LAS VEGAS— Gary Danielson, the former Lions quarterback entering his 36th and final season in sports broadcasting, is from Detroit, attended Dearborn Divine Child and grew up a diehard Lions fan who watched all the games as a kid with his father.
Danielson is retiring after this season, his 20th as a color analyst on college football games for CBS Sports, and remains a Lions fan. His sister is the only family member still living in Michigan, but the Lions fandom has extended to his many grandchildren who, despite not growing up in the state, have pledged themselves to their grandfather’s team.
And to his number. Sort of.
“So of course, my grandkids, they all wanted No. 16 jerseys and got them all the jerseys,” Danielson said laughing during an interview with The Detroit News at the recent Big Ten media days. “They’re Lions fans, so they come over to the house and they’ve got the jersey I bought them with (current Lions quarterback Jared) Goff’s name on the back of my damn jersey. I said, ‘That is just wrong!’”
There’s a new No. 16 in town these days, but Danielson will always stake a claim for the number he wore as the Lions quarterback from 1976-84. He spent 11 seasons in the NFL and finished his career in Cleveland for three seasons.
“But no, I love what he’s done,” Danielson said of Goff. “It’s awesome to watch, it really is.”
Danielson is also a fan of Lions head coach Dan Campbell and is proud that Divine Child has produced three Lions players, including current defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, the former Michigan star who was selected with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NFL Draft, and Jeff Chadwick, a receiver who attended Grand Valley State and then played for the Lions from 1983-89.
“He was a little skinny pup when he went to (Divine Child),” Danielson said, referring to Hutchinson. “And look what he is now.”
Looking at Danielson’s career, it feels almost as though it has come full circle. CBS is now covering Big Ten games after a long commitment to the SEC, which means Danielson is back in the conference where he played college football as a Purdue quarterback.
He announced earlier this year his decision to retire. Danielson, who turns 74 in September, is currently the longest-tenured college football game analyst on television. He called games for ESPN and ABC for 16 seasons before making the move to CBS. Charles Davis will take over Danielson’s spot beginning next season.
“Gary Danielson is simply one of the greatest college football analysts ever. And an even better teammate,” CBS Sports president and CEO David Berson said in a statement earlier this year when Danielson announced his retirement. “Gary cares more about uplifting others and ensuring the team receives all the accolades. During his 20 years here, he helped propel CBS Sports to the gold standard in college football coverage.”
In explaining why he’s choosing to retire after this season, Danielson said there are many layers to his role.
“I’ve been the No. 1 guy, literally, since I did my first game in 1990,” Danielson said. “It’s much like playing quarterback — everybody wants your job.”
He said agents for years have called CBS asking about his future because they have clients interested in that position. In the end, it wasn’t about that. It was about going out on top.
“I just felt like I did not want to slip,” Danielson said. “I’m good at it. I didn’t want to go out there — I’m not naming any names of broadcasters, but it’s very similar to quarterbacks that play an extra year where you can’t quite see the field, you can’t quite concentrate and do your homework. When I do a game, I feel like people get insight into the game that they don’t get from other people, and I’m proud of that.”
Danielson said he’s talked about retirement the last few years but noted the timing wasn’t right for the network. He’d have another good year, and CBS told him they couldn’t find the right replacement. Although he believes he could do this “another three, four years,” he just doesn’t want to and told CBS this year he was ready to call it a career.
“I’ve got grandkids now,” he said. “I never got to see my son play high school football. That was a decision I made because I needed the money, I needed a job. I needed to provide for them. I had daughters that were going to have weddings, kids going to college. I needed to work. I did not make the money to fly in on a private jet, so somewhere I had to sacrifice. And now, my grandkids are starting in football. They’re in ninth grade, 10th grade, and I want to teach them stuff and enjoy it a little bit.”
Danielson has witnessed the college game change from the time he played it to its current state, with revenue sharing, NIL and the transfer portal.
“I actually compare it a little bit to baseball,” Danielson said. “No matter what they do, they don’t seem to be able to wreck the game. Now, I think you have to embrace change if you’re in this business as long as I’ve been. If you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s not the way we used to do it,’ I think you’re in trouble.”
The transfer portal and NIL, he believes, have benefited the Big Ten teams. When he was growing up, cities like Detroit and those in Ohio, Illinois and Pennsylvania had bigger populations because of jobs in the auto industry and steel mines. And because of that, Danielson said, many top football players lived in those states.
“Now most of the good players are in the South, so the South has been picking off all those guys and stockpiling them,” Danielson said. “In the three or four walkover games the SEC has just like the Big Ten, they were getting their third tackle and their fifth corner and their third running back ready in those blowout games for when they had to play. But now those guys aren’t there. They’re transferring to Illinois and Minnesota and Michigan State and Indiana. I think it’s clipped the SEC about 10% and I think it’s helped the Big Ten 10%. That’s a 20% change in the conferences, and I think it’s pretty evident. It’s been good.”
The first Michigan game he will call this season is at Nebraska on Sept. 20. Danielson is intrigued by the Wolverines’ freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood. Michigan coach Sherrone Moore said at Big Ten media days there’s an open competition at quarterback, but Underwood seems to be the projected starter.
“That’s a lot of pressure on him,” Danielson said of Underwood. “It’s a pressure on everybody. I was thinking more of it from a different viewpoint, like if this was around when I came out in ‘69 when I was the captain of the all-state team and I was being recruited by Michigan, Notre Dame and Alabama. Would I have gotten $19 million right off the bat? But I like it. I like that Joe Burrow and Jalen Hurts, Ohio State and Alabama didn’t need them, and they went and proved at LSU and Oklahoma that there’s a different path. I think that’s all good for the kids.”
Danielson said preparing for a game as an analyst is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle all week. During the game, his goal is to frame all that work. It takes a lot of preparation for each game, more than people know. And after this season, Danielson will have a seat outside the booth in his home, enjoying a game that has been such an enormous part of his life.
“I’ve really prided myself on how I’ve done these games,” Danielson said. “I have my own opinions. I did a really big podcast, and this person said, ‘You know what I love about you is you don’t care what anybody says. You just give it what you think, and you don’t care.’ No, that’s not true at all. I want to be respected for what I do. It hurts. It hurts when people say, ‘Well, he’s a dumbass. He doesn’t know anything. He was no good as a player. He’s no good.’ Or, ‘He’s an SEC guy. He’s a Big Ten guy.’ They hired me to break down a game — see it with my eyes and call it the way I see it. I think I’ve done that really well.”
Maybe he’ll even get to wear a No. 16 Danielson Lions jersey in retirement.
Originally Published: August 19, 2025 at 8:17 AM EDT