It has been a polarizing year for College GameDay when it comes to the show’s location each and every week.
This year has seen the Saturday morning college football pregame show hit new heights in ratings with its most successful year by far. And it comes on the heels of Lee Corso’s perfect send-off to start the season and increased competition from Fox Sports and Big Noon Kickoff after the high-profile addition of Dave Portnoy.
But while Big Noon has always positioned itself as more or less of a promotional vehicle for Fox’s noon game that week, GameDay has always prided itself on traveling to the biggest and best games in the country no matter the location, time slot, or network.
However, we now live in a universe where ESPN is contractually tied to the SEC and Fox, NBC, and CBS have their own mega agreement with the Big Ten. As those conferences separate themselves as the true Power 2, the way each network covers college football has come under a massive amount of scrutiny.
In a sport that bases almost its entire national conversation on subjectivity, eye tests, and theoretical arguments of “who’s better than who” it has only accelerated the great divide that exists and increased accusations of network bias. And where College GameDay decides to go has almost become a weekly referendum on how close ESPN is to the SEC.
For the seventh time in nine weeks this season, College GameDay will visit a game involving a team from the SEC when they travel to Nashville for #10 Vanderbilt hosting #15 Missouri. In a vacuum, it’s a totally understandable pick. Vandy is one of the great stories of the season with Heisman contender Diego Pavia. Mizzou has been maybe the most underrated program in the entire country ever since they moved to the SEC from the Big 12 and showed that maybe all those “how would X team do in the SEC” questions are overrated.
And looking at the rest of the uninspiring FBS slate this week, Vandy-Mizzou is the best of a weak bunch.
But there’s one opportunity out there that would have been a perfect College GameDay landing spot that would have allowed the program to celebrate a full circle moment for its new star.
FCS #1 North Dakota State at #2 South Dakota State in Brookings, South Dakota.
The Dakota Marker rivalry game is one of the best in the sport. The two Dakota schools have dominated the FCS in recent years, combining to win 12 of the last 14 championships. College GameDay has a great history of going to games and schools like this outside the power conferences and FBS level, and this would be another awesome chapter in that history.
Incredibly, it would also come almost exactly six years to the day from the first ever College GameDay appearance of Pat McAfee, who was the celebrity guest picker for their last visit to the Dakotas. McAfee stepped in for former Colts teammate and SDSU alum Adam Vinatieri. And in looking back at the clips from that show, you can see his trademark personality and energy (and playing to the home crowd) that would see him become the centerpiece of the program so many years later.
So what better way to celebrate the new era of GameDay by returning to where it all began for the show’s new star?
Pat McAfee opened up a bit about the selection process on his daily show on Monday and talked about the great experience he had at South Dakota State for what was his first GameDay appearance and how it was in the running to host this week.
“South Dakota State I believe is hosting North Dakota State this weekend… that was a potential GameDay opportunity this weekend. I know a lot of people were hoping that we would go to that game. I’d like to let everybody know I had a chance to experience, that was how I got on a GameDay, was because Adam Vinatieri was the guest picker for South Dakota State, obviously couldn’t make it, so he sends me to replace him in 2019,” McAfee said.
“And I go sleeveless hoodie up there, I get a chance to enjoy the entirety, do the thing, and that was my first introduction to GameDay basically. Kirk Herbstreit pieces that whole thing together which I’m very thankful for. And then obviously the next few years happen and now I’m back full-time for, I guess this is the fourth season now. And it’s like, getting the chance to go to South Dakota State, that place will always, go big, go blue, go Jacks, I’m always thankful for that morning and everything that happened there, but that was six years ago we were there.”
McAfee did defend the College GameDay pick of going to Vanderbilt-Missouri for their first visit to Nashville since 2008. He also admitted that he would have rather seen the program go to BYU-Utah last weekend instead of Georgia-Ole Miss because of the scene it would have been in the Beehive State. He referenced the criticism that has come at GameDay this season for picking so many SEC games, but noted the unique quality of the Vanderbilt-Missouri matchup and how rarely those teams are featured.
Both positions are understandable. The Vandy pick is perfectly reasonable this week. On the flip side, you can see why fans aren’t as excited for yet another SEC matchup. It’s been a narrative all season long that ESPN is favoring the SEC because of their billion dollar rights deal. And it will be a narrative that continues to follow the network and the conference for the lifetime of that contract. You simply can’t have an exclusive television deal worth $3 billion and not have those questions of influence and bias follow you around.
The first visit to Nashville since 2008 is a great story. But GameDay just saw Vanderbilt play at Alabama a couple weeks ago. It’s not like the program has been completely off the map this season. As far as SDSU goes, GameDay hasn’t visited an FCS school at all since 2022.
And if the show is going to pass on a #1 vs #2 rivalry game featuring the two best teams at that level for another SEC game between teams that are ranked in the teens nationally, it’s fair to ask when the next visit may come to a school outside college football’s power players. The last episode outside the Power Four conferences came at Army-Navy in 2023. Just a few weeks before that, GameDay went to Appalachian State vs James Madison where the pregame show had a record turnout.
College GameDay had a great opportunity for a truly special program with a special atmosphere at South Dakota State. It will get it at Vanderbilt too, for sure. But the reason why it became so beloved is because it has been and should continue to be something that celebrates all things college football. But for those on the margins of the money and the power in college football, those celebrations are becoming fewer and farther between.
