Rich Rod Makes Pitch to ESPN GameDay Crew to Bring Show to Backyard Brawl

Originally posted on West Virginia Mountaineers on SI
By Schuyler Callihan | Last updated May 7, 2025 10:33 AM ET

ESPN's College GameDay show has only been to Morgantown twice for a West Virginia football game, but a third appearance could take place as soon as this September.

In Week 3, the Mountaineers will be playing host to the Pitt Panthers in the 108th edition of Backyard Brawl. It will be head coach Rich Rodriguez's first game against a Power Four opponent in his second tenure at WVU, which is ironically the team he coached against in his final game in his first tenure.

More ironically, the game will be played on September 13th (9/13), which also happens to be the score of that 2007 game where Pitt stunned WVU and prevented them from appearing in the national championship game.

GameDay came to Morgantown in 2011 for the matchup with No. 2 LSU and returned in 2014 as No. 10 TCU came to town. It's been 11 long years. The show is overdue to make its return. Rodriguez tossed the idea directly to members of the show, Rece Davis and Pete Thamel, in a recent interview.

“It’ll be maybe the most electric atmosphere in college football that weekend. I’m hoping that we’ll have GameDay there. That would be nice," Rodriguez said. "I mean, they’ll put on a show. You’ll see the blue lot cranking like you’ve never seen it before. This place will be sold out. There might even be some that go to the extreme of buying a Pitt season ticket, so they can come to the West Virginia game against Pitt. I don’t know who else is playing that weekend, but there will not be one that’s more intense.”

Both Davis and Thamel seemed on board with the idea, with Davis stating, “Oh my goodness. Can you even imagine? That would be such a scene. I mean, we already saw what the scene was when he took his show to Morgantown.”