This isn't the first time Digger Phelps has gotten his groove on, and it will most certainly not be his last. During Gameday, at Clemson University on Saturday, Digger decided it was high time to walk it out with a cheerleader, and here is the clip (wait until the 2 minute mark for it to get good)....

Obviously that little choreography was planned out in advance. I mean Digger couldn't know all of the lyrics to a Kelly Clarkson song, could he?

ESPN Analyst Digger Phelps Gets Down At Clemson Game (Palmetto Scoop)

Right when you thought Pete Carroll's Bowl Season was over, ESPN has to go and hire him to be an analyst for the BCS Championship Game. Carroll will appear on a few Sports Centers, College Gameday and of course the coverage of the Texas-Alabama showdown at the Rose Bowl. Via ESPN....

USC head coach Pete Carroll, who led the Trojans to seven consecutive Pac-10 titles and two National Championships, will join ESPN to provide analysis about the Citi BCS National Championship on the network’s SportsCenter and College GameDay Built by The Home Depot Jan. 6-7.

Carroll will offer his insight on the pressure of playing in a National Championship Game and at the Rose Bowl, as well as coaching against Texas coach Mack Brown in the 2006 National Championship game. Carroll joined USC in 2001 and holds a 97-19 record (83.6%), second highest among active coaches with more than five years at the position.

Carroll will appear on the ESPN set at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on the evening editions of SportsCenter Wednesday, Jan. 6; a special one-hour College GameDay Thursday, Jan. 7 at 7 p.m.; National Championship pre-game and halftime shows on ABC beginning at 8 p.m.; and for ESPN’s SportsCenter post-game coverage following the game.

I don't despise Carroll as much as some people, and his personality might work in adding something to the broadcast. We shall see.

ESPN is sending College Gameday to Boston for the officially dull, and unranked, matchup of Florida State and Boston College. Obviously there has to be a reason, and while some might think it's to promote the launch of ESPNBoston.com, that's actually not the case. ESPN is heading to BC in part to discuss the story of Mark Herzlich, who was the Eagles' star linebacker who was 2008's ACC Defensive POY, and diagnosed with cancer this past March. Via The Sporting Blog....

ESPN's College GameDay has been all over the country since they took their show on the road, literally, in 1993. Until this coming weekend, though, the show had only been in Boston once, parachuting into Chestnut Hill in 2005 for Boston College's first ACC game.

The reasoning for going to a matchup of two unranked teams in a town where college football may be the fourth or fifth passion? Well, at least on its surface, it likely has something to do with the story of Mark Herzlich, the BC linebacker who was 2008's ACC Defensive Player of the Year and diagnosed with cancer in March.

However, at the risk of sounding crass: Does this really require moving the entire production to Boston? ESPN's offices, it is impossible to forget, are in Bristol, Connecticut, and their crews are more than capable of driving to Chestnut Hill or Pennsylvania, where Herzlich may be with his family, and putting together a moving piece with or without GameDay in town.

I personally think where Gameday goes, isn't really important, and there's not a chance that ESPN would send the crew to hype a CBS game airing that day. Sure there's Cal-USC, and Oklahoma-Miami, but why not raise awareness for Cancer research whenever you can.

Why College GameDay Is Coming to Your City, If You Live in Boston (The Sporting Blog)

For the third time in five years, ESPN will send it's Gameday crew to Penn State. The trio will post up at Beaver Stadium before the Iowa-PSU game, and the fun will get underway at 10am, yet again....

ESPN's College GameDay will travel to Penn State Saturday for the No. 5 Nittany Lions game against Iowa at 8 p.m. at Beaver Stadium.

Host Chris Fowler and analysts Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard will broadcast from Penn State prior to the Big Ten opener for both teams. Penn State will seek redemption from the Hawkeyes, who upset the Lions late in the season last year to spoil their national championship hopes.

The program will air from 10 a.m. — noon with other live segments throughout the day, as well as late Friday afternoon.

