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Week 5 2012: Gameday Review!

Posted on September 29, 2012 by gamedaycole

Well ladies and gents, it was a long, long day around here due to the fact that my work decided that I needed to be there most of today. Apparently that’s where I get money to pay bills or something, so I couldn’t really argue. As I stated earlier, we were camped out at Jennifer’s house overnight, and we got up early to watch the ESPNU hour of Gameday, along with as much as I could see on the main show before I had to be at work. She was awesome enough to not only DVR Gameday for me, but she watched it twice for me: once to make her own picks this morning, and once when I got home tonight. She also had homemade chile relleños ready for dinner when I walked in the door (and she got the recipe from a real Mexican, so you know its good!). How did I get this lucky? I’m not sure, but I’ll take it.

Anyways, now that I have viewed all of Gameday and had a chance to digest everything, let’s dive right in. We were broadcasting live from East Lansing, Michigan for the matchup between Ohio State and Michigan State. Samantha Steele apparently met her new boyfriend there this week, so sorry to all of you who are reading this and thought you had a shot. He’s a good listener, but not much of a talker apparently.

samanthasteeleboyfriend — Samantha Steele’s new boyfriend

There was a very lively crowd gathered this morning to celebrate Gameday’s broadcast, and they were especially happy to see Michigan Wolverine Desmond Howard grace everyone with his presence. And if you couldn’t tell, that was sarcasm, as it poured boos every time he started talking. What do you expect when your two most hated rivals are playing at each other, and you’re supposed to chime in with your unbiased opinion? On a related note, the sign of the day was inspired by the Heisman winner, and had his face plastered on it.

signcloseup2 — Desmond Howard’s worst nightmare: Sparty vs Buckeye

As things continued, we got the usual Chris Fowler open before Samantha Steele took over hosting with Pollack and Howard breaking things down for us. Anyone who is a regular to College Gameday will surely know Chris Fowler’s $100 challenge, where he poses some obscure college football trivia question nobody will ever know an answer to, and if they get it right he will give them the hundred dollar bill. Today, Samantha Steele started her own version; the $20 challenge. I don’t remember the question or the answer, but this will certainly be an entertaining segment in the future.

20dollarquestion2 — $20 Challenge: Keep practicing

Speaking of Samantha Steele, Jennifer was torn on her outfit today, as was I. She had on a pink jacket with a green and red scarf, along with some black pants and boots. This marks her first appearance without the wedge heels. Jennifer didn’t think the scarf matched the jacket, and as she put it, she liked the outfit from the chest up and waist down, but not the torso. I’m not quite the fashion critic she is, so I’ll leave it to Jennifer.

We got a replay of some Mike Gundy video they have played all this week on ESPN about their weekly prep. We got some early picks from David and Desmond, including lots of boos when they both picked Ohio State over Sparty. A nice “Ohio sucks” chant broke out. Tough crowd. We also got David Pollack’s third consecutive pick of Oregon State. As he put it, he is “riding the Beaver train”. There were many more immature snickers referencing our Gameday crew’s love of the Beavers. Grow up guys.

As the main show on ESPN kicked off with Fowler, Corso, Herbie and Howard, they sent David Pollack to use the internet. This week he was tweeting live from an ice-cream shop, where he was having some mint chocolate chip with Sparty.

pollackinternet2 — David Pollack: Internet User

We got a nice Chris Fowler interview with Brian Kelly that I mostly slept through. Sorry Notre Dame fans, but Brian Kelly is quite generic. Perfect for Notre Dame. At least he’s doing things better than Charlie Weiss. We had the Gameday crew breaking down the hideous Nebraska and Wisconsin uniforms for tonight. Why can’t teams with classic looks just leave them alone? There was a segment by Gene Wojciechowski about the fall of the Arkansas Razorbacks. The gist was that Bobby Petrino not only screwed himself, but screwed the entire football team (as you can now see). Also, John L. Smith is crazy.

This week’s Tebow Memorial Segment was about De’anthony Thomas from Oregon, who grew up in the hood in LA. After a rough upbringing, he became well known playing in Snoop Dogg’s youth football league, and was such a standout that Snoop himself gave him the nickname Black Mamba, after the snake. Snoop himself had a nice quote about Thomas: “He is like Thomas Edison”. I don’t get it, but sounds good.

We also got a brief Tom Rinaldi segment about the suffering Big 10, highlighting their struggles against… well anyone outside of conference. We got a FULL Tom Rinaldi quiet talking segment about Braxton Miller at Ohio State. Apparently he’s pretty good or something. My biggest takeaway was that Braxton Miller has a gigantic ass, and Urban Meyer likes to let him know this. I didn’t know Urban Meyer was funny.

But enough jokes from Urban Meyer, its time to get down to the business we all came here for. Picks. Lots of them. I’m sure you’ve been waiting anxiously to know who the guest celebrity picker was. Well I’m sure you’ll be as impressed as this Michigan State/Ohio State crowd to learn that there was no celebrity guest. Instead, we got an extra dose of Desmond Howard! Before we get down to headgear picks, let the official record show that Chris Fowler issued a TRIPLE NOT-SO-FAST and called for the Oklahoma State upset over Texas. Heading into this headgear selection, Coach Corso is 10-3 all time picking games in the state of Michigan. What does this mean in the statistical sense? Nothing really, but go with it. He looked back fondly at how his first every headgear pick was putting on the Buckeye headgear 16 years ago. But that was just to fake the crowd out. He reminded us he picked Sparty to go to the Rose Bowl this year! DOUBLE FAKE! He went with the Buckeyes for his official headgear pick, and after all that poking and prodding, the crowd reacted with a nice chant of “Asshole!” as the games kicked off this morning.

week5headgear2 — Awkward wave! Go Buckeyes!

