ESPN’s College Gameday officially revealed last night that it’ll be heading to Miami for next week’s matchup between Florida and Miami, a storied rivalry with plenty of history.
But that’s just it. It’s a storied rivalry because the national audience has seen it so many times before. Does the average college football fan really need another hours-long reminder of what these two programs used to be as they try to get back to those heights, especially when one side is significantly closer to doing so than
the other? Probably not, no.
College Gameday is wildly popular and needs no introduction. If you’re reading this you’ve surely seen the campus crowds, creative signs, Ol’ Crimson, Lee Corso’s headgear picks and analysis countless times. I won’t pretend to know what goes into the decision-making process on where the show goes, but it’s used its considerable platform to shine a light on stories the general audience hasn’t seen before.
Some of these less-traveled locations include Kalamazoo, Michigan (Buffalo at Western Michigan), Pullman, Washington (Oregon at Washington State), Brookings, South Dakota (North Dakota State at South Dakota State) Boone, North Carolina (Troy at Appalachian State) Lawrence, Kansas (TCU at Kansas) and Bozeman, Montana (Montana at Montana State). These shows stick out because they tell the stories of these places and teams, the kind most people usually wouldn’t hear otherwise.
Indiana was featured on Gameday last year, sure. That hasn’t stopped the show from heading to Tuscaloosa multiple times in the same season because Alabama was playing for a playoff berth, which both Indiana and Illinois can feasibly achieve this season.
I won’t pretend either Bloomington or Champaign is some far-flung location people don’t hear about often, but neither is typically brought up with football in mind. Those spots are usually known for their men’s basketball programs until quite recently.
Indiana and Illinois haven’t exactly been operating around the top of the Big Ten’s pecking order for a while. The Hoosiers are well known nationally for their gridiron woes while the Fighting Illini have spent much of the 21st century cycling through head coaches trying to get the program back to its winning ways.
Illinois was a dominant force nationally in the sport’s early days as one of the top teams in the primordial Big Ten. Few teams could match those of legendary coach Robert Zuppke and Red Grange, the Galloping Ghost, who famously ran all over Michigan right in front of Grantland Rice, a pioneer in the sportswriting industry, inspiring him to write the following:
A streak of fire, a breath of flame
Eluding all who reach and clutch;
A gray ghost thrown into the game
That rival hands may never touch;
A rubber bounding, blasting soul
Whose destination is the goal — Red Grange of Illinois!
That’s just sick, dude. Sorry to break from the formal writing here, but that rocks. This is the kind of thing today’s writers hope to be able to put out when they aren’t churning out SEO content.
Indiana has some of its own interesting stories to tell. George Taliaferro, the first Black player to be drafted into the NFL, starred for the Hoosiers at multiple positions and is honored in Bloomington with scholarship programs and a statue outside of Memorial Stadium. Corso was the Hoosiers’ head coach for a time, being celebrated during Gameday’s stop in Bloomington last season. Terry Hoeppner showed a passion for the program few coaches ever have before his passing, with the next season’s team rallying to get to the bowl game ‘Hep’ wanted to reach more than anyone.
I won’t pretend to be the best storyteller on either of these programs, there’s plenty of people who’ve written plenty more words than me. But the fact is that both have countless compelling stories to tell that are unknown to the general audience. That’s part of what makes the sport special and it’s needed now more than ever as we shift further and further toward conferences that don’t make sense and an endless focus on the big brands above all else.
Champaign will have a shot to host Gameday if Illinois’ dream season plays out and it’ll deserve that. But forgoing this matchup for yet another big brand matchup feels like a whiff.
I’d rather take something interesting than the same old thing.
