Cue up Big & Rich, Athens.
ESPN’s College GameDay is coming to your city.
This weekend’s Top 10 tilt between Tennessee and Georgia will officially have the attention of the nation on Saturday morning as ESPN’s College GameDay crew is headed to Athens, GA, for the SEC rivalry clash between the Volunteers and the Bulldogs.
The game has playoff implications, conference championship implications, and now the eyes of the college football world as the hype begins to build.
Tennessee doesn’t mind having College GameDay hyping up the opposing crowd, though.
Kirk Herbstreit’s crew was posted up for the Tennessee-Oklahoma game on Sept. 21 in Norman, OK, a game that Tennessee won by a score of 25-15.
The Vols will look to make it 2-0 as road opponents at the College GameDay location this season with a win against Georgia in Athens on Saturday.
A top-10 showdown with Playoff and SEC title stakes 😤
Athens, we’ll see you soon for Tennessee-Georgia‼️ pic.twitter.com/a5SQFaRqRM
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) November 10, 2024
More from RTI: Everything Josh Heupel Said After Tennessee Football Defeated Mississippi State
Saturday’s show will be the fifth time that Tennessee has played in a College GameDay game since Josh Heupel took over in Knoxville in 2021.
Tennessee was the darling of the season in 2022 as they hosted GameDay twice and was the road opponent when GameDay was in Athens. The Vols defeated Florida and Alabama in those first two games but fell to Georgia in the third. Tennessee didn’t get a look at the GameDay set in 2023 but did see the ESPN crew roll into Norman in Week 4 of this season.
Tennessee’s GameDay record under Josh Heupel is sitting at 3-1 prior to this weekend’s game.
The Vols are also hoping to have the same road outcome as Alabama did this weekend, pummeling the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge with the GameDay crew getting things warmed up in the morning.
Tennessee enters the game on a four-game win streak after defeating Florida, Alabama, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. All those games were in Knoxville, though. Tennessee hasn’t played on the road since its 19-14 loss to Arkansas in early October.
The big storyline to watch this week is Tennessee’s key injured players. Running back Dylan Sampson briefly looked to be injured during Saturday’s game but did return to the field and ended the game with 30 carries. While Sampson may not have been fully injured, it’s hard to imagine Saturday’s game didn’t take some kind of toll on the junior running back.
Tennessee also lost QB Nico Iamaleava during the game. Iamaleava is the attention-getter here but head coach Josh Heupel did sound optimistic about him being able to play next week in Athens.
Georgia, on the other hand, has its back completely against the wall after suffering its second loss of the season on Saturday night. The Bulldogs fell to Ole Miss by a score of 28-10 in Oxford to move to 7-2 on the year. Georgia’s other loss was to Alabama in Tuscaloosa in late September.
Georgia will host Tennessee at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC this Saturday night in Athens, GA. ESPN’s College GameDay will kick off from Athens at 9:00 a.m. ET on Saturday.
