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Week 2 2014: College Gameday Review! #getup4gameday

Posted on September 6, 2014 by gamedaycole

I’m proud to announce that the weekly College Gameday review is returning again this year (only a week late). Week 1 did not have a review due to the holiday weekend, but I’ll get around to writing one up for posterity soon. Anyways, let’s get this thing going.

Today’s edition of Gameday came to us live from Eugene, Oregon for the big matchup between the Oregon Ducks and the Michigan State Spartans. It started early out there in Oregon, where they are broadcasting at 6AM local time to a rowdy crowd of true fans and/or drunkards (please note the bars close down at 4AM, just enough time for a burrito run after the bar closes on your way to Gameday). This marks the 6th year in a row of Gameday broadcasting from Eugene, and the 9th time overall. Apparently classes don’t start at Oregon until September 29th. I don’t get it.

I’d like to stop down at this point and discuss something from week 1. I’m sure you noticed there is a newly revamped Gameday intro song and video featuring Big & Rich with Cowboy Troy singing “Comin’ to Your Citaaayyy”. This new edition features poor audio levels on the vocals, mediocre new lyrics, some random woman fronting the band, and a hipster rapping after Cowboy Troy. I don’t know who this random woman is or the rapping hipster (I gave up after Googling for no less than 15 seconds), but they are unnecessary. Please write your congressman to let them know we need the previous Gameday intro back. End rant.

After Chris Fowler opened up the show by introducing everyone, it was noted that Desmond and Chris were matching-suit-buddies. They stopped down for a cute suit-buddies photo.

As for today’s game, the forecast calls for a 40-degree swing in temperature from morning to night, with gametime temperature in the mid-to-upper 90s. Who does this favor? Who knows. Other early statistical note: As ESPN continues to pimp their new Football Power Index (FPI) system HARD, they project LSU has a 99.8% chance of beating Sam Houston State today.

Anyways…. Today’s crowd was a wild and rowdy crowd as always in Eugene, but signage was somewhat lacking in genius. Highlights include “At least Oregon doesn’t have Detroit”, “At least the Pac12 can count”, “Uh oh, Michigan State needs another bailout”, Reddit user garguinchona sporting the upside-down “Go Cougs!” sign all morning, but we will give this week’s best sign to this fellow.

Onward we go to the SAM PONDER OUTFIT OF THE WEEK featuring REVIEW BY @GAMEDAYJEN. Jennifer called is “Simple, elegant, slimming, and pretty. Not weird like some things she wears”.

There was a great segment highlight the walk-on player at various colleges. It was a really cool segment as they showed video of various walk-ons being surprised after earning a scholarship for their hard work. Really touching stuff. Oregon head coach Mark Helfrich said that if you own a business, you should go hire some walk-on football players, because they are the ones who have the work ethic and dedication to earn their spot wherever they end up.

Apparently this year they are bringing on a local celebrity chef to do some grilling on-set at each stop, and this week’s Gameday chef of the week was Michael Swartz, who is the head chef at some place I don’t know and is no doubt very talented at making things. There were some GREAT Desmond Howard over-laughs during this segment as they exchanged banter about food.

Week 2 also saw the return of BEATNIK POETRY WITH TOM RINALDI!!! This week’s piece was entitled “Green”. It included such deep, thought provoking statements such as “Nature. Youth. Currency. Envy. Let the royals have their purple; the sky its blue. This field has one color: Green. And we all know what green stands for… go”. Just pure gold from Tom Rinaldi.

This week’s Chris Fowler hundred dollar trivia challenge was asking what the first college football game on ESPN was back in the day: Oregon vs. ????? The answer was Colorado. I thought ESPN got their start broadcasting football from D2 playoffs back in the day, but maybe I’m wrong.

We also got a nice Gene W. piece on JT Barrett; QB from Ohio State. Basically he has moved from backup to true leader in a matter of weeks. Then we got a piece from Tom Rinaldi about Marcus Mariota, who is one of many in a long line of famous Hawaiian quarterbacks such as the great Timmy Chang. As much as I thoroughly enjoy bagging on Tom Rinaldi, he really does some fine work.

Following Tom Rinaldi’s piece, we got another exclusive segment with QB guru Georgie Whitfield. Amongst all of his quarterback clients is none other than Marcus Mariota. Now I’m sure you’ll be shocked, but George is pleased with the improvement he has provided to his paying client. Lots of good generic quarterback mechanics being discussed here. I’m truly thrilled.

As we returned to our Gameday crew breaking down games, there was a random Jesse Palmer chant which broke out from the crowd. I don’t get it but I was totally stoked because Jesse Palmer is awesome. How can you not love this man?

