On SEC sidelines with ESPN’s Molly McGrath: Injuries, cowbells and chasing Mike Leach

On SEC sidelines with ESPN’s Molly McGrath: Injuries, cowbells and chasing Mike Leach

Grace Raynor
Nov 16, 2022

STARKVILLE, Miss. — It’s 3:30 p.m. on Friday, and Molly McGrath is in an empty Davis Wade Stadium, scouting out a location for her televised hit on “The Paul Finebaum Show.”

This place will be packed on Saturday, when a sellout crowd of more than 60,000 college football fans watch as No. 1 Georgia takes on Mike Leach’s Mississippi State Bulldogs. But for now, the only other people present are a few groundskeepers, blowing grass around the field, and a handful of other crew workers. McGrath doesn’t even have a cameraman for her segment.

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As she scours the stadium, the 33-year-old ESPN broadcaster finds a white wall by the press box with good lighting reflecting off it. She faces that wall, turning her back to the field, pops in her earbuds, then outstretches her arms and holds her phone in front of her, selfie-style. When she’s live on Finebaum, no one watching will know that this is her setup.

Then again, there are quite a few things about McGrath’s job that go unnoticed.

The Athletic shadowed McGrath as she covered the SEC showdown in her role as sideline reporter. The weekend started with cheese logs and fried green tomatoes at the iconic The Little Dooey in Starkville on Friday afternoon, followed by a few studio hits and a production meeting Saturday morning. It ended with McGrath having taken 10 pages of notes and logging more than 10,000 steps and four-plus miles on game day — for approximately five minutes of screentime during the broadcast.

MILE 1

3:15 p.m. Saturday: McGrath walks out of the La Quinta, ESPN’s headquarters for the trip, and hops into the black 2022 Nissan Armada that will take her to Davis Wade Stadium. She is fed — a pulled-pork sandwich from Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux hit the spot — and dressed for a frigid night in Starkville. It is 41 degrees.

Typically, McGrath’s go-to shoe is a pair of Nike Air Force 1s. But with temperatures expected to dip into the 30s, she’s opted for chunky-heeled booties. She pairs them with jeans, a sparkly turtleneck and a beige, vegan leather overcoat. A neon water bottle sits in the side pocket of her backpack.

One of the misconceptions about McGrath’s job is that the network provides hair stylists, makeup artists and wardrobe. This is not the case. McGrath uses the online subscription fashion service Rent the Runway for her game day outfits. Except in this case, she has a few extra accessories that viewers at home will never see: tights under her jeans for warmth, plus compression socks and a compression shirt for comfort. She and her husband, Max, welcomed their first child in January 2021, a son named Ray, on the night of the national championship game. Ray will become a big brother in late March, hence his mom’s compression socks: McGrath is five months pregnant. She keeps a heating pad in her bag to help with sacroiliac joint pain during flights and colder games, and will soon wear a back brace to support her growing belly.

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Ray started noticing his mom on television last season. “When I’m on a work trip, he says, ‘Mama, TV! Mama, TV!’ McGrath said Friday. “I want him to grow up knowing that women work really hard and have incredible careers, and moms can do both. That’s my huge motivation.”

3:34 p.m.: The car has arrived, and as “STAY” by The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber blares over the PA system, McGrath heads down to the field. She mics up, putting her battery pack in her back left pocket, and grabs several sets of HotHands’ air-activated warmers. It’s not so cold that she needs the electric jacket she purchased for extreme circumstances, but the HotHands will help regulate her body temperature. One pack goes in her pockets. The others have an adhesive that she can press onto her clothes. She puts one on her back, one on her stomach and one on her chest.

3:45 p.m.: The first set of students rush in. Mississippi State fans are known for their cowbells, which are clanging already. McGrath never travels without her double IFB earpiece, which allows her to hear her producer, director and the broadcast in both ears at all times. She’ll take it off momentarily, though, to talk with team personnel about any last-minute injuries, as well as where the X-ray room, ambulance and nearest hospital are located in the event of a serious injury. She was the sideline reporter here three years ago when then-Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was carted off the field with a season-ending hip injury. While sprinting to the tunnel to gather more information, she accidentally ran in front of a team bench, which got her reprimanded by the SEC. But she made it in time to report that Tagovailoa was yelling in pain and had to be lifted off the cart by a set of trainers.

“That taught me it is worth running after an injury,” she says, adding that one time at Georgia Tech, a GPS monitor tracked her initial burst speed at 15 miles per hour while chasing a coach. “I’ve had so many people be like, ‘Chill. You are so aggressive.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t care. If I’m gonna be a sideline reporter, I want to do a really good job.”’