ESPN's College GameDay head to Beaver Stadium (The Pittsburgh Tribune Review)

For the second straight year, ESPN will be taking College Gameday to Austin, TX this weekend, for the Texas Tech-Texas game this Saturday. Via Scout.com....

For the second-straight year and third time in the last five years, ESPN's College GameDay will be on site Saturday in Austin for the annual grudge match between Texas Tech and the University of Texas.

The show, which features analysts Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard, will begin at 9 a.m. (CT) and will air live from an undisclosed location on the University of Texas campus. For more information on the chosen location, visit www.texassports.com.

The Texas Tech-Texas game has kept the GameDay crew busy over the last few years as the show first broadcasted from the site of the game back in 2005 when Tech's Cody Hodges led a 6-0 team into Austin to face a 6-0 Texas squad led by Vince Young. The show made its first appearance in Lubbock last year for the matchup between No. 5 Texas Tech and No. 1 Texas.

Saturday's game between the Red Raiders and Longhorns will kickoff at 7 p.m. (CT) live on ABC from Darrell K. Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium. Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters will call the game for ABC.

I'm actually surprised that ESPN didn't pick Florida as the location, with Tennessee coming into Gainesville (or Nebraska @ VT), but Texas Tech-Texas is certainly a big enough rivalry now to fit the bill.

ESPN's College GameDay Headed To Austin (Scout: Raider Power)

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Chipper Jones will be the first guest on College Gameday for the 2009 Season. Jones will be live on set sometime around 11:30am this Saturday, and plans to wear Gators' colors....in Georgia....

Chipper Jones plans to appear as a guest on the set of ESPN’s “College GameDay” show Saturday morning at Centennial Olympic Park, where the show will air in advance of Saturday night’s Chick-fil-A Kickoff game between Virginia Tech and Alabama. Jones will join Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard to talk college football.

“Florida does have the No. 1 team in the country,” said Jones, who grew up a Gators fan in DeLand, Fla. “[ESPN] is in Atlanta the first week of the season, so it seems like a normal fit.”

Jones said he’ll probably show up in Gators colors.

“We’ll see,” he said. “I might get booed by a bunch of Georgia fans when I walk up. They’ve got me picking the Georgia game and the ’Bama game. Let’s just say one group of people is not going to be real happy and the other group is going to be pretty happy.”

A Braves player, wearing Gators' garb, might not be the wisest of ideas if you ask me. Hopefully he isn't lynched outside the Georgia Dome.

Chipper Jones to appear on ESPN's 'College GameDay' (AJC)

I was skeptical about the Basketball version of College Gameday, but after a few years under the belt, the pregame show is actually pretty entertaining. This year Rece Davis, Hubert Davis, Jay Bilas, Bob Knight and Digger Phelps, will start out at a women's game for the first time (ND at UCONN), and wrap things up in Durham for UNC-Duke on December 8th. Here's the schedule, all dates are Saturdays and Gameday airs at 11am and 7pm on ESPN (expect where noted on January 30th....

January 16th: Storrs, Conn. - Notre Dame at Connecticut (Women’s)
January 23rd: Clemson, S.C. - Duke at Clemson
January 30th: Manhattan, Kan. - Kansas at Kansas State (6 p.m. show and game at 7 p.m.)
February 6th: Champaign, Ill. - Michigan State at Illinois
February 13th: Lexington, Ky. - Tennessee at Kentucky
February 20th: Seattle, Wash. - UCLA at Washington
February 27th: Syracuse, N.Y. - Villanova at Syracuse
March 6th: Durham, N.C. - North Carolina at Duke

Yes, it's that time again. Time for College Football fans everywhere to bring random signs to various campuses around the United States, and attempt to distract the Gameday crew. ESPN today, announced the first two College Gameday sites for the year, and while we already knew that Atlanta was the first, the second doesn't really come as a surprise either. Via ESPN PR....

