Good morning everyone. You are looking live at the “Cole’s Gameday Blog Road Show” where we take our laptop with us, comandeer the televeision, and annoy our gracious hosts with Gameday coverage all day. Picks are coming in, and we will be grinding through them all morning. If we can hear all of the picks over the cowbell noise in Starkville, we will have all of your usual favorites including the Gameday boys, our secret guest picker, Dari & Mel, the Tim Tebow Experience, Corso’s headgear pick and much, much more.
Lee Corso:
Mizzou over Georgia
TAMU over Ole Miss
Penn St over Michigan
Baylor over TCU
Yale over Dartmouth
UCLA over Oregon
Arizona over USC
Washington over Cal
Florida over LSU
Alabama over Arkansas
OU over Texas
Miss St over Auburn (headgear pick)
Kirk Herbstreit:
Alabama over Arkansas
Clemson over Louisville
Florida over LSU
Mizzou over Georgia
Penn St over Michigan
Baylor over TCU
Yale over Dartmouth
UCLA over Oregon
Arizona over USC
Washington over Cal
Arizona over USC
OU over Texas
Auburn over Miss St
Desmond Howard:
TAMU over Ole Miss
Alabama over Arkansas
LSU over Florida
Mizzou over Georgia
TCU over Baylor
Yale over Dartmouth
Arizona over USC
Washington over Cal
UCLA over Oregon
OU over Texas
Miss St over Auburn
Jonathan Papelbon:
Georgia over Mizzou
LSU over Florida
Alabama over Arkansas
TAMU over Ole Miss
UCLA over Oregon
Arizona over USC
OU over Texas
TCU over Baylor
Miss St over Auburn
Jennifer’s Picks:
Arizona over USC
Washington over Cal
Alabama over Arkansas
Clemson over Louisville
Mizzou over Georgia
Penn St. over Michigan
Florida over LSU
Ole Miss over TAMU
UCLA over Oregon
OU over Texas
Baylor over TCU
Miss St over Auburn (upset special)
David Pollack:
FSU over Syracuse
Alabama over Arkansas
Clemson over Louisville
Florida over LSU
Miss St over Auburn
Dari Nowkhah:
Miss St over Auburn
Ole Miss over Texas
Oregon over UCLA
TCU over Baylor
Mel Kiper Jr.:
Miss St over Auburn
TAMU over Ole Miss
Oregon over UCLA
Baylor over TCU
Greg McElroy:
Miss St over Auburn
Ole Miss over TAMU
Oregon over UCLA
Baylor over TCU
Tim Tebow:
Florida over LSU
Mizzou over Georgia
Alabama over Arkansas
Ole Miss over TAMU
Miss St over Auburn
Marcus Spears:
LSU over Florida
Mizzou over Georgia
Alabama over Arkansas
Ole Miss over TAMU
Miss St over Auburn
Paul Finebaum:
Florida over LSU
Mizzou over Georgia
Alabama over Arkansas
TAMU over Ole Miss
Miss St over Auburn
Chris Fowler:
Yale over Darthmouth
Brett McMurphy:
Mich St over Purdue
OU over Texas
Wisconsin over Illinois
Miami Fl over Cinci
Iowa St over Toledo
Kevin Carter:
Ole Miss over TAMU
Miss St over Auburn
TCU over Baylor
OU over Texas
Penn St over Michigan
Clemson over Louisville
Mizzou over Georgia
LSU over Florida
Oregon over UCLA
Arizona over USC
Phil Steele:
Stanford over Wash St
NW over Minnesota
Marshall over MTSU
Georgia over Mizzou 27-24
Ole Miss over TAMU 34-31
Auburn over Miss St 34-27
Ole Miss over TAMU 34-31
Baylor over TCU 34-31
UCLA over Oregon 37-34
FSU over Syracuse 38-10
Arizona over USC 31-28
Alabama over Arkansas 37-20 (best bet of the week)
UTSA over FIU 27-10
Utah St over AF 27-24
Florida over LSU 23-20
Iowa over Indiana 28-23
Kentucky over ULM 35-10
OU over Texas 30-13
I have always found it strange that of all the places College Gameday has visited throughout the years, they never managed to make it to The Grove in Oxford, Mississippi. Surely if someone had asked you (and you aren’t an Ole Miss follower) you would have guessed that they would have visited what some have called the Holy Grail of tailgating sites at SOME point in 2+ decades, but for some reason it never happened. Until today.