During this segment, you might have noticed that Desmond was no longer matching Chris Fowler’s outfit. He went and changed into a darker blue jacket for this segment, before mysteriously going back to his original in the next segment. Quite whimsical if you ask me. During this discussion, Desmond managed to predict a Michigan win over Notre Dame in order to fulfill his contractual obligation with Michigan that he remain their #1 cheerleader in the world.

This week’s inspiring “Tim Tebow Memorial Segment” was about Michigan fan Stephen Loszewski. After one year of freshman highschool football, Stephen became weak and started losing weight, before being diagnosed with ALL (a type of leukemia). Due to his treatment he could never play again, but he continues to coach youth football and root for Michigan. During the segment at his home, he was delivered a letter from Brady Hoke inviting him for a campus visit as a real blue-chip recruit. Then GIGANTIC HUMAN BEING Jake Long showed up to give him a stack of hand-written letters from the Michigan staff. He was taken to the Michigan campus where he met with Coach Hoke before being led into team meetings and practice by Devin Gardner. He got to fulfill his dream of running out of the tunnel with the team during a practice, leading a warm-up chant, and catching a pass in the endzone. To top it all off, Desmond Howard showed up to meet him. Really cool segment.

At this point, it was time to get down to the business at hand: picking games. David Pollack was the first up to make his prediction for the big game, and although he said “Mariota is gonna ball”, he went with Michigan State to pull the upset. Our special guest celebrity for the day was the Oregon Duck “Puddles”. This segment quickly fell into chaos, with Puddles using props for all of his picks. There was a toy elephant (Bama), a toy rocket being launched (Toledo), a blender being run through half of the segment (?), and fruit loops being spilled all over the table. This pick segment was tiring to say the least. However, the grand finale was top notch. After Desmond picked Oregon and Kirk picked Michigan State, Puddles put on a poorly-assembled fake Puddles headgear made out of a cardboard box to signify picking his own team. He then presented a wrapped up present to Coach Corso, and to our surprise it contained his own Puddles headgear to keep! Charley the Cat also chose Oregon after going 1-0 last week, so Charley and Corso will remain tied for another week. Enjoy your Saturday, and have a happy football!

Week 2 Headgear courtesy of Gameday Twitter

Week 12 2013: College Gameday review! (signs edition)

Posted on November 16, 2013 by gamedaycole

This week was a fantastic edition of College Gameday. Last week’s was great, even though we missed out on doing a full review last week, so it is a real treat to get two great episodes in a row. Last week had really fantastic content, and this week had the best signs of the year without a doubt. This week’s edition was broadcasting live from the Stanford/USC game in Los Angeles.

Early on, Fowler and the gang welcomed us in and let us know that Corso is 15-0, UNDEFEATED, when he picks USC as a headgear pick. Take note gamblers.

The boys immediately dove into coverage of the Jameis Winston investigation, and I am already tired of this story. The reason I am already tired of this story is that they are reporting more questions than answers. They need to report this story when they have something to report (one way or the other). The most important note of this story so far is that Mark Schlabach, who has taken the lead on it for ESPN from the start, looked tired as hell and appeared to not have slept in a week when he appeared on Gameday this morning. Get some sleep Mark. Desmond Howard immediately came to the rescue of Winston, as he always does when any player is involved in controversy. I’m not saying he’s wrong; I just notice that he is always first in line to defend a player when they are accused of anything. Since I have nothing of significance to contribute to this story (as if I ever do), I am going to move along.

Quick hits for today’s show: Sam Ponder is nowhere to be found. Absent from Gameday; absent from Twitter. Could we be seeing the end of the Sam Ponder era of Gameday? Wildly speculate amongst yourselves. Cowboy Troy was back in the intro last week as well as this week. Let us celebrate this occasion and not forget several gloomy weeks without a rapping cowboy to start our mornings. Also, Georgie Whitfield was nowhere to be found this week. Good.

Tom Rinaldi had a piece called “All Sizes”, highlighting many of the big rivalries between little schools. D2, D3 and so on is full of fun rivalries with crazy trophies, and its always fun to see these kids out there playing in their own rivalries that mean nothing to most of us. The even better part of this was that while I like to poke fun at Rinaldi for his beatnik poetry segments, this segment actually had a nice soft jazz going in the background as he continues to morph into a modern day poet.