The first two College GameDay Built by The Home Depot sites of the 2009 season have been determined with the show kicking off in Atlanta September 5 followed by Columbus, Ohio September 12. ESPN’s Emmy Award-winning Saturday morning college football show will be aired Saturdays at 10 a.m. ET beginning September 5.

The 17th season of consistently originating from one of the day’s best games or matchups with compelling storylines – and 23rd season of the show -- will kick off from Atlanta for the second annual Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game pitting #5 Alabama vs. #7 Virginia Tech (all rankings from the USA Today Top 25 Coaches’ Poll). The matchup will mark the debut of the fourth annual Saturday Night Football Presented by Southwest Airlines series on ABC at 8 p.m.

The following week, Saturday, September 12, College GameDay will originate from Columbus, Ohio for #4 USC at #6 Ohio State in a showdown between traditional power programs that will be televised on ESPN at 8 p.m.

Those were certainly the two obvious choices, and will certainly be different than the rest of the year. You can expect the Gameday bus to be at just about every SEC College this season, and to rarely head up North.

There was some scary news this past spring, but after some time off, Lee Corso has recovered a mild stroke that he suffered. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Corso is doing well and will be returning to College Gameday, once the season gets underway....

Nearly three months later, Corso is piecing his life together again. He's graduated from physical therapy but remains in occupational and speech therapy. The stroke affected his right side. He is learning to write all over again, just like he's learned to talk all over again.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the stroke, Corso sat down outside a Starbucks in Longwood a few days ago, took a few sips of an iced tea, and told a story etched in transformation.

A man who has reinvented himself once already — going from a struggling football coach to a glib gridiron guru — is plotting another magnificent makeover. He will be back on TV once fall football begins. The ironic twist in the challenge is obvious: A chatterbox got silenced by a stroke. His voice, as he says, is "the ultimate thing for me."

He speaks fine now. There are a few quirky moments when things don't quite connect, like when he's trying to recall precise moments through the fog of recovery. A critical step was passing a swallow test, he says, "inside the hotel (pause), inside the airport (pause), inside the hospital." It took three times, but he finally found the right word.

But don't feel sorry for Corso. He doesn't. He knows he's blessed.

He's piecing it all together slowly. He works out every day. Gathers strength in his right hand by squeezing Silly Putty. Twice a week, it's speech therapy. "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr," he says, mimicking one of the tongue exercises, then moving his tongue side to side, cheek to cheek. "When I first started I felt my tongue weighed 80 pounds. And I slobbered. I'm getting better at that. I'm trying to get the brain to realize that you can do this."

The blessed part? Like most people who suffer trauma, he's gathered perspective and appreciation for life. Blessed by a family, including his wife, three sons and a daughter. Blessed by his "day job" if you will, as director of business development for Dixon Ticonderoga. It's the company's No. 2 pencils you see when Corso waves them at Kirk Herbstreit to make a point on GameDay. Blessed by getting to know people who cared from him unconditionally. Doctors, nurses, and the orderlies who bathed him during the first days of his hospital stay.

It's amazing that Lee has recovered in such a short time, and that he'll be able to return to Gameday. Sure he's a little wacky, but the show just wouldn't feel the same without him. The show is rumored to be kicking off in Atlanta, for the Alabama-Virginia Tech game, so that's when we'll get our first look at the new Corso.

Lee Corso won't let the stroke he suffered in May slow him down (Orlando Sentinel)

There has been very little change with ESPN's announcing teams over years past, but with the addition of Matt Millen this season, there are couple of interesting moves that have been made. Some of the more notable ones include: Millen paired up with Sean McDonough for Saturday games, Todd Blackledge replacing Bob Griese on Saturday nights (paired with Nessler), Andrew Ware being moved to regional SEC coverage and Mike Patrick getting a new partner in Craig James. Here are your pairings for the 2009 season, as well as your studio teams for the year....

