tom rinaldi – Page 5 – Cole's Gameday Blog

Week 1 2013: Gameday review!

Posted on August 31, 2013 by gamedaycole

It is a glorious time to be alive when College Gameday returns to Saturday mornings. The guys were broadcasting live from the site of today’s matchup where we will see #5 Georgia visiting at #8 Clemson. Today’s episode was special for two reasons: they started the real show an hour early (as opposed to last year on ESPNU with the B-team), and they went an extra hour today for a total of FOUR hours of coverage. This was amazing, since we were able to touch all of the bases with all of their regular contributors. They opened the show with Chris Fowler taking a quick moment to remember the great Beano Cook, who passed away last season.

The crowd today had some good signs, and the competition for sign of the day included such classics as “Murray has a mangina”, “I’m tied with Clowney for sacks this year”, and “I bought this sign from Manziel”. But today’s sign of the day was undisputed, and we saw it VERY briefly during the first two or three minutes of the show. I present it below without comment or attempting to explain it:

As they began analyzing today’s action, Desmond Howard was discussing today’s matchup between LSU and TCU in Arlington, Tx at the Cowboys’ Classic. He mentioned several times today that he had questions about how well TCU would function at QB after Casey Pachall “took some time off last year to get his head right”. As someone who happens to live in the DFW area, I can accurately translate that as “was kicked off the team for drug use and forced into rehab”.

The guys were joined early in the show by David Pollack who would be answering your questions on Twitter, as we saw the return of everyone’s favorite segment, DAVID POLLACK USING THE INTERNET!!!! He tweeted a couple weeks ago a nasty photo of his ankle which he severely injured, so to celebrate it he had his feet kicked up with shoes off on their dining table in the Gameday bus. I’m sure the guys all appreciated that. Lee Corso attempted to remind the Clemson crowd that Pollack played at Georgia, but they seemed confused and instead of booing him they cheered him. Maybe they were partaking in the pregame libations a tad early. David Pollack also let us know that of all the new coaches in the FBS, Gus Malzahn of Auburn would have the most success. Maybe its because he was the brains of the operation during their championship run to begin with. We will see I guess.

As our main crew started discussing the individual games today, Herbie came out of nowhere with MONSTER upset picks today, calling for 3-touchdown-underdog Toledo to beat Florida IN THE SWAMP, and UL-Lafayette to take down Arkansas . Maybe he had been partaking in the drinks with the Clemson crowd early this morning as well. He also came out with a huge prediction by saying UL-Monroe would HANG AROUND against Oklahoma, so OU BETTER CIRCLE THE WAGONS! HOT SPORTS OPINION!

Soon after, the gang was joined by Samantha (Steele) Ponder. She had a nice blue dress on with a pink belt and a necklace that appeared to be made out of chain-links. Jennifer gave it two thumbs up saying the colors were great, the belt was great, and the necklace was the highlight of it all. We will let you, the reader decide.

Other random segments included Dabo Swinney running an indoor practice this week, where he was playing Tina Turner over the loud speakers and his players had no idea who it was. Their guesses included Journey and KISS. Kids these days. Paul Finebaum came on to troll everyone outside the SEC, and also gave an unsolicited opinion that Gene Chizik is the worst coach to ever win a national championship.

We got two pieces of beatnik poetry from Tom Rinaldi today. The first, entitled “Huddle”, was basically Tom Rinaldi narrating a slow motion huddle. The players circle up. They look to their leader. The play is called. They join hands. They raise their voices. They yell break. The play begins. Fascinating. His second piece was entitled “Howard’s Rock” and after plastering his name on the screen for 15 of his 30 seconds, he glorified the tradition of Howard’s Rock.

Gene Wojciechowski had a great piece on Brad “Spider” Caldwell, who has been the Penn State equipment manager for the last 30 years or so. He is the longest tenured member of the program after the downfall of Joe Paterno. Spider met with Bill O’brien upon his hire, and was immediately seen as having a unique relationship with the players, as the upper classmen all had one question when O’brien took over: Are you keeping Spider? What is more fascinating is that Mr. Spider was born with a deformity which gave him a spine curvature of 54 degrees, and he is missing half of a shoulder blade and several ribs. He still owns the shoes that Joe Paterno was wearing when he busted ass in the 1986 national championship game. His wife sews the names on the back of each jersey by hand. Pretty cool segment. After the segment, Corso predicted another 8 win season for the Nittany Lions.

