ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot travels to Knoxville, Tennessee, for Week 4 of its landmark 40th season, setting up live from the Ayres Hall Lawn at the University of Tennessee. The show airs Saturday, Sept. 26, from 9 a.m. – noon ET on ESPN, ESPNU, Disney+ and the ESPN App with the first two hours live from outside Ayres Hall (9–11 a.m.) and the final hour originating from inside Neyland Stadium (11 a.m.–noon) ahead of a Top-15 showdown as No. 1 Texas visits No. 14 Tennessee at noon ET on ABC.
The Longhorns and Volunteers are meeting in the regular season for the first time in series history. Their three previous matchups all came on New Year’s Day in Dallas at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic. Tennessee will host College GameDay on campus for the 13th time and the program will make its 29th overall appearance. Texas makes its second GameDay appearance of the season and 30th appearance all-time.
Coming off its most-watched season ever, College GameDay is off to another record-setting start. Week 3’s episode from Ole Miss was the most-watched Week 3 episode in show history, delivering 2.8M viewers. All three 2026 episodes rank among the top eight regular-season telecasts in show history, and the final hour surpassed the competition by 216%.
Rece Davis returns as host and is joined at the desk by analysts Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. College football insider Pete Thamel, college football analyst “Stanford Steve” Coughlin and reporters Jen Lada and Jess Sims round out the GameDay cast for the 2026 college football season.
Show highlights & guests
- Actor and “Jackass” star Johnny Knoxville serves as this week’s celebrity guest picker. The Knoxville native joined The Pat McAfee Show live on Thursday to announce his role.
- Tennessee head coach Josh Heupel joins College GameDay live from inside Neyland Stadium ahead of the No. 14 Vols’ home game against No. 1 Texas (noon ET on ABC).
- Louisville quarterback Lincoln Kienholz joins College GameDay live from the field ahead of the Cardinals’ home game against Wake Forest.
- The GameDay Film Room with Nick Saban returns with a breakdown of Florida’s high-powered offense as the Gators prepare for their toughest test yet against Ole Miss.
- Jess Sims sits down with Tennessee strength and conditioning coach Derek Owings, who won the CFP National Championship with Indiana last season before joining the Vols’ staff.
- Jen Lada joins the wedding tailgate of Claire — a lifelong Tennessee fan from Knoxville — and Kris, a lifelong Texas Longhorn. The couple eloped in Austin last month but are bringing the celebration back to Knoxville with a 100-person tailgate in Circle Park, complete with a second ceremony timed around the Tennessee-Texas kickoff.
Features
- Forever Home: Tennessee linebacker Edwin Spillman was just three years old growing up in Sierra Leone, West Africa, when his life would take a turn he never thought possible. His father, a crop farmer, drowned when the boat he was traveling on capsized in severe weather, leaving Edwin’s mother and her seven children behind. Unable to provide for them on her own, she made the heart-wrenching decision to place Edwin and two siblings up for adoption. Years later, a virtual chance encounter from a world away would offer his mother an opportunity she no longer believed was possible. Marty Smith reports.
- The Real UT: Will the real “UT” please stand up? Two of the SEC’s undefeated programs meet in Knoxville for their first-ever regular season matchup, with orange color palettes and university acronyms going head-to-head. One checker-boarded program will also be rooting against a Manning for the first time in a long time, as Arch Manning leads the Longhorns against his uncle Peyton’s Volunteers. Ryan McGee reports.
- Ole Miss Movie Night: Last Saturday night in Oxford was pure cinema. Lane Kiffin’s Tigers could not slow down his old Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss, who threw for 363 yards and two touchdowns while rushing for another. GameDaylooks back at one of the most emotionally charged college football games in recent memory.
Pat McAfee’s “Kicking is Easy delivered by The Home Depot” Contest
Pat McAfee’s “Kicking is Easy” Contest, a fan-favorite segment, returns to College GameDay for its fourth season. Fans who arrive early will have a chance to be selected from the onsite pit and attempt a 33-yard field goal. Throughout his time on the show, McAfee and his contest have awarded more than $8 million through contest prizes and charitable donations. This week, Peyton Manning — Tennessee star quarterback, Super Bowl champion and uncle of Texas QB Arch Manning — joins Pat for the kick. Full details, including official rules, can be found here.
Countdown to GameDay
Harry Douglas and Harry Lyles Jr. return for their fifth season as co-hosts of ESPN’s social and digital pre-pregame show, Countdown to GameDay, with Sims joining the duo this season as a co-host, reporting live from the College GameDay site each week. The show is available weekly at 8:20 a.m. across ESPN on YouTube, Facebook and the ESPN App.
ESPN College GameDay Scavenger Hunt comes to Knoxville
The ESPN College GameDay Scavenger Hunt continues at Tennessee, giving students and fans an interactive way to engage with the show throughout the week leading up to Saturday’s live broadcast. The contest opens Thursday, Sept. 24, via a dedicated digital microsite, with three challenges on Thursday and Friday that include snapping photos of campus landmarks and answering trivia about past editions of College GameDay.
Fifteen winners will be selected at random from participants who complete all three tasks. Each winner, plus one guest, receives access to a premium seating area near the front of the College GameDay broadcast within camera view and exclusive College GameDay merchandise. Additional participants will also win official ESPN College GameDay merchandise.
ESPN collaborated with experiential agency Assembli on the interactive digital and on-site fan experience with Flowcode connecting the initiative inside the new College Football ESPN Fan House.