ESPN’s College GameDay will make history when they head to Ames this weekend for the rivalry game between the Iowa football team and Iowa State.
We thought there was a possibility that the College GameDay would be making an appearance at the Iowa football team’s week three matchup versus in-state rival Iowa State, and now it’s officially happening.
This, in spite of Iowa State almost blowing it in their season opener against Northern Iowa.
Heading into week two, there was really just one matchup that possibly could have beaten out the CyHawk Trophy game, and that was Syracuse versus Clemson. Thankfully, another member of the Big Ten, Maryland, made sure that wouldn’t happen after they took care of business yesterday defeating ‘Cuse 63-20.
With that game out of the way, ESPN made the historic decision to come to Ames per Randy Peterson.
GameDay to Ames is official ,
— Randy Peterson (@RandyPete) September 7, 2019
Per source
Iowa State has never appeared on College GameDay before, and as expected given that information, they’ve also never hosted.
I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is. For years, folks in the state of Iowa have realized just how big of a rivalry game this game is, and for the first team ever, it’s going to be front and center as essentially the game of the week.
Historically speaking, the Iowa football team has struggled on GameDay going just 1-6, but with their explosive offense, stout defense, and strong special teams game, I just don’t see this Saturday ending well for the Iowa State Cyclones in their first-ever appearance on College GameDay.
It’ll be interesting though to see what the analysts think after Iowa State’s disastrous debut against Northern Iowa to start the season, and most importantly (mostly kidding), what mascot head is Lee Corso going to put on to pick the winner of this great rivalry game?