Shortly after that, we got our weekly 6-man yelling roundtable segment featuring Paul Finebaum. In response to Rinaldi’s segment on the small rivalries, Paul Finebaum appeared that he did not have time for these shenanigans, and probably believes that anything outside of the SEC shouldn’t even exist. This week we wanted to debate the Heisman favorites. The consensus was that Manziel is the best player in college football, even though there are a few debatable characters. Paul Finebaum thinks AJ McCarron should be getting major consideration. Since you are likely in shock from such a statement from this man, I will give you a minute to catch your breath.

Tom Rinaldi had a piece on the Michigan State defense. They have nicknames and like to have fun and stuff.

Gene W. had a piece this week about the Skov brothers from Stanford. This was this week’s typical mother/player segment which has seemingly become a staple of the show. These are nice segments, but I feel they get repetitive at times.

We saw the return of the Jake Olson segment this week. If you weren’t familiar with Jake Olson, he is the huge USC fan who lost his eyesight to cancer in his early teens. The night before his surgery to remove his last good eye, he spent the entire evening with the USC football team and went to a game for one of the last memories he would ever see. He also appeared on Gameday as a special guest picker. These days, he is a long-snapper for his highschool football team. Since this is the only position which is protected from contact, it is the only position he could play. He obviously was not good at first, but won the job after many long hours of practice. This was a tear-jerker of a piece. However, his football team was on location today, and we were graced with the presence of THIS GUY!!!

Now onto the best part of today’s show. The signs were everywhere. The signs were hilarious. The signs were offensive. This was an all-time great day for Gameday signs. Let’s get right into it.

There was a guy with a sign of Chairman Mao wearing a USC visor. There was “Corso Asks Jeeves”. “Even Lennay Kekua got into Stanford”. “Kiffin owned a Blockbuster”. “David Shaw bowls with bumpers”. “Fire Kiffin”. “Hire Kiffin”. “Sports”. However, these were the best of the day.

Find out who Big Game Brent has on Facebook!

For those wondering where Kiffin is these days.

That final sign rivals the “Crap on me Sam Ponder” sign as the most offensive of the year. The presentation might not be as great, but we still salute this effort.

This week’s guest picker was Chris “THE BEAR” Fallica. He is a long-time Gameday researcher who has become a regular on this year’s show when they need to settle a tough debate. This guy has a reputation as someone who knows what is going on and who can pick games, so it was a real treat to have him on the show today. Also, we’ve had a string of pickers with little to no football input, so it was nice to have someone worthwhile picking games. He picked Stanford over USC. Corso immediately started needling the crowd hyping up Stanford. He picked Stanford to win the national championship. Stanford is favored. On and on. Would he really pull a fast one and pick USC? He donned the USC armor and picked USC this week as he began sword fighting with Kirk Herbstreit. In the process, he busted open his lip and started bleeding. Whoever had Corso injuring himself and drawing blood in this week’s Gameday pool just won big.

Have a happy football.

Week 10 2013: College Gameday review!

Posted on November 2, 2013 by gamedaycole

Can you even believe that this is WEEK 10 of college football? I feel like it was just yesterday that we were kicking off this year wondering CAN VIRGINIA TECH KNOCK OFF ALABAMA IN WEEK ONE? Apparently Alabama held them off. Anyways, today’s edition of College Gameday was broadcasting live in color to your television set from Tallahassee, Florida for the big matchup between Florida State and Miami. Surely I’m in a time machine saying Miami @ Florida State is the biggest game of the year.

This week’s edition opened up with Chris Fowler, Desmond, Herbie and Coach Corso getting us pumped up. Then due to what appeared to be technical difficulties, we did not get the opening Big & Rich music video. Due to this fact, I cannot confirm whether or not they are comin to your citay. Nor can I confirm a little zing in your zang zang, nor any bang in your yin yang and so on.

Early on in the show, we got some GREAT highlights of Lee Corso’s time playing QB and cornerback at Florida State circa 1955. I love watching old timey football. Maybe that is because I think I probably could have played big time football in 1955. Either way, it is always fun to watch the Lee Corso playing highlight reel.

Sam Ponder joined the show again today. I believe her role has been reduced and firmly set into interviewing a coach live on set each week. I much preferred last year’s Gameday itinerary where we had Sam Ponder hosting the opening hour with Pollack and Desmond Howard, before handing it off to the A team. This week she interviewed Jimbo Fisher, and generic coach interview was generic. Speaking of Samantha Ponder, she had what was determined to be the best outfit of the year on today. Jennifer said she loved the necklace/chain thing, that Sam had great hair, that the leather pants were a nice touch and the heels were enjoyable.