As they segued into TAMU/Johnny Manziel talk, Chris Fowler said today’s game against Rice should be an easy win, and next week’s game against Sam Houston State should be a “virtual scrimmage”. YOU HAVE MADE A POWERFUL ENEMY TODAY FOWLER! THAT IS THE FCS RUNNER UP THE LAST TWO YEARS YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT! EAT EM UP KATS! Anyways, the boys all agreed that Johnny Manziel and TAMU did a great job of sweeping this under the rug, and that the NCAA looks completely foolish after this scandal. Agreed. Corso also thinks no kid should ever be paid for an autograph until their eligibility is gone. I agree, but this is another rant for another day.

The gang then took a minute to discuss AJ McCarron’s toe. He had surgery this week to remove an ingrown toenail, and should be fine for today’s game even after wearing a walking boot this week. Jennifer found this suspicious, and declared that SOMETHING ELSE IS GOING ON WITH MCCARRON’S TOE! *Insert ominous tone*

Bald Man on Campus returned with Scott Van Pelt. It was a really funny segment that started off with SVP pumping up the crowd by yelling “DO YOU BELIEVE IN CLEMSON?” before declaring that he does not believe in Clemson. His video clip started with him sitting on a dock at a lake at sunset pondering his beliefs in life while reading Clemson media guides. He was seeking a sign to believe in Clemson. After going around town and seeing signs pointing towards Clemson all over (Frosted Flake’s w/ Tony the Tiger, a Clemson glee club singing the school song wherever he went, and so on) he interviewed Tajh Boyd and Sammy Watkins and they convinced him that Clemson is a team to believe in this year. Good segment.

There was another really cool segment today about George Whitfield, the QB guru to the stars. He has worked with almost 30 FBS QBs this year alone including Tajh Boyd, AJ McCarron, and Johnny Manziel, as well as names from the past such as Cam Newton and Ben Roethlisberger. He takes a unique approach by including unusual drills in teaching mobility and conditioning in addition to working on mechanics. He has his students go to the beach where he has them do QB drills in sand and in the ocean water to master moving on uneven and rough surfaces. He chases them with brooms and tennis rackets to try and block their passes. He has them dodge beanbags he throws at them. He says that you must go outside of your own industry to find ways to expand the players’ skillsets in these unique ways, which is how his students are so successful. He may charge big bucks for the pros, but its only a hundred bucks an hour for student athletes to work with him. That’s still pretty pricey for some of us, but pretty cool that he makes himself affordable to student athletes.

The last major segment was a Tom Rinaldi special (AKA the Tim Tebow memorial feelgood story of the week). He told the story of how AJ McCarron met a young girl named Starla Chapman, and the bond they share. McCarron was in a waverunner accident when he was young, and suffered severe head trauma. His parents were told he would likely not survive, and if he did he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. He survived after many surgeries, recovered, and turned into the studly Alabama QB we all now know. In December 2011, in the same hospital, he met Starla who was diagnosed with AML at age 3. She gave him a “Just Trust” bracelet, which he wore during the championship game against LSU that year, and he continues to wear it to this day during games. Starla went into cardiac arrest 6 days before that championship game, and her family watched from the hospital while doctors said she would likely not make it. She however made a full recovery and has been cancer free for two years, and AJ has recently agreed to be her godfather. Great story and a good segment.

But let’s get down to business. You came here for picks, and they made some picks. Today’s special guest picker was Eric Stonestreet from Modern Family, who we have seen before. Eric’s previous appearance as a guest picker in 2011 didn’t go too well, as he ended up 2-7 on the week. Good luck Eric, maybe this time will be better. They took a minute to highlight NDSU upsetting KState since he is a huge KState fan, but he wasn’t here to discuss that. They picked games and you can find all of that in this morning’s post. When it came time for the headgear pick, Corso baited the crowd by saying that he went 0-2 last year picking live dogs on the set, so he was done with dogs. Instead, he put on the Georgia headgear and had some live puppies brought to the desk as he confirmed that Georgia will be beating Clemson tonight. Enjoy your day.

Week 14 2012: Gameday review!

