Day: October 5, 2013

It may be late, and it may be brief, but don’t worry, the weekly College Gameday review is here.  Today’s edition of Colege Gameday was broadcasting live from Evanston, Illinois for the big matchup between Ohio State and Northwestern.  This is the first time Gameday has been at Northwestern since 1995, so it is a rare occasion that Northwestern is good at football, and even rarer for Gameday to make an appearance.

The first thing we noticed this morning, and if you are as obsessed with Gameday as we are maybe you noticed too, was that noted country rapping sensation Cowboy Troy’s rap solo was cut from this morning’s Gameday intro.  What’s up with that?  How am I supposed to get jacked up without a black guy in a cowboy hat rapping football lyrics at me?

Anyways, we got an early dose of Samantha Ponder, and I can’t help but notice her role has been reduced in recent weeks.  I wonder what the deal is with that.  The people demand more Samantha Ponder and Cowboy Troy.  Mrs. Ponder’s outfit this week was better than last week’s but still questionable.  The jacket was not well received by those polled this morning (Jennifer).

Tom Rinaldi had an early piece this morning.  One was about all of the geniuses attending Northwestern who also play football.  It is pretty impressive, but even more impressive was how incredibly moving Tom Rinaldi makes it to watch someone sharpen a pencil by hand up close in slow motion while soft-talking.  We didn’t get any beatnik poetry from him so that makes me sad.  I NEED INSPIRATION!!!

We got a great dose of TODD MCSHAY LOOKIN’ AT THE TAPE!!! He was hanging out with Urban Meyer and Braxton Miller in the film room talking about mechanics.  Todd McShay is impressed with both his natural athleticism (which netted him the Big 10 Offensive Player of the Year last year) as well as his improved mechanics.  I wish just once we’d get a piece where Todd McShay sits with an athlete to look at the tape, and then rip the kid a new one about sloppy mechanics or a lack of effort.  I like to imagine that is what he is like leading up to the NFL draft where he is locked in a dark room ranting and raving 22 hours a day about mechanics, effort, heart and intangibles.

We had a return from QB Guru George Whitfield again.  At least this week we got to see more training film with him and Braxton Miller where they were having Miller throw a football while sitting in a chair against a defender with a broom or something.  The unusual training footage is pretty interesting.  The generic positive assessment of Whitfield about his paying clients?  Not so much.

The most exciting piece today was a callback to last week’s piece about the history of Gameday signs.  Last week they talked about how the first guy to bring a sign to Gameday was some unknown guy with a sign nobody could read.  Well believe it or not, they dug up this guy named Bob Merced and had him recreate the sign and flew his ass out to Gameday this morning which was really cool.

Speaking of signs, here is the sign of the day!

So let’s review.  No Cowboy Troy.  Less Samantha Ponder.  No Bald Man on Campus.  No David Pollack using the internet.  No Tom Rinaldi beatnik poetry.  Sign creativity was lacking aside from the one pictured above.  It was all-in-all a pretty mediocre episode.  Who could possibly save it as a guest celebrity picker?  How about the ORIGINAL football picker, one Mr. Brent Musberger.  He was so excited to be there at Gameday being a Northwestern alum.  I haven’t confirmed this, but I am fairly confident he was going no-pants behind the desk, and was all too happy to share his picks for who was going to win, who was going to cover the spread, and which totals to bet.  Of course, ESPN, Brent Musberger,  and Cole’s Gameday blog in no way endorse any form of gambling.  As Colin Cowherd would say, “this isn’t for making money; that’s called a job”.  Anyways, the guys picked a ton of games today, which excited me.  Brent and Herbie couldn’t pick the big game tonight since they are calling it, but I have a feeling which way Brent was leaning.  Billy the Cat picked Ohio State over Northwestern, and Lee Corso went with the Buckeyes too!  Either way, Corso and our cat will be tied going into next week, when we will hopefully see more exciting picks to determine who can pick the headgear game better between the two of them.  Goodnight folks.