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Predicting every ESPN College GameDay location for 2017

By Nicholas Ian Allen

Nov 26, 2016; Columbus, OH, USA; ESPN College Gameday hosts from left Desmond Howard and Rece Davis and Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit discuss the days matchups on their set outside Ohio Stadium before the game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines. Ohio State won the game 30-27 in double overtime. Mandatory Credit: Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports
Nov 26, 2016; Columbus, OH, USA; ESPN College Gameday hosts from left Desmond Howard and Rece Davis and Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit discuss the days matchups on their set outside Ohio Stadium before the game between the Ohio State Buckeyes and Michigan Wolverines. Ohio State won the game 30-27 in double overtime. Mandatory Credit: Greg Bartram-USA TODAY Sports /
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Where will ESPN College GameDay take its college football pregame show in 2017? We predict the locations week by week.

It’s difficult to remember when College GameDay didn’t mark the start of college football Saturday. The morning pregame show now hits the road every week of the season, and hosting ESPN’s cast of characters adds to the game day atmosphere of the schools and stadiums holding the week’s biggest games.

Though it was originally a full-time studio show, College GameDay made its first trip to a college campus in 1993 to get a closer look at the clash between No. 1 Florida State and No. 2 Notre Dame in South Bend. The national championship implications of the game set the precedent for GameDay to travel to basically every Game of the Century (of the week) thereafter.

In 1994, the show expanded to six episodes on the road, each of which featured a matchup between ranked teams — none ranked lower than No. 13 in the AP Top 25 on the day when the game was played. Over the years, the production grew to include an on-site game every week during the regular season, as well as bowl games with national championship implications, and eventually conference title games and the College Football Playoff.

The most common weekly site is still a matchup between ranked teams with championship implications, and focusing on those games is key when attempting to predict the 2017 schedule. However, GameDay has gone outside the box to highlight special rivalries and venue along the way.

In 2001, GameDay broadcast from the United States Air Force Academy where the Falcons hosted Army. The game was held on Nov. 3 — less than two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It was the first time the show was held at the site of a game featuring two unranked teams.

The second occurred the following year in Philadelphia, where two FCS programs from the Ivy League — Harvard and Penn — met. GameDay has travelled to West Point, to the annual Bayou Classic between Grambling and Southern in New Orleans in 2005 (the year Hurricane Katrina devastated the city), and has been on hand for historic rivalries such as Division III Amherst-Williams, and made special appearances at Hampton-Florida A&M, at Wrigley Field, on the USS San Diego, on the streets of Fargo, North Dakota and a wide range of venues across the country.

As we predict the location for every ESPN College GameDay show for the 2017 college football season, we weigh the importance of a heavyweight matchup with the possibility for an experience unique to the show — and make the case for a few out-of-the-box sites.

Jan 14, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; General view of Mercedes-Benz Stadium (left) and the Georgia Dome prior to the NFC Divisional playoff between the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Seahawks. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 14, 2017; Atlanta, GA, USA; General view of Mercedes-Benz Stadium (left) and the Georgia Dome prior to the NFC Divisional playoff between the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Seahawks. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports /

Week 1: Sept. 2

Florida State vs. Alabama (Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, GA)

College football kicks off with five FBS matchups on Saturday, August 26, but the on-location episodes of ESPN College GameDay begin the following weekend.

The decision has already been made for GameDay to debut in Atlanta for the Florida State-Alabama game, and for good reason. The Crimson Tide and Seminoles are both likely to be ranked in the top 5 of the preseason polls, and possibly top 3 along with Ohio State. Though on-campus games make for better atmospheres overall, a huge non-conference matchup featuring College Football Playoff contenders is perfect for Week 1.

Furthermore, ESPN has a history of broadcasting from neutral site games on the first Saturday of the season and did so from the Georgia Dome three straight years from 2008-10. Of course, the FSU-Bama matchup is slated to kickoff at the new home of the Atlanta Falcons, the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which adds another level of intrigue.

Just for fun, note that ESPN passed on the other big non-conference neutral site heavyweight fight, Michigan and Florida playing at AT&T Stadium in Dallas. And, if the crew were willing to do two (or three) shows in a weekend, Texas A&M at UCLA and West Virginia versus Virginia Tech (in Washington D.C.) both kick off Sunday, followed by Tennessee-Georgia Tech also from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Labor Day Monday.

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