The show today was broadcasting live from the Grove, for the big matchup between Ole Miss and Alabama. As the show opened, we viewed shots of various tailgating scenes in the Grove, and we saw what I would describe as many large bottles of wine, champagne, beer, and various cocktails which make up the breakfast of any champions. The Gameday crew opened up the show looking incredibly sharp this morning, sporting nice southern suits and bow-ties. While they were all looking sharp, I thought we could expect a much stronger performance from Desmond’s suit game this morning.
Courtesy @CollegeGameday on Twitter
While we are on the talk of fashion, let’s go straight to the “Sam Ponder Outfit Review of the Week featuring @GamedayJen”. Jennifer said “The jacket is nice, the skirt is bright and eye catching, the shoes (not pictured) went well with it, and her hair always looks good”. I think Sam Ponder may have a secret admirer.
Sam Ponder, Week 6
The sign game this week was pretty good. Signs of note included one of Kirk Herbstreit’s face pasted on Colonel Reb (which I couldn’t get a clear shot of), “Welcome to the Grove. Please don’t poison our trees”, “Welcome people of Wal-Mart”, “If you can read this sign you’er clearly not a Bama fan”, but we had several winners this week.
This will haunt your dreams#RollTideDressed up to get messed up
After a commercial break, we were brought back to a Tom Rinaldi piece on Dak Prescott, Mississippi State QB, and how his tough upbringing has taught him to have a true work ethic. His mother Peggy was a single mother raising three young boys, and she taught them to work hard in life not through words but through actions as she worked so hard to support her children. Even with her work schedule of so many hours to keep food on the table, she never missed one of their football games. Dan Mullen told the story of his recruiting trip to see Dak, and how Peggy was very tough and demanding, but in a nice way. She told him that if Dak comes to Mississippi State, that she wants a coach who is going to make sure her son goes to class every day and gets good grades above anything else. Soon after deciding on Mississippi State, Peggy was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer, and fought through a harsh battle hoping for a miracle. However, last November, Dak was called into the coaches’ office after a loss to South Carolina and told that his mother had passed away. After sitting out for a month with a hurt shoulder, his return saw him lead the Bulldogs to a victory over Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl. Inspiring stuff from Tom Rinaldi as usual.
In today’s overly casual roundtable segment (where they leave the desk and go sit in chairs ten feet away to discuss more football), Chris Fowler started off firing shots at Desmond and his love of Michigan. Fowler was holding a classy red solo cup having a drink, and told Desmond to take it because “you’ll need it… we’re talking Michigan”. The guys debated the Michigan situation with Brady Hoke, and more opinions were heard, but the highlight was Desmond staying true to his Michigan blood and being an apologist for Brady Hoke.
Gene W. had a piece on Ameer Abdullah. The gist of this segment was that Abdullah listens to John Mayer, he is small, he is good (Cris Carter said the most NFL-ready player since Randy Moss), and he is going to finish his degree in December. Good kid.
This week instead of a Tom Rinaldi Beatnik Poetry piece, we had the story of ESPN writer Wright Thompson and his family’s Ole Miss season tickets entitled “Section O, row 61”. He still holds the season tickets for the seats his father purchased some 40 years ago after painstaking research in the stadium to find the ultimate location. Lots of cool old footage from SEC games of the past.
Tom Rinaldi was back again later with a piece on Amari Cooper, who grew up in poverty in Coconut Grove, Florida. He was the son of a single mother with four brothers, and they were raised with a strong work ethic which drove him to the heights he has seen this year. Surely I’m not the only one who saw parallels to his earlier piece on Dak Prescott, as well as countless previous pieces about student athlete X overcoming poverty to become a star.
Other random thoughts and notes from today’s edition included a Cooper Manning sighting on the Grove, footage of Hugh Freeze dancing with his players, and today’s chef of the day, John Currence.
