Alum Lends Voice to College Football Video Game

By By Patrick Bohn, September 20, 2024
Kevin Connors ’97 hosts in-game halftime show for EA Sports College Football 25.
Connors

Kevin Connors '97 spent 18 months recording his lines for the in-game halftime show for the EA Sports College Football 25 video game.

(Photo submitted)

Kevin Connors '97 spent 18 months recording his lines for the in-game halftime show for the EA Sports College Football 25 video game.

(Photo submitted)

This year marked the return of a college football legend after more than a decade away. But this return wasn’t to the field; it was to the living rooms, bedrooms, and basement dens of sports fans everywhere.

The EA Sports College Football 25 video game was released on July 19. The last release in the once-yearly sports series was in 2014.

And while Bomber fans still can’t play as their obviously favorite team, there’s a little bit of Ithaca College in every game being played on millions of Xboxes and PlayStations across the country.

That’s thanks to Kevin Connors ’97, a longtime studio host for ESPN who lent his voice to the game and can be heard during its halftime show, analyzing players’ first-half performances.

Connors has been with ESPN since 2008, and currently serves as a studio host of college football, college basketball and Major League Baseball. He also is also a host of ESPN’s iconic show Baseball Tonight and is an anchor for SportsCenter. But for all that experience, his most recent endeavor has created quite a buzz.

An example of Connors' voice work for the in-game halftime show.

“More people reached out to me about my work in this game in the week after it was released than have reached out to me over my past 16 years at ESPN combined,” he laughed. “I’ve had so much fun talking about my experience. It’s truly a full-circle ‘pinch-me’ type moment for me because I played the game growing up, and it has truly become a cultural phenomenon.”

Connors was under contract with EA Sports from voice work he had done on another — ultimately unreleased — game when they asked him if he’d be willing to lend his voice to their long-awaited return to college football.

“My job was to give them what a professional studio host would give them, so I put a lot of effort into that work.”

Kevin Connors '97

“I was so psyched the game was coming back,” he recalled. “I was just like, ‘Where do I sign?’”

The recording sessions for the game took place during the COVID pandemic, so the company sent Connors professional recording equipment, which he set up in his basement.

“I recorded in two-hour sessions pretty regularly for 18 months,” he recalled. “They sent me a script that would cover every possible scenario — like a player deciding to throw the ball on every play — and that way, it sounded natural, no matter how someone was playing, or which of the 134 teams they were using.

“I would also look at the template and add in little details so that it sounded like Kevin Connors was saying something rather than just reading a script,” he added. “My job was to give them what a professional studio host would give them, so I put a lot of effort into that work.”

That work didn’t go unnoticed by some of Connors’ biggest fans.

“When people ask me how long I’ve been a professional broadcaster, I always add four years onto my total, because that’s how seriously we took it here. That’s what you get when you come to Ithaca.”

Kevin Connors '97

“I was playing the game with my kids not long after it was released, and the first time [in-game commentator] Rece Davis threw the broadcast to me, their minds were blown,” he said. “They were like ‘Daddy, that’s your voice!’”

That his work garnered acclaim from some tough critics shouldn’t surprise anyone who listened to Connors when he was a student at Ithaca, where he honed his skills in the press box above Butterfield Stadium as a radio broadcaster for Bomber football games on WICB.

A television-radio major at Ithaca, Connors also worked on ICTV's Gridiron Report during his senior year on South Hill.

“When people ask me how long I’ve been a professional broadcaster, I always add four years onto my total, because that’s how seriously we took it,” he said of his time on South Hill. “That’s what you get when you come to Ithaca; it truly is iron sharpening iron.”