Studio Teams:

College GameDay Built by The Home Depot (Saturdays at 10 a.m. on ESPN)- Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard
Pre-game, halftime and post-game, College Football Countdown (Saturdays on ABC)- John Saunders and Jesse Palmer
ABC Saturday reports- Matt Winer
Pre-game, halftime and post-game, College Football Final Powered by Pontiac G6 (Saturdays on ESPN)- Rece Davis, Lou Holtz and Mark May
Pre-game, halftime and post-game (Saturdays on ESPN2)- Wendi Nix, Todd McShay and Robert Smith
Pre-game, halftime and post-game (Saturdays on ESPNU)- Lowell Galindo (prime time) and Rob Stone (afternoon), Jay Walker, Tom Luginbill and David Pollack (prime time) and Matt Stinchcomb (afternoons)
College GameDay on ESPN Radio (Saturdays at noon)- Ryen Russillo, Trevor Matich and TBD
ESPNEWS Overdrive- Dari Nowkah, Kordell Stewart and Shaun King
Inside the Polls (ESPNU)- Lowell Galindo, Tom Luginbill and Tommy Tuberville
SEC syndication studio- Rob Stone and Matt Stinchcomb
SEC Weekly (ESPNU)- Cara Capuano, Matt Stinchcomb, David Pollack or Charles Arbuckle
Big 12 This Week (ESPNU)- Melissa Knowles and Jon Berger

Announcer Pairings:
Saturday Night Football (on ABC)- Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters
ESPN College Football Primetime (Saturday)- Brad Nessler, Todd Blackledge and Erin Andrews
ESPN2 College Football Primetime (Saturday)- Mark Jones and Bob Davie
ESPNU SEC Saturday primetime- Eric Collins and Brock Huard
ESPN College Football Primetime (Thursday)- Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews
ABC Saturday Afternoon- Sean McDonough, Matt Millen and Holly Rowe
ABC Saturday Afternoon- Mike Patrick, Craig James and Heather Cox
ABC or ESPN Saturday Afternoon- Ron Franklin and Ed Cunningham
ESPN College Football (Saturday afternoons)- Dave Pasch, Bob Griese and Chris Spielman
ESPN2 College Football (Saturday afternoon)- Pam Ward and Ray Bentley
ESPNU Saturday noon- Clay Matvick and David Diaz-Infante
ESPNU Saturday afternoon- Todd Harris and Charles Arbuckle
ESPNU late Saturday- Carter Blackburn and TBD
ESPN and ESPN2 Fridays and select ABC Saturdays- Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore
ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 Saturdays and select Fridays- Terry Gannon and David Norrie
ESPN and ESPN2 midweek games- Rece Davis, Mark May, Lou Holtz and Rob Stone
ESPNU Thursday- Charlie Neal and Jay Walker
ESPN Radio games- Bill Rosinski, Dennis Franchione and Joe Schad
SEC Network (ESPN Regional Television syndicated games)- Dave Neal, Andre Ware and Cara Capuano
BIG EAST Network (ESPN Regional Television syndicated games)- Mike Gleason, John Congemi and Quint Kessinich
ESPN Regional Television MAC Syndication- Michael Reghi and Doug Chapman

Scary news out of Bristol this evening. Apparently Lee Corso suffered a bit of a stroke, but everything is okay, and he is expected to back for the start of the 2009 College Football Season. Via ESPN....

ESPN College GameDay analyst Lee Corso recently suffered a minor stroke, but plans on being back for the kickoff of the 2009 college football season.

Corso suffered no permanent damage in the minor stroke, which was caused by the blockage to a small artery, according to a statement from Corso. He is expected to make a full recovery.

"This is just a small bump in the road, " Corso said in a statement issued by ESPN. "A 'not so fast, my friend' in my game of life. I look forward to making a full recovery and returning to ESPN for my 23rd season analyzing the greatest sport in the world -- college football."