Chef John Currence
One other item I’d like everyone to keep an eye on is the continued momentum gains we are seeing from Tom Rinaldi. He no longer just does Beatnik Poetry and an occasional tear jerking segment. Now he is doing multiple segments, interviewing coaches, and taking us to and from commercial breaks occasionally. I have no real evidence to support this theory, but I think we may be seeing Tom Rinaldi being primed to fill Chris Fowler’s spot someday if Fowler ever decides to retire from his duties to focus on his duties as the new Brent Musberger, or covering big time tennis tournaments. Just keep an eye on this and we may revisit this in a few years.
Today’s show was a very football-centric show with so many great games on the schedule. There was no Babi-Mac, no George Whitfield filling a generic segment, no Bald Man on Campus, and surprisingly no Jameis Winston arrest stories this week. There was a brief discussion of the “SEC Swoop”, or as some prefer to call it, “Bama Bangs, as well as the fashion of today’s pageantry in the Grove. If you are unfamiliar with the SEC Swoop or Bama Bangs, it is basically the Justin Bieber starter kit you see below.
Bama Bangs/SEC Swoop
Now, I am certainly one who supports goofy tailgating attire to show your school spirit and celebrate the day, but being a man with little-to-no fashion sense, I have to speak up about the over-use of boat shoes in such a setting. I have three questions I would ask myself before wearing boat shoes out anywhere (if I owned any): Are you on a boat? Are you about to be on a boat? Were you just on a boat? If the answer is no to all three questions, let’s ease up on the boat shoes guys.
Boat shoes galore
Alright enough fashion advice from someone with no fashion sense. Let’s get down to the business at hand, which is the picks. The boys on the show were once again going rapid fire with the picks today, which is incredibly exciting if you like hearing picks or if you run a blog dedicated to tracking picks. In “TODAY’S MICHIGAN PICK OF THE DAY FEATURING DESMOND HOWARD”, we saw Desmond Howard once again pick Michigan to overcome that 3 point spread against Rutgers, and go into New Jersey today to pick up a big(?) win over Rutgers. After last week’s pick, he is now 12-13 all time picking Michigan. I guess you have to keep taking shots at this point if you’re Desmond Howard. Anyways, this week’s special guest celebrity picker was Katy Perry, who is apparently a HUGE Ole Miss fan despite not going there and never having been to a college football game in her life as well as having no real connections to the school. She was escorted to the desk by roughly 20 state troopers, bringing Hot Toddys for the Gameday boys at the desk while wearing what can only be described as a chicken feather pink/purple football jersey. She proceeded to drunkenly pick games, ask if TCU/OU was “the game with the Cocks”, produce an oversized novelty pencil to point in Lee Corso’s face, throw corn dogs at the camera to indicate she likes Auburn over LSU, and pick Ole Miss to win today. She was asked if she was in talks to perform at the Superbowl, to which she replied that she may be in talks, but would never pay the NFL for that opportunity, so “the ball is in their field now”. Alright then. Desmond and Kirk both picked Alabama, as well as David Pollack. Charley the Cat went with the upset of Ole Miss over Alabama. Lee Corso’s big headgear pick saw him choose Alabama over Ole Miss, as he donned the elephant headgear. We closed the show as drunk Katy Perry pulled it off his head and threw it on the ground before throwing more corn dogs at the camera. A truly cringe-worthy guest picker. Enjoy your day and have a happy football!
Gameday in the GroveCharley picks Ole MissCorn Dogs!Corso picks Bama!
Well it looks like the show is over, the picks are entered into the official record, so it must be time to review our morning on College Gameday. The show was broadcasting live from the Columbia, South Carolina for the big-ish matchup between the Missouri Tigers and the South Carolina Gamecocks. In case you didn’t hear, Kenny Chesney will be joining the show today to pick games and perform live! There was a wild crowd out today, as is the case in most SEC matchups when Gameday is in town. The sign game was a little bit weak today, but let’s dive right in. Highlights from today’s sign game included “Gary Pinkel types in comic sans”, “Maddy Mauk? Never heard of her”, “Mizzou, Hoosier Daddy?”, “Maty Mauk wears crocks with socks” (also a possible Dr. Seuss title), “Maty Mauk thinks mayonnaise is an instrument”, and the incredibly confusing “Even a bad day in the SEC is better than a good day in Mizzou”. However, this week’s winner comes courtesy of Reddit user yracuse_ and is presented without comment.
