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.”
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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.