Posted on December 1, 2012 by gamedaycole

It is a bittersweet day here at Cole’s Gameday Blog. This is the last Saturday of the regular season, which means the last edition of College Gameday for the year. However, that also means bowl season is about to start, and we are sure to get at least one or two Gameday editions from big bowl games. Also, we all know that bowl season is where legends are made in the rankings here at my blog. Anyways, Gameday was broadcasting live from Atlanta, GA (AKA the Dirty Dirty) for the big SEC Championship game between Alabama and Georgia. Our expert panel is currently sitting at 16 to 5 in favor of the Crimson Tide over the Bulldogs, so gamblers take note.

Chris Fowler opened the show up on a sunny morning in Atlanta, which is a big change from the last couple of weeks where they opened the show in darkness on the West coast. Fowler was driving the bus with Herbie, Desmond and Pollack along for the ride. Samantha Steele quickly took over for Fowler, as he disappeared to go do whatever Chris Fowler does for 45 minutes before the main show on ESPN. Samantha Steele was looking good this morning, and Jennifer noted that she redeemed herself with a great outfit this week after last week’s questionable decision on Ms. Steele’s part.

The first hour of the show was pretty dry on content. They spent a lot of time breaking down football games (who would have thunk it?). Desmond and David talked Heisman for a while, coming to an agreement that this award is not a lock for Johnny Manziel. They both think this award is still up in the air between Manziel, Colin Klein and Manti T’eo. David got into some really deep analysis and informed us that Colin Klein will need to BALL OUT to win the Heisman tonight. We got a piece with Todd McShay back in the studio, where he was LOOKING AT THE TAPE!!! This week’s subject was Georgia QB Aaron Murray. It was basically a 90 second kick in the crotch for Murray, with all of the tape pointing out his weaknesses. Desmond and David both made some picks to end the first hour. David had leaned strongly towards Georgia earlier this week, but both guys picked Bama to win the SEC championship tonight.

As the main show opened up on ESPN, Samantha Steele was sent to the bus, and David Pollack was dispatched to go use the internet. This really has been my favorite 20 seconds of Gameday each week this year, as we get to see awkward David Pollack dressing up or doing something weird all while tweeting. This week he put the apron back on, and was pretending to be smoking some meat in the tailgate area. I say pretending, because he was mostly just poking at it repeatedly with a utensil while tweeting on his phone.

David Pollack: Lover of meat, lover of internet

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly joined the show to talk about generic coach things. He was booed loudly by both crowds on location, and was good-natured about the whole thing. Speaking of Notre Dame, let me use this opportunity to shoehorn in a screenshot of Mark May dressed up as a leprechaun from last week’s College Football Final. Mark May had offered to dress up like this if Notre Dame went undefeated this year, and the payoff was glorious.

Gene W. had a decent piece on Jarvis Jones, about how his brother was murdered several years ago, and how his life spiraled out of control afterwards. He was taken under the wing of a family friend who legally adopted him, and she got him back on the right track. It is this positive influence, and the inspiration of his brother which he credits for his success on the field. We saw the return of Bald Man on Campus with Scott Van Pelt. This week he was in College Station to meet up with Johnny Manziel and talk about how his life has changed since coming into the Heisman talk. I would like to take this opportunity to editorialize once again if you don’t mind indulging me. While I don’t have a problem with the nickname Johnny Football, I am firmly opposed to the use of the nickname “Johnny Heisman” for this young man, whether or not he should win the Heisman trophy. This nickname bothers me quite a bit, because the award is named after John Heisman. This nickname is the antithesis of clever when it is merely the same name as the legendary figure that the award is named after.

Other random notes from today include Desmond Howard repeatedly forcing in references to Tupac Shakur’s lyrics, and Lee Corso’s confusion as to who Tupac Shakur was. Tom Rinaldi was not quite as in-your-face this week as recent weeks, but he did get a few segments in. He had a sit-down interview with Nick Saban. Either Tom Rinaldi didn’t have a beatnik poetry piece this week, or I missed it somewhere. The main piece, which was really good, was Rinaldi’s piece about Coastal Carolina’s head coach Joe Moglia. Coach Moglia was a defensive coordinator at Dartmouth back in 1983, but quit that job to support his four children by working on Wall Street. He went on to become CEO of TD Ameritrade, and made over $100 million before leaving the company in 2008. After this, he decided to return to his passion; coaching football. He took an unpaid assistant position under Bo Pelini at Nebraska before coaching in the UFL. Now he finds himself the head coach at Coastal Carolina, and they have made the FCS playoff second round for the first time in school history. He credits this success to his experiences running things on Wall Street. I enjoyed the feedback from his players about his generosity towards the team. They would say something about needing new cleats, and he would show up with new Adidas cleats for the team. They would ask for Nikes, and he would show up having bought Nikes for the entire team. They needed new jerseys, so he bought new jerseys for the team. This was a really cool story. Just beware, because the Sam Houston State Bearkats are also in the FCS playoff second round. Should Coastal Carolina meet up with Sam Houston State, it will be in the championship game. BE ON YOUR GUARD COACH MOGLIA! THE BEARKATS ARE COMING FOR YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME?

