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Week 1 2016: College Gameday review! #cfb #getup4gameday

Posted on by gamedaycole

Welcome back everyone to the return of the College Gameday weekly review.  This is of course where all of us with an unhealthy Gameday obsession can celebrate and nit-pick the finer points of this week’s College Gameday celebration as if it were a fine wine we were sampling.

This week’s edition of College Gameday was broadcasting live from Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the big matchup between #1 Alabama and #20 USC.  For the first time in 7+ months, we got to be woken up by COMIN’ TO YOUR CITAAAAAY as performed by an ever-expanding cast including Big & Rich, Cowboy Troy, Lzzy Hale, Travie McCoy, and more.  At this point, I think every season they should keep adding new performers to this intro, and before long it will basically be the new millennium’s version of “We are the world“.  Except, you know, it will be to celebrate a college football pregame show instead of raising money for Africa.

So now that we have been welcomed to their citaaay, let’s not forget that this week 1 has been billed as the greatest opening week of all time in college football history.  As athletic directors start to figure out the finer points of this college football playoff deal, all of the contenders are trying to put some legitimate names on their scheduling resumes.  Of course, sometimes you go ahead and schedule a cupcake, pay them a couple hundred grand to show up, and then get your ass kicked anyways.

Back to Gameday, as the show opened up and they were introducing the crew, Desmond Howard got quite the ovation by the Packer Nation for his Superbowl MVP performance during his tenure in Green Bay.

Corso and Kirk had a beer to kick the show off.

The rest of the crew was back in full this year, including Chris “The Bear” Fallica as their research lead/gambling aficionado.  My wife Jennifer (@GamedayJen) was the first one to point out that they backed way off of the gambling angle this year.  Last year they were talking point spreads for the first time ever, and even started picking a few games against the spread.  This year there were only glancing mentions of the gambling lines aside from the fantastic return of BEAR’S BANK!  Chris Fallica was on FIRE last year picking games against the spread, so pay attention all of you degenerates who need to get down on some last minute bets at 10AM Saturday morning.  This week, Bear’s Bank liked UCLA+3, UNC+3, and Texas State+21 vs Ohio.  The first two were losers yesterday, but as you can see in the scores pictured above, Texas State showed up as a 21 point dog and decided to beat Ohio on the field and claim the title of fiercest Bobcat mascot in the country.

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 3.29.24 PM

There was an earthquake late Friday night/early Saturday morning about 50 miles outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma which was discussed.  The 5.6 scale earthquake was apparently felt in much of the midwest ranging from Iowa to Texas, or in other words, it was a Big 12 earthquake.

Signs this week were pretty tame, but this year it looks like the memes are going to be dank.  Harambe was a big player in the signage yesterday as you can see below.

We also had signs with allegations that Les Miles killed Harambe and Colin Kaepernick killed Harambe.  However, a late contender for sign of the week really got a chuckle out of me:

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 2.55.23 PM

This brings us to everyone’s favorite segment of the week.  The “OFFICIAL GAMEDAY JEN REVIEW OF THE SAM PONDER OUTFIT OF THE WEEK”!!!  This week Sam Ponder was sporting a nice little outfit of which Gameday Jen had to say: “I like the blazer and the all black.  I like the neck-line detail and the shoes are great”.  I myself question the pants, which taper sharply at the ankle, as they appear to be a slimmer version of parachute pants.  However, since I am the owner of a vast wardrobe of generic polos and ill-fitting pants, I advise you to trust in Sam Ponder’s fashion choices above my own.

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The Gameday boys spent an unnecessary amount of time on Saturday’s show discussing the fact that the NCAA had outlawed the Lambeau Leap from the LSU/Wisconsin game.  I personally think the football players should be allowed to do it after scoring, but I also think we should go all-in with 1980’s Miami Hurricane’s style celebrations in these games.  However, since the rules say no excessive celebrations, I didn’t really think there was a need for any debate, much less suggestions that the coaches should have agreed to decline any excessive celebration penalty after a Lambeau Leap.

Marcus Spears and Kaylee Hartung from the SEC network joined the Gameday crew via satellite to talk about the horrible flooding in Louisiana and the relief efforts which the LSU football program, led by Les Miles, has undertaken.  It boggles my mind that the LSU fans, alumni, and boosters want to run Les Miles out of town like a common pygmy.  This is a man who wins 10 games a year, won a national championship, and does great work for the community.  I guess it doesn’t matter if you’re not beating ‘Bama.

