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A Conversation With Chris Fowler

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 18, 2007

Updated: 10/17/2007 11:33 pm

ESPN's Chris Fowler has been serving as anchor of the network's Saturday 'College GameDay' program since 1990. He has covered a variety of sports, but is best known for college football. Fowler will be in the booth tonight, doing play-by-play at the Rutgers-USF game at Piscataway, N.J. Saturday, he'll join the 'GameDay' crew on location for the Florida-Kentucky game at Lexington, Ky. Fowler, a University of Colorado graduate, spoke with The Tampa Tribune about the Bulls, the Gators, a relatively lackluster Seminoles-Hurricanes matchup and all things college football:

With all the curiosity about USF being No. 2 in the BCS standings, how much are you looking forward to seeing the Bulls in person?

I'm ecstatic about it. The stakes are extremely high. As I look at their six remaining games, this is the biggest test. It's at Rutgers on a short week. Rutgers beat USF last season. But really, all of their games will present a challenge because USF is not used to coping with the distractions and baggage that come with being a BCS contender.

Do you look at USF and see a No. 2-ranked team?

Well, USF has a very good resume. I'm a pollster The Associated Press, and I'm as baffled as anybody else right now. I really have no clue who is eventually going to come out of this and play for the national title. People vote with different philosophies. Who has the most worthy resume? Who has the best team? Are you asking me if USF is the second-best team in the country? Would I like their chances head to head on the same field with LSU or Ohio State? I would have to say no, not based on what I've seen so far. But on any given day, they can beat anybody, obviously. Do I need to see more from them? Yes.

So in your mind, does USF have the second-best resume?

I'm not voting USF second right now. I want to see how they handle the week-to-week grind. Having said that, I don't see a clear separation between Ohio State and USF. You could swap names on those jerseys and easily put USF No. 1, based on the Bulls' resume. It takes a while for new teams like USF to gain acceptance with the voters. Part of the factor with quote-unquote traditional programs is their ability to handle big-game situations. Having said that, I'm impressed with the USF players I talked to, such as Amarri Jackson and Tyrone McKenzie. I'm usually skeptical of teams new to the scene, but they seem to have their heads screwed on straight. I have a sense these guys are well-equipped to handle what's ahead.

Ever seen anything like the first half of this college football season?

Never, never, never. There have been multiple upsets every Saturday, one week after another. Stanford beating USC? Are you kidding? That's as shocking an upset as I've ever seen, even though USC really seems to be struggling right now. Last Saturday, we're sitting there thinking we could catch our breath. All the top teams were favored by double digits. Then the No. 1 team LSU and No. 2 team California go down on the same day for the first time in 11 years. Every Saturday, there's a new standard for what's surprising. Great for the sport. Great for the fans. Tough on the pollsters.

So you can't exactly book early trips to take the 'College GameDay' set on the road, can you?

Absolutely not. We have no idea where we're going to be. Used to be, you could kind of map out where the games are going to be. Now it's a free-for-all. There's a decent chance we could be down in Tampa on Nov. 3 for Cincinnati-USF. That's very, very much on our radar screen. If you had asked me before the season about the possibility of 'GameDay' going to Cincinnati-USF, I would've had that as a 1,000-to-1 shot.

Who is your Heisman Trophy favorite?

There isn't one. Going into last weekend, I honestly thought Arkansas running back Darren McFadden was the best player I had seen this season. But you can't go 17 carries for 43 yards, no touchdowns and get shut down against Auburn in another loss. I've never been as confused about it as this year. I'm searching for candidates. There are a lot of good players out there. But when you're voting somebody at the top of a Heisman ballot, you're kind of saying this guy is one of the all-time greats. At least that's the way I view it. I don't see anybody having that kind of season - yet.

Florida at Kentucky. Is this a Heisman Trophy elimination game for the quarterbacks, Tim Tebow and Andre' Woodson?

You make a mistake to cost a game like Woodson did against South Carolina and that knocks you to the back of the pack. His performance against LSU brings him right back into it. Tebow wasn't especially to blame for the two Florida losses, but he wasn't able to get the wins, either. Quarterbacks on two-loss teams need to be very, very special. I think Tebow is a great player, probably one of my favorite players in college football. But this game is absolutely essential for his Heisman chances. Same thing for Woodson.

Miami is playing Florida State on Saturday. Do you see any national buzz about the game? Any buzz at all?

It's bizarre. We had a two-hour planning meeting for 'GameDay.' At the end, we realized Florida State was playing Miami, Notre Dame was playing USC and we barely noticed it. Instead, we're talking about teams like USF, Boston College and Kentucky. Even Tennessee-Alabama, that's about the third-most interesting game in the SEC. So the landscape is clearly changing. Your focus has to change along with it. Miami-Florida State? Wow. Playing at this point of the year, where those two programs are right now, it's kind of a matchup of also-rans. That's fairly shocking when you remember all the classic games those two have staged.

People know you from 'College GameDay.' How long ago does Scholastic Sports America Fowler's first ESPN assignment in 1986 seem to you?

Laughter. You have a good memory. You're making me feel ancient. That was another lifetime ago. When you think about all the high-school athletes we profiled - they're now out of college, out of the pros, retired - you know it has been a while. The first football player we ever profiled was Emmitt Smith. He had a long NFL career. He retired. And now he's a colleague of mine at ESPN. I mean, where did the years go? But truly, it was a blast. And I say the same for what we do now with college football.

Joey Johnston

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