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SEC fans' favorite announcing punching bag Gary Danielson set to retire after 2025

A man, long bemoaned by SEC fans as an Alabama homer, who called the conference's biggest games for years is hanging it up at the conclusion of the year.
ByGraham Harmon|
Gary Danielson gives the keynote speech during the Winged Foot Scholarship Awards Banquet, Thursday, May 26, 2022, at Naples Grande Beach Resort in Naples, Fla. Lane Calkins of Naples High won the 2022 Winged Foot Scholar Athlete Award.
Gary Danielson gives the keynote speech during the Winged Foot Scholarship Awards Banquet, Thursday, May 26, 2022, at Naples Grande Beach Resort in Naples, Fla. Lane Calkins of Naples High won the 2022 Winged Foot Scholar Athlete Award. | Landon Bost/Naples Daily News/USA TODAY Network-Florida / USA TODAY NETWORK

Longtime CBS color commentator Gary Danielson set to retire at conclusion of 2025 season

Gary Danielson is calling it a career.

The longtime SEC on CBS announcer, who stayed with the network during last year's transition into calling Big Ten games, has announced that this will be his final season as the color commentator alongside Brad Nessler. He is set to be succeeded by Charles Davis beginning in 2026.

Danielson has been in the booth for 36 years and with CBS for 20 years.

Texas A&M football fans, and SEC fans in general, best know Danielson for his work on the SEC on CBS, which carried the biggest game in the conference every week for many years. He was alongside Verne Lundquist for most of that before "Uncle Verne" retired back in 2016.

What SEC fans may be most familiar with Danielson for, though, is the constant complaints levied online towards him by fans around the conference. He was consistently assailed as an Alabama homer by any fanbase outside of Tuscaloosa, and, in these latter years, a Georgia apologist.

While most of these complaints were overblown, it makes sense that Danielson, while working SEC on CBS games, would be making the case for the conference powerhouses throughout the course of the season. The network had a vested interest in the SEC doing well, and so it made sense to pump Alabama, Georgia, and the rest up as the best teams in America— which, in fairness, they often were.

SEC fans have already been without their favorite punching bag for a season, though, as Danielson has been calling Big 10 games with Nessler since the beginning of the 2024 season.

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