Rece Davis shuts down allegations of Jimmy Sexton influencing ESPN after Lane Kiffin situation

ESPN College GameDay has faced its fair share of criticism this season. Most recently for how the crew spoke on the Lane Kiffin situation, just hours before he decided to leave Ole Miss in favor of LSU. Mostly everyone was in favor of Kiffin remaining with the Rebels through their College Football Playoff run, a decision Ole Miss AD Keith Carter went against in the end.

Social media began to speculate why people such as Rece Davis and Nick Saban shared that opinion. The conclusion came to everybody in the situation being represented by the same agency, CAA. From there, the name Jimmy Sexton began to gain steam due to his prominence in the coaching world.

Davis recently responded to those accusations, unsurprisingly shooting them all down. He called it a “conspiracy theory” and says Sexton has never asked him to say something while on air.

“I’ve been at ESPN for 30 years,” Davis began via SI Media With Jimmy Traina. “Never has an executive said, ‘Say this, don’t say that,’ whatever. Never. Not one time. And while I’m very friendly with Jimmy, I’m a CAA client. Jimmy is not my rep directly; Matt Kramer is, but I’m friends with Jimmy. I have great respect for him. He would never do that. He would never come to me and say, ‘Hey, I need you to say this.’ He just wouldn’t do that. That’s not the kind of person he is.

“Now, is he a tough, hard-negotiating agent? Is he powerful? Of course he is. But it would never occur to him to come and try to tell us what to say about any of this. Or at least, in my experience, [he] wouldn’t. So that aspect of it is kind of preposterous to me. But everybody loves a good conspiracy theory.”

Outside of all being part of the CAA agency, there are pre-existing relationships between Kiffin and a few GameDay hosts. The one between him and Saban is most well-known, serving as the Alabama Crimson Tide’s offensive coordinator for a few years. Kiffin has been quite honest about what Saban means to him, even going through his process.

And then there is Pat McAfee. Multiple appearances on his shows have come in recent months, mainly as Ole Miss made its historic run.

This weekend, College GameDay will be in Atlanta for the SEC Championship between Alabama and the Georgia Bulldogs. Kiffin will appear on the program, one of his first national media appearances since becoming LSU’s head coach.