Cole's Gameday Blog

Tracking college football picks and predictions for YOU

Tag: review

Week 4 2016: College Gameday review!

Posted on by gamedaycole

Welcome back ladies and gentlemen to the portion of today where we take a minute to reflect on this morning’s edition of College Gameday!  Today’s edition of Gameday was broadcasting to your television set live from Knoxville, Tennessee for the big matchup between Tennessee and Florida.  Florida was riding an 11 game losing streak in this rivalry; one of the great rivalries in college football.

Let’s dive right into #GamedaySigns because there were a LOT of good ones today.  Lots of funny Tebow references, good old fashioned insults, and hilarious vague minutiae about players and coaches.

This was one of my favorites, although kids might not even know what this means these days.

I think they call this throwin’ shade.

https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/779681002918518784

https://twitter.com/DrFratter/status/779675003113639936

And by request of @TheGamedayBaby…

We got a dose of the Sam Ponder outfit of the week, which means it is time for the @GamedayJen official Sam Ponder outfit of the week review brought to you by the Home Depot!  This week Jen liked the Sam Ponder outfit as usual.  “I really like the vest.  I’m excited to see the Sam Ponder fall outfit season.  She always has a good boot game”.

fullsizerender-9

Gene W had a really nice segment on the influx of Aussie rules football players coming into college football as punters.  For those of you not from Down Under, they call it footie.  Anyways, there was a funny question segment at the end with an Aussie about American college gridiron football (or football as we call it for those of you Down Under).  Check it out below.

Onto my weekly complaint about the You Had One Job segment.  Still no online video of the funniest segment of the week.  Please tweet @jimmyg44 and let him know we need this.

This week’s Harambe watch was pretty impressive, and the Harambe memes were dank.  Let’s start off with this gem from last night apparently.  I’m confused by the “too” portion of this sign.

https://twitter.com/CFBGamedaySigns/status/779684636033163265

Also…

And of course…

The investigation into the death of Harambe by yours truly continued this week.  In week 1 all evidence from Gameday signs pointed towards Les Miles and/or Colin Kaepernick killing Harambe.  In week 2 things took a turn, and the prime suspect was Butch Jones.  After Butch Jones was cleared, week 3 saw accusations that Dalvin Cook killed Harambe.  However things have taken a shocking turn in week 4, as we have reliable evidence via #GamedaySigns that Jim McElwain killed Harambe.  You may have to look hard, but in the Tweet below the evidence is indisputable.

The best segment of the week was brought to you by new College Gameday castmember Jen Lada about how a family from Auburn and a family from LSU came together under extraordinary circumstances.  Just watch the video because I can’t do it any justice.

In reference to Jen Lada showing back up, @GamedayJen said “I’m still not sure about her”.  So we will be monitoring that situation closely.

Christiain McCaffrey had a segment which I believe is the OFFICIAL start of his Heisman campaign this year.  This piece was about the football camp he runs for kids with Down’s Syndrome.  Not only is McCaffrey lighting it up on the field, but he seems like a great guy off the field and a great story.  He’s going to need exposure like this to have any chance at a Heisman since he plays all of his games at 4AM or whenever most weeks.

When it came time to get down to the business of picking games, we were alerted to the news that we had TWO guest pickers this week.  Former Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer and former Florida coach Steve Spurrier were our special guests today.  I’m still convinced Spurrier is laying the groundwork for joining Gameday at some point in the future after he appeared last year, and I for one would welcome him.  Anyways, another unusual circumstance is that they picked ELEVEN games this morning as opposed to a usual batch of about 8.  Combine that with two celebrity pickers and it made for a long picking segment.  Of course, normally I would love a long picking segment, but some of us had a fresh omelette sitting on the breakfast table right as they started picking games.  The sacrifices I make for this website…

Back to picking games.  Both coaches were light hearted and had some good input on the upcoming slate of games.  To nobody’s surprise Fulmer took Tennessee while Spurrier took Florida.  Desmond and Kirk both took Tennessee while Pollack had taken Florida earlier in the show before his exit.  @TheGamedayBaby also went with Tennessee, boldly proclaiming that she was born to end Florida’s streak.  @GamedayJen took Tennessee too, leaving it lopsided from our panel of experts favoring Tennessee.  When it came time for Corso to make his pick, Smokey the dog was ready on set for Corso’s pick.  Corso loved on the dog before telling him that he was sorry, because this was purely business.  Corso threw on the Gator headgear as Smokey made a quick exit, and just like that it was time for kickoff.