For those of you who follow College Gameday religiously, you will know the man known as Lee Fitting.  He is the long-time College Gameday producer who has been behind the wheel of this thing for all six of their Emmy awards.  After 12 years, and one week into his 13th season, he will be leaving the show to be in charge of all college sports at ESPN.  They showed a tribute to Lee, and it is a shame that we will be missing him going forward, but we wish him all of the luck in the world.

David Pollack wore a grill as payoff from a bet with Houston coach Tom Herman from last season.  He looks… special.

Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman showed up on College Gameday for some reason.  I assumed there would be some kind of tie-in to LSU, Wisconsin, Green Bay, or one of the players to explain her presence, but if there was I didn’t see it.  She had little to contribute to the football-centric nature of the show aside from her brother and dad “liking sports”.  Oh well, USA!  USA! USA!

Combined with Aly Raisman’s appearance, we saw the continuation of what will hopefully be a great tradition for years to come.  The second annual David Pollack vertical leap challenge!  This year he succeeded again, but managed to rip his pants.  Truly compelling television.  This needs to be back next year.

A cool segment followed by Tom Rinaldi about unorthodox offseason training which some programs are starting to get into.  Many teams are starting to send their students through EXTREME workouts like military style bootcamps to build toughness and teamwork.  It looked really cool.  I’m allowed to say that sitting here on the couch in my underwear eating a churro.

I’m proud to say we also saw the return of BEATNIK POETRY WITH TOM RINALDI!!! This week he had a spoken word performance entitled “I AM LAMBEAU” about the experiences of the living, breathing nature of Lambeau field.  Or something.

rinaldi-beatnik2
Tom Rinaldi performing live

Other miscellaneous notes include QB Guru George Whitfield showing up to break down QB footwork film while walking through a crowd with Rece Davis.  I still don’t get this segment.  I mean, I’m sure George is very good at what he does, but why do they need to be walking through the crowd every time?

Gene Wojciechowski had a weird animated piece about Jim Harbaugh’s offseason, which he called his offseason bucket list.  Harbaugh was everywhere: conducting an orchestra, rapping, coaching 1st base for the Detroit Tigers, Disneyland with Jerry Springer, hanging out with Chewbacca, and tweeting nonstop.  Oh yeah he did some recruiting too.

Everyone’s favorite segment #YOUHADONEJOB was back.  I don’t have any video to show you because ESPN hasn’t put this online as far as I’m aware.  So how about a picture of Rich Rodriguez re-enacting a scene from Gladiator.

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The Lambeau Field executive chef showed up with a ridiculous spread of food including bacon wrapped baked potatoes and foot long bratwurst.  Desmond once again let us know he is NOT HAVING THE PORK.  Anyways, we can probably find a use for this picture somewhere down the line.

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At this point, after a very busy show, it was time to get down to business and make some damn picks.  Aaron Rodgers was the special guest this week to make picks with the Gameday crew.  He put on his nicest white undershirt this morning for his TV appearance, and seemed like not only had he just woken up, but that he probably doesn’t watch college football.  To nobody’s surprise, David Pollack, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard picked LSU in the day’s big game, while Rodgers picked Wisconsin.  Corso donned an the LSU headgear complete with a cheesehead for fun as he picked the Bayeux Bengals to win in this game.

@GamedayJen picked LSU as well as the show completed, and we had one more pick to get on the record.  This year we are proud to announce we have been joined by @TheGamedayBaby who will be making a weekly pick and spouting off hot sports takes.  The Gameday Baby went with the LSU Tigers as well, making Aaron Rodgers the only person I have on record as picking Wisconsin, in one of the most lopsided picks I’ve ever tracked which ended up being right.  Check back tomorrow night for a full slate of the results to see who won this week, who lost this week, and how your favorite (or most hated) personality did.

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Week 12 2014: College Gameday review! #cfb #saturdayselections #bamavsmissst

Posted on by gamedaycole

The afternoon games are in full swing, so its time to do this thing.  Your week 12 College Gameday review has arrived.  Today’s show was broadcasting live from Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the huge matchup between the undefeated Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Alabama Crimson Tide.

As of the show start time, I believe it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 26 degrees in Tuscaloosa, but that didn’t stop one brave fan from proving his toughness/insanity by showing up at least shirtless, while holding the “I’M NAKED” sign.  We never saw his lower body, but this reporter will speculate that he surely had at least a pair of tidy-whities on.

