Last week, ESPN’s “College GameDay” went to the Grove in Oxford, Miss., for the first time ever — and was there for Ole Miss to beat Alabama. This week, GameDay is staying in-state and going to Starkville for Mississippi State vs. Auburn. This will complete the cycle for GameDay visits to SEC campuses, although the visit to Missouri was during the Big 12 era.
These visits remove two names from a sad list: Power-conference teams that have neither hosted GameDay nor been an opponent at one of those games. Who’s on this list? Iowa State, of course. Also Baylor, Duke, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Rutgers, and Wake Forest. (While Baylor is good right now, the Big 12’s Fox contract works against it.)
Of those, Baylor, Duke, Indiana, and Maryland have hosted a basketball GameDay. With ISU-Kansas stuck dead in the middle of January this year, the outlook is cloudy for that. (And make no mistake — that game would be the only time GameDay would think about coming to Hilton.)