Power Five conferences have hosted College GameDay dozens of times. ESPN's flagship program has done Army–Navy and the MAC, FCS and Division III. They've broadcasted from the NFL Draft, the deck of the USS San Diego, Times Square, Lambeau Field and Wrigley Field. They've hit the Ivy League and HBCUs and the Mountain West and Conference USA. Illinois has been featured twice.
Illinois! Twice! Both were neutral-site appearances but still…Illinois! Twice!
In 361 shows over 26 years, College GameDay has never visited a current (or former) Sun Belt school and only once featured a Sun Belt school, though that show — on the USS San Diego — was broadcasted 2,000 miles away from the game site at Troy (vs. Navy).
ESPN isn't a non-profit organization with a mission to provide equal opportunities for all college football programs. Obviously, they can go wherever they damn well please. Broadcast from Tuscaloosa, Columbus, Ann Arbor or South Bend every week. The network should keep the big boys happy. But, they also see value in keeping the little guys happy, evident by a 2007 trip to Williamstown, Mass., for Amherst at Williams and five trips to FCS schools since 2013.
However, noticeably absent from the GameDay map are Group of Five pins. They've done the Army-Navy Game in each of the last four years but haven't visited a Group of Five campus since a 2016 trip to Western Michigan, which was the first Group of Five home GameDay since 2011 (SMU at Houston).
In Week 11, the ACC Atlantic title could be on the line at Boston College, and Kirk Herbstreit said he'd love to visit Iowa State eventually. There's Bedlam in Norman, Navy at UCF, Auburn at Georgia and Mississippi State at Alabama.
There are strong options, all of which ESPN should ignore for their first-ever visit to Georgia Southern.
A year ago, the Eagles were light years off the national radar. In their fourth season as an FBS member — and just two years removed from back-to-back nine-win seasons — they had an interim head coach, were 0-7 and coming off a 22-point loss to eventual Sun Belt co-champion Troy.
MORE: Lunsford, Leipold Are Baffling Omissions
One year later, that interim head coach — and now permanent head coach — Chad Lunsford, has led Georgia Southern to wins over 2017 conference co-champions App State and Arkansas State and a 7-1 start, their best start as an FBS program. After visiting a bad UL Monroe team in Week 10, they host Troy in Week 11.
Not many folks outside Statesboro, Ga., have heard of Statesboro, Ga. It's a town of barely 30,000 about an hour northwest of Savannah. Google searches of "Where is Georgia Southern?" will go through the roof, and most power conference fans will be confused and/or angry.
ESPN, pass on Boston College. Pass on Iowa State, Oklahoma, UCF, Georgia and Alabama, and set up shop in Sweetheart Circle or outside Paulson Stadium for Troy at Georgia Southern.
