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• College football’s premier pregame to preview Gamecocks’ SEC matchup with No. 16 LSU (noon ET, ABC)
• Special on-site guests: Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer, singer and USC alum Darius Rucker to perform, and reigning women’s college basketball National Champion head coach Dawn Staley joins as this week’s guest picker

ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot returns to the University of South Carolina this week for its first show in Columbia, S.C., since 2014. The premier college football pregame program makes the Week 3 trip ahead of the Gamecocks’ matchup with No. 16 LSU, which the lead team of Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Holly Rowe will call at noon on ABC. College GameDay will be live from Gamecock Park from 9 a.m. – noon ET on ESPN & ESPNU.

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

Host Rece Davis is at the helm for his 10th season, joined at the desk by GameDay analysts Lee Corso, Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. College football insider Pete Thamel, college football betting analyst ‘Stanford Steve’ Coughlin and reporters Jen Lada and Jess Sims round out the GameDay cast.

College GameDay continues its strong start to the season with another viewership high last week, averaging 2.2 million viewers for the Week 2 visit to Michigan, a 26% increase over 2023’s Week 2 show. The show peaked at 2.9 million viewers in the final hour.

Show Highlights & Guests

• Coaches – Gamecocks head coach Shane Beamer joins the GameDay desk ahead of the showdown with LSU, while Mizzou head coach Eli Drinkwitz joins from the field in Columbia, Mo. before the No. 6 Tigers host No. 24 Boston College.
• Mayor Daniel Rickenmann will join the show to officially declare Saturday ‘ESPN College GameDay Saturday in the City of Columbia’ – and to present the key to the city to Coach Corso.
• Coach’s Film Room – Saban takes fans inside his film room to break down the option offenses of Alabama and South Carolina.
• Hootie in the House – Longtime GameDay supporter, USC alum and famed musician Darius Rucker – who served as guest picker in Sept. 2023 when South Carolina faced UNC in Charlotte – will join the show and offer a special performance from his alma mater.
• Guest picker – Dawn Staley, three-time NCAA Women’s Basketball National Champion head coach – joins the desk as this week’s guest picker. The four-time Naismith Coach of the Year has led the Gamecocks to six Final Fours and 227 straight weeks in the AP Top 25. With Staley at the helm, South Carolina has won eight SEC regular season championships and eight SEC Tournament titles. As a player, she was also a three-time Olympic gold medalist, six-time WNBA All-Star and two-time Naismith National Player of the Year.
• Pat McAfee’s Kicking Contest – Back for its second season, GameDay is offering an exclusive contest during the live show, Pat McAfee’s Kicking Contest. Fans who arrive early will have a chance to be chosen from the ‘pit’ onsite with the opportunity to attempt a 33-yard field goal. If the contestant successfully completes the kick, he/she will be awarded $45,000 from McAfee. Full details, including official rules, can be found here.

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

Corso’s Count:

• Coach Corso will be making his 416th headgear selection this week at South Carolina. Historically, he has picked the Gamecocks three times, going 1-2 in those games.
• LSU will be making its 34th appearance on GameDay and second under head coach Brian Kelly. Corso has selected the Tigers’ headgear 23 times, the third most of any school, with the team winning each of the last five times they were selected.
• Corso is 2-0 in his end-of-show headgear picks so far this season, picking the visiting team in both games.

Features: 

• The Birth of a Sandstorm – Cold and remote, Helsinki, Finland, is 4,708 miles from Columbia, S.C., the exact opposite of the American South, but a storm born on the Baltic sweeps through the Gamecocks’ Williams-Brice Stadium every Saturday. Ryan McGee dives into the history of the iconic tune.
• All of Him – Wisconsin freshman offensive lineman Derek Jensen didn’t expect to go viral when he stood in front of his teammates to sing a song this summer, but he did. The story of how that moment revealed a deeper story of love, support and brotherhood. Jen Lada
• New Look Games, Same Disdain – Old Pac-12 and interstate rivals Oregon and Oregon State, and Washington and Washington State square off on Saturday in games normally played during Rivalry Week. While it may be a new chapter and a different look, these games promise to be as old-school emotional as ever. Ryan McGee reports.

ESPN’s Expansive Digital Coverage

ESPN’s social and digital pre-pregame show, Countdown to GameDay Presented by Dr Pepper, heads to South Carolina for Week 3 with hosts Christine Williamson, Harry Douglas and Harry Lyles Jr., in their third season together.

The show is available across ESPN on YouTube, Facebook and the ESPN App at 8:20 a.m. ET weekly.

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