The "College GameDay" panel unanimously picked Auburn to beat Cal, which didn't happen. The “College GameDay” panel unanimously picked Auburn to beat Cal, which didn’t happen. (Jason Kirk on X/Twitter.)
College FootballESPNBy Andrew Bucholtz on

It’s always interesting to see when unanimous predictions from a pre-game show go wrong. The latest example of that came on College GameDay Saturday, where their panel (Desmond Howard, Nick Saban, Pat McAfee, guest picker Michael Phelps, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit) all chose Auburn to beat Cal at home and No. 21 Iowa to beat Iowa State at home. Instead, the Golden Bears and Cyclones picked up road wins (21-14 and 21-20 respectively), and that had some thinking back to the GameDay picks:

Both of the picked teams here were favorites, and there was strong fan sentiment in favor of them too (including 94 percent of the fan vote in Cal-Auburn going to the Tigers). But it’s still interesting when the entire panel goes in on one pick and gets it wrong. (And Herbstreit narrowly saved them from having this happen three times, as he was the only one to pick Illinois over Kansas.) This has happened to GameDay several times before, as well as many other shows, but it’s always amusing when it does (and it does add to the questions about the value of these picks segments).

In Cal’s case, too, there was a whole lot of love for Auburn beyond just the straight picks on the GameDay set. That saw Saban saying ““I think Auburn will dominate this game” and “Hugh Freeze is going to do an outstanding job at Auburn, I think they’re going to be one of the most improved teams in the SEC.” And Herbstreit called the Tigers “a surprise team in the whole SEC” and saying QB Payton Thorne (who tossed four picks in the loss) “has a chance to have a big year this year”

The pre-game love for their opposition perhaps factored into some in-game comments from Cal players, as sideline reporter Stormy Buonantony relayed on the ESPN2 broadcast (per Alex Simon at SF Gate):

“In that last break, a bunch of players came over to this far-left corner, where the Cal contingent of fans is, [and] hyped them up like crazy. There was even one player who said, ‘SEC? This is Cali ball, baby. Not so loud now.’ They are feeling themselves a little bit over here.”

Even the Cal football official account got in on the SEC trolling after the game, using the conference’s “It just means more” slogan:

So those pregame comments on how great Auburn was definitely didn’t work out for GameDay this week. And neither did the picks.

[SF Gate, SoonersWire; image via Jason Kirk on X/Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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