Indeed
Indeed

Other notable signs included “Jameis Winston’s Lawyer for Heisman” and “Auburn fumbled my other sign”, but this week’s undisputed winner was the following:

Hint: Bottom left corner
Hint: Bottom left corner

While we are talking about the above screenshot, everyone will be excited to know that Herbie was back with the “KIRK HERBSTREIT LAPEL ROSETTE OF THE WEEK”.  There is still a lot of speculation going on about this, and while I am sure it is nothing more than an extra little bit of flair for his suit, I assure you our crack investigation team will get to the bottom of this.

The audience at our house was incredibly excited (or not) to see the return of one Babi Mac, who was wowing the crowd in Tuscaloosa with tunes.  I still don’t get how she got added to this cast of characters on Gameday, and I find it strange.

There was a duo of touching segments today featuring emotional stories from Tom Rinaldi and Gene W.  The first was the tragic story of former Auburn tight end Philip Lutzenkirchen who had his life cut short at the age of 23.  Philip holds the record at Auburn for the most touchdowns by a tight end, was described as an incredibly funny guy, and won the 2010 national championship before his career was ended two years later by a hip injury.  Philip’s dad then took over telling the story of how he got a phone call from the police one night telling him that his son was killed in a car wreck.  After further investigation, it was found that Philip and his passenger were both legally intoxicated and not wearing seat belts.  Philip’s father now tours the country speaking about his son, stressing the importance of making good decisions in life as well as the point that life is a privilege; not a right.  Check out the full video here: http://t.co/wykbONfGbd

The second touching story was that of Mississippi State running back Josh Robinson.  Josh grew up in Bogalusa, Louisiana, and was raised by his grandmother after his father disappeared from his life and his mother was in prison.  Sadly, his grandmother died of a heart attack getting ready for church one morning in 2004, leaving Robinson without his caretaker.  He bounced around between relatives’ and friends’ households before eventually living out of his car behind his high school football stadium.  He said it seemed easy to fall into trouble in life, but he didn’t want to be a bad kid.  After being offered a scholarship by Dan Mullen, he has now become a part of the Mississippi State family, and is incredibly close with the Mullen family.  He now leads the SEC in rushing touchdowns.  The full video can be found here:  http://goo.gl/cVaJ7e

Sam Ponder made an appearance this week to interview Nick Saban.  The highlight of this was video of Nick Saban dancing with his wife at an event.  It is quite surreal to see him in such a human setting.  Dancing was brought up because they previously aired a segment about coaches dancing in the locker room.  I would describe it in detail here, but it just can’t be properly explained with words.  I urge you to watch the video which can be found here:  http://goo.gl/VGRYR2

Sam Ponder’s outfit of the week can be found below.  Jennifer fell in love with the boots and vest.  Around our house, this is not winter or the holiday season.  It is “Samantha Ponder Winter Wear” season.

Sam Ponder: Week 12
Sam Ponder: Week 12

Quarterback guru George Whitfield was back this week, and continues to improve on his style (no doubt thanks to this blog).  This week he was wearing a reasonably matching suit and tie, as well as “those damn brown shoes” as we call them around here.  The main improvement this week was a slightly bigger jacket which allowed him increased range of movement when goofing off with Tom Rinaldi and Gene W. for a segment.

George Whitfield week 12
George Whitfield week 12

When it came time for this week’s big pick segment, our special guest picker was noted Sam Houston State alumnus Marcus Luttrell.  I think he also wrote a book called “Lone Survivor” and it got turned in to a movie too.  David Pollack started off the Gameday site picks by going with Alabama over the Bulldogs.  During the finale, Luttrell played to the crowd by picking Alabama as well.  Kirk and Desmond both went with the Tide as well.  Corso took over at this point, reminding us that he lost his last two Alabama headgear picks.  It seemed like he was going to pull the trigger and go with Mississippi State, but he faked us out and went with Alabama to win the big game.  Charley the cat picked Alabama as well, so it is 100% unanimous from the panel that Alabama will be victorious.  Enjoy the rest of your football evening.

