Dedicated Eagle fans Matt Flynn (A&S ‘13) and Matt Twomey (CSOM ‘13) line up for College GameDay, held in the Dustbowl as the football team faced the FSU Seminoles.

Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Desmond Howard came to BC on Saturday for College GameDay, marking only the second time in 23 years that the show has aired from Boston College.

First airing in 1987, the show spent six years in the studio before going on the road in 1993. BC fi rst welcomed Game- Day back on September 17, 2005, for Boston College’s first game in the Atlantic Coast Conference, after they moved from the Big East Conference. That matchup featured #8 Florida State versus #16 Boston College (interestingly enough, both College GameDay appearances at BC have come when the Seminoles are in Chestnut Hill.)

The GameDay location of each Saturday is usually the location where the big game is being played: the marquee matchup. This game usually has one or two nationally ranked teams.

Neither Florida State nor Boston College are nationally ranked, so why is it that College GameDay aired from Campus Green when #8 Oklahoma was playing at #17 Miami (Fl).

The answer can be found in what BC stands for… Boston College or Beat Cancer? As Lance Armstrong said in a video message to Mark Herzlich that aired during the show presented by Home Depot, “I love the fact that this weekend BC doesn’t mean Boston College, it means Beat Cancer. I cannot say it any clearer and couldn’t agree any more.”

A “Gold-Out” was planned for when the Seminoles came to play in Alumni Stadium, although not the traditional “Gold- Out.” This time the “Gold-Out” was to support cancer.

The “Beat Cancer” campaign has resulted in the gold “Beat Cancer” t-shirts selling like crazy in the bookstores, at the stadium, and online. Mark Herzlich has the BC community behind him, and his story of battling Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare cancer, has put BC at the focal point of college football, at least it did for one rainy day.

SuperFans stood in the pouring rain for two hours while the show aired, hoping to appear on ESPN, if only for 15 seconds while wearing an orange construction hat from Home Depot or if only to have their homemade signs shown off to the sports’ world (two of the best signs of the day: “Ponder this, Bowden… Retirement,” and “Eagles Soar Past Noles.”)

No surprise, Herzlich came to the stage in Campus Green, and the loud crowd went silent as a video montage of him played on the big screen. As he was interviewed for the live segment, fans cheered the loudest when he talked about his return in an Eagles’ uniform next season.

Messages to Mark from Lance Armstrong, Tedy Bruschi, Jon Lester, and Butch Davis, current head football coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, aired during the segment. Herzlich said he has received tons of encouragement from people, including a phone call from Bruschi two days prior telling him to be proud of being a survivor. He also revealed that his doctor is 99% sure he is now cancer-free.

Proud survivor of a stroke, Tedy Bruschi later came out of the orange GameDay RV and made his own appearance on the stage: a much applauded surprise to soaking wet SuperFans.

When it came time for Saturday Selections, the most popular part of the show where Corso and Herbstreit make their predictions of which teams will win the top games, including the game location they are at, Bruschi smartly chose the Eagles over the Seminoles.

Herbstreit also wisely predicted that the Eagles would come out victorious, but Corso put on the head of Chief Osceola, FSU’s mascot, indicating he thought the Seminoles would win; This was, of course, greeted with intense boo’s from the fans in gold.

Corso should have put on the head of Baldwin because the Eagles won the thrilling game. Maybe we won’t have to wait another four years for College GameDay to come back to BC if the Eagles keep winning like this and proving doubters wrong.

Hopefully next time, they’ll come under better circumstances: not when one of our players is fi ghting in the battle of his life, but when we are the marquee matchup of a Saturday in college football.