I agree. Unless both teams go completely off the rails in a very unlikely scenario, I see ESPN going to Tuscaloosa even if one or both have lost by then. Alabama is at Texas A&M this Saturday in their best chance to fall before the LSU game and then has Tennessee and Arkansas games at home that it should easily win. LSU has Florida at home, goes to Mississippi State in a game it should win, and then hosts Auburn. I can't see LSU dropping more than one of those. That CBS will air it won't play a role in the decision making at ESPN. They'll make Herbie fly to his game site for that evening.
Looking at our game, Penn State has to get by Iowa away, Michigan at home, and Michigan State away in a tough slate. We have to deal with tricky Nebraska and Maryland games. The Huskers and Terps have had good wins and games in which they've been completely humiliated. It's hard to say how that turns out. Pains me as it does to say it, but if Gameday goes Big Ten that weekend, there is also Iowa at Wisconsin to contend with if some difficult games go the way of both teams.
We are among the few Power 5 conference teams that have never received a visit from Gameday. There are even some unlikely suspects that have had the show hit town like Indiana, Kansas, and Oregon State (3 times to Corvallis!). Now that Washington State got its much campaigned for visit last year, the missing teams Power 5 teams from the Gameday destination list are Minnesota, Rutgers, Duke, Virginia, and Wake Forest. All teams from the PAC-12, Big XII, and SEC have been visited although it's been a long time for some schools and many didn't get their visits while members of their current conference. Iowa State only got its visit this past September. As indies Notre Dame and BYU both have hosted. Some non Power 5 teams, FCS, D-II, and D-III schools that have been visited while we wait include Houston, Boise State, Air Force, Army, Navy, East Carolina, Cincinnati, Northern Illinois, SMU, USF, UCF, Temple, Western Michigan, Bowling Green, Florida A&M, Grambling State, Southern, Hampton, Delaware State, Harvard, Yale, Richmond, James Madison, Williams, Incarnate Word, Amherst, Buffalo, and North Dakota State (to my great chagrin).
My greatest Gameday fear was that the show would go to Target Field in 2017 for St. Thomas vs. St. John's because two D-III archrivals drawing a 37,000 plus crowd to an MLB stadium seems like the sort of thing Gameday would love. On top of that, there was a pretty weak slate of games that weekend overall with no obvious big school game to visit. What could have been as bad as Gameday coming to Minneapolis, but skipping the Gophers in favor of the Tommies and Johnnies? Good fortune prevailed when ESPN controversially decided to hold the show in Times Square with no major game in that market as anchor and instead the emphasis going to how many college football fans lived in the NYC area that would turn up.