Week 1 2012: College Gameday review

Posted on September 1, 2012 by gamedaycole

It was a great morning to start off the season if you’re a fan of College Gameday, but then again what Saturday morning during college football season isn’t a great morning? While monitoring the Notre Dame/Navy game on the bottom TV, we had College Gameday in full force on the main screen here at the Gameday Blog. We kicked things off this morning live from the Death Star AKA Jerryworld AKA Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Tx. This week’s location is a neutral site for the big game of the week; Alabama vs Michigan. This week on the Richie and Greggo Extravaganza on 105.3 the FAN here in Dallas, Jerry Jones was interviewed and had an interesting note. He said this game has been the hardest event to get tickets to of any event ever hosted at Cowboys Stadium. Yes, that includes the Superbowl. Apparently rabid college football fans who traveled thousands of miles to get here are not interested in giving up their tickets no matter the price offered. Lucky for those of you still wanting to get into this game, you can get standing only-obstructed view tickets for just $89 a pop at Living Social.

To start things off, we have a couple of new faces joining the Gameday crew this year. Pictured above is Samantha Steele, who is replacing Erin Andrews. Erin left ESPN for Fox Sports after ESPN/ABC realized what THIS video declared years ago: Erin Andrews is overrated. Although Samantha seemed pretty nervous this morning (I’m not sure she knew what to expect), I think this is an upgrade for sure. I always got the feeling that Erin Andrews wished College Gameday was really the Erin Andrews Show, and there wasn’t enough room for her ego. Look, I’m not saying that women on College Gameday should know their place. I’m just saying women on College Gameday should know their place. Oh, they also added the great Scott Van Pelt to the broadcast for his segment “Bald Man on Campus”. He isn’t quite as good looking as Samantha Steele, so no picture will be provided. Van Pelt fit in great with the existing crew and I look forward to his work this season.

We must next discuss what will surely be a regular feature this season on this blog. Desmond Howard’s suit of the week. If you got up early for the 8AM Central ESPNU hour of College Gameday, you would have noticed that Desmond Howard was wearing a normal dark suit. Nothing flashy, and quite disappointing. Somehow between 8:59 and 9:00AM CST Desmond Howard managed to COMPLETELY change his suit to a BALLER pure white suit. I don’t know if he had the white suit on underneath the black suit, or if he ducked into a phone booth Superman style, but it defies explanation. What a way to celebrate the kickoff of this season, and we look forward to reviewing his threads every week.

pollackinternet — HA HA I’M USING THE INTERNET!!1

We also learned today that David Pollack knows how to use the internet (pictured above). Just kidding David. I follow you on Twitter, and you Tweet right around 500 times a day so I know you know the internet. Nonetheless, I enjoy this picture very much. He will be back with us all season as part of their B-team on College Gameday (if Corso, Herbstreit, and Fowler are the A-team). Check back every week to see who David Pollack thinks Georgia will beat!

This week’s emotional piece of the week (EPOTW) was a segment about Urban Meyer’s return to the game, and his emotional commitment to his family. The segment highlighted Urban’s rise at Florida to two-time national champion, and his downfall that sent him to the hospital when he had a health breakdown after the SEC championship where he lost to Bama. He retired soon after to regain his health and spend time with his family like he had missed out on in recent years. When he decided to make a comeback, his daughter made him sign a contract with her including ten rules.

1. My family will always come first.

2. I will take care of myself and maintain good health.

3. I will go on a trip once a year with Nicki — MINIMUM.

4. I will not go more than nine hours a day at the office.

5. I will sleep with my cellphone on silent.

6. I will continue to communicate daily with my kids.

7. I will trust God’s plan and not be overanxious.

8. I will keep the lake house.

9. I will find a way to watch Nicki and Gigi play volleyball.

10. I will eat three meals a day.

Not knowing Urban Meyer personally, some of these seem like common sense, some of them seem like good ideas, and some of them seem like things he would have a difficult time keeping up with during the season. Even if you like to hate on Urban Meyer like I do, you have to respect the effort and wish him luck.

Also note that the Emotional Piece of the Week is also known as the Tim Tebow Memorial Piece of the Week. If you watched Gameday like I did while Tebow was at Florida, you would remember that virtually every week we had some emotional/inspirational piece about Tim Tebow ministering to at-risk-youths, preaching to prison inmates, saving abandoned kitties from the rain, volunteering at soup kitchens, rehabilitating bald eagles injured by poachers and performing circumcisions at churches in Africa. We’ll be reviewing these sometimes inspirational, sometimes cheesy, stories every week with a few highlights.

Now down to the business at hand. This week’s celebrity guest picker was Jerry Jones. Being from Dallas, I REALLY enjoyed this, because people in Dallas know Jerry Jones is surely slipping slowly into insanity. Just like expected, he talked in circles, was overly excited about everything, and went on WAY too long about some points (Fowler had to cut him off breaking down the Virginia Tech/Georgia Tech game). Just as expected, Arkansas homer Jerry Jones said Arkansas could take on Bama in a few weeks, but he picked Bama to win tonight’s big game. And for the grand finale, Lee Corso donned the Alabama headgear after taunting the crowd with the Michigan fight song.