Corso picks the Tide!
Corso picks the Tide!
Charley picks Bama!
Charley picks Bama!
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Week 10 2014: College Gameday review! #saturdayselections #cfb #getup4gameday

Posted on by gamedaycole

Good afternoon football world, and welcome to your week 10 College Gameday review.  This morning we had some technical difficulties this morning involving our DVR, and due to this reason we missed approximately the first 8 minutes of Gameday this morning.  I would imagine that Big & Rich, along with Cowboy Troy, offered us a little zing in our zang zang while Lzzy Hale shredded on a guitar for us, but if we missed anything incredibly important please send us a letter.

The show today was broadcasting from Morgantown, West Virginia, where we would see the Big 12 matchup between #7 TCU and #20 West Virginia.  I truly think Morgantown is my favorite setting, with the show setting up right at the bottom of the sorority/fraternity hill.

Morgantown setup
Morgantown setup

Early on, we were hammered with a Gene W. piece on the coaching situation down there in Florida.  The viewer was treated to a montage of clips from the Will Muschamp hiring press conference, where Florida AD Jeremy Foley told us how excited he was to have Muschamp here for a long time, and Muschamp told us that he was sure Foley had made the right decision to hire himself.  Fast forward to 2014, and things sure have changed.  Remember when Will Muschamp was the coach-in-waiting at Texas, but had to bolt for Florida because he was too hot of a commodity to wait around another decade or two for Mack Brown to retire?  I guess neither of those things panned out too well.  I just hope Florida wins today against Georgia so that we can get at least one more week of the Florida coaching soap opera before Muschamp is run out of town like a common pygmy.

Carrying on with this theme of chaos at a traditional power, the Gameday boys (with Pollack replacing Corso) decided to discuss the “resignation” of Michigan AD Dave Brandon.  I was impressed with how well Desmond was composed during this segment, because he normally squirms around when Michigan controversy is brought up.  The main fun fact from this segment was Kirk Herbstreit saying he was the biggest Michigan fan out there (which Desmond had to quickly correct).

A highlight segment featuring TCU quarterback Trevone Boykin was followed up with a breakdown by noted quarterback guru and questionable wearer of men’s clothing, George Whitfield.  This brings us to this week’s FABULOUS FASHION REVIEWS WITH @GAMEDAYJEN!!! Whitfield has scaled back his fashion statements in recent weeks, but this week Jennifer’s big takeaways were that he is still rocking the Jesse Palmer too-tight jacket, and won’t give up the damn brown shoes.  He was also wearing the world’s tiniest rosette on his lapel.

George Whitfield, brown shoe guru
George Whitfield, brown shoe guru

We also can’t have fashion reviews without the Sam Ponder outfit of the week.  This week Jennifer has declared that it is officially SAM PONDER FALL WEATHER WEAR SEASON!!!  Jennifer said that she loves her boots and scarves, and that the lipstick was a nice accent this morning.  As always, if Sam Ponder is reading this, your future best friend @gamedayjen is still waiting on a shoutout.

Sam Ponder, Week 10
Sam Ponder, Week 10

What would normally have been the strangest segment of an episode of Gameday was the Tom Rinaldi interview with Marshall quarterback Rakeem Cato; an interview which was performed from within the College Gameday bus.  I guess West Virginia fans hate Rakeem Cato that much (for what reason, I am not sure) that he could not be interviewed out in the open air.  Weird interview setup, but he still seems like such a good kid.  In this reporter’s opinion, Marshall deserves to be ranked at least 25, and you can take that all the way to the bank.

I say that the bus interview would normally be the strangest segment of the day because this was quickly trumped by the return of the Gameday boys dressing up as coaches (complete with creepy masks) with each of them defending their representative schools.  This segment basically devolves each year into too much giggling behind the masks while the props start falling apart, but for some reason I hope they continue this each year.

2014 Fake Coaching segment
2014 Fake Coaching segment

This bizarre fake coaching segment also leads us into this week’s best signs.  There were a good selection of signs today including “Gary Patterson gives out apples on Halloween”, the return of one of the true greats known as the “SPORTS” sign, a couple of signs from the SEC network reading “KENTUCKY HAS A FOOTBALL TEAM!” and “TIM TEBOW USES CHRISTIAN MINGLE”, and the tremendous work of the young man holding the sign reading “I’m wearing adult diapers so I don’t lose my spot!”.  However, this week’s two best signs were unrivaled.  This week’s first entry was the following:

Sign 1A featured in yellow
Sign 1A featured in yellow

Our second entry this week was a sign seen very briefly, and it may be hard to make out, but it reads “TREVONE ENJOYS BOYKIN DUDES”.  This is classy work good sir.