3:52 p.m.: Sirens — presumably for a police escort with the Georgia football team in tow — fill the air, as McGrath and producer Josh Hoffman put the final touches on her questions for coach Kirby Smart. The network has requested an on-camera arrival interview with Georgia’s head coach, who isn’t always chatty. They decide she’ll ask him three questions: the first about the No. 1 Bulldogs staying focused for their first true road game in a month, the second about what makes this year’s version of Leach’s Air Raid offense more difficult to defend and the third about the opportunity for Georgia to clinch the SEC East with a win. As McGrath waits, she shimmies in place, both to stay warm and get loose.

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4:05 p.m.: The interview starts.

4:07 p.m.: The interview ends. Off to the sidelines.

4:31 p.m.: McGrath has four depth charts with her each week that she makes herself: one for each team’s offensive and defensive units. She’s color-coded them to help keep her organized while she roams the sidelines. Items highlighted in pink are injuries to keep an eye on, in this case Mississippi State cornerback Emmanuel Forbes (undisclosed) and running back Dillon Johnson (right knee). Items highlighted in green are evergreen — stories that can be told anytime during the broadcast. Hoffman has worked with sideline reporters in the past who came into the game with as many as eight prepared storylines in order to maximize their on-camera time. McGrath comes in with usually one, frequently zero and occasionally two, which Hoffman loves. Heather Cox was the same way, he says. So was Samantha Ponder and Laura Rutledge.

“She’s not here to bring a lunch with her. She gets to eat what she kills,” Hoffman says.

“If I don’t find anything on the sidelines,” McGrath adds, “I don’t eat … If you can tell a story on a Tuesday, you shouldn’t be telling it on a Saturday.”

4:48 p.m.: Nolan Smith, the Georgia defender who suffered a season-ending torn pec muscle late last month, is here. McGrath has learned that despite travel roster limitations, the Bulldogs have decided to bring him on the trip because of the value he provides on the sidelines as a student coach. As she and Smith chat, McGrath scribbles down a page full of notes in blue ink. Midway through, the 390-member MSU marching band comes through — playing their instruments. McGrath is unfazed and talks with Smith for 15 minutes. Her on-air report will be reduced to just a few sentences, but she doesn’t mind.

“Ninety percent of the work I do doesn’t make the air,” she says. “Doesn’t mean I’m not grinding my (butt) off.”

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5:08 p.m.: McGrath’s interview with Smart airs and she heads to her backpack for another layer: a thin shirt designed specifically for the cold. Kickoff is nearing and she won’t have another break until halftime.

“The weather always makes it a little more fun,” she says. “People are like, ‘Oh, you must hate it.’ I’m like, ‘I love it. I love it. It makes the game more interesting.’”

MILE 2

5:34 p.m.: Mike Leach was supposed to come out to the field 42 minutes before kickoff, but he’s running a bit behind. When McGrath finally gets him, the Bulldogs coach is animated — hand gestures included. Earlier this season, SEC Network reporter Alyssa Lang jokingly asked the Bulldogs head coach for wedding advice, during which he implored her to elope in a clip that went viral. McGrath tells Leach she’s pregnant with her second child and asks for parenting advice. He has so much to say that midway through their conversation, Hoffman is in her ear: “Hey, Molly?” Hoffman says. It’s time to rehearse the show’s opening, but Leach is still rolling.

5:48 p.m.: McGrath breaks away and Hoffman informs the crew that they have 10 minutes until air. About 11 minutes remain until kickoff when McGrath comes to a bleak realization: She forgot to use the restroom.

5:56 p.m.: With three minutes to air, Hoffman buzzes back in: “Just so everybody is aware,” he says excitedly, “the next thing we’ll do is live, national television.” And at 5:59 p.m., he starts the countdown: “8, 7, 6, 5, 4 … Go, Sean.”

6:04 p.m. Play-by-play commentator Sean McDonough tosses from the booth to McGrath, who has been thinking about her opening report all day. The cowbells are deafening, the band is playing and the crowd is roaring. But she’s practiced her opening remarks, which center around Smart keeping his team focused despite all of the hype around the No. 1-ranked team in the CFP rankings.

“Excellent, Moll,” Hoffman says in her ear from the production truck.

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6:06 p.m.: Mississippi State has the ball first, but McGrath decides to start on the Georgia sidelines. Georgia hadn’t played at Mississippi State since 2010; none of the current players have experienced a cowbell environment. She’s learned that Georgia has been ringing cowbells in the hallways to and from meetings to prepare the Bulldogs for the crowd. For that reason, she wants to zero in on Stetson Bennett and the Georgia offensive line early.