Obviously thoughts should be with Corso and his family, but if Lee could survive as Burt Reynolds roommate in College, I'm pretty sure he can take on this challenge. Good luck Lee, and I think well all hope to see you back next season.

Corso Expected Back For '09 Season (ESPN)

We've known for some time, that Digger Phelps is an interesting character, but I think this video from Bruins Nation makes him officially a wack job. Here is Digger breaking it down before the UCLA-CAL game yesterday....

Interesting technique to say the least. I'm pretty sure "Dancing With The Stars" won't be beating down his door to give him a spot next season.

Digger Phelps A Wimpy Tool (Bruins Nation)

There are a lot of unfunny things that are said during broadcasts, but Digger Phelps might have just taken the cake this past weekend. During the College Basketball version of Gameday on Saturday, Rece Davis commented on a green carnation that Phelps was wearing in honor of the show being at Notre Dame University. Of course Digger couldn't just say that he was wearing it because he used to Coach in South Bend. No, he decided to make a joke that he robbed a corpse at a funeral earlier in the day....

"This has been thirty five years old, this....yeah. I stole it from a grave yesterday, it was a funeral, I went and got it."- Digger Phelps

Not funny. There are certainly worse things that can and have been said, but that comment just made me sick to my stomach. Good job by everyone else on the set moving on, and not coming up with any tacky "Grave Digger" followup attempts at humor.

Now if you want funny, you need go not go any further than ESPN.com's unintentional headline in regards to the same game....



Mmmmmmm.....Steak. Now that's funny!

(Thanks to DH for the screenshot)

The last couple of weeks have been pretty predictable in where College Gameday was heading, and this week will be no different. Even though the SEC Championship game is on CBS, ESPN will be sending Gameday to Atlanta for the Alabama-Florida game this Saturday. The networks have also released their announcing teams a bit early, so I thought I'd put those up as well. Only one more weekend to decide the regular season Pammies (this week's nominees will be up in a few)!

Thursday, Dec. 4th

Louisville at Rutgers (ESPN, 7:30pm)- Chris Fowler, Craig James, Jesse Palmer and Erin Andrews

Friday, Dec. 5th

MAC Championship: #12 Ball State vs. Buffalo (ESPN2, 7:55pm)- Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman and Rob Stone

Saturday, Dec. 6th

Navy at Army (CBS, Noon)- Ian Eagle, Boomer Esiason, Sam Ryan
#23 Pittsburgh at Connecticut (ESPN, Noon)- Bob Wischusen and Brock Huard
Conference USA Championship: East Carolina at Tulsa (ESPN2, Noon)- Dave Pasch and Andre Ware
NCAA Division II Semifinals: Minnesota Duluth at California-PA (ESPN Classic, Noon)- Eric Collins and Jon Ritchie
ACC Championship: #17 Boston College vs. #25 Virginia Tech (ABC, 1pm)- Brad Nessler, Bob Griese, Paul Maguire and Stacey Dales
Washington at California (FSN, 3pm)- Barry Tompkins, Petros Papadakis, Jim Watson
NCAA Division II Semifinals: North Alabama at NW Missouri State (ESPN2, 4pm)- Pam Ward and Ray Bentley
SEC Championship: #1 Alabama at #4 Florida (CBS, 4pm)- Verne Lundquist, Gary Danielson, Tracy Wolfson
#5 USC at UCLA (ABC, 4:30pm)- Mike Patrick, Todd Blackledge and Holly Rowe
Big 12 Championship: #20 Missouri vs. #2 Oklahoma (ABC, 8pm)- Brent Musburger, Kirk Herbstreit and Lisa Salters
Arizona State at Arizona (ESPN, 8pm)- Mark Jones and Bob Davie
South Florida at West Virginia (ESPN2, 8pm)- Ron Franklin, Ed Cunningham and Jack Arute
#13 Cincinnati at Hawaii (ESPN2, 11:30pm)- Joe Tessitore and Rod Gilmore

Every time I hear the town name of Stillwater, I think of the crappy VH1 movie about a band with the same name, but I digress. Gameday will be in Stillwater, more specifically Oklahoma State, next week for Bedlam 2008!

