Come Back GameDay!

Why won't we see this scene tomorrow?

Down South, ESPN's College Gameday has taken some heat for passing up the LSU-Auburn game this weekend in favor of Nebraska-USC. Why L.A.? It's not because of the lively 7AM, pre-dawn crowd that is sure to jump start the show. It's not because a match up of #4 and #19 is the most compelling of the weekend. It's because ABC owns ESPN and since ABC is broadcasting the USC game, Gameday must follow.

The Southerners don't like that rationale and have let their feelings be known to ESPN. In response, Chris Fowler scribed the following:

"Of the 10 regular-season SEC games matching top 10 teams, we've had the privilege of watching seven of them from ringside, reveling in the drama. The Tennessee-Florida wars of 2000-02; Auburn's pounding of the Vols, with big Tiger-lover Sir Charles standing next to us on the sidelines at Neyland Stadium; and LSU's heart-stopping OT triumph at Tuscaloosa last year … those are memories that will last. This is why I believe an explanation is needed for why GameDay won't be in Auburn for LSU's visit this Saturday.

For 13 seasons, the locations of the GameDay road shows have been editorial decisions based on the college football landscape. The basic principle was to (almost) always come from the site of the "biggest game," or occasionally, "the best story." Several times, we have visited the edge of the radar screen to pay tribute to the Mid American Conference's rise (at Bowling Green), the service academies (Air Force and West Point) or the tradition of the Bayou Classic.

Now, the philosophy has been rethought by upper management. For the first time, the competitive landscape of football programming is a frequent consideration. Serving the needs of ABC's new prime-time package of games is often a priority. The decision on GameDay's site is less a clear-cut "best game" philosophy now and is more complicated, made on a landscape where terms like "synergy" and "branding" live.

Please know this: Lee, Kirk and I have no say in decisions on GameDay's location. But as host of the show for 17 years, I am mainly concerned with the show's specific legacy, not the global college football landscape.

The first two weeks of the season were no-brainers. It made sense to follow Notre Dame to Georgia Tech and sit ringside for the first 1 vs. 2 regular-season game in 10 years last week in Austin. This week, the decision was made to come from the Los Angeles Coliseum, where ABC will be set up.

Executive Vice President Norby Williamson asked me to relay his reasoning: Nebraska and USC, both visible programs with storied pasts, are colliding for the first time in 35 years, and this might be one of the few chances to showcase a Pac-10 location, keeping the show regionally balanced.

The SEC should feature a lot more big ones in the coming months.

This is important: Williamson said fans still can expect to see GameDay return to the SEC or to Notre Dame for games televised on CBS and NBC. That's a relief to me. LSU's visits to Florida and Tennessee loom large, as does Auburn's trip to the Swamp. Georgia vs. the winner of the Vols-Gators clash will be huge.

Any of those games could carry national title weight.

So, who knows? I am hopeful. But just in case we don't make it there quite as often, I would truly miss broadcasting from Gainesville, Knoxville, Athens, Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Baton Rouge and Columbia. SEC campuses have consistently provided the most passionate, colorful and, uh, "spirit"-ed backdrops for the show.

Hands down. No other conference is close.

Even if we don't visit you as much, please don't stop visiting us Saturday mornings. We will continue to give teams from America's strongest football conference, and the Fighting Irish, their due any way we can."

Remember when you could not wake up fast enough to watch GameDay or, if the big game was on campus, to get to the front row so your sign would make it on the broadcast? It was always fun, rowdy, and magically conveyed the feeling of being on campus for a football frenzy.
It looks like those days are gone and GameDay may be gone forever as far as the SEC is concerned.

I loved GameDay just like you did, but that show started going downhill 1) when it expanded to over an hour and 2) when Big and Rich made their first appearance. The further beyond those events I get, the less relevant I find the show. It's magic has worn off on me. I still like the guys on the show, but all the extras have, to me, taken away from the show. I'll still watch bits and pieces when I can, but GameDay is fading from my list of appointment viewing. And it's a damn shame.