One Shot for College GameDay at WVU in 2024?

ESPN's GameDay crew could make an early season trip to Morgantown.
Host Pat McAfee, center, makes a point while Rece Davis, left, and Lee Corso look on during the ESPN College GameDay show on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, on the Hesburgh Library lawn on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend. The show was to highlight the Notre Dame-Ohio State game.
Host Pat McAfee, center, makes a point while Rece Davis, left, and Lee Corso look on during the ESPN College GameDay show on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, on the Hesburgh Library lawn on the University of Notre Dame campus in South Bend. The show was to highlight the Notre Dame-Ohio State game. / GREG SWIERCZ / USA TODAY NETWORK

Excitement around the WVU football program is its highest since Neal Brown first arrived in 2019 and with high expectations, the Mountaineers could receive more of a national spotlight.

Morgantown has hosted ESPN's College GameDay twice in the show's history with its last trip to the Mountain state occurring in 2014 when No. 20 WVU squared off against No. 10 TCU. After studying WVU's slate, along with the rest of the college football schedule in 2024, it looks like Morgantown could be in a position to welcome back Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and potentially Pat McAfee in a late season clash with the UCF Knights.

This is really the only spot on the schedule where I could see Morgantown being in contention to be the host location. I thought about the Week 4 matchup with Kansas, but there are a handful of other games that I believe ESPN would choose first such as NC State at Clemson, Utah at Oklahoma State, and Tennessee at Oklahoma.

For November 23rd, the gang could go to Alabama at Oklahoma, but if Oklahoma gets the nod in Week 4, I doubt they get it again in November. Plus, by this point in the season, Alabama will have already been featured a number of times.

I'm not as high on UCF as most are, but if they do live up to the preseason hype they are receiving and West Virginia does their part, the two could be jostling for a spot in the Big 12 title game.

The season opener against Penn State would have made a lot of sense too, but instead they will be going to College Station for Texas A&M versus Notre Dame. Why? I have no idea. Choosing a matchup that has just five prior meetings over a game with regional relevance is quite the decision.

READ MORE ABOUT WVU ATHLETICS

Projecting the Overall Rating of Every WVU Player on College Football 25

Ranking Every Game on WVU's 2024 Schedule by Difficulty

Where WVU's Portal Class Ranks in the Big 12 & Nationally


Published
Schuyler Callihan

SCHUYLER CALLIHAN

Publisher of Mountaineers Now on FanNation/Sports Illustrated. Lead recruiting expert and co-host of Between the Eers, Walk Thru GameDay Show, Mountaineers Now Postgame Show, and In the Gun Podcast.