Speaking of Jennifer, I would like to officially announce the launching of “GAMEDAY JEN” on Twitter. You should probably follow her @gamedayjen for all of the expert picks, hot sports opinions and sports fashion advice you could want.

While on the topic of sports fashion, what is the deal with QB guru George Whitfield? I’m not going to break down his segment this week, because if you saw his segment a month or two ago, it was the same segment (just substitute Jameis Winston for the name of the week). What I’m wondering about is his fashion choices. He is not an overly large man, but his clothes appear to be tiny on him. His jacket button looked like it was barely holding on by a thread and that the button could shoot off into Chris Fowler’s eye while making an old timey gunshot-ricochet sound at any moment. Also, isn’t it against the rules to wear a pocket square if you are going sans tie with your top three or four buttons unbuttoned on your shirt? I mean, what’s the deal with that? I don’t claim to be a fashion guru (although my sweatpants might disagree), but come on George.

The signs were EVERYWHERE at today’s Gameday, but I was thoroughly disappointed. Quantity does not equal quality. The only real highlights were “The real Miami is in Ohio”, and “I’m drunker than Sunshine Scooter”. This week’s winner is courtesy of Reddit user DeuxBoy.

Now that we have that out of the way, I would like to discuss a new regular feature of Gameday this year. What is the deal with the six man highchair roundtable discussion segment each week? I’m talking about the segment where they get Fowler, Herbie, Corso, Desmond, Pollack and Paul Finebaum all in tall director’s chairs to sit awkwardly and talk over each other for ten minutes. They try to debate things, but it just turns into a blurry mess of Desmond Howard telling us about a great receiver, David Pollack making a separate point about some Georgia’s defense, Herbie letting us know that Ohio State doesn’t have the resume to move up in the rankings, and Paul Finebaum telling us that the ACC or Big 12 is worthless compared to the SEC. It is like watching six separate conversations happening at the same time, and it is quite frustrating. Also, I really feel like Paul Finebaum and Desmond Howard don’t like each other.

During this segment, Chris Fowler offered up the hundred dollar question of the week: Other than NDSU, what other two FCS teams are undefeated? Obviously it is Fordham and Coastal Carolina. WATCH OUT FORDHAM AND COASTAL CAROLINA, SAM HOUSTON STATE IS COMING FOR YOU!

This week saw the return of the “Tom Rinaldi Beatnik Poetry Piece of the Week brought to you by Tom Rinaldi”. This week’s piece was entitled “November”. T.S. Elliot once said that April is the cruelest month. Tom Rinaldi has decided November is the cruelest month. Upsets happen and dreams are shattered. Incredibly deep stuff.

Rinaldi also had a piece on Jameis Winston from FSU. He seems like a genuinely likable kid who likes to have fun. He is a pitcher for FSU as well. He likes to motivate his teammates whether or not he is involved in the action. His best line was “If you can play, then you can lead”. Good stuff.

Gene W. had a piece on Fresno St QB Derek Carr (brother of Houston first round bust David Carr). He was highly recruited coming out of highschool, and then fell into a rough crowd. He liked to do hoodrat stuff with his friends. Then his girlfriend (now wife) wrote him a letter stating that he was not the man she once knew, and he turned his life around. He had a little baby named Dallas, and the baby had some serious intestinal problems requiring three surgeries in the first month. The baby is now recovered, and regularly attends Fresno St games in tiny Derek Carr jerseys. Pretty good little piece of work by Gene W.

Bald Man on Campus returned with SVP and Duke Johnson from Miami. It was overly casual and they talked about his mom requesting nothing more than a win over FSU over Florida this year. I feel like there have been a lot of pieces this year about Player X being raised by his mother alone, and their relationship as the kid becomes a football star. Good stuff, either way.

When it came time to make the picks, Coach Corso looked like he had gotten a chill. He suddenly had on a heavy overcoat and a scarf as they made their picks. Today’s guest picker was country music sensation and incredibly handsome man Jake Owen. He had very little sports perspective to contribute to this segment, and mostly picked based on wherever one of his roadies went to school or some sound engineer he partied with one time. He has FSU ties, so it was no shock that he picked FSU. I thought for sure Coach Corso was going to give us a NOT-SO-FAST and pick a HUGE upset of Miami over FSU. I thought this because he never disappeared to become Chief Corso of the Seminole Nation like he usually does. However, he ripped off the heavy coat and scarf to reveal that he was wearing his 1954 FSU jersey and put on a helmet (sans facemask) to let us know where his heart lies. Billy the cat also picked FSU, so the two remain tied whoever wins tonight. Enjoy your evening folks!