Like I said, the content was a little bit light this week on the show. I don’t know if its because there is a light schedule of games today, or if it is because of the abundance of breakfast tacos which manifested themselves in front of me while watching. I will not speculate on such things. But I guess its time for the last official pick segment of the year on an official College Gameday edition. This week’s guest picker was handsome man and Atlanta Falcon’s QB Matt Ryan. Apparently Lee Corso did not know where the nickname Matty Ice came from, as he has never partaken in a nice tallboy of Natty Ice. This went along well with Corso’s ignorance of Tupac Shakur from earlier. Coach Corso made some great picks this morning, including picking “Calvin Klein” to beat Texas tonight, so take note gamblers. Matty Ice went against the hometown crowd in Atlanta by picking Bama to win the big game tonight. Herbie agreed and picked Bama as well. Would Corso call for the upset? Absolutely not, as he reminded us that Uga the bulldog is too ugly, so he has to go with Alabama and donned the elephant headgear. Should be an exciting matchup, so enjoy this last regular edition of College Gameday.

Week 13 2012: Gameday review!

Posted on November 24, 2012 by gamedaycole

Folks, you are looking live at another glorious Saturday of college football. It is even more glorious thanks to the fact that it is SHOWDOWN SATURDAY or RIVALRY SATURDAY or SOMETHING ELSE SATURDAY or WHATEVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT SATURDAY! Ohio State is currently trailing Michigan, and generic Big Ten action can only mean one thing: once again, we have put another edition of College Gameday (built by the Home Depot obv) into the official record books. This week’s edition was coming at you like from Memorial Coliseum in LA for the big matchup between the #1 undefeated Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the unranked (ha) USC Trojans. Our experts are sitting at 12-4 in favor of Notre Dame over USC in the picking game, so gamblers take note. We opened up the show with Chris Fowler welcoming us to a dark morning in LA along with Desmond, David and Herbie. After the opening segment, Fowler went back to the bus to take a nap while Samantha Steele took over hosting duties as always. After being on an incredible winning streak with her outfits, she had a setback with her outfit this week. Not too bad, but previous weeks were outstanding.

samsteelewk13a — Samantha Steele: Week 13

Things we learned in the early hour include the fact that Desmond Howard really enjoys kicking Herbie in the crotch by calling the Buckeyes merely “Ohio”. Over and over. I think Herbie was starting to get a little bit irritated before this passed. It was somewhat of a slow hour on ESPNU to start things off. We got a replay of Tom Rinaldi’s piece about losing from last week. We got a little bit of TODD MCSHAY LOOKING AT THE TAPE! He was breaking down Florida State’s EJ Manuel and talked in generic fashion about his mechanics and reminded us that Todd McShay is a draft guru who likes looking at the tape. Honestly there wasn’t much of note other than previewing games, and you didn’t come here to read my opinion about their game previews. For that reason, I will present the following picture from Samantha Steele’s twitter account for no real reason.

samdave — “He must have seen something shiny” -Sam Steele

We also got some early morning picks from Davey and Des. To nobody’s surprise, David went with Georgia over Georgia Tech. Desmond picked Michigan over Ohio St. The beaver train has run out of steam, as both guys picked the Ducks over Oregon State. As for today’s big matchup, they both went with Notre Dame over USC. Let’s move on to the big show on ESPN. We sent Samantha Steele to the bus and sent David Pollack to go use the internet, and this week he was tweeting with the rubes in Trojan headgear next to the statues outside of the stadium. Oh David Pollack, what will you come up with next?

pollackinternetusc2 — David Pollack: Internet user

We were joined once again by Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso joined the show as things took off on ESPN. We were reminded that Lee Corso is 19-0 all time when picking a game USC is involved in for his headgear pick. Gamblers, take note. Quickly, we will touch on signs of the day. Notable signs included “MOM THE MEATLOAF” and “Bring back the Los Angeles Rams”. However, the sign of the week was indisputable.

