Rece Davis is cozying up with his invisible sun right now, looking like something that the cat brought in, trapped at gunpoint for what will be (as of posting) hour 20 of the ESPN 25 hour marathon preview of college football.

While we appreciate the WWL’s enthusiasm for the great game of college football, Rece Davis doesn’t deserve this. Even as Norby Williamson held Davis’ infant son off camera over a pit of live piranhas, Davis made this quip last night around 9:15 p.m.

Mark May: June Jones has coached at the highest levels of football.

Davis: He’s coached in the SEC?

See? It’s that kind of blatant cheekery, along with Davis’ barely concealed glee for the game, that makes Rece awesome. And now they’ve had him at bazooka point for the better part of an entire day, making him watch some things you were better off missing at 3:30 in the morning. Like what, you say?

1:45 a.m. EST Mark May drops pants and does the whirlybird in front of the camera while singing “The Pitt Victory Song.” Lou Holtz giggles, then pronounces the exercise as “disguthting.”

2:27 a.m. Bruce Feldman of ESPN Magazine benches 325 sixteen times in a row. The feat’s made more impressive by the 325 pounds being a sleeping Chris Berman stuffed to the gills with buffalo wings and Ovaltine he ate straight from the can in the ESPN cafeteria.

4:42 a.m. Davis weeps uncontrollably at the mention of Bear Bryant’s name. Can only be coaxed back on air by May speaking to Davis as the dead Alabama coach addressing him from heaven through his earpiece.

7:38 a.m. May is now doing entire show from offstage, talking to Davis as Bear Bryant from the production room. Occasionally gets Davis to drop and give him twenty during commercial breaks and run through pieces of scenery in “blocking drills.”

1:14 p.m. Davis conducts entire interview with Greg Schiano as Beaker from the Muppets. Questions included “MEE MEE MEEEE MEEE MEE, MEE ME MEE MEEE?” “Coach Bryant” insists through the earpiece that he get his ass in the game, to which Davis loudly says “Yassir!” to on air to no one in particular.

As of our last check, he looked to be in decent shape–a bit drawn, yes, but seemingly kept in line by “Coach Bryant.” No man deserves this, though. We implore ESPN to let Davis’ children out of the Death Machine and give the man some rest. With four months of football left, he’s gonna need “Coach Bryant” in his ear all year at this rate.