STARKVILLE — Scott Wetherbee arrived at Mississippi State University to take over at the school’s senior associate director of athletics for external affairs, and with the Bulldogs’ football team off to a 4-0 start, that means he’s a busy man. Serving as MSU’s point of contact for the SEC Network, which will broadcast its weekly college football lead-in show, SEC Nation, from MSU’s Junction on Saturday morning, Wetherbee has plenty to discuss. The Dispatch sat down with Wetherbee to discuss the SEC Network, the football team’s start, and MSU quarterback Dak Prescott.
DISPATCH: You’ve been at Mississippi State for about 15 months. How about a little background on where you were before that?
WETHERBEE: I was at East Carolina University for almost 10 years. I started off in tickets, then moved into marketing, then started getting into video and some things. Since I’ve been here, started last June, had to build the video department make some other changes. I’ve hired nine people since I’ve been here, so it’s been a whirlwind.
DISPATCH: I know you’ve only been here 15 months, so there’s not a great deal of history to compare it to. But in this 4-0 start for the Mississippi State football team, how crazy has the media demand been since the win at LSU?
WETHERBEE: It has stepped up a different notch. (Football Sports Information Director Bill Martin) has kept me in the loop as to the number of media requests, and it has prompted more national requests. Sports Illustrated is in town all week, Pat Forde from Yahoo Sports is here. … We have a bunch of national media covering it. Then, having SportsCenter, which will be here (today), and a separate bus from the SEC Network … It has been a lot of requests. It’s an exciting time. But you try to keep it as a normal time for players and coaches, let them do what they normally do, and only pull them aside when necessary. But they love the opportunity as well.
DISPATCH: You are the university’s point of contact for the SEC Network. How has this new network changed the game?
WETHERBEE: It has changed it in the sense that the university has an opportunity to be in over 90 million homes on a near-daily basis. The financial side of that is unknown, but it’s coming. I think that’s going to be the biggest game-changer. (Early estimates indicate the SEC Network could mean as much as $25 million annually for each SEC institution.)
DISPATCH: Mississippi State is hosting SEC Nation, the Network’s weekly Saturday morning lead-in show, this weekend. What goes into the preparation from the university’s perspective?
WETHERBEE: The behind-the scenes has been interesting because we didn’t find out until last Monday, so we have only had about an eight-, nine-day window here to get ready. They requested 65 hotel rooms on Thursday, 75 hotel rooms on Friday, and some-odd hotel rooms Saturday. Trying to help coordinate that, and they’re staying in Tupelo, Winona, other places. They’re bringing in eight or nine trucks, semi trucks, and we have to figure out where to park them, figure out when we’re going to shut down streets, where we’re going to put them. We had a site survey a few months ago to look at it, and then we’ve been working closely with them. But we had to put it into action quickly when they called us and said they were switching from Kentucky on Oct. 4 to our game. After the LSU game, they called us that Monday and said, “We’re going to come.” We’ve been looking at aerial maps and studying the site to find the best place to put people, trying not to disrupt the Junction.
DISPATCH: Where have you guys decided to put the SEC Nation set, and why?
WETHERBEE: They came to us and said, “We want to be in the heart of all the tailgating. To be in the heart of it, we want to be in The Junction.” And we said, “That’s fine,” but the only way to really do that is to be on the street. And we don’t want to disrupt our tailgating. They agreed to that, so we will be on Creelman Street from Stone Boulevard to Tracy Drive in front of Dorman Hall. I think they’ve got a good setup. The stage is going to be right in front of the bulldog statue that leads into the Junction, where the Dawg walk is. You’ll see all the tents, all the tailgating. There will be a pit area for all the fans who want to bring signs, that will be right in front of the bulldog statue.
DISPATCH: So MSU’s Dawg Walk (the weekly tradition of MSU’s players walking through the Junction to the home locker room) will happen on the air?
WETHERBEE? Yes. They will go on the air at 9 a.m., and Dawg Walk in scheduled for 9:10, so it will be a part of it.
DISPATCH: You’ve been here 15 months, but you’ve been in this profession for more than a decade. How does the current atmosphere around this program compare to what you’ve seen in the past?
WETHERBEE: It takes me back to 2000 when I was at Fresno State. We had David Carr (future No. 1 NFL draft pick) and we were 6-0 and No. 9 in the country. I was around that. They ended up getting on the cover of Sports Illustrated, so there was a lot of hoopla. I told someone today it’s literally like a circus has come to town and it’s your job to find the places and get everybody to the right spot. Looking at it, this is the first time that two top-12 teams have played here since 1986, so it’s been a while, and there’s a lot of excitement.
DISPATCH: There’s a lot of excitement, but if State wins, you’ve got a possibility at hosting a top-five Auburn team next week, so the potential exists for the stakes to get even bigger. How much have you thought about that and have you already started planning for a possibility like that?
WETHERBEE: We have plans in place, win or lose. And you expect the best, and hope for it, but you have to plan both sides. We have expectations, and this is where we want the program to be all the time. What a great opportunity for this state, and we want to show people this is our state. Hopefully we have a good outcome this weekend and we’re talking about this next week.
DISPATCH: I know you don’t directly deal with the players and their relationship with the media. But you just mentioned David Carr at Fresno State, a quarterback who went on to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft. From your point of view, how has MSU quarterback Dak Prescott handled the recent media attention?
WETHERBEE: Dak is a guy that just gets it and understands. He does such a really good job. We’re cautious with balancing access to him and allowing him room to focus on the game plan, focus on winning the ball game, which only helps the future for him and for us. I don’t worry much about Dak because he has a good head on his shoulders and he understands. Everybody’s personality is different, the way they react. We have to be cautious of it and (MSU coach Dan Mullen) helps us with that, making sure everything is OK. We were very, very, very fortunate to be on a bye week after the LSU win. We got a lot done last week, got a lot of interviews in so he can go ahead and focus on the game. But it is a concern, the burden on him. You worry about him getting tired and missing class or something like that. We have to make sure he sticks to his schedule as well as possible.
DISPATCH: Have ESPN or the SEC Network indicated a return is possible for next week’s game against Auburn?
WETHERBEE: Nobody has said … Internally we’d love to have College Gameday come in. We don’t hide from that, and, to us, it would seem to be a no-brainer that they’d want to come if Auburn was undefeated and we were undefeated. You’d have two top-10 teams. That would be my guess. But there are other games out there like UCLA-Oregon, some others. Behind the scenes, we are preparing as we would any normal week, and we’d be available to help them in any way they needed. This week is a good test.
DISPATCH: Will fans be forced to ring responsibly during SEC Nation or can they let it go?
WETHERBEE: During the SEC Nation part of it, let if fly. We are excited, and we want to show everybody. On our “Ring Responsibly” campaign, I do worry a little now that we are in SEC play. We’ve tried to teach the simple rule of when the center gets over the ball, we have to stop the cowbells, and we didn’t necessarily do a very good job with that in the first two games. But it wasn’t SEC play. We’ll try to be preaching that this week. We don’t want to be fined. We’d like to stay away from the checkbook if we can.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brandon Walker on Twitter @BWonStateBeat
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