The three-hour show, hosted by Rece Davis and featuring analysts Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, and Nick Saban, airs live every Saturday during the college football season. It is typically broadcast from the college campus of the team hosting the game ESPN chooses for the week. Thousands of fans gather behind the broadcast desk with team flags and creative signs, often mocking their opponents. The last time the College Gameday crew hosted from the University of Miami was in 2017, ahead of the Hurricanes' matchup against Notre Dame.
GameDay is free and open to the public, so here is everything you need to know if you want to attend:
When
The line to enter College GameDay opens at 5 a.m. on Saturday, September 20. The pit will open at 6:30 a.m. The show begins at 9 a.m. and ends at noon.Where
The show will air live at the University of Miami campus in Coral Gables. The mainstage will be set up on the north end of the Lakeside Patio between the Donna E. Shalala Student Center and the Norman A. Whitten University Center Pool.
What to Expect
During the three-hour show, the ESPN crew previews the college football slate and, of course, focuses on storylines from the teams playing in the marquee matchup. The show is perhaps best known for its "celebrity guest picker" segment, where a known figure with ties to the home team joins the desk at the end of the show to predict the winner of every game. GameDay legend Lee Corso, who worked on the show from 1987 until his retirement this year, would end the show by announcing his pick for the winner of the host school game by putting on the mascot's headgear. In 2017, retired MLB star Alex Rodriguez was the celebrity guest picker for the Miami vs. Notre Dame.
Since sports media personality and former NFL punter Pat McAfee joined the show in 2023, it has featured a segment in which a person is randomly selected from the pit to kick a 33-yard field goal for $250,000. The contestant must be 18 years or older but cannot be a current or former student athlete. A student from the University of Oklahoma most recently nailed the kick on September 6.
