ESPN’s College GameDay announced the spot on Georgia’s campus it will broadcast from Saturday morning and it is an elite location.
Actually, make that two elite locations.
Interestingly, the two announced locations also represent where the show took places on its last two visits to the Classic City.
Myers Quad for Notre Dame-Georgia in 2019 and Sanford Stadium for Auburn-Georgia in 2019 – cough – both night games.
Why two locations?
ABC/ESPN has a bit of mess on their hands from a scheduling perspective. It seems the brass at the Worldwide Leader really wasn’t counting on Arkansas getting past Texas A&M to set up a Top 10 clash with Georgia on Saturday.
As such, they didn’t choose Arkansas-Georgia as one of the games to flex in to the six-day scheduling window, slotting Dawgs-Hogs in as the noon game on ESPN when the game times were announced on September 20.
After the Hogs handled the Aggies, ESPN now had the premier game of the day immovably stuck in its noon timeslot. To give the broadcast some more gravitas, the network made an interesting announcement about the broadcast crew for Saturday’s telecast.
I'm excited to call the high noon collision of @ArkRazorbacks @UGAAthletics between the hedges Saturday! We rarely get a chance to call an #SEC regular season game. @KirkHerbstreit @sportsiren
— Chris Fowler (@cbfowler) September 27, 2021
Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe will call the noon game from Sanford, which presents a bit of a logistical issue for College GameDay analyst and now color commentator for the game, Kirk Herbstreit.
The calling card segment of the show involves the final 15 minutes, where that week’s celebrity guest picker and the panel make their picks for that week’s games, culminating in Coach Corso donning the headgear of the team he picks to win that day’s GameDay location matchup.
Coach Corso’s pick happens at noon and Georgia-Arkansas is supposed to kickoff at noon. Be tough for Kirk Herbstreit to be in two places at once.
Accordingly, you have to imagine that motivated the dual locations, having the first two hours in the more traditional Myers Quad location, then transitioning to Sanford Stadium for the final hour, so Kirk can make a quick getaway up to the announcer’s booth for kickoff.
If Georgia fans heed head coach Kirby Smart’s request to be early and be loud, the third hour of the show held in Sanford Stadium should be as raucous as the first two.