It's been rumored for weeks that ESPN might be interested in bring College GameDay to Morgantown during Week 3 for what is sure to be one of the biggest editions of bitter rivalry between WVU and Pitt – known affectionately among fans as The Backyard Brawl. It's a move that former WVU kicker and current GameDay analyst Pat McAfee has been pushing for in recent months, and he might just get his wish.
Multiple sources are now indicating that a visit from the biggest pregame show in college football might be locked in for West Virginia, but it is contingent on one big 'if' – that being a victory for the Mountaineers this weekend on the road as they travel to face the defending MAC Champions Ohio.
The news has been reported by multiple media members covering the WVU program – Joseph Smith of HailWV and RedditCFB shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday night that sources had shared with him that GameDay would come to Morgantown in Week 3 if the Mountaineers win in Athens, and Paul Rockel of Locked on West Virginia shared similar news that day. Mike Casazza of EerSports then dropped the news on Thursday morning on the Country Roads Confidential podcast that he had heard from folks within the athletic department that those rumors about GameDay were in fact true, and that a special edition of The Pat McAfee Show would also be hosted in Morgantown on Friday if the crew does come to town.
I also had a source tell me today that College GameDay is coming to Morgantown if WVU beats Ohio this week & they've given me good intel before.
— Joe Smith (@joesmithwrites) September 4, 2025
Seems like something we all expected but it's feeling more likely as Week 3 gets closer. Big game gets bigger for WVU this Saturday. https://t.co/6sKJRwFaDp
If WVU were to host the show, it would be just the third time in program history College GameDay has visited Morgantown and the first in over a decade, with the last visit coming on November 1st, 2014. It would also be just the sixth time they've played in the game where GameDay is visiting – the Mountaineers are 1-4 all-time when playing in such contests, with the last coming when the show visited The Backyard Brawl in Pittsburgh in 2022.
It puts increasingly high stakes on an unusual road game this weekend to a defending Group of 5 conference champion for a Power 4 program, and despite many viewing the upcoming affair as a trap game for the Mountaineers, WVU will now have even more of a reason to make sure they don't slip up in Athens.