Her instincts pay off almost immediately. Georgia’s defense gets an early three-and-out, but its offense has a false start on its very first play. At 6:15 p.m., after tight end Brock Bowers scores the first touchdown of the night, she locks in on Georgia offensive line coach Stacy Searels, who talks to his unit about the noise level. She pitches that information during a commercial break to Hoffman, who works her into the broadcast about five minutes later.

She’s also well-positioned to keep an eye on Georgia’s injury tent. Injuries are crucial information for her to know, as evidenced earlier this season, when Kansas State quarterback Adrian Martinez was injured against TCU, but no sideline reporter was there to provide an update during the broadcast. Sometimes, though: “They’re peeing,” McGrath laughs.

6:32 p.m.: It’s time to check out what’s going on over on the Mississippi State sideline, so McGrath scurries around the perimeter of the field to check in on Leach’s crew. Last week, cameras caught Leach folding up the chairs of his wide receivers one by one, when he grew so frustrated with their play that he decided they didn’t deserve a seat. At a production meeting on Saturday morning, Hoffman had encouraged McGrath to keep an eye on the coach’s antics.

6:42 p.m.: McGrath notices what will become one of the broadcast’s biggest storylines: The chairs have been taken away entirely. They’re lying in a pile on the ground, not to be set up all night. She feeds the info to Hoffman, who alerts McDonough and analyst Todd Blackledge. The duo will reference this scene several times, but viewers won’t know that McGrath was responsible for spotting it.

6:57 p.m.: Back to the Georgia sideline, McGrath prepares to deliver her report on Smith. In an ideal scenario, she’d have more time to divulge more nuanced details of their conversation. But she has no time to fret, because after she’s finished reporting, she zeroes in on Smart. He’s been yelling at his DBs all night.

7:13 p.m.: Bennett, who threw two interceptions, is clearly experiencing some discomfort and is using a massage gun to alleviate it. McDonough typically has injury information from McGrath before the broadcast ever begins — a testament to her pre-game reporting. But this is an in-game development. “Excellent, Molly,” Hoffman says in her ear. “Good job with that. Nice eyes to find it.”

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7:26 p.m.: Things get chaotic just before halftime. With 56 seconds left in the second quarter, McGrath is stationed by the Georgia bench, all set to interview Smart. But Hoffman calls an audible: “Leach, Leach, Leach, Leach, Leach, Leach, Leach, Leach” he says, recommending that she change course. McGrath books it to the MSU sideline, tosses her notebook on the ground and prepares for her hit.

MILE 3

7:31 p.m.: The last-second change pays off, because right as she and Hoffman are discussing her potential questions for Leach, Mississippi State scores a touchdown on a punt return with three seconds left. The stadium’s volume level reaches an apex and McGrath has mere seconds to process what she just saw and formulate questions for Leach.

Last month, when she had the ClemsonSyracuse game, she overthought her question to Clemson coach Dabo Swinney at halftime and opened with a question about his defense instead of his struggling offense. Social media wasn’t kind, but she didn’t necessarily blame her critics.

“People are going to call me a dimwit, but maybe I did something to deserve that. … That guy in his basement has a point,” she says. “That was a stupid f—— question. That doesn’t make me lose sleep. The mistake that I made makes me lose sleep.”

7:37 p.m.: It’s halftime. McGrath sprints to midfield to find Leach as players barrel toward the locker room but can’t immediately locate him in the chaos. When she spots him, Leach is headed toward the locker room, flanked by two deputies. She chases him down and physically locks arms with him as they walk into the tunnel together. At some point in the mayhem, her mic flag, bearing the ESPN logo, chips, but she manages to flip the microphone around so that the in-tact portion faces the camera. First she asks about the punt return touchdown. Then she tees him up for what will become one of the best moments of television all night: his beef with the referees.

“You’ve been speaking to the officials all night, what’s your reaction to some of those calls in the first half? “ she says.

“What’s your reaction?” Leach counters. “You’re watching the same game I am. I think you oughta comment on it, positive or negatively, whatever’s running through your mind.”

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7:38 p.m: “Whooo!” McGrath shouts once she’s off-camera, her adrenaline pumping.

She downs a cinnamon-flavored GoGo squeeZ applesauce and a strawberry UnCrustable to get her sugar up without making her nauseous. She then throws a heating pad around her waist that she’ll wear for the rest of the game.

7:46 p.m.: McGrath runs to a restroom in a lower-level suite where Mississippi State donors are watching the game. She has mere minutes until Smart comes out of the tunnel, and she’ll need to grab him for her out-of-halftime report. She rehearses her questions in the stall.

“It’s a thankless job,” she laughs.

