To say that bringing "Jeopardy!" to the University of Pittsburgh's Petersen Events Center last month for its college championship tournament required the coordination of a small army is an understatement. Think what you want about the flaky nature of Hollywood celebrities, but the folks behind the scenes know how to draft a schedule and stick to it.

V.W.H. Campbell Jr., Post-Gazette John Lauderdale, stage manager for the production of "Jeopardy!" that invaded the University of Pittsburgh, points to where Kermin Fleming of Carnegie Mellon University should wave for the cameras. Also on stage for this rehearsal: Amanda Nowotny of Pitt and Larry Marshall of the University of Missouri. Click photo for larger image. "Jeopardy! College Championship" When: 7 p.m. weekdays beginning Wednesday and running through Nov. 23 on WPXI. Host: Alex Trebek. Related coverage Q&A with Alex Trebek

Television production has come a long way from the "Hey, let's put on a show" early days of the medium if "Jeopardy!" is any indication. When 12 tractor-trailers hauled the show's set pieces and equipment across the continent from Los Angeles, everything was timed to happen like clockwork.

Viewers will get to see the results of that labor beginning at 7 p.m. Wednesday and running through Nov. 23 when the champion of the college tournament is crowned.

On Oct. 9, the first day of taping "Jeopardy!" in Pittsburgh, the schedule began early with media on site at 8:15 a.m. to interview contestants. Reporters got two minutes each with host Alex Trebek beginning at 10:15 a.m., and TV reporters came from Buffalo, Youngstown and Lexington, Ky., home of contestant Kermin Fleming, a junior at Carnegie Mellon University and a "Jeopardy!" player to keep an eye on.

The size of the audience makes road trips different from taping in the show's Culver City studio, according to Trebek. In California, "Jeopardy!" has a studio audience of about 250 people. At the Petersen, the audience was more than 2,000.

Before taping began, there was scheduled time for the requisite photo opportunity of Alex with all 15 players, representing schools large (University of Missouri) and small (Williams College). And then they taped the promos. Trebek stood next to each player, and each looked into the camera and asked hometown viewers to cheer her or him on. Some of those spots will no doubt turn up on Pittsburgh station WPXI in the coming days.

Four of the student competitors have regional ties: In addition to Carnegie Mellon's Fleming, Amanda Nowotny competed for the University of Pittsburgh; Kelley Burd represented West Virginia University; and Pittsburgher Rachel McCool attends Dickinson College.

The students compete for the $100,000 top prize on a stage with a giant University of Pittsburgh sign in the background, spelling out "PITTSBURGH" in huge block letters. You might not be able to tell on TV, but the letters are designed to look as if they're made of different materials found in campus buildings, from modern glass in the "PI" to sandstone for the "GH."

Behind the player podiums, a replica of the interior of the Cathedral of Learning loomed. Production designer Naomi Slodki said the Cathedral is the most recognizable building on the Pitt campus, which is why it was chosen to be represented as a piece of the set.

As students took their spots at the player podiums, each sported a shirt emblazoned with their university's logo. Nowotny arrived in a Pitt sweatshirt, but the school's logo was deemed insufficiently large. Someone was dispatched to get a shirt with a larger, more TV-friendly Pitt logo.

"I'm gonna try to control [my nerves]," she said before competing. "We'll see."

The Pitt Quiz Bowl team invited Nowotny to practice with them the week before the "Jeopardy!" taping. After her episode was done, Nowotny said she tried to stay focused during the game but realized some strategic mistakes.

"I was kind of playing like the SATs, where you don't get penalized for guessing," she said. "Only here, you do."

Dickinson's McCool has some TV quiz show experience. The 2003 Woodland Hills High School graduate played for her school's team on KDKA-TV's "Hometown High Q."

"It's really hard to practice," she said. "They could ask you anything." She hoped to avoid sports questions, unless they covered tennis, Pittsburgh teams or English soccer.

WVU's Burd, who's an intense competitor, said she didn't tell anyone she was going to be on the show except for a few professors so she could get her tests moved.

Jimmy McGuire, a Pittsburgh native and member of the "Jeopardy!" clue crew, subbed for Trebek during a rehearsal game. But he's not getting any ideas.

"There's no replacing Alex," McGuire said. "I've learned a lot from him."

During a practice round, Carnegie Mellon's Fleming proved proficient at game play. "Jeopardy!" staffers dubbed him "Kermin Jennings" after "Jeopardy!'s" biggest winner of all time, Ken Jennings.

"I'm scared of pop music," Fleming said of categories he didn't want to see on the game board before taping began. "I know the songs, I just don't know as much about the people. I'm hoping for anything about technology because I'm the only engineer [competing]."

Each "Jeopardy!" episode is taped in real time, meaning each episode takes about 30 minutes. The only time tape stops is when the show's four judges must confer about a contestant's answer.

"It's not so much inaccuracies as people giving us answers we didn't anticipate," said head writer Gary Johnson of the responses that prompt the judges to halt taping. "Every single piece of information in every clue has to be double-sourced."

Taping stopped once during the first episode at Pitt. Contestants were asked to turn their backs to the game board while judges conferred on a ruling.

After the first show ended, announcer Johnny Gilbert explained the disappearance of host Trebek between shows: He was changing into a new suit. "Jeopardy!" tapes five shows in a day, but to viewers at home, "if he hasn't changed clothes by Thursday's [episode], people say, '[What's] wrong with him? He hasn't changed clothes all week!' "

Gilbert praised Pittsburgh, whose rivers are seen in the "Jeopardy!" closing credits during the college championship.

"Everybody talks about the dirty air in Pittsburgh. Where is it?" Gilbert asked the audience. "It's a lot brighter here than in Los Angeles, where we have smog."