Starting Five

Pick Us a Winner, GameDay

ESPN’s “College GameDay” visits the lovely, leafy Chicago suburb of Evanston this Saturday, where a certain university that is more renowned for producing master thespians than NFL starters is located. Northwestern hosts Ohio State. Both B1G schools are 4-0 and Jim Delany is still never paying anyone in a helmet a red cent, so get over it.

Anyway, to the matter at hand. Who should GameDay’s celebrity picker be? Not that it really matters –they always rush the segment because they wait until too late in the broadcast to do it and forget that Lee Corso really doesn’t care much about the available window when he ad-libs, but here are my top five nominees (all graduated or attended NU):

1). Seth Meyers, head writer of Saturday Night Live and host of “Weekend Update”: There may be some hard feelings since he refused to do a late-night show for the WWL, plus he’d have to be back at 30 Rock later that night. Still, he’s a genuinely passionate sports fan (who’s dying inside because his Stillers are 0-4) and he’d be terrific.

2) Stephen Colbert, host of “The Colbert Report”: Just won an Emmy and knows how to dance to “Get Lucky.”

3) Anna Gunn, who played Skylar White on “Breaking Bad”: Just won an Emmy and may or may not know how to dance to “Get Lucky.”

4) Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays vice president Selina Meyer on “Veep”: Just won an Emmy and–this is getting a little old, no? — and gave a worthy acceptance speech.

5) George R.R. Martin, who wrote “Game of Thrones”: A true genius. Also, every time he picks an underdog, I’d like that wildling lady to pop up from under the set and say, “You know nothing, Jon Snow!”

Here’s what we do not want: ESPN lazily selecting one of its own staffers/NU alums such as Mike Greenberg, Michael Wilbon or Darren Rovell. Chris Fowler may have to act as if he’s thrilled to be promoting the WWL, but we don’t.

2. Rating Five SNL Sketches

A solid opening night by a cast that has six new members. Even host and former SNL cast member Tina Fey referred to it as “a rebuilding year.” Kate McKinnon is that crazy girl who if I sat next to her in class would’ve completely corrupted me. Odds on that would have been low, however, as I attended an all-boys school.

1. The Girls Parody Trailer

A+. Awesome. Tina Fey nails it as the new roommate from Albania, Blerta (you should know that there’s a little tension between Fey and the show’s creator Lena Dunham, a fellow New Yorker). My favorite line is when Blerta tells Hannah, “You will never do better than him. He is strong like ox and you are weak and soft and dressed like a baby.”

2. E-Meth

A. Perfect idea, perfect execution. A parody of the E-cigarette commercials that also piggybacks on the “Breaking Bad” finale/Felina hysteria, with memorable lines such as “Momma can smoke that smoky white crunch anywhere” and “Gakked up on woop chicken.” New cast member Brooks Whelan, as the dude smoking meth pants-free in Kenan Thompson’s living room, was outstanding.

3. Drunk Uncle

A -. Despite, or perhaps because, sporting John Candy’s Barf hairdo from “Spaceballs”, Bobby Moynihan’s “Weekend Update” character keeps improving (“Someone’s gotta watch the white sports” and “The only blurred lines I know are our border with Mexico”). Seth Meyers could give a clinic on how to play off the crazy dude, by the way (“Please, that’s not me” “That’s not anybody.”)

4. Classic Cinema and Taxidermy

B+. Bizarre, but hilarious. Kenan Thompson’s exposition oversold the joke, for me, but when the actress had her moment of drama in front of a giant stuffed bear in a tiny red hat, I lost it.

5. Cars For Sale

B. I was trying to imagine the prop department’s reaction: “You want us to find a Model-T for a sketch that’s airing after 12:30 and headlined by a new guy? Riiigggghhhht.” Like the sketch above, I like that SNL went for a bright concept –selling used cars back when there was only one model available –as opposed to a lazy topical sketch (um, twerking) that would have drawn easier laughs from the live audience.

3. Fire Lane Kiffin

It’s over. USC sacks Lane Kiffin after the Trojans surrender 62 points to “Others Receiving Votes” school Arizona State. By the way, Irish fans, please not that the Sun Devils have put up 90 points in just the past six quarters at Stanford and versus USC, which supposedly had a stout defense.

The deflated football saga and the fired student manager who never surfaced. The post-game lockerroom fracas at the Sun Bowl. The home loss to Wazzu that sent offensive football back to before Amos Alonzo Stagg. The closed practices. The sardonic tweet out to Penn State coach Bill O’Brien. Kiffin might have overcome all of this, as well as his charm-free arrogance, if USC had won a little more often. But, after opening last season as the AP’s No. 1, this program plummeted.

Athletic director Pat Haden fired Kiffin at 3 a.m. at LAX after the Trojans returned home from Tempe, a short one-hour flight. If I had been Kiffin I’d have headed directly to the In-N-Out Burger just north of the airport on Sepulveda and contemplated life with two Animal Style burgers. You know, I would have done that even if Haden hadn’t canned me.

Vegas likes former USC linebacker and current Denver Bronco defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio to replace Kiffin, and if they do I’ll have that Duran Duran song running through my head every time I watch a USC highlight. Personally, I’m not sure why a coach who went 68-71 in the NFL (with Jacksonville) is such a desirable prospect. I might at least blow up Chip Kelly’s or Chris Petersen’s celly first.

4. Anyhow, I Met Your Mother

HIMYM is now in its ninth season. The show even mocked itself during upfronts by having Ted Mosby’s now college-aged kids ask how long this story is going to take. I still watch because –wait for it– of Barney Stinson and also because the quintet has genuinely good chemistry, because the characters are distinct and well-developed, because of items such as Goliath National Bank and because, unlike “Friends”, these twenty-somethings hang out in a bar instead of a coffee shop.

5. Shutdown

So the federal government is shut down, not that most of us will notice any difference in the lack of efficacy from our elected leaders. Let me get this straight: Where once Congress was feverishly working to not accomplish anything, now it will not be feverishly working to not accomplish anything?

I’m just a simple blogger of sports and server of libations and burgers, but I must ask this: when we continually send people to Washington who appear to have less of a talent for making things happen than they do getting themselves on to cable news shows and getting elected in the first place, maybe the problem is far more fundamental? Maybe the problem –and anyone who has ever witnessed a junior high class president election  will probably agree — is that you really never want to elect someone who WANTS to run for office. The best people for the job are, alas, smart enough not to pursue it.