 matchup between the Florida State Seminoles and Alabama Crimson Tide, and discuss a surprise GameDay perk: free pizza.

FanSided: You’ve worked for ESPN for awhile now, but College GameDay is on a whole other level. What are you expecting when you begin your new assignment?

Maria Taylor (MT): I’m expecting it to be a super amplified version of a lot of the projects that I’ve worked on in the past. I’ve been on SEC Nation with Marcus Spears and Paul Finebaum, and the entire aura that falls around Tim Tebow. I expect it to be that times a thousand, because everyone’s there for the entire show and excited to see every single person on there. I’m excited to be a part of a show that’s totally appointment viewing, that’s a part of the college football fabric and that delivers on so many levels to the fans.

FanSided: There’s one interesting perk to the job, which is that Pizza Hut is giving fans a chance to get free pizza throughout the GameDay season. Do you also get free pizza as the host?

MT: I’ve already partaken in some of that free pizza [laughs]. Every week this season, Pizza Hut is offering fans [the chance] to win free pizza for a year. All they have to do is sign up for the new Hut Rewards loyalty program, which is really quick and easy. They go to gameday.pizzahut.com and sign up. Every dollar they spend online, they get points. More dollars equals more points, which adds up to a free pizza.

I’m also working with Pizza Hut every week to select the GameDay Sign of the Week, so we’re going to check out the creativity and see if the fans are following the storylines to get free pizza as well.

FanSided: Are you a pizza person when you’re watching the game?

MT: Totally a pizza person, because it’s the easiest way to go. You can get everyone taken care of and order everyone the slice that they want. I’m personally a two-topping [person]. I get sausage and pepperoni; that’s my favorite.

FanSided: Of course now you’ll be too busy with College GameDay to grab pizza. For college football fans who haven’t met you yet, what can they expect from you on the show?

MT: I’m just a down to earth, normal person that you might see on the street. I love energy and I love high-energy people. Some people are re-energized by alone time; I re-energize by being around other people. Now I just get to do that on an even higher platform. And interviewing some of my favorite players and coaches, hopefully we bring that.

Hopefully I’ll be able to work on some more features for GameDay, and reveal some of the stories off the field of play that people are really interested in and can color in the lines of the players that they love and get to know them on a different level. That’s what I’m hoping to bring. But I’m just a normal, down to earth, former athlete.

I’m really tall. I feel like that’s what everyone’s shocked by. They see me out there and I’m towering over Desmond [Howard] or Rece [Davis] or Kirk [Herbstreit]. My real height is 6’2″ whether or not I”m wearing heels.

FanSided: Let’s talk about that for a second. You were a college athlete at Georgia, and people tend to think it’s easy for athletes to transition into broadcasting. But what does it really take to move from an athletic career into a reporting one?

MT: I think usually what you see an athlete transition to is [being] an analyst; that might be Jesse Palmer or think of anyone, But you don’t always see a transition into a host role because that’s an extra set of tools that’s completely different. You’re not necessarily giving your opinion all the time. You’re conducting a show, getting in and out of breaks and you’re listening to your analysts and trying to feed them the questions that help make them better.

Your job is to be a point guard. When you’re the analyst on the show, you’re like the shooting guard. You’re trying to get your lay-up in and your shot in, and that’s it. When you’re a host, you have to think about a lot of different things in the entire show.

I see why people make that instant connection, like you could go talk about the game because you’ve played the game. It still isn’t the same, because you’ve got to be able to talk about the game in a way that people will understand, so you’ve got to give the analysts a lot of credit as well.

FanSided: What would you say are your proudest career accomplishments thus far?

MT: Definitely the launch of SEC Network. I was there in 2014. This was a network going from color bars or a blue screen to air. And Brent Musberger walks down the hallway after a very long show tease … and he tosses it to myself and Dari Nowkhah sitting at the desk. We were the hosts for the two-hour launch show. That’s something no one’s ever going to take away from you. I’ll always be able to say I helped launch a network and I was a part of the SEC Network coming on television, becoming part of our culture, our Saturdays and college football.

Then also I have to say working the Rose Bowl with Brent and Jesse Palmer. We were there when Stanford played Iowa [in 2016] and Christian McCaffrey went off, and it was just cool to be there in that moment, see the Rose Parade and go over to the game and be part of someone’s New Year’s Day. That’s a tradition.

Those are two days I’ll never forget, and then the first time I worked a BCS bowl game. I did the Orange Bowl, I believe it was Florida State and Northern Illinois, and just being part of that. You work all season long hoping that you get a great game and then we were rewarded with that, so that was pretty cool.

FanSided: You’re starting your College GameDay tenure off with a great game between Florida State and Alabama. What are you expecting to see on Saturday?

MT: I’ve been out to Tallahassee to watch Florida State to get to know the coaches and players a little bit better before I see them on the sidelines and my expectation is that we’re going to see great matchups at every level. Whether you’re talking about Calvin Ridley out there on the outside going against Tarvarus McFadden of Florida State, you know you’re going to see a great defensive line on both sides.

And whether or not one of the teams can get it going in the run game. Will Bo Scarborough have a big game for Alabama? Will it be Damien Harris? Or will both be stopped because the defensive line of Florida State is so great? On the flip side of that, will Jalen Hurts add enough in the passing game to make sure that the offense is clicking? This is the first time that we’re seeing the season start without Lane Kiffin, so what does the offense even look like without him there?

Also, does this game eliminate one from the College Football Playoff? I think it doesn’t. I think it’s the best case scenario for both coaches. They’ve had the attention of their teams all preseason because they knew what’s looming, the first challenge on Sep. 2. Even if it’s a competitive game, it doesn’t rule them out of the College Football Playoff at the end of the season. We might be seeing Florida State and Alabama playing each other again in Atlanta.

FanSided: Last but not least, in addition to College GameDay you’ve got a big project going on off the college football field. Can you tell us about that?

MT: I’m big into mentoring. have a nonprofit organization and it’s all about helping women and minorities break into the sports industry. It’s called The Winning Edge Leadership Academy. We partner with college-age kids, usually they’re first-generation graduates, with a mentor for a year and then we help them pay for conventions and allow them to make those networking connections. A lot of the time, it’s about who you know, so we help let these people know that we’ve got these young kids that are ready to roll, they want to work in this industry. We just have to connect the dots.

I think a lot of companies are interested in diversity but don’t know where to find it, so we’re trying to be that pool or create a pool of that talent. Now that I’m living in Atlanta we’re trying to shift it there; it’s been in Charlotte for the last few years. It’s a passion of mine and something that keeps me going as well — knowing there are young women sitting at home thinking okay, I can do that now.

Next: Five coaches who need a Week 1 victory

For more with Maria Taylor, you can follow her on Twitter and catch her on College GameDay. For more college football news and features, follow the NCAA Football category at FanSided here