Tomorrow, ESPN's College Football Live 50 State Tour stops in Colorado where they'll chat with former Buffalo Kordell Stewart to talk about college football within the state borders. The day after, July 3rd, they'll be focusing on the state of New York and all of the great college football tradition therein. One question though...who are they going to be talking with?
In almost every stop on the tour, one or two local legends have been singled out to represent the state and their school. Matt Leinert talked Southern California, Frank Beamer chatted Virginia state football, Chris Speilman talked Ohio State/Michigan during the Ohio stop. There have been a couple stops where no specific person has been brought out and the segment moved by so quickly you would have thought John Saunders and Andre Ware were in a rush to get somewhere (like the Arkansas one).
But surely, between Syracuse and Army (and to a lesser extent Cornell, Colgate, Buffalo et al.), there's enough going on in the history of New York college football that requires a sit-down interview and some in-depth analysis. Yes, Army was the longtime traditional power for many years. But let's face it, when anyone thinks of college football in New York state, they think of Syracuse (for better or worse). #44, the famed running backs, the 1959 National Title, Donovan McNabb, the Carrier Dome...there's too much history here to just gloss over it.
They've gotta be talking to Jim Brown, right? It's all too perfect. Brown has been talking to anyone with a TV or radio signal over the past couple weeks...so he's available. And he just so happens to be arguably the greatest running back of all-time. So there's that.
I mean, I guess you could talk to Donovan and that would be fine. But he's as much related to Philadelphia now as he is Syracuse.
Working for the Orange is the recent fanpoll results that have Cuse winning two of the three categories up for grabs. Best All-Time Team (1959) and best all-time player (Jim Brown), all the more reason to have him on the program.
We'll find out soon enough but hopefully SU gets some respect when the discussion of New York college football comes up. I mean, we are New York's College Team, are we not???