Gameday Experience – Atlanta, GA - Ol' Crimson Booster Club

Pictured: Casey Tallon, Chris Fowler, Duane Sammons, Ben Overfield, Gene Hunter (Doug Duin as our photographer)

Anybody who’s ever waved one of our flags at Gameday knows how many people go out of their way to come up to you and ask some variation of, “So, how does it work?” Or the always classic, “Do you travel around to EVERY Gameday?!”

(No dude, I don’t.)

But at Gameday #91, we decided to hang out by the barricade running adjacent to the set prior to the show. I’d like to say if it was for some reason other than catching a glimpse of Erin Andrews at arm’s length. But you know. Suddenly we hear, “Hey! It’s the Washington State guys!” To our surprise, it was host Chris Fowler who had taken notice of us Coug fans, fully clad in our WSU garb.

“Hey, let’s get a picture,” he immediately offered.

We shot the breeze for a few, and off he went to handle his business. We were told to swing by the set after the show and we could grab a few more pictures in the “backstage” area. Very cool.

The show went off without a hitch. We had WSU flags all over the place, while the many LSU and UNC fans thought nothing of all our Coug representation. At the 12 o’clock hour, Chris Fowler told the fans to stay safe and reminded them they had a long day ahead of them and not to wear themselves out. Translation: “It’s noon. The game isn’t for eight hours still. Drink some water.”

We went over to get our last few snapshots by the Gameday set and a guy in business attire approached us.

“Hey…” he curiously greeted. He paused, as I noticed the credentials hanging from his neck.

“You guys want to go to the game?”

Unbeknownst to me, the man’s name was David Epps. A quick Google of his name tells you he’s the Chief Operating Office of the Chick-fil-A Bowl.

He proceeds to tell us how much he loves the WSU fans, the flag waving, the whole nine yards. How if we’ll email him our info, he’ll leave us tickets to the game at will call.

Yeah right. He’s yankin’ our chain. There are already guys hanging in the parking lots, walking up and and down Peachtree scalping tickets at a couple hundred a pop. This is the opening weekend of college football and seats inside the Georgia Dome are going at a premium. And this guy in his starched shirt and power tie is just going to hand us admittance into the game of the weekend? This was too good to be true.

LSU won it 30-24, nearly blowing a twenty point halftime lead that went down to the final play of the game.

I know because us Cougs were there to see it live.

Thanks again, David.