Fans show up for ‘College GameDay’ return to UO campus

It was good weather Saturday morning to wear a duck onesie. 

And several of those outfits were among the large crowd gathered in the Memorial Quad on the University of Oregon campus for ESPN’s “College GameDay,” with temperatures hovering around 40 degrees. 

It was the second time this season producers brought the three-hour football pregame show to Eugene, and fans turned out again. 

UO student Avari Subee, 19, arrived at the quad with her friends at 5:30 a.m. ahead of the 6 o’clock start time for the live show. She was there last month, too, before Oregon’s game against Indiana. 

“I like the community and sports culture in general and rallying behind a team,” Subee said. “It brings us together as a campus and as a student body.”

David Fife brought his own chair and sat back from the crowd. His two grandsons, ages 14 and 20, were closer to the stage.

“They can get out there and I can sit right here and I’m good,” the 64-year-old Canby resident said. 

Fife grew up being an usher at Oregon football games with the Boy Scouts and was excited to take one of his grandsons to his first Ducks game. 

“I’ve been a Duck fan since the ’70s when they couldn’t get a first down,” he said. 

Fans held homemade signs as they listened to the hosts discuss Oregon’s upcoming game against the USC Trojans. In between, the analysts engaged participants in contests, including a dance competition and field goal challenge that saw UO student Otto Haar walk away with $100,000 after getting it through the uprights on his second attempt.

Tiffany Robles wore a Nebraska Huskers LED necklace that shone brightly in the pre-dawn light. Her husband wore an Oregon Ducks one. 

“We’re huge college football fans,” said Robles, 49, who lives in Tigard. 

“He’s a fifth-generation duck. I was born and raised in Nebraska,” she said. “So we’re a house divided.”

They are Ducks season ticket holders, but she wears Nebraska gear to every game. 

Jake Petrjanos, 51, of West Linn, was there with three friends wearing matching yellow jerseys with the words “Dück Crüe” stitched in green on the back (the umlauts being a reference to the hair-metal band Mötley Crüe). 

The numbers on the friends’ jerseys (9, 6, 20 and 14) signify the day of the first game the group attended together 11 years ago. The friends have a tradition of going to McMenamins on East 19th Avenue to play darts and shuffleboard before every game. 

It was Wyatt Erlei’s first time at a “College GameDay” show in Oregon. The boy, who is “almost 10” and lives in Fruitland, Idaho, had been to one of the productions at Boise State University.. 

“This one has been watching GameDay every morning since he was four or five,” said Wyatt’s mom, Bronte Erlei, who grew up in Eugene. 

Wyatt was most excited to see Pat McAfee. 

“He’s just always so funny to me,” he said. 

The family attended Marcus Mariota’s Oregon Ducks’ Athletic Hall of Fame induction ceremony the night before. They would see him again toward the end of the show when the former Oregon quarterback, who now plays for the Washington Commanders, took the stage as the celebrity guest picker. 

Mariota called Oregon “the best place to play college football,” as he took his seat among the hosts. 

After the pickers favored Oregon to beat USC, McAfee ended the broadcast singing, “Now wait a minute,” from the “Shout” song by the Isley Brothers, a rallying cry for Ducks fans. 

“Eugene, you been so good to me. Here two weeks, you all showed up, been so sweet,” he continued before leading the crowd in a chant of “hey ey hey ey.”