Week 5 sign of the day
After the normal crew of Lee Corso, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard opened the show, Corso was replaced by David Pollack for the rest of the first hour. We normally get 1 or 2 picks from David Pollack and the other boys during this first hour, but they were going rapid-fire this morning and Pollack managed to get in 8 picks during the first hour. Impressive stuff. Samantha Ponder briefly joined the show to hang out with noted quarterback guru and champion of questionable outfits George Whitfield. They talked about Kenny Hill and his mechanics and vision from the pocket. In other words, the same as most other weeks. This brings us to FASHION REVIEWS with @GamedayJen. The Samantha Ponder outfit of the week is presented below. Jennifer said she loved the leopard print shirt on Ponder, but that the pants looked like leather sweatpants. I don’t know how to describe them any better. This week’s “Georgie Whitfield Mismatched Outfit of the Week” was reviewed by Jennifer as well. She said George “looks like he wants to be a hipster so bad, but he isn’t cool enough to pull it off”. Other comments from Jennifer on his outfit include “Why?” and “Don’t do it again”.
Sam Ponder and George Whitfield, Week 5
Speaking of which, did you hear Kenny Chesney is going to join us later in the show to perform live and make picks?
Gene W. had a piece on the Yale Bowl, as it turns 100 years old this year. Today’s matchup features Yale vs. Army, which is Yale’s first FBS opponent since the 90s. Did you know that the Yale/Army matchup today features two schools accounting for 24 national championships? This rivalry started in 1893 and ended in 1996, but it is back today. Kirk, Desmond, and David all picked Army over Yale in this one. Good segment with lots of vintage football clips featuring leather helments and gigantic hip pads. As the show moved along, we featured today’s Chef of the Day, John Hair from Jim ‘n Nicks BBQ. He was roasting a whole hog, and was very proud of his hog’s head.
Chef John Hair, BBQ guy
Quickly following this piece was another Gene W. piece about the current dumpster fire known as the Michigan Wolverines football program. He highlighted the fact that visiting opponents now come into the Big House and mock Desmond Howard’s famous Heisman pose after scoring. Hard hitting questions were asked such as “IS BRADY HOKE THE RIGHT MAN FOR THIS JOB?” and “HOW HOT IS BRADY HOKE’S SEAT?” My memory may be fuzzy, but I seem to recall Lloyd Carr being run out of town like a common pygmy after going 11-2 and 9-4, only to be followed by Rich Rodriguez who was run out of town for not being enough of a “Michigan Man”. I also seem to recall the rejoicing in Ann Arbor following Brady Hoke’s hiring as if humanity had achieved world piece because WE FINALLY HIRED A REAL MICHIGAN MAN!!! Oh well, I hope you enjoy whoever coaches you to a 4 win season next year. Also, in case you missed it, this week’s “Desmond Howard Michigan Pick of the Week” featured Desmond Howard picking Michigan over Minnesota by 2 touchdowns. I wish somebody ran a blog where we could track Desmond Howard’s all time record picking Michigan in games *cough* 12-12 all time *cough*.
I’d like to take a moment to remind you that Kenny Chesney will be joining us later in the show to perform live and join us for picks.
