• College football’s premier pregame show travels to App State – the 77th school to host GameDay
• North Carolina-native Luke Combs will join the show as Week 3’s guest picker
• Features on Miami’s Mario Cristobal, Michigan senior captain Erick All, Marty Smith’s ‘Welcome to Boone’, and more

ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot heads to Boone, N.C., for its Week 3 visit and first-ever road trip to Appalachian State. The three-hour show will be live from Sanford Mall on the ASU campus from 9 a.m. – noon ET (ESPN and ESPNU, ESPN App; simulcast on ESPN2 from 11:30 a.m. – noon) ahead of the matchup between Troy and App State (3:30 p.m. ET, ESPN+).

College GameDay’s visit to Boone marks the show’s 96th different city visited and the second time the show has traveled to a Sun Belt school (Coastal Carolina, 2020). Appalachian State will be the 77th different school to host GameDay.

Rece Davis leads the show in his eighth season as host and is joined at the desk by GameDay analysts Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, David Pollack and Pat McAfee, who joined the team in Week 2 at Texas. Reporters Jen Lada, Gene Wojciechowski and newcomer Jess Sims, along with research producer Chris ‘The Bear’ Fallica and college football insider Pete Thamel, round out the GameDay crew for the season.

Corso will be making his 387th headgear pick on Saturday, and regardless of who he picks, it will represent the 66th different school headgear he has donned for GameDay.

In 2022, College GameDay is off to the show’s best two-week start for viewership since 2010 when the show was two hours instead of three. The premier pregame show is averaging 2.1 million viewers so far this season. Week 2 in Austin alone saw a 26% increase from 2021 with the final hour averaging 2.7 million viewers, 66% higher than the competition.

Scheduled Features & Highlights

• Cristobal’s Culture – Mario Cristobal is Miami born and bred, and as a Hurricane player won two national championships. Now, Cristobal is not only trying to bring back that championship culture to Miami, but also embracing his Cuban heritage as one of five Latino head coaches leading FBS programs. (Reporter: Jorge Sedano)
• Full Circle – Minutes, maybe less, separated Erick All from life and death in 2001. Instead, he grew up to be a starter and senior team captain for fourth-ranked Michigan – and recently became the proud father of a newborn. On the same day All welcomed a son into the world, he also met the man who saved his own life 21 years ago. (Gene Wojciechowski)
• The Road Dub – They can be elusive, but when they come, they are electrifying and at times program defining. In college football, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of a road win. (Jen Lada)
• Welcome to Boone – Marty Smith spends a day in Boone, N.C. and on-campus at Appalachian State to find out what the “Boonerang” effect is and what makes the region so special.
• Shane Beamer ‘Live WIRED’ – Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer will join GameDay mic’d up from the Georgia-South Carolina pregame warmups

GameDay will welcome North Carolina-native and country singer Luke Combs to the show as the Week 3 guest picker. Combs – who previously collaborated with SEC Network for its 2021 college football anthem – will be making a return to App State, where he attended before pursuing his music career. Combs’ Twitter announcement.

Additional guests will be announced ahead of Saturday’s show on ESPN PR’s Twitter and College GameDay’s Twitter.

ESPN’s Expanded Digital Coverage

ESPN’s social and digital pre-pregame show, Countdown to GameDay Live, is back for the 2022-23 season every Saturday this fall. Co-hosts Christine Williamson, Harry Douglas and Harry Lyles Jr. will be live from Boone on Sept. 17 at 8:30 a.m. ET. The show is available across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the ESPN App.

Additional details throughout the week can be found HERE.

For onsite information, please visit College GameDay’s Hub HERE.

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