The eyes of college football fans everywhere will be watching ESPN’s College Gameday on Saturday as West Virginia travels to play TCU.
After a bye week for both teams, the Mountaineers and Horned Frogs find themselves climbing the national rankings. West Virginia is settled into the top 25 by coming in at No. 23 this week and TCU has vaulted into the top 10 and is ranked No. 10 in the coaches poll and No. 8 in the Associated Press poll.
This is the best match up in all of college football as there is only one other game between two top 25 programs. The Mountaineers and Horned Frogs have a date that could decide the fate of the Big 12 Championship race.
It’s only fitting that ESPN’s popular production of College Gameday features this contest for the whole nation to see. It’s odd in the fact that the game will kickoff at 3:30 p.m. though Gameday is broadcast until noon. Usually, the primetime game of the night is featured on Gameday.
Also odd is ESPN not broadcasting the game in the first place. FS1 will televise the game live from Ft. Worth, Texas. It’s not right to criticize this publicity, but it still makes it an interesting choice for College Gameday. The crowd will obviously be extremely pro-TCU, but it doesn’t hurt to have the Big 12 in the limelight with West Virginia sharing its small part, too.
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This is the third time the WVU football team has been a part of College Gameday. It is the first time the experience comes as part of a road game. When West Virginia hosted LSU in 2011, Gameday was there for the first time.
This also happens to be the second time Gameday has hyped up the TCU-WVU match up. In 2014 in Morgantown, Gameday was there as well. That game, like this one, was an afternoon kickoff.
The famed former coach Lee Corso picked against West Virginia in the previous Gameday stops and it won’t be surprising when he picks TCU this time around. No matter. The players aren’t going to be focused on the cameras or the commentators. They will be locked into the game preparation.
Signs are pointing to a TCU victory already, which should add even more fire to the Mountaineers in their first true road game of the season. TCU opened as a 12.5-point favorite over West Virginia and that has since increased to 13 points.
Next: 5 best things to do on a bye week in West Virginia
The world is against West Virginia, and Lee Corso probably will be too. It’s time to thrive as an underdog and shock the entire college football world.