It's a TV show. Do we really care who the guest picker is?

Jerry Allen, the legendary voice of the Ducks once said of Marcus Mariota, "He's not only a Heisman Trophy candidate, he's a Heisman Trophy person." Meaning that the way Mariota conducted himself and represented the school was a credit to his culture and his family.

And it was. Along with his center Hroniss Grasu, two-time NCAA javelin champion Sam Crouser, 14-time All-American Jenna Prandini, a national champion in the 100 meters and the long jump, and three-time softball All-American and Olympic silver medalist Janie Takeda Reed, Mariota is being inducted this weekend into the University of Oregon Athletics Hall of Fame.

That's the honor this weekend. That's the lead. That Mariota is doing a guest gig on a loud, SEC-tilted college football pregame show is a nice moment where the hosts will throw him some accolades and tease him about his golf game but it won't be anywhere on his plaque or a reason he'll be remembered.

It would have been way buzzier and People Magazine cover-worthy if Justin Herbert had done the show with his new girlfriend, pop star Madison Beer. That was the big get the producers pitched first. Thank goodness it wasn't Sabrina Ionescu, who is an all-time Oregon icon of similar status to Crouser and Mariota and the rest but she's done the show twice before.

Mariota's guest spot pales next to the grace he displayed every day

Mariota's legacy at Oregon was made long before this honor and the resulting guest picker spot. It wasn't just the touchdowns and 36 wins as the Ducks starting quarterback. It was the kids he taught to read and played with at the Y and the trash he picked up and the autographs he patiently signed. He once got a speeding ticket and apologized to the cop.

The guest picker thing is a bit ESPN does to hype the show, create some mystery around it. Who will be the guest picker? It gets lost in the chanting and the signs and the coach-speak on a program that's lost a little bit of its soul and humor since Lee Corso retired. Now it's become the Pat McAfee Show, a little too much gravy on the mash potatoes.

Whether the guest picker is a former athlete, a comedian or an actor with a movie to promote, it's not much to get up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday for, not anymore. The athlete gets a little uncomfortable on the set, not knowing when to speak or when to let Nick Saban rant, or which camera to look at when he weighs in on Kentucky at Vanderbilt and Pittsburgh at Georgia Tech.

Last thing: People knock Mariota because he hasn't had a brilliant career as a pro. He's made $83.5 million. And he was a brilliant, scintillating, marvelous college football player, Oregon's only Heisman Trophy winner and a Hall of Fame person. Nothing that happens or doesn't happen on the ESPN set will change that.