Early Sunday morning, ESPN’s flagship college football pregame show College GameDay announced that it will be heading to Eugene in Week 13 to showcase Oregon’s matchup with USC. The announcement ensures
that the show will once again not go to an FCS school this season, marking the third straight year that it hasn’t done so. The last time GameDay made an appearance on an FCS campus was in 2022 when it went to Bozeman for the annual “Brawl of the Wild” rivalry between Montana State and Montana.
In total, GameDay has gone to FCS schools 12 times in its history, making multiple stops only twice at North Dakota State and James Madison. The show, which has already been to Oregon once this season, opted to head back and showcase the Ducks again despite having several viable options for meaningful games across the subdivision this next weekend as well.
One such game could have been the aforementioned “Brawl of the Wild” again. This time in Missoula, the two Montana schools will meet with the Big Sky championship on the line as well as the likely 2-seed and homefield advantage throughout the playoffs. Montana State (9-2) is currently ranked #3 in the national polls while Montana (11-0) is #2. The winner of that game will have a much less bumpy road to the FCS national championship game later in January.
Another good option would have been “The Game” between Harvard and Yale, especially since the Ivy League is now sending its champion to the playoffs for the first time ever. The Crimson are 9-0 and sit on the cusp of nabbing the league championship and that playoff spot, just needing to beat the Bulldogs to attain it. Yale, meanwhile, comes in with a 7-2 record and has only lost one Ivy game this year. If they were to pull off the upset, they would not only claim a share of the conference title but also steal the playoff bid from Harvard due to their head-to-head tiebreaker. GameDay did go this rivalry game once before as well back in 2014.
Lehigh and Lafayette will also engage in a longstanding rivalry game this weekend, coming together for the 161st time on Saturday. The Leopards are fighting for their playoff lives and will win the Patriot League title if they beat the Mountain Hawks. Lehigh, though, is undefeated with a perfect 11-0 record and will almost surely wrap up a top four national seed in the playoffs if they take care of business on the road.
GameDay will forgo all these options for its fourth Big Ten location this season. The show goes live at 9:00 AM (ET) and can be viewed on ESPN on Saturday morning.
