There’s nothing like Saturdays in the fall. Nothing. Football is great to watch. Good football is amazing to watch. Football makes me question whether or not basketball is my favorite sport. That’s how awesome football can be. And what better pre-game show to watch before a sporting event than ESPN’s College GameDay. Does it have flaws? Absolutely, but when it is in the zone, it’s a quintessential symbol of Americana.
Growing up, I saw the month of August as a sign that school is around the corner. August just had this dread attached to it because it was the start of another nine month marathon of stressing about grades, sports, and social dynamics with your friends and crushes. One thing helps to get through the first four months of that re-acclimation period: Football. More specifically, college football.
College football’s best quality is that most of the games are played on Saturday‘s. You should have the perfect amount of energy for a full day of college football. It’s not Friday night where you’re still decompressing from the stress of the school or work week, and it’s not Sunday afternoon/evening where you’re dreading the start of another school/work week. You can get the initial rush of all the noon games and stay up until the early hours of the morning catching the last minutes of PAC-12 After Dark.
College GameDay gets you prepped for everything. They spend the first couple hours discussing the how the college football landscape changed since the previous week and then look ahead to the day‘s games for the last hour. The panel usually sets up shop on the campus of the home team’s school in that week’s ABC primetime game. Normally, this is a top-10 team like Ohio State, Alabama, LSU, Michigan, Oklahoma, etc. One week a year, the panel will go to the top FCS school like James Madison or North Dakota State. While the panel discusses the topics of the day, the school’s fans are holding meme-worthy signs in the background, making sure to cheer when their team is mentioned and boo when a rival comes up in conversation.
The panel is made up of host Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, David Pollack, Maria Taylor, and Lee Corso. Slowly but surely, they have been reducing Corso’s role due to his continued confusion and slurred speech on set during game picks. Honestly, he looks to be going the way of Lou Holtz where he just looks lost 80% of the time. The rest of the panel is really good until the topic of paying players comes up as they almost all believe that players should not be paid which is ridiculous. Herbstreit is always calm cool and collected while Des and Pollack usually have the hot takes. Maria Taylor is awesome when talking to fans and analysts as she owns the first hour of the show. Rece Davis does a fine job as the host, but he is no Chris Fowler. Chris Fowler went from being the host of GameDay to being the play-by-play commentator for the ABC prime time game, a well-deserved step up. Fowler had a finger on the pulse of everything that happened on the set of GameDay, he knew how to time everything including the signature turn and inhale.
When doing game picks, the panel saves the prime time game for last. Fowler would do something truly special when presenting the last pick. The camera would go from a wide-shot of all five panelists (includes the celebrity guest picker) to a single headshot of Chris Fowler along with a graphic of the two logos of the schools in the prime time game. Chris Fowler turns to this camera and takes a breath as the crowd roars into a frenzy. This is what college football is all about. He would then have to raise his voice and maybe pull his microphone closer so that the viewers at home could hear him over the rapturous crowd. They make the last pick as the clock turns from 11:59 AM to 12:00 PM and they send you off to a day packed to the gills with football.
And as exciting as GameDay is, it is only the ascension part of the rollercoaster. It is only the tease. A day filled with twist, turns, drops, and exhilarating speed awaits.
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