Timothée Chalamet may have seemed like an odd choice for College GameDay's picker, but he brought the house down in Atlanta. Credit: ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’
By Sam Neumann on

Timothée Chalamet might have been the most polarizing guest picker in recent College GameDay history, and at first glance, the skepticism was understandable. ESPN’s decision to bring the 28-year-old actor on board seemed like little more than a plug for his upcoming Bob Dylan biopic, especially given his lack of ties to Atlanta, Georgia, or Texas.

But what the critics didn’t realize was that Chalamet is, in fact, a certified ball knower. Not only did he wax poetic about MACtion and the Ohio Bobcats — who proved him right, thanks to quarterback Parker Navarro — but he also held his own when it came to his picks.

Chalamet aimed for a perfect 6-0 during conference championship weekend and ended up 4-3. Though, two of his losses — SMU and Texas — came by a combined six points, so his only real misfire was picking Louisiana, which Marshall thumped in a 31-3 drubbing in the Sun Belt Conference Championship game.

After Chalamet earned rave reviews — including from us at Awful Announcing — ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt took it upon himself to take aim at those who were initially perturbed by his presence on the GameDay set.

“To the people that want to be like, ‘This is a disgrace,’ it’s a pick segment on a TV show,” Van Pelt said on his SVPod alongside his co-host Stanford Steve. “This isn’t who’s teaching your kid; this isn’t who’s operating on your knee. It’s a pick segment. And then the dude shows up and crushes it — only guy that picks Ohio. And then I see people being like, ‘Well, he’s just an actor reading his lines.’ How miserable are you?

“You’re sitting around, pissed off because an actor picks the picks, shows up, and is great, and then you wanna minimize the way he did it because he was good at it. My God, you’ll be mad about anything. And then I ask myself, ‘Why I am looking at what people — I don’t even know who the hell they are – are saying on social media?’ And then I go outside and touch grass, as they say, and I go, ‘You know what, the world’s a beautiful place.’

“People that are pissed off at Chalamet, they got the issue, not this cat right here. I turn the reflection. I turn my gaze inward. That’s where growth happens. But I thought this guy was tremendous… I thought he was fantastic. The line about understanding the assignment, like the dude understood the assignment.”

It turns out Timothée Chalamet didn’t just understand the assignment — he aced it. And in the process, it proved that the critics — not Van Pelt — need to touch grass themselves.

[SVPod]

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann