Membership in the “Hey, ESPN’s showing our game in its prime evening slot during a dog of a week” club has its privileges: Gameday is coming to town for the first time since the 2008 LSU game. (When your humble Auburn Blogger snapped the above picture of Mr. Fowler working his mad skillz on the radio.)
Sure, that game doesn’t bring up many fond memories, and neither does Auburn’s last encounter with the Gameday crew anywhere else–the ’08 Vandy game, pardon me while I take a mallet to the part of my skull that houses the memory of that night–but the 2006 Florida game and the 2004 Georgia game are two of the better games of Auburn’s past decade … so it’s at least as positive a harbinger for the Tigers as negative. Add in the attendant hoopla for the supposed flurry of recruits on campus, the “big game” label that hopefully will have both sides of the ball a little more focused than they’ve been the previous couple of weeks, and there aren’t any downsides here.
And speaking of “no negatives”, I was expecting to be disappointed in this week’s edition of the polls, since it would be classic voterthink to look at Auburn’s escape from Starkville as a disappointment while only sliding, say, Miami a few spots down the conveyor belt for being “competitive” at Ohio St. But lo, there are no one-loss teams in front of our Tigers in either the AP or the Coaches’ polls. The coaches even see fit to rank Auburn ahead of a South Carolina team that beat a better opponent in more convincing fashion in both Week 1 and Week 2, which would be cause for a brief rant if I were a ‘Cock fan but from this perspective is just funny. (Interesting note: both polls have the same set of 16 undefeated teams at the top of the poll, just in different orders, before slotting the Hurricanes in at No. 17.)
Considering the difference between this year and last year–when it took five straight wins, including victories over a ranked West Virginia team and Tennessee on the road, just to get Auburn into the polls at all–Auburn’s got it good.
So far College Gameday has yet to leave the southeast, which leads me to believe that Commish Slive has something on the Gameday crew…
found this link earlier today and thought there is a good chance they stay in the south for a couple more weeks anyway. Is it even remotely possible that if AU beats Clem they stick around for the tigers v cocks? The boise org st. game just lost pretty much all its national implication with the V tech loss. I know they can’t spend the entire season in the south and this list isn’t ESPN’s, just someones guess. What else is possible for week 4 that would be higher rated than AU and SC if both win this week. week 5 will be bama and UF I’d think. Gotta get by Clem first and that will be a battle.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/443922-college-gameday-football-schedule-2010-predicting-each-game-of-the-week#page/4
Corso mentioned something about being in Boise in a couple of weeks, so that won’t be in the southeast.
Well if it’s in the Bleacher Report…
No offense but linking to that site should constitute a two game suspension from TWER.
I lost all respect for Fowler at Gameday of the 95 bama game. I was right behind his spot on their set and during a commercial, he turned around to us and made some unflattering remarks re the town and people of Auburn, right to our faces. Even hosting the World Cup this year didn’t get him back in my good graces. On the other hand, Lee Corso took my sign and held it up on TV during the next segment. So it was an odd mixture of emotions at GameDay that day…
Jim Fyffe had some sharp things to say about the Gameday crowd in is memoirs. Jim had little use for Fowler’s know-it-all attitude. IIRC, he noted, “I have ties that are older than Chris Fowler.”
Van, what all did he say? Just curious.
Wes, did corso say that before VTech lost. I’m guessing so.
Alex P, did you even read what I wrote or did you just click the link?
Not a big fan of Gameday either. I went to the Gameday for the ’97 Florida game with a big sign that said “Corso is a Dork”, as he’d picked against us a lot in the last couple years – Most notably being that Fresno State prediction. I had all the scores of his incorrect prognostications on the sign. Gameday wasn’t that big of a deal back then, so I was right up front. During the first commercial, Corso motioned over to one of the State Troopers, who he had a brief conversation with, then the trooper came over and confiscated my sign (he was apologetic about it). I really didn’t see why I had to give it up, but I didn’t want to make a scene about it. It actually worked out well, because everyone boo’d the hell out of Corso (even the Gator fans), and the two UF dudes standing next to me gave me a couple of beers. Still, I thought that was pretty ridiculous. You ought to have a bit thicker skin than that if you’re gonna make your bones by acting like an ass on national TV.
Joe: Looks like I’ll be doing a longer-form article about that day, so I’ll just say, “Stay tuned.”
Will: Long time, no chat! War Flyin’ Prairie Dog, bro!
tracker,
I read and understood your comment. I was just having some fun. Actually, I didn’t even click the link because I saw it was the freaking Bleacher Report.
chupacabra –
I was at gameday for that game, too. It was my second Auburn game to attend ever. My friend and I went down there at like 5 AM to get front-row standing places. It was chilly all morning, and finally Corso comes out. The crowd starts cheering because we realize that it’s about to start up. Corso motions to everyone to quiet down, like he had something to say. We all hushed up, and once he could talk loud enough for us all to hear, he said “Roll Tide!” Good thing they had the net between him and us, because the beer cans started flying!
“Mr. Fowler working his mad skillz on the radio”…….LOL
The only real downside I see here is they will play that dang song that is the title of this blog. Would someone please let the Gameday guys know that it sucks. Hank, yes. Big and Rich, no. It ain’t to hard to figure out.