STILLWATER -- It became official late Sunday morning that ESPN College Football Gameday will broadcast its show from outside Boone Pickens Stadium Saturday before the Oklahoma State-Oklahoma game.

GameDay, hosted by Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Desmond Howard, will set up on the library lawn for shows on Friday and Saturday.

It is the show's first trip to Stillwater since the Cowboys hosted OU in 2004.

The Bedlam game is set to kick off at 7 p.m. and will air on ABC.

Stillwater is only about and hour and a half down the road for Norman, so the group doesn't really have that far to go. To tell you the truth though, I'm surprised they didn't head to USC for their game against Notre Dame. This will mark the fist time since 2003 that they haven't setup for more than one Trojans game in a season. Well, they could elect to go to UCLA next week, but with Alabama at Florida on the schedule, that's not likely to happen. Even though it's a CBS game, a #1 vs. #2 game is just too tough to pass up.

ESPN GameDay will be at Bedlam (News OK)

While there aren't many stellar matchups during week twelve of the College Football season, you'd think ESPN could come up with a better game to send the Gameday crew to than Hampton at Florida A&M. For some reason though, that's their choice for this coming Saturday's slate of games, and it obviously marks the first time the pregame show has gone to visit the Rattlers in Tallahassee. Via the Daily Press....

HAMPTON - ESPN will telecast its College GameDay pregame show at Florida A&M on Saturday, beginning at 10 a.m., before the Rattlers' 3:15 p.m. game against Hampton. FAMU becomes the first historically black college campus to host the program.

The game marks the first between schools since Joe Taylor left Hampton in late-December to become FAMU's coach. Taylor coached the previous 16 seasons at Hampton, where his teams were 136-48-1 and won eight conference titles.

"That's going to be a real big game," Hampton coach Jerry Holmes said. "He's part of my foundation of coaching. When I finished playing in the NFL, he was the first guy to give me an opportunity to coach some.

"I'm looking forward to motivating the guys and going down to Florida and playing against him."

Now I would understand the move if either team was undefeated, or one of the team's players was about to set a record. But to pick two schools, with a 5-4 record and 7-3 respectively, is a pretty odd decision. At least last year's random trip to Massachusetts for the Williams-Amherst game had some history behind it. I think saying that choice was random would be the understatement of the decade.

GameDay to be at HU game (Daily Press)

Here's your weekly post on where Gameday is heading and this one isn't much of a surprise. Chris, Lee, Desmond and Kirk will be heading to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for the Crimson Tide's visit to LSU. More importantly though, it's Nick Saban's return to the team he abandoned....

Just two years later, Saban lied and denied his way from Miami to Tuscaloosa, Ala., while LSU fans cried as he bolted the big time to return to his comfort-zoned college coaching at none other than LSU rival Alabama.

And just two seasons later, Saban, who signed the most lucrative long term guaranteed contract in college football history at $32 million for eight years, has Alabama on top of the world of college football just in the nick of time for his return to the bayou. ESPN's College GameDay show will broadcast live from LSU Saturday morning.

"We want to kick his butt," said veteran LSU fan Gary Perkins of Pineville while at LSU's 35-10 win over Tulane game Saturday night. "I don't respect him. We don't respect him. He's a carpetbagger and a turncoat. I appreciate what he did and what he left us, but we don't respect him. We appreciate having him, but we don't respect him."

Man, that seems like forever ago, but it's good to see the Tigers still hold a grudge. Makes for a better game that way. With that game on CBS, it looks like Herbstreit is going to have to fly into Baton Rouge this week and then head right back to Lubbock, TX after Gameday to call the OK State-Tech game late Saturday night. Well either that or ESPN will try to make CAL-USC relevant, but I don't see that happening.

