Desmond Howard couldn’t understand why ‘College GameDay’ picked game between 7-2 teams

Heading into Week 12 of the college football season, one of the bigger games of the day was the Big 12 showdown between Arizona State and Kansas State. So, it made sense that it was one of the games picked at the end of Saturday’s College GameDay.

Just don’t tell Desmond Howard.

At the end of Saturday’s episode, the College GameDay crew made its picks for the day’s biggest games. After everyone picked SMU to defeat Boston College, host Rece Davis introduced the next game.

“Big 12, Arizona State-Kansas State. Still in the mix. They need a little help to get to the Big 12 title game,” Davis said.

Howard was the first person to offer his pick, taking the Wildcats. Only, he didn’t have much else to say, nor did he even understand why the game was being picked.

“I saw that on the rundown,” Howard said. “I was like, ‘Why are we picking this game?’ I thought it was a mistake,” Howard said.

“That might be the first one of those this season,” Davis replied.

“Yeah,” Howard said. “Kansas State, I guess. Let’s go.”

Desmond Howard’s full breakdown of a really good Arizona State/Kansas State game https://t.co/5zeowU72Mc pic.twitter.com/mRdZY2hNag

— Liam Blutman (@Blutman27) November 16, 2024

First, t’s not as though the Week 12 slate has an abundance of top matchups. There are only two games — Missouri at South Carolina and Tennessee at Georgia — between two ranked opponents.

Furthermore, as Davis said, the teams are both “in the mix.” The Sun Devils and Wildcats have matching records of 7-2 overall and 4-2 in the conference entering the game.

We can’t definitively answer Howard’s question, “Why are we picking this game?” But that probably had something to do with it.

[Cole Manbeck on X, Liam Blutman on X, Photo Credit: ESPN]