Now that I have fully acknowledged my immaturity, I would like to take a moment to editorialize about something (as opposed to whatever the rest of this is that I do). Every week on Gameday, they do a quick segment coming back from a commercial break about the signs in the crowd. They highlight some clever signs and we all sing along with “Signs” by Tesla, and then we get the SIGN OF THE DAY! And every week I get my hopes up that the sign of the day might actually be funny or clever. And every week it is some crapass sign like today’s which read “05 Bush Push – Revenge is sweet”. Thank you for wasting my time. Another thing related to this is these two goobers known as Will and Ravi who present the sign of the day. I’m sure you’ve seen them before, but for those of you who don’t know, I will review. Will and Ravi are “two diehard college football fans” who were “selected” to do wacky segments every week to make it to this week’s game. Or as I like to call it, two out of work improv actors who auditioned and won a spot doing forced schtick on Gameday. I’ve about had it with Will and Ravi, do you hear me Lee Fitting? End rant.

A very exciting development was a special bonus segment (at least for fans of “David Pollack Using the Internet”) which was LEE CORSO USING THE INTERNET! Desmond Howard was trying to teach Coach Corso how to use an iPhone to play Cornhole Challenge. It was quite amusing to see Coach Corso playing with this colorful gadget with moving pictures and sounds.

leecorsointernet2 — Lee Corso: New internet user

This week’s “Beatnik Poetry with Tom Rinaldi” was entitled “Rivalry”. Tom Rinaldi told us things in quiet-talk like how rivalry week is more than another week on the schedule, it is a brutal ritual, and it is 60 minutes that lasts 365 days. Very deep stuff. Now let’s make sure to get Tom Rinaldi’s name plastered all over this 30 second montage and move on.

rinaldi-beatnik2 — Tom Rinaldi performing live

The highlight of all of the segments today was this week’s Tebow Memorial segment about Anthony Starego. Anthony is a senior in higschool and the varsity kicker for Brick High School in New Jersey. He is also autistic, and functions in school at the level of a ten year old. He is maybe the biggest Rutgers fan out there, and it was the 2006 Rutgers fieldgoal win over Louisville that inspired him to be a kicker. As his parents described, he thrives at Rutgers football games when they attend. We learned how the routine and repetition of being a kicker helps him both on and off the field, and how he once kicked the winning fieldgoal against a big state rival which was pretty amazing. This young man, who can kick them from 50 yards out, is going to petition to be given another year of eligibility to continue kicking while he continues his special needs education. Quite an amazing story.

We were then treated to a FOURTH Tom Rinaldi piece about Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly. Upon his hire at Notre Dame, a long time fan loaned Coach Kelly a football signed by Coaches Holtz and Parseghian (the last two coaches to win a championship at Notre Dame). He was loaned this ball with the expectation that he would return it with his own autograph added after they win a championship. The ball sits in Kelly’s office, and is great motivation for him and his team. He’s just not so sure that if they win a championship that he will be able to give it back to its owner that easily. Another good piece, but I think we’ve heard about enough from quiet-talking Tom Rinaldi after four segments by him. It seems that his presence increases every week. Someday in the distant future, College Gameday will likely be the three-hour “Tom Rinaldi Show” with special guests Desmond Howard on location, David Pollack via satellite hookup from the retirement home, Grandpa Herbie, Chris Fowler clone #3, and hologram Lee Corso making headgear picks.

Speaking of picks, its about that time. The full slate of picks can be found HERE, HERE and HERE for those interested. This week’s pick segment had celebrity guest and overly handsome man Landon Donovan on hand to give us his thoughts on things. Let me rewind a bit, to when we were getting picks from Desmond Howard. Desmond went on and on about how if Auburn can keep the Iron Bowl close, they could upset Bama. This went on and on, and Herbie was quite amused by Desmond’s string of “if this” and “if that” before telling us that he’s still picking Bama over Auburn

herbieauburn2 — Tell us more how you love Auburn before picking Bama

Anyways, as we mentioned earlier, Coach Corso is 19-0 when picking a game USC is involved in for his headgear pick. Landon Donovan went with Notre Dame to everyone’s surprise, since most celebrity guests go with the home crowd. But what about Lee Corso? Would he pick the Trojans? Would he put on the leprechaun suit for the second time this year? He pulled out the Trojan helmet to a roar of applause before throwing it to the side and putting on the Leprechaun fedora. He then went into full Fighting Irish mode posing for the camera as the show closed out.