College GameDay: Story, Cast and Series Facts

Story and premise

College GameDay is an ESPN entertainment show previewing college football games. It first aired in 1987 with Tim Brando as host and Lee Corso and Beano Cook as commentators, giving an overview of college football games, but the show underwent a radical transformation beginning in 1993, and began incorporating live broadcasts. The official name of the show is College GameDay built by The Home Depot. There is a separate radio broadcast, ESPN Radio College GameDay, on ESPN Radio. Today, the only original cast member remaining is Lee Corso. Rece Davis serves as host and Kirk Herbstreit is Corso's counterpart. Starting in 2008, Desmond Howardhas been added to the cast in the show's introduction. Craig James served as an analyst from 1990 to 1995. Erin Andrews joined the GameDay crew as a co-host and contributor in 2010, replaced in 2012 by Samantha Ponder. On September 5, 2015, Rece Davis (also host of the college basketball version of GameDay), replaced Chris Fowler as host of the college football version, which itself started its 29th season on that day.

The show is known for its prediction segment that appears on each broadcast. Typically there are three predictors: Corso, Herbstreit, and an invited guest, usually a celebrity, prominent athlete, or radio personality associated with the host university or school for that week. The end of the show always concludes with a catch phrase and prediction from Corso, who subsequently dons the mascot's headgear of the school he predicts to win the game, usually to the ire or excitement of local fans. Beginning with the 2013 season, GameDay airs for three hours on ESPN. Previously, beginning in 2010, the first hour of the show was broadcast on ESPNU at 9am ET, with the 2 remaining hours of the show on ESPN from 10am-noon ET.

Series details

• Title: College GameDay
• Format: Talk Show
• Language: English
• Genres: Sports
• Premiere date: 1987-09-05
• Status in TVmaze: Running
• Network listed by TVmaze: ESPN
• Network country: United States
• Typical episode runtime: 146 minutes
• TVMaze ID: 9530

Cast and credited roles

• Desmond Howard — Football Analyst
• Rece Davis — Host
• Kirk Herbstreit — Football Analyst
• Lee Corso — Football Analyst
• Pete Thamel — College Football Insider
• Steve Coughlin — Sports Betting Analyst
• Pat McAfee — Football Analyst
• Jess Sims — Sideline Reporter
• Jen Lada — Sideline Reporter
• Nick Saban — Football Analyst
• David Pollock — Football Contributor
• Chris ‘The Bear' Fallica — Research Producer

Seasons in the TVmaze catalogue

• Season 1: premiered 1987-09-05; final listed air date 1987-09-05.
• Season 29: premiered 2015-09-05; final listed air date 2015-12-12.
• Season 30: premiered 2016-01-23; final listed air date 2016-02-27.
• Season 31: premiered 2016-09-03; final listed air date 2016-12-21; episode order: 20.
• Season 32: premiered 2017-01-21; final listed air date 2017-04-01; episode order: 19.
• Season 33: premiered 2017-08-31; final listed air date 2017-09-16.
• Season 36: premiered 2020-09-05; final listed air date 2021-01-11.
• Season 37: premiered 2021-04-29; final listed air date 2022-01-10.
• Season 38: premiered 2022-04-28; final listed air date 2023-01-09; episode order: 22.
• Season 39: premiered 2023-04-27; final listed air date 2024-01-08; episode order: 21.
• Season 40: premiered 2024-04-25; final listed air date 2025-01-20.
• Season 41: premiered 2025-04-24; final listed air date 2026-01-19.
• Season 42: premiered 2026-04-23; final listed air date 2026-11-07.

Source and licence

Adapted from College GameDay on TVmaze. The synopsis is reproduced as plain text; catalogue facts, cast and season records are selected and reformatted. This adapted text is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, following the TVmaze API licence. Network and web-channel credits identify the service listed in this source; they do not establish current streaming availability.