Laura Rutledge Q&A: On her rise at ESPN, reporting on NFL vs. college, and the SEC’s best food

Each week during the football season, we will interview a different broadcaster. The goal is for readers to gain insight into how broadcasters approach what they do, along with some questions tied to the game or assignment they are charged with that week. Our 13th Q&A subject is ESPN NFL and college football host and reporter Laura Rutledge, who hosts the daily “NFL Live” program for ESPN.

Previous weeks have featured Fox’s Greg Olsen, Pam Oliver and Jay Glazer; Amazon’s Al Michaels; CBS and Westwood One Audio’s Kevin Harlan; CBS’ Gene Steratore; ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky; NBC’s Melissa Stark; the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen; ESPN/ABC’s Joe Buck; andCBS’ Charles Davis and Amy Trask.

What do you think is your most important function as the host of “NFL Live”?

My most important function in all shows that I host is to make everybody around me look their best.

Do you think it takes a certain kind of ego to allow that to be the case?

You basically have to be egoless. I think the best hosts are the ones without ego. A successful show, looking back on it, is where I can say I really didn’t talk that much. They (her analysts) asked each other questions. I didn’t have to interject. I let them do their thing. Meanwhile, I am sitting there thinking constantly. I have directions that I can divert to based on something that somebody said. We keep it very loose and conversational. For that reason, I’m not overly scripted. I write every word in every show that might be said, and then I say maybe a fraction of it. Those are the shows that I think are the most successful.

How would you analyze where you are professionally today versus where you thought you might be professionally today?

I actually keep a press release from 2017 when they announced I would be the “SEC Nation” host. I keep that uploaded on my phone and my web browser — just as a reminder of where I’ve come from and the progress that’s been made, and I’m just really thankful for all of it.

The differences in what I’m doing now is it’s obviously higher-profile and yet I don’t feel like anything’s changed for me. I feel like I’m working just as hard. I feel like I’m preparing the same way, albeit a little bit different with two little kids. Yes, I’ve expanded my roles at ESPN, but I always stay true to some of those original roles. The SEC Network and “SEC Nation” was the first group that really took a chance on me and gave me a role, a hosting role for one of their flagship shows. That’s just meant so much to me. I can’t overstate how much it means to me, how much it matters and how much I enjoy those people.

Rutledge, here interviewing Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow after a September game, does sideline reporting for ESPN in addition to hosting “NFL Live.” (Ian Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

One of the interesting parts of your career is that you morphed between hosting and sideline reporting. How is the preparation different for when you’re doing a one-off NFL sideline assignment such as the Dolphins-Titans (her assignment last week) versus trying to stay current in the NFL every week?

It’s very different. But I think they work together well, and by that, I mean that every single day I’m in it with NFL content. Not just surface-level, because on a daily show such as “NFL Live,” we pride ourselves in going much deeper than when I get to do games. There’s such a familiarity already there because we are having these conversations day in and day out. What I try to do is peel back more layers. So not only will I look at both two-deeps for both the teams but then I’ll say, OK, how can I further the story? How can I add to it? What’s an angle that hasn’t been told?

I have a unique background covering Tua Tagovailoa coming out of college because of all the injuries that he had and my closeness to the SEC and covering Alabama. I covered some of the wildest stories when it came to what was happening with him and know his family well and was entrusted with a lot of medical information about him that has stayed with me. That’s why it’s so important to me to have a thread throughout college football and the NFL. They’re so intertwined. Like knowing Will Levis from his time at Kentucky, speaking to his family, knowing his parents, his mom sharing concerns even in the lead up to the NFL Draft and then what happened to him with the draft. Now he’s having success. It’s an amazing perspective to know every little thing about these guys and about what got them to where they are. I become less of a “tee-er-upper,” for lack of a better way to put it, and more of a storyteller when I’m on the sideline.

As someone who has done both NFL and college football sideline reporting, it seems to me that the person in that position can get a lot more from a college game. Is that true?

I think some of it’s because of the way that the NFL games are done. It has to do with the parameters and rules in place. We would maybe show an injury from a distance if it wasn’t that severe. Obviously, we want to protect these guys and make sure that we’re never exploiting them in any way. But we can’t report anything specific about the injury until we’re told and until it’s reported to the NFL. It’s this whole chain of communication that doesn’t exist in college.

In college, it’s about relationships. It’s about, hey, this team doctor trusts me so he’ll come up to me and say, “This is what’s going on, here’s how I would like it to be presented.” Or I’m down on the sideline and I’m observing that the offensive line is talking about a cadence change, or maybe they’re struggling with how they’re snapping the football. These are things that in an NFL game, I would alert our crew. I would say this is going on and maybe we get a camera on it, the guys in the booth can talk about it, or maybe I’ll add a little bit there too. But I wouldn’t necessarily do that report in the NFL. In college, I would almost 100 percent do that report. There is a little bit more of a free-flowing observational type approach to college versus the NFL.

Your contract is up next summer. What do you hope to do heading forward if you stay at ESPN?

One of the things that has become most important is just being on the biggest events, on the biggest games, hosting, reporting, doing whatever is asked, which I do. I enjoy being at those big events and being a part of that and also being a daily presence. So wherever that can happen, that’s what’s important to me. … This place has meant a lot to me. I’ve been here since I was 25, and I’m 35 now. It’s almost 10 years, and it has gone by in seemingly a blink of an eye.

GO DEEPER

Laura Rutledge on working the NFL Draft for ABC and doing it while nine months pregnant

What is a sport you’d love to work on and why?

I think (Formula One) is so cool. I got into it a little bit more with the Netflix documentary. I’ve started watching more as ESPN’s airing more of the races and some of my friends at ESPN get to cover it. It just seems so cool. I understand that I don’t know enough about it yet to cover. I would never want to go there in place of anybody else. But I would love to go there and just learn more. It would be something down the road that I’d be really interested in covering.

What is the worst broadcasting advice you’ve ever received?

I think the worst was somebody who was a very high-ranking executive at the time who told me to never laugh on TV. That my laugh was annoying and that I should never laugh. I remember thinking, oh, my goodness, and feeling pretty self-conscious about my laugh, which may or may not be annoying. Probably depends on who you ask. I remember deciding I really can’t do that because there are some things that are funny, so I’m going to have to laugh. I’m really glad I did not take that advice.

As an SEC alum, what is the best place to eat in the SEC?

Oh my goodness, there are so many good spots. Baton Rouge, just anywhere you go, is so good. The Cajun food is so unique. So I would say Baton Rouge is probably No. 1 one, and really any of the spots there. My secondary one is Athens, Georgia. There’s this great breakfast spot called Mama’s Boy. The biscuit is stacked so thick you can’t even fit it in your mouth. It’s like eggs, bacon, sausage, whatever you need. I love that place and I’m a big breakfast person. There’s a couple of other good spots there in Athens that we always enjoy. But I mean, man, now we have Texas and Oklahoma going to the SEC, so we’re going to find some good spots in Austin and Norman.