7:54 p.m.: After Smart comes out of the tunnel, McGrath has just a few seconds of his time. She walks and talks with him, then immediately whips out her notebook and writes down everything he said as quickly as she can. She learns that Smart was frustrated with how the half ended, because his special teams unit didn’t have enough speed on the field when MSU took off for the punt return touchdown. He also told her his defense needs to cover better and that the cowbells have been a factor. A few weeks ago, she was on the sidelines sprinting after an injury, when McDonough tossed to her unexpectedly for her usual post-halftime report. She stopped in her tracks, caught her breath and went on TV with no warning. “I knew I forgot to tell somebody something,” Hoffman laughs.

8:13 p.m.: It’s back to the MSU bench, where Forbes is frustrated after he commits pass interference on third-and-9. It keeps the Georgia drive alive, and the Bulldogs score. McGrath clocks Forbes slamming his helmet down when he comes off the field and makes a note of it.

8:21 p.m.: “I LOVE YOU, MOLLY,” a fan shouts. McGrath doesn’t hear him. Plus, it’s the middle of the game. But four other fans will stop McGrath throughout the weekend either to chat or ask for a photo. All four times, she’ll stop and smile.

McGrath and Smart after Georgia played Oregon in the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game in September in Atlanta. (Rich von Biberstein / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

MILE 4

8:31 p.m.: When Bennett nearly throws his third interception of the night, McGrath maneuvers down the Georgia sideline to get a better view of the drive and his eventual reaction.

“The job says reporter and reporter is really what it is,” Hoffman says. “I absolutely love working with Molly. Her attitude is the same as mine: Her job is whatever makes the show better.”

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8:57 p.m.: Mississippi State wide receiver Rara Thomas drops a would-be-touchdown in the end zone and McDonough and Blackledge reference McGrath’s report about the wide receivers missing their chairs again. “That won’t get you a seat,” Blackledge quips. It’s another nod to the work McGrath did behind the scenes.

“She doesn’t care how many times she gets on during a game,” McDonough says. “Which isn’t always the case.”

8:59 p.m.: “This is when the lower back starts to hurt,” McGrath says. She typically sees the chiropractor once a month during football season. But throughout her pregnancy, she’s increased those visits to once a week. Every Monday.

9:16 p.m. As the third and fourth quarters unfold, it’s becoming clear that this is going to be a blowout. That changes things slightly for McGrath, who now has less action to work with and fewer stories to tell. She’ll listen in on the sidelines to see if she hears anything worth adding to the broadcast, but won’t force it.

9:18 p.m.: The cowbells are fainter, but McGrath is still hustling on the sidelines. She got her start in sports broadcasting as a cheerleader at Boston College, when she met with then-athletic director Gene DeFilippo about the athletic department needing a reporter. She volunteered to do it and would oftentimes pull her bow out of her hair and slip a polo on over her cheerleading outfit after basketball games to give her reports. Those hits became her reel. To this day, DeFilippo still texts her before broadcasts to wish her good luck.

9:21 p.m.: McGrath stretches out her calves just before the postgame interviews. There is no question who she’ll interview this time. Georgia wins, 45-19.

9:29 p.m.: Finding Smart at midfield proves to be much easier than locating Leach at halftime. She asks Smart about his defense, clinching the SEC East and wide receiver Ladd McConkey, who had five catches for 71 yards and a touchdown in addition to a 70-yard touchdown run. She’ll interview McConkey, as well, as she logs her fourth mile of the night.

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9:31 p.m.: The game is over and the broadcast is off the air, while Hootie & the Blowfish plays over the speakers. But when McGrath notices the Georgia quarterback and MSU head coach having a lengthy conversation on the field, she can’t help herself.

“To your left,” she tells Hoffman. “Your left.”

9:40 p.m.: The (unofficial) final count for the game: 9,377 steps for four-plus miles.

McGrath heads back to the production truck to check on other scores and spend time with the crew before McDonough drives everyone back to the hotel in the rental car. Morning will come quickly. She’s leaving the hotel at 4:35 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight out of Golden Triangle Regional Airport. She’ll lay over in Atlanta before flying back to Seattle, where Ray and Max await. But before bed, she’ll order a cheeseburger. Baby is hungry.

“Feels so good to be home,” she texts Sunday around 1 p.m. Seattle time. “But man, Sundays are tough.”

It all starts over on Thursday, when she leaves for Michigan. The No. 3 Wolverines play Illinois at noon. Temperatures are expected to hover around 25 degrees at kickoff with a chill factor that will make it feel closer to 12 degrees. She loves it, and it shows.

“I would say I’m her biggest fan,” McDonough says. “But I think everybody on this crew would say the same thing.

“She’s the best.”

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photo: Kevin Langly / Getty Images)

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Grace Raynor

Grace Raynor is a staff writer for The Athletic covering recruiting and southeastern college football. A native of western North Carolina, she graduated from the University of North Carolina. Follow Grace on Twitter @gmraynor