BYU football: ESPN's 'College GameDay' rolling into Provo

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Provo » Although he often finds himself playing the foil to some of the outrageous antics and predictions of fellow host Lee Corso, former Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit focuses on a single word to describe ESPN's "College GameDay" show.

"It's authentic," Herbstreit says. "It represents what college football is all about. The passion from each region and each location that we go to allows us to have a great show."

Saturday morning, that location -- perhaps a surprise, to some -- will be Provo, as "GameDay" broadcasts from the site of the 5:30 p.m. Mountain West Conference showdown between No. 10 TCU and No. 16 BYU.

Ironically, the game itself will not be televised by ESPN or any of its sister networks, but by the upstart Versus, which is still locked in a contract dispute with DirecTV and can't be seen by DirecTV subscribers.

But before we move on with that sticky issue and others, Herbstreit wants it made clear that he doesn't know which mascot's head -- the one worn by BYU's Cosmo or the spiky contraption donned by TCU's SuperFrog -- Corso will pull on at the end of the show to signify which team he believes will win.

"I'm [eager] to find out myself," he said.

What Herbstreit does know is that this will be the second time the wildly popular college football pregame show is rolling into Utah, and that it was pretty much a "no-brainer" for ESPN to pick the BYU-TCU game, despite that it won't air on the so-called worldwide leader.

"Every week you leave each other, and you wonder, 'OK, where are we going to go next week?' " he said. "We never know. We offer up our opinions to each other, but at the end of the day our bosses make the decisions. But we always kind of get together on the bus afterwards, and speculate where we might go.

"Pretty much everybody thought the game we would probably end up going to would be BYU and TCU. Then we got a call Sunday that there was confirmation, and we were pumped. Now it is just a matter of seeing these teams go at it."

Herbstreit said he is familiar with the "magnificent setting for college football" at LaVell Edwards Stadium because he called several games on Thursday nights back when ESPN had the rights to MWC games. Also, "GameDay" was in Salt Lake City in 2004 for the Utah-BYU game as the Utes were marching to their BCS-busting trip to the Fiesta Bowl.

"Ten years ago, 11 years ago, when the BCS started, if you would have said we are going to TCU-BYU, people would have said, 'What are you doing? Why are you going to that game?' " Herbstreit said. "This goes to show you how far the system and the acceptance of these programs has come.

"When people ask me this week where we are going for 'GameDay' and I say, 'TCU at BYU,' they say, 'Oh, wow, that's going to be a great game.' I think that speaks volumes right there about how far the [MWC] has come."

Herbstreit said it isn't that unusual for "GameDay" to broadcast from a game that isn't airing on ESPN, and he disputed a sentiment held by some in the West that ESPN holds a grudge against the MWC because the league ended its contract with ESPN and formed its own network, the Mtn., a few years ago.

"Never a time in my life, have I ever thought, 'Gee, we don't have the Mountain West Conference on our network. How dare [MWC commissioner] Craig Thompson and the MWC do that. I am going to stick it to them,'" Herbstreit said. "I would never, ever do that. I have opinions. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not, and that's what this sport is. It is a subjective world that we live in. And sometimes these opinions matter too much to people."

With that, perhaps the most powerful voice in college football gave one opinion that won't please local fans. Herbstreit said he doesn't believe the BCS is ready to accept a one-loss team such as BYU or Utah from a non-automatic-qualifying conference just yet.

"As good as BYU and Utah are, and as far as the conference and the interest in the programs have come, there is still a kind of a punishment for losing, and the style in which [BYU] lost, there is the feeling that 'You had your chance, and you blew it' from the voters and people around the country. At least, that's my take on it," he said.

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