The history of ‘College GameDay’ going to cool places that aren’t Power 5 campuses

ESPN’s College GameDay is broadcasting from UCF on Saturday for the first time in the show’s history. The No. 11 Knights even have the ABC Saturday Night Football spotlight later that day, when they host No. 24 Cincinnati in a key AAC game. It’s a huge moment for a program that claimed a national title last year and is still riding a 22-game win streak.

UCF fans have brought signs to GameDay for the last few weeks and been aggressive about promoting their team all year. They should be pretty fired up.

Let’s take a look back at some of the most fun ones.

The first non-power school the show visited in 2001 was Air Force, for its game against Army in Colorado Springs. The show went back to Air Force the following year for its game against Notre Dame, and went again in 2009 for the Army game

The show has been to service academies a total of eight times, including the 2001 visit.

The show went to West Point in 2002 for its game against South Florida.

In 2003, the show traveled to Bowling Green for the first time for its game against No. 12 NIU.

A 2004 visit to see the Alex Smith/Urban Meyer Utes technically counted as a visit to a non-power at the time it was made, as great as Utah was. The show’s been back a few times since, including after Utah made its way into the Pac-12.

In 2007, the show traveled to Division III school Williams in Williamstown, Mass. for its game against Amherst. The visit to Williams was the show’s first and only trip to a DIII school in its history.

In 2008, the show traveled to Florida A&M in Tallahassee for the Rattlers’ game against Hampton in November.

In 2012, the show was filmed live from the naval vessel for Navy’s game against Troy, which made for a pretty awesome scene:

The show chose to go to North Dakota State, in Fargo, N.D., in 2013, the first time the show had visited the school.

The Bison are an FCS powerhouse, having won five national titles in a row between 2011 and 2015 and another in 2017. The first three were under coach Craig Bohl, and the two most recent were under current head coach Chris Klieman.

“North Dakota State, in a way, is sort of the Alabama of the FCS,” GameDay senior coordinating producer Lee Fitting said in 2013 of the decision . “They’re two-time defending national champions, ranked No. 1 in the current poll, ten national titles for the program.

”The next question was, why not?”

My favorite moment from this year — Corso picking NDSU with a baby bison!

The show was so well-received from the location that it went back in 2014, too.

Since 2014, the show has been traveling to the annual Army-Navy game each year, and it has already announced it will be there in 2018.

This one almost always takes place in Philadelphia or Baltimore.

In 2014, GameDay went to an Ivy league school for the first time since 2002, traveling to Harvard ahead of the Crimson’s annual rivalry matchup against Yale.

“Yale game week is always administratively and media relations-wise by far the most hectic week of the year for obvious reasons,” Harvard head coach Tim Murphy told The Crimson, Harvard’s student paper. “This made it go from an extremely hectic week to an extraordinarily hectic week.”

“It seems like we were constantly juggling media requests that were either directly connected with GameDay or ESPN or a result of it,” he added.

12 years earlier, the show traveled to Penn for the Harvard game.

“It is combination of trying to do something different and trying to give respect to Division 1-AA,” GameDay host Chris Fowler said via the New York Post in 2002. “We are always looking for unique types of shows. And, let’s be honest, there is not a monster 1-A game this week with national title implications.”

In 2015, the show visited Harrisonburg and the Dukes for a game against Richmond. Corso made his picks dressed as literal James Madison:

The show returned in 2017, at which time Corso put on JMU’s fake dog mascot head and scared the hell out of the actual bulldog live mascot:

This wasn’t the show’s first time going to JMU — that was two years earlier in 2015. Tbat trip also gave GameDay one of its most unforgettable moments, when Corso dressed up as James Madison himself to make picks:

Philly was the GameDay site when the No. 21 Owls played No. 9 Notre Dame in 2015.

The show went to Kalamazoo while WMU was on its way to a 13-0 run through the MAC:

In 2017, GameDay held a show in Times Square in New York City to represent the city’s diverse CFB fanbase:

“New York City is a melting pot of college football fans and the heartbeat of America,” said ESPN vice president of production Lee Fitting. “Thousands of alumni gather in the city each fall Saturday to root on their school and we are bringing College GameDay to New York for them! We want every alumni base and college football fan near and far to join us in Times Square to provide the celebratory, festive atmosphere that is synonymous with the show.”

But its continued emphasis on checking out at least one non-power location a year makes for a refreshing change of pace. Also still yet to be visited:

When any school hosts the show for the first time, it’s a really cool scene. (Hey, Wazzu!)