College GameDay is an ESPN show covering college football. It first aired in 1987 with Bob Carpenter as host and Lee Corso and Beano Cook as analysts. Beginning as a more-or-less routine pre-game analysis of college football games, the show would undergo a radical transformation beginning in 1993 as the show began incorporating "live" broadcasts. The official name of the show is College GameDay built by The Home Depot. There is a separate radio broadcast, ESPN Radio College GameDay, on ESPN Radio.
Today, the only original cast member remaining is Lee Corso. Chris Fowler serves as host and Kirk Herbstreit, former Ohio State quarterback, serves as Corso's counterpart and foil. Craig James, currently with ESPN on ABC, was on the show in the mid 1990s. Desmond Howard and Rocket Ismail serve as frequent contributors. Steve Cyphers is usually featured as a reporter. Nick Lachey joined the crew as a contributor during the 2005 season. Doug Flutie joined in 2006. Discussions are often held between the GameDay cast and studio analysts, including Lou Holtz and Mark May. It's not uncommon for Auburn alumnus Charles Barkley to appear (via phone or at site) to discuss Tiger football.
GameDay began its 21st season on 2007-09-01 at Virginia Tech and wrapped up that season on 2008-01-07 in New Orleans. The show is broadcast live for 2 hours, from 10am-noon ET. Starting with the 21st season, GameDay is presented in high-definition on ESPN HD.
College GameDay is an ESPN program that covers college basketball and is a spin-off of the successful college football version. Since debuting on January 22, 2005, it airs on ESPN Saturdays in the college basketball season at 11am ET and 8pm ET at a different game site each week. One difference between the two versions is that the college basketball version always appears at the ESPN Saturday Primetime game location, which is the ESPN college basketball game of the week and appears at 9pm ET Saturdays on ESPN. The first two years of the show, it went to seven sites in seven weeks, but starting in 2007, it has been expanded to eight sites in eight weeks. The official name of the show is College GameDay Driven by State Farm.
In 2005, the host of the show the first four weeks was Rece Davis, but then the last four weeks Chris Fowler hosted the show, but since 2006, Rece Davis has been the exclusive host of the show. Since the show debuted, Davis has been joined by Digger Phelps, Jay Bilas and since 2007, Hubert Davis has been on the team on the set with Dick Vitale contributing. Andy Katz has also served as a feature reporter giving up to the minute news and reports. Saturday Primetime is called by Dan Shulman and Dick Vitale along with Erin Andrews as sideline reporter.
College GameDay Driven by State Farm began its fourth season on January 5, 2008 at the network's Digital Center studio in Bristol, Connecticut. The show is broadcast live twice, both for one hour from 11am-noon ET and from 8-9pm ET, respectively. Starting with the fourth season, GameDay is presented in high-definition on ESPN HD.