Perhaps the best segment of the day was the story of SEC Coach Wives. This highlighted the contributions and lifestyles of various SEC coaches’ wives and how they interact and contribute to their respective programs. Fun notes from this segment include stories of Steve Spurrier’s wife being one of the only people who went to their husband’s Heisman ceremony, Saban’s wife saying she was glad she married him at 19 because she never had to know what a normal life was like, and Les Miles meeting his wife when they were both assistant coaches in the athletic department at Michigan. Dan Mullen’s wife is known as “Mama Mullen” and she likes to go to practice to motivate the players when they are down. Mark Richt’s wife enjoys mixing the team’s Powerade before games because they need to get it just right for that day. Nick Saban made a funny, telling us of how he asked his wife “Did you ever think in your wildest dreams we would win 3 national championships?”, to which she replied “Honey, you’re not even in my wildest dreams”. Gus Malzahn’s wife told the story of how she watches all games from the privacy of her own room at the stadium. After hearing her screaming at the top of her lungs, I can’t imagine why she “chose” to enjoy the games in the privacy of her own room. She also told the story of how every Saturday night, if the team wins, she takes Gus to Waffle House for date night. If anyone wants to get a Kickstarter campaign going to launch “Real Housewives of the SEC”, let me know, because this needs to exist. The absolute best comment of this segment came from LSU head coach and noted wordsmith Les Miles, who said his wife is the “assistant coach, recruiting coordinator, and all around valued opinion”. I would like to go on the record right now that I consider my wife Jennifer to be an all around valued opinion as well.
Stay tuned, because Kenny Chesney will be joining us later in the show to perform live and make picks with us!
We were also riveted to see the return of “Beatnik Poetry featuring Tom Rinaldi”. This week’s piece was entitled “Underway”, and had such philosophical one-liners as “Steele… bronze… gold… here’s the prize [picture of the championship trophy]… now here’s the pain [insert video of teams losing]”. He said some more stuff, and then let us know that the season is “Underway”.
Tom Rinaldi performing live
This week’s overly casual roundtable segment (where they leave the desk to go sit in high chairs ten feet away and talk) featured the Gameday boys reviewing their preseason predictions. They each had a mulligan and were asked how they would change their picks today. The highlight was Corso boldly proclaiming he wouldn’t change a single thing in his predictions. Then the guys all talked over each other for a while.
Don’t go anywhere, because coming up later in the show Kenny Chesney will be joining us to perform live and make picks!
Tom Rinaldi had another segment featuring Mack Brown’s brother Watson Brown, who is head coach at Tennessee Tech. He is sitting at a 128-199 record, and is nearing the all-time loss record. However, he has accomplished a few good things in his time, such as building UAB from an FCS team to the FBS level, beating LSU at UAB, and never having a single NCAA infraction in his 30 years as a coach. I guess its like they say, if you’re not cheating in this sport then you’re not winning. Also, Tom Rinaldi was wearing these shoes today.
Tom Rinaldi’s shoes
Let’s move on. Coming up shortly, Kenny Chesney will be joining us to perform live and make picks. Now, this week’s “Chris Fowler Hundred Dollar Question”: What FBS team has lost a fumble on each of its opening series in its last three games? The Gameday crew took this opportunity to kick the directional Michigan schools in the crotch, picking Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, and Western Michigan. However, the answer was UConn, and the hundred dollar bill remains unclaimed.
At this point something happened which you probably weren’t expecting today: Kenny Chesney joined the show to perform live to promote his new album or something!
Now that the Kenny Chesney concert is over, let’s get down to the real business at hand. It is time to make some picks. David Pollack got it started early, picking Mizzou over South Carolina. Kirk agreed, and went with Mizzou. Desmond picked South Carolina. Kenny Chesney was this week’s guest picker (I wish ESPN had hyped this up a little bit more), the only three-time-picker in the history of College Gameday guests. He picked South Carolina over Mizzou as well. Lee Corso poked and prodded the crowd, replaying footage from Gameday ten years ago when he boldly proclaimed Steve Spurrier would NEVER win a national championship at South Carolina! This sent the crowd into a tizzy, but ultimately Corso said they are still good enough to win the game today, as he popped on the Gamecock’s headgear and held up a live chicken. The live chicken marks this season’s first appearance of the “Kirk Herbstreit Subtle Fear of Live Animals” where he leans away cautiously every time a live animal is brought on set. Around the house here, Charley the Cat picked South Carolina as well, so Coach Corso will hold his one game lead over Charley on the year regardless of who wins. Enjoy your day and everyone have a happy football!
Week 5 Headgear Pick!Charley picks South Carolina!