Sign 1B
Sign 1B

This week’s Tom Rinaldi tear jerker centered on the Auburn wide receiver Sammy Coates, and his friendship with an 11 year old fan named Kenzie Ray.  Kenzie has been a fan of Auburn since she was a toddler running through the house yelling “WAR EAGLE”, but is currently in the middle of a battle with AML (a type of leukemia).  She has survived hospital stays, rounds of chemo, and a bone marrow transplant, and made friends with Coates on a trip to Auburn as a guest of the Auburn drill team.  Coates vowed to never take off the wristband she gave him reading “Praying for Kenzie”, and he never has.  He even drove 3 hours on a particularly rough night where she may not have survived to be with her.  They now share a friendship which they hope to last a lifetime as she continues her battle.  Touching stuff.

Another touching segment was the honoring of Lee Corso’s 250th headgear pick today, which saw a segment highlighting his career of picking games.  He sat in silence, overwhelmed by the montage, for a minute or two while the crowd chanted his name.  This touching moment was broken up by Fowler’s comedic relief, noting that “the crowd here in Morgantown loves you… at least for the moment”.  See the following for more details:  http://goo.gl/wOYlmi

Bald Man on Campus featuring Scott Van Pelt was back this week, and he was hanging in an overly casual manner with WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen.  The segment mostly centered around Holgorsen’s unique hair style, and much was made of comparisons to McCracken from the movie Kingpin.

Holgorsen-McCracken comparison
Holgorsen-McCracken comparison

Other quick notes include Desmond Howard revealing he is a Taurus, and Auburn DB claiming that they call the SEC West “the baby NFL” (which is an absurd claim).  Another interesting note is that I’m not sure the phrase “Florida State” was said once during the entire show.  No coverage of the exciting Thursday night finish against Louisville, no mention of Jameis Winston and his shenanigans, and no mention of Karlos Williams and his own recent controversy.  Just interesting in my opinion.  Also, David Pollack apparently sat around playing Mario Kart against WVU students yesterday.  For fans of the now-defunct feature known as “DAVID POLLACK USING THE INTERNET”, we now bring you what will hopefully continue on into the future: “DAVID POLLACK PLAYING N64!”

David Pollack playing N64!
David Pollack playing N64!

When it came time to get down to the real business of picking the games, this week’s special guest celebrity was revealed to be none other than West Virginia native Braid Paisley.  He seemed really knowledgeable about college football, even revealing that his first WVU game was as a kid watching Lee Corso’s Indiana team come into Morgantown to play in their “crappy little stadium” at the time.  As the picks continued, the crew got to the random matchup of Pitt-Duke, to which Brad Paisley said he CERTAINLY WAS NOT GOING TO SUGGEST THE CROWD START A CHANT REGARDING PITT.  The crowd immediately broke out into an “EAT SHIT PITT” chant, which was very quickly talked over by the rest of the crew so as to not offend women, young children, and the FCC.  When it came time to pick the big game of the day, David Pollack had previously picked WVU.  Desmond upset the home crowd by going with TCU, while Paisley picked WVU to nobody’s surprise.  Kirk gave us generic keys to the game since he is calling the game as we speak.  Corso talked up the West Virginia crowd big time and got them into a complete frenzy before apologizing to Brad, the WVU fans, and John Denver, while popping on the TCU Hornfrog headgear….backwards!  Charley the Cat and Jennifer both went with WVU as well, this could end up being a close one.  Enjoy the rest of your football day!

Corso with the backwards TCU headgear! Photo courtesy of Gameday Twitter
Corso with the backwards TCU headgear! Photo courtesy of Gameday Twitter
Charley picks WVU over TCU!
Charley picks WVU over TCU!

Update: Today’s “Desmond Howard Michigan Pick of the Week” saw a dejected and depressed Desmond Howard pick Indiana to beat his Michigan Wolverines.  Wait, what?  You read that right; Indiana over Michigan.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL!  SOMEONE ALERT MICHIGAN INTERIM ATHLETIC DIRECTOR JIM HACKETT!  This marks the first Desmond Howard pick against Michigan since week 11/27/2010, when he picked Ohio State to beat Michigan in week 13.  Remember this day os that someday you can tell your grandchildren about the last time Desmond picked against Michigan.

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