Gameday at the Oval

For years, I've flipped the TV to ESPN on Saturday mornings and caught parts of College Gameday, the network's premiere weekly college football preview show.  Given that Gameday is filmed each week on location at the site of the big, nationally-televised Saturday night game and is typically hosted at one of college football's iconic locales, I always figured that the odds of me ever attending a broadcast were almost negligible; not only would I have to be living near a Gameday location, but I'd also have to care enough about the game to get up early enough to attend the taping.  As luck would have it, though, everything came together yesterday when Gameday made its first ever visit to Palo Alto for the Stanford game versus Oregon.

Even on the East Coast, Gameday involves getting up very early.  The broadcast begins at 9 AM eastern, and fans begin jockeying for position behind the stage hours in advance.  In California everything is of course three hours earlier, so fans were arriving at Stanford's Oval - a grassy area in front of the main campus - at 4 AM.  While I wasn't quite that dedicated, I did drag myself out of my room in time to arrive at the Oval by 7, and by that time, hundreds of fans were sprawled across the grass in the dark of early morning, many carrying Gameday's traditional clever signs.  I took a picture of some of my favorites (see below), and also particularly enjoyed other signs that read:

• Tebow - God + Talent = Andrew Luck
• Erin Andrews, will you be my non-technical co-founder?
• I hate LeBron

As predicted, Stanford fans came up with some clever Gameday signs.

After getting over the initial shock of how many (mostly) Stanford fans showed up before 7 AM to watch Gameday, I realized that seeing the show live isn't all that exciting.  While it's kind of cool while the ESPN crew is talking - and especially while they're talking about Oregon and Stanford - there's a ton of down time while the show is either airing other pre-taped segments or, worse yet, in a commercial break where people are just standing around, somewhat tired and cold, waiting for a camera to pass by and give them a reason to cheer.  While it's really not super-exciting, I'm certainly glad I got to see it once and can now cross it off my sports fan bucket list.

The Red Zone - the Stanford student section - was loud, energetic and surprisingly supportive.

The Gameday turnout was impressive - especially by Stanford standards - and was a reflection of the day as a whole.  The Cardinal faithful (and, admittedly, a ton of Ducks fans) showed up for some excellent tailgating, entered the stadium early and were loud and supportive throughout.  After time ran out on Stanford in their 53-30 loss, I honestly wasn't even that disappointed.  On the field, Oregon was a vastly superior team that deserved the big victory.  Off the field, I was proud of the Stanford fan support and hope that it continues even though the team's National Championship dreams are over - starting with Saturday's Big Game.