It’s always dicey to make declarations based off what you see on Twitter, but it certainly seems like open season on ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
Two main narratives that have developed are 1) the presence of Pat McAfee and 2) the show relying too much on SEC venues.
The McAfee thing is pretty straightforward: Either you enjoy Pat or you don’t. It’s subjective. I don’t understand how anyone could not love McAfee’s field-goal kicking contest, but, again, this is subjective.
I do think there is an element of the McAfee backlash that could be chalked up to overexposure. McAfee’s afternoon show is on ESPN five days a week, he’s on “GameDay,” now he’s on “Monday Night Countdown” and you can also throw in alt-casts that he anchors.
I also think some of the backlash is a pile-on effect. It does seem like some people bash McAfee because when you want engagement, you just bash whoever the biggest people are in media.
As for the claim of SEC bias because “GameDay” will be at an SEC site for the fourth week in a row this Saturday, that’s just business.
Let me be clear about one thing: I’d love to see “GameDay” visit more small school and offbeat schools. I think that would be good for the show and the sport. But I’m not gonna bitch and complain because “GameDay” chooses SEC schools over Big Ten schools or ACC schools or Big 12 schools.
I’d like the people who are mad that “GameDay” will broadcast from Tennessee this Saturday to tell me where the show should have gone.
These are the games between ranked opponents:
Ole Miss at Florida
Iowa at Michigan
Texas A&M-LSU
Oregon-USC
Missouri-Miss St.
Two of those games feature non-SEC schools. “GameDay” has been to the Big House a million times and I’m sure they’ve been to USC plenty. You cannot make a legit argument that ESPN should’ve chosen one of those games over Texas vs. Tennessee.
I know most of you will hate hearing this, but here’s the No. 1 reason why ESPN needs to just ignore all of the “GameDay” critics: ratings.
You cannot argue with the show’s success when it comes to the business side.
Last season, “College GameDay” averaged 2.7 million viewers. Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” averaged 1.8 million viewers. And that’s with Fox playing games with the numbers and only counting the 11 am to Noon hour even though the show is on the air at 10 am. If you compared “GameDay” to “Big Noon Kickoff” from 10 am to Noon, the ratings gap is even wider.
“GameDay” was in Austin for Week ahead of the Ohio State-Texas game. The show pulled in 2.7 million viewers. It was “GameDay’s” most-watched Week 2 episode ever.
Meanwhile, no one seems to ever have an issue with where Fox sends its “Big Noon Kickoff” crew.
The biggest game of Week 3, and one of the biggest games of the entire season thanks to the Lane Kiffin saga, was LSU at Ole Miss. I didn’t see anyone criticize “Big Noon Kickoff” for not doing their show at the Grove.
Where was “Big Noon Kickoff” last week? At that college hotbed known as London, England. Why were they there? Because Fox carried the Arizona State-Kansas game.
In Week 2, “Big Noon Kickoff” took place at the Big House? Why? Because Fox was airing Oklahoma at Michigan that day.
In Week 1, “Big Noon Kickoff” was in Bloomington? Why? Because Fox was airing the riveting North Texas vs. indiana game that ended 52-16.
You may not like that ESPN goes heavy on SEC schools for “GameDay” but this is what the business is. And from a business perspective, you cannot deny that “GameDay” is thriving by doing things their way.
Other Stuff
• Kevin Harlan. That’s all.
This was a funny moment from Monday’s Blue Jays-Tigers game in which the director and/or camera operator had some fun a Jason Benetti’s expense.
Rob Friedman@PitchingNinjaJason Benetti gets absolutely roasted by his own production crew with the camera cut after his Austro-Turkish War reference. 🤣
11:03 PM · Sep 21, 2026 · 3.11M Views114 Replies · 1.78K Reposts · 27.6K LikesDoc Rivers, who was ESPN’s lead NBA analyst for a minute in 2023-24 season before becoming head coach of the Bucks, has joined NBC.
I thought this was fake when I first saw it and someone was making a joke about always finishing fifth or third, but this is actually real. The Tigers will now play in “Fifth Third Park.” I have no idea what Fifth Third is but this has to be the worst stadium name in baseball.
Not surprisingly, the best reaction to Vanderbilt’s improbable and absurd cover against N.C. State, came from Scott Van Pelt and Stanford Steve.
SVPod@_SVPodIs NC State +3.5 against Vanderbilt the WORST bad beat ever? If you had Vandy, donate the money to charity #BadBeats | #Vanderbilt | #NCState
6:41 PM · Sep 20, 2026 · 32.9K Views16 Replies · 20 Reposts · 342 Likes
The Traina Thoughts Podcast
Check out my weekly Monday edition of “The Traina Thoughts Podcast” where I went through the best and worst of sports media from the past week.
And in case you missed last week’s show with radio legend, Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, you can watch that below.
You can also listen to all episodes of The Traina Thoughts Podcast on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.
In Closing
This was a wonderful video to see in my TikTok algorithm.
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Big fan of Jimmy's work. Hope he gets a little bit smarter about the state of politics and shows more nuance in the future. Couple Recent comments, guests and Kirk Herbstreit's ridiculous explanations, The evolution in college GameDay is evident and Jimmy has not quite caught up yet.