 

Continue Reading

Week 3 2016: College Gameday review! #CFB #LOUvsFSU #FSUvsLOU

Posted on by gamedaycole

Welcome back everyone.  The morning games are wrapping up including some nice upsets, which means it is now time for the weekly College Gameday review!  This week’s edition was broadcasting live from Louisville, Kentucky for the matchup between #2 Florida State and #10 Louisville.  This matchup between top ten teams is included in today’s fun fact that this is the first time ever that the top 3 ranked teams all play true road games against ranked opponents.  That means if the top 3 get upset, Michigan could slide all the way up to #1 for basically showing up this season. Their resume includes wins over Hawaii, UCF, and a likely win against Colorado today to beef up that schedule for a possible #1 ranking.

Today’s show opened up with a quick tribute to former Louisville head coach Lee Corso, who coached there from 1969 to 1972.  The highlight of this tribute was Corso’s glorious sideburns during his tenure at Louisville.  I assume shortly after this photo was taken that he went to meet up with Potsie and the gang down at Arnold’s.

corso-sideburns

Early on in the show Sam Ponder was brought in which brings us to the @GAMEDAYJEN OFFICIAL SAM PONDER OUTFIT REVIEW OF THE WEEK!  She was sporting a nice outfit of which Jen said “Ooooooo!  The skirt is nice!”

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-6-08-09-pm

A curious addition to the Gameday was presented today in new reporter Jen Lada.  Possible Sam Ponder rival?  Or replacing Tom Rinaldi?

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-4-37-14-pm

She presented the story of Cuyler Duncan.  Duncan is the former member of the Silver Spurs at the University of Texas, who take care of mascot Bevo.  He is a die hard Texas fan who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and given possibly days-to-weeks to live at the time.  As his story spread through the internet, various video messages and phone calls came in to him from notable names such as Vince Young, Colt McCoy, Mack Brown, Quan Cosby, Matthew Mcconaughey, and President Obama.  He began his fight against cancer and after enduring chemo began to recover enough that he attended his first Texas game since the diagnosis.  He is now returned to work and continuing life where he left off before the diagnosis.  Check out the full video below.

Former College Gameday host Chris Fowler made a cameo return today since he was calling the noon game with Kirk Herbstreit on-site.  They previewed the Louisville/FSU matchup today, and it was great to have him back.  Due to the rain moving in, they broadcasted from under a tent, no doubt to protect Herbstreit’s hairpiece.

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-5-22-49-pm

#YHOJ was back again this week, and still no video online… Grrrrrr.

Rece Davis ran the gauntlet with George Whitfield again… Grrrrrr.

During this segment, the Gameday crew did a quick relocation to inside the stadium since Herbie was going to be calling the game immediately following the show.  Also because the entire crowd behind Gameday would probably be gone by kickoff.  I love it when Gameday goes inside the stadiums.  They used to do this somewhat regularly many years ago and it always had a really fun feel to it.

Let’s stop down for a minute and review some Gameday signs.  For starters, Detective Cole collected more evidence this week in the hunt for who REALLY killed Harambe.  In week 2, the prime suspect in Harambe’s death was Butch Jones.  In week 1 it was alleged that Les Miles and Colin Kaepernick killed Harambe.  This week’s lead is that Dalvin Cook killed Harambe.

Other signs included this high effort submission:

This one was all over social media starting yesterday:

Other submissions for your review:

screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-4-19-11-pm
Waffle Stomp FSU
screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-4-28-35-pm
FSU Hates Harambe
screen-shot-2016-09-17-at-6-08-18-pm
Harambe for Heisman

And of course:

I am glad to say that we saw the return of maybe the greatest recurring segment every season.  That would be when walk-ons get scholarships.  There’s a lot of sappy stories and feel-good segments peppered in throughout the whole season, but this is one that needs to happen every year because it truly delivers time and time again.

Today’s celebrity guest picker was Laila Ali; daughter of the late Muhammad Ali who was being honored at Louisville today.  She provided good energy compared to many celebrity pickers and seemed to be genuinely into this thing.  When it came time to pick the big game, Desmond went with the surprise upset pick in Louisville.  To nobody’s surprise Laila picked Louisville as well.  When it came time for Corso to make his headgear pick, the tension was high.  He had never picked Louisville, and has a fondness in his heart for picking FSU where got his start in coaching.  Since he spent time at both schools, who would win out?  He pulled the trigger on the upset pick today, going with Louisville over FSU.  @GamedayJen and @TheGamedayBaby both went with Louisville as well.  Seems like the whole world was against FSU today, and apparently it was the right move given today’s result.  Fun stuff and a great show today to get us all ready for a great slate of games today.

Continue Reading

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.

FullSizeRender 8

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.

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 3.52.37 PM

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.

Screen Shot 2016-09-04 at 4.36.43 PM

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.

Continue Reading