Which schools have never hosted “College GameDay”? Cal becomes the last newcomer

This weekend, Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban, Pat McAfee and the rest of the “College GameDay” crew will find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings.

ESPN's popular pregame show will air Saturday from Berkeley, Calif., ahead of Cal's game that night against No. 8 Miami.

It will be the first ACC home game for the Golden Bears, who joined the league ahead of the 2024 football season, but the game against the Hurricanes represents another benchmark for Cal – it's the first time the “College.” GameDay” takes place.

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Since the mid-1990s, when the show began broadcasting one of the week's biggest games live from the site, the mere presence of “College GameDay” has been a measure of a show's endorsement. When Corso, Herbstreit, et al.—to borrow the words of the show's long-running theme song—came to your town, it meant your school and your football program mattered in a tangible, undeniable way.

It's hardly a perfect barometer of the relevance of a program, as shown by Cal, which hasn't been the host of “College GameDay” for decades despite being a perennial conference title contender in the 2000s and boasting future NFL stars such as Cal Aaron Rodgers, Marshawn Lynch and many more appeared DeSean Jackson.

When Corso selects his famous headgear and the show comes to an end, the Golden Bears will leave a relatively small group of Power Four conference programs that have never hosted “College GameDay.”

Who else is on this list? Here's a look at the major conference schools that have never hosted a “College GameDay” broadcast:

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Schools that have never hosted College GameDay

With Cal set to leave the exclusive club, there are currently six schools participating in Power Four conferences that have never hosted “College GameDay.”

Illinois
Maryland
Rutgers
SMU
Syracuse
Virginia

Some of the inclusions are more surprising than others.

Although best known for its men's basketball program, Syracuse was a fixture in the national polls in the mid-to-late 1990s and was led by players such as Donovan McNabb, Marvin Harrison and Dwight Freeney. Rutgers had a brief appearance with national prominence in Greg Schiano's first stint at the school in the mid-2000s, but some of the biggest games back then were on Thursday nights, which precluded “College GameDay” from coming to town. Illinois participated in two New Year's Six bowl games in the 2000s, making it to the Sugar Bowl in 2001 and the Rose Bowl in 2007.

Over the past 10 years, ESPN has increasingly broadcast “College GameDay” to locations outside major college football hotbeds in leagues like the SEC and Big Ten, traveling to places like Harrisonburg, Virginia; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Brookings, South Dakota; Conway, South Carolina; Boone, North Carolina; Jackson, Mississippi; and Bozeman, Montana for high-profile games with teams from the Group of Five conferences or the FCS.

Which schools have never hosted “College GameDay”? Cal becomes the last newcomer

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