TIGER RAG NEWS SERVICES
The worst-kept secret in college football is out. ESPN’s “College GameDay” will be in Oxford, Mississippi when Lane Kiffin makes his return to Ole Miss Sept. 19 (6:30, ABC).
It will be the second GameDay appearance for LSU in the first three weeks of the season. The Tigers will also host the show on campus for their season opener versus Clemson on Sept. 5 (6:30, ABC). LSU becomes the fourth school to have two games at host locations in the first three weeks of the season and the first since Florida in 2012. The Gators were on the road for games at Texas A&M and Tennessee.
Colorado made appearances in Week 2 and 3 of the 1995 season as they hosted No. 3 Texas A&M and visited No. 10 Oklahoma. The Buffaloes won both games. The next time a team was featured twice was the first two weeks of the 2007 season when Virginia Tech welcomed East Carolina and then visited No. 2 LSU. The Tigers blew the ninth-ranked Hokies out in a 49-7 win.
ESPN announced their visits to Baton Rouge Week 1 and Austin, Texas for the Texas-Ohio State game in Week 2 in May. College football fans have long-expected Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss to be the site of the pregame show in Week 3, but it is now official.
GameDay did not attend Kiffin’s vitriolic return to Tennessee in 2021. He led the Rebels to a 31-26 win over the school he coached at for just one season before leaving to become the head coach at Southern California in 2010. The show instead visited Athens, Georgia to see the top-ranked Bulldogs host No. 11 Kentucky.
Nick Saban’s welcome back to Baton Rouge as the Alabama head coach in 2007 also missed out on hosting the show. While Saban’s Crimson Tide prepared to secure a 41-34 win over LSU in Tiger Stadium, GameDay was previewing a top-10 matchup between No. 6 Arizona state and No. 4 Oregon.
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