For millions of college football fans, couch potato Saturdays begin with ESPN’s “College GameDay.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has put this season in peril, but if it can be salvaged, so too will the sport’s most popular pregame show.
“If there is college football there will be ‘College GameDay.’ Period,” said ESPN’s Lee Fitting, who oversees all the network’s college studio shows and remote programs.
“GameDay” just won’t look like the traveling circus fans have grown accustomed to over almost three decades, broadcasting from the site of a big game in front of thousands of pumped-up, signing-waving fans. Lee Corso’s signature selection at the end of the show could end up being done from his home in central Florida, with the 84-year-old former coach donning a baseball cap instead of a mascot head.
“We’re still determining what ‘GameDay’ would look like this season and, frankly, it could be different every week what it looks like,” Fitting told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “It could be potentially on the sidelines of an early game. It could be on the concourse in a stadium. It could even still be on campus.
“Will there be thousands of fans behind our set screaming like we’ve known it the last however many years?” Fitting said. “Absolutely not.”
Fitting conceded the show could even originate from a studio in Bristol, Connecticut, for the first time since the week college football returned after the 9/11 attacks.
“I don’t think we can ever rule that out. That’s not our first option,” Fitting said. “But our first priority is the health and safety of everyone we work alongside.”
Most notable when it comes to health and safety is Corso, whose role in the show has shrunk in recent years. Still, his quips and bursts of energy are an essential part of its chemistry. Corso is the longest-tenured member of the show’s core on-air team, which also includes host Rece Davis and analysts Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard.
Fitting said he “absolutely” expects Corso, who recovered from a stroke in May 2009 to return to “GameDay” that season, to be part of the show for a 33rd year.
How? Don’t know yet, Fitting said.
“We’re not going to be put him, obviously, in harm’s way. Nor does he want that. And if that means we get to the point where there’s a camera at his house, that’s what we do,” Fitting said.
He also added: “Our goal is to have all our people in one spot.”
There have been reports ESPN is considering using Herbstreit as an NFL analyst for “Monday Night Football” this season. Fitting would not comment on that but said he fully expects Herbstreit’s role with “GameDay” and as game analyst on “Saturday Night Football” to be unchanged.
Normally, “GameDay” has about 100 people working on site, many of whom have been flown in.
“That’s not realistic in these times,” Fitting said.