LSU fans waiting for Saban's return (The News Star)

In what will easily be the biggest showdown of the season so far (sorry USC-OSU was terrible), #1 Texas heads to Texas Tech, and College Gameday will be on hand in Lubbock for the Big XII matchup. Via Lubbock Online....

The Texas Tech football team will host No. 1 Texas at 7 p.m. Saturday, and ESPN has chosen Lubbock as its host site for its pregame show, "College GameDay."

"I don't know how you could place a price on the exposure that this brings," Tech athletic director Gerald Myers said. "It's priceless. I don't know if there's a way of knowing the value of this kind of exposure that GameDay will bring to the university and the city of Lubbock. You can't put a price tag on that."

The students aren't the only ones gearing up for the big game. Tech already has received the most credential requests for a single game in school history. The number reached 339 requests by early evening on Sunday, according to Tech spokesman Blayne Beal, with requests coming from the New York Times, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, ESPN and several bowl-game officials.

This marks the third time that ESPN is sending Gameday into the State of Texas, but it's the first time they'll be doing so on the campus of Texas Tech (they covered TTU-UT in 2005 but the game was in Austin). As far as the game itself, it's looking to be a hell of a matchup. Not only are ticket prices through the roof (upwards of $3500 on Ebay), with both team's offenses among the Top Five in the Country, but the over/under could be set at an unprecedented number.

ESPN's College GameDay' coming live from Lubbock (Lubbock Online)

So instead of heading back into SEC territory for Week Eight of the College Football season, ESPN's College Gameday is staying in the same State as this past weekend. The crew will be making the three hour trek south, from Dallas to Austin, TX, and will on hand for the UT-Mizzou game this Saturday. Via the Statesman....

ESPN’s “College GameDay” should just change its name to the “Texas Longhorn Report.” For the second consecutive week, the ESPN pregame show will air from a Longhorns game.

“GameDay” will broadcast Saturday morning from the Forty Acres, hours before the primetime ABC clash between Texas and Missouri. The show always draws thousands of clever-sign-waving fans to see Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Chris Fowler do their thing (even though those attending can’t really see those guys do much of anything).

No announcement on the location for the set has been made yet (the Myers Stadium soccer field has been used in the past). But ESPN’s CollegeGameDay.com Web site makes it clear that it’ll be in Austin one week after originating from Dallas.

There were a few other choices (OSU-MSU, Vandy-UGA), but in the end it was either following Oklahoma back home to play Kansas, or the game they picked. Seems like the right call even though Mizzou lost last week to Oklahoma State.

ESPN to bring ‘College GameDay’ to Austin for Mizzou game (Bevo Beat)

This trip is the one that we all predicted would happen. With both the Longhorns and Sooners undefeated, and with the game being on ABC, ESPN will take it's Gameday crew from Nashville, TN to Dallas this Saturday. Via the Oxford Press....

The Longhorns took care of Colorado 38-14 and Oklahoma took care of Baylor 49-17 on Saturday, and seconds after each victory, the respective fan bases had moved on.

That's because No. 1 and undefeated Oklahoma (5-0, 1-0 Big 12) and No. 5 and undefeated Texas (5-0, 1-0) are meeting in Dallas on Saturday for the 103rd Red River Rivalry. This one promises to be one of the biggest Oklahoma-Texas showdowns ever, and not just because there will be 92,100 fans packed into the Cotton Bowl, almost twice the 46,200 the stadium seated when it first opened:

It's the first time since 2004 that both teams enter the game ranked in the top five.

That's exactly why ESPN's "College GameDay" will be camped outside the Cotton Bowl.

I don't know what it was about last week, but none of the games on the schedule were really that appealing. This week as a whole isn't better, but with TEX-OK, OKST-MIZZOU and LSU-FLA, at least we have three top tier matchups throughout the day. The Red River Rivalry should be a good one this year, and it kicks off right at noon this Saturday.

Magic is back in Texas-Oklahoma matchup (Oxford Press)