ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ coming to Columbia for next South Carolina football game

For the first time in a decade, ESPN’s “College GameDay” is headed to Columbia, South Carolina.

ESPN’s popular pre-game TV show will return to South Carolina for Saturday’s Southeastern Conference game against LSU, the network announced Saturday night.

It will be the seventh time the Gamecocks have been on the show and the first time the show will broadcast from the state’s capital city since 2014 when then 13th-ranked South Carolina faced Missouri. (Missouri won that game 21-20.) South Carolina was featured on the show last year before the Gamecocks’ opener against North Carolina in Charlotte.

The show will set up shop at Gamecock Park adjacent to Williams-Brice Stadium.

“College GameDay” begins at 9 a.m. Saturday and airs for three hours. The Gamecocks and LSU will kick off at noon.

The show features Rece Davis, Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee and former Alabama coach Nick Saban. The show also has a celebrity picker for its final segment.

Country music star Kenny Chesney was the guest picker for the show the last time it was in Columbia, but they usually have a guest with a tie-in to the location or a team playing in the game. Country music star and Hootie and The Blowfish front man Darius Rucker was the guest picker for the game in Charlotte last year.

McAfee typically broadcasts his daily TV show, “The Pat McAfee Show,” on Friday from the site of “GameDay” that week.

South Carolina defeated Kentucky 31-6 in Week 2, while LSU defeated Nicholls State, 44-21.

“We’ll see ALL of #GamecockNation along w @CollegeGameDay next Saturday in Columbia,” USC coach Shane Beamer posted to X/Twitter.