What schools have never hosted ‘College GameDay’? Cal will be site of show for the first time Saturday

This weekend, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, Pat McAfee and the rest of the “College GameDay” crew will be in an unfamiliar environment.

ESPN’s popular pregame show will be airing Saturday from Berkeley, California ahead of Cal’s game that night against No. 8 Miami.

It will be the first ACC home game for the Golden Bears, who joined the league ahead of the 2024 football season, but the matchup against the Hurricanes represents another benchmark for Cal — it’s the first time it has ever hosted “College GameDay.”

Since mid-1990s, when the show began broadcasting live from the site of one of the biggest games of a given week, the mere presence of “College GameDay” has been a measure of validation for a program. If Corso, Herbstreit and company were — in the words of the show’s longtime theme song — coming to your city, it meant that your school and football program mattered in a palpable, undeniable way.

It’s hardly a perfect barometer for a program’s relevance, as demonstrated by Cal, which went decades without being the site of “College GameDay” despite being a perennial conference title contender in the 2000s with rosters featuring future NFL stars like Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch and DeSean Jackson.

By the time Corso makes his famed headgear pick and the show wraps up, the Golden Bears will be leaving a relatively small group of Power Four conference programs that have never played host to “College GameDay.”

Who else is on that list? Here’s a look at the major conference schools that have never been the site of a “College GameDay” broadcast:

REQUIRED READING:College football Week 5 overreactions: Georgia is playoff trouble? Jalen Milroe won Heisman?

Schools that have never hosted College GameDay

With Cal set to leave the exclusive club, there are now six schools currently in Power Four conferences that have never hosted “College GameDay.”

• Illinois
• Maryland
• Rutgers
• SMU
• Syracuse
• Virginia

Some of the inclusions are more surprising than others.

Though it’s known much more for its men’s basketball program, Syracuse was a fixture of the national polls in the mid-to-late 1990s while being led by the likes of Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. Rutgers had a brief run with national relevance in Greg Schiano’s first stint at the school in the mid-2000s, though at that time, some of its biggest games were on Thursday nights, which ruled out “College GameDay” making it to town. Illinois made a pair of New Year’s Six bowl games in the 2000s, making it to the Sugar Bowl in 2001 and the Rose Bowl in 2007.

Over the past 10 years, ESPN has increasingly sent “College GameDay” to sites outside of major college football strongholds in leagues like the SEC and Big Ten, traveling to the likes of Harrisonburg, Virginia; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Brookings, South Dakota; Conway, South Carolina; Boone, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; and Bozeman, Montana for high-profile games featuring teams from the Group of Five conferences or the FCS.

REQUIRED READING:Alabama-Georgia classic headlines college football’s winners and losers from Week 5

Schools that have hosted College GameDay the most

On the opposite end of the spectrum from places like Cal, Maryland and Virginia are schools that have become “College GameDay” staples, hosting the show on their respective campuses on a seemingly annual basis.

Ohio State has been the site of “College GameDay” the most in the show’s history, going all the way back to its first appearance in October 1996.

With the Buckeyes leading the way, here’s a list of the schools that have hosted “College GameDay” the most:

• Ohio State: 23
• Alabama: 19
• Michigan: 15
• Florida, LSU: 13