Cal football in national spotlight as Berkeley gets ready to host "College GameDay"
The college football world will have its sights on UC Berkeley this weekend, as the school plays host to "College GameDay" ahead of their first ACC home matchup against Miami.
"The stage is being set up on the glade," John Rich said with a bit of wonder as he approached Memorial Glade on Friday.
Rich was among the stream of people on Friday that just had to get a glance at ESPN's college football road show, that is traveling sacred ground.
"I just had to come by and see it," laughed Tom McCormick. "How often do you get GameDay here?"
"You know to be honest I hadn't realized until this happened that we had never had a GameDay," Rich said.. "I was kind of shocked to be honest so there was a lot of rumbling online if you saw the for the Calgorithm."
Excitement on the Cal campus, just weeks into their first season in their new conference, is a far cry from the uncertain future when the Pac-12 collapsed last year, the result of a radical realignment in college sports.
"I think the moment that this kind of started the surface to the mainstream was when Avi tweeted out something about making that a word regarding the UCLA payments to Berkeley," said Rob Hwang, Editor with Write for California. "And then from there the moment we beat Auburn the tweet about 'you lost to the woke agenda,' that meme took off."
Hwang and his site, which covers Cal sports, were part of the online guerilla movement that helped push the Bears into the national spotlight.
"And yeah, it's been a fever dream so far," Hwang said. "Just going out yesterday and today to see College GameDay and the stage set up has just been absolutely surreal."
"It should be a nice crowd in here," said Samantha at Triple Rock brewing. "We have the Richter Room over here. Big tables."
Excitement over the Bears and their newfound fame is also great news for bars and restaurants which are expecting another big weekend, and that will include a lot of people from out of town.
"All of my Cal friends, the alums that I know, it's been a buzz," said Rich, who made his way up from San Diego. "Like, 'oh I've gotta come to Berkeley and visit again for College GameDay.'"