There will be no shortage of competition in the Saturday pre-game show market during this college football season.
ESPN's College GameDay is coming off its best year of viewership yet. FOX is desperate enough to catch up that they threw a bunch of money at Dave Portnoy, of all people, to appear on Big Noon Kickoff.
The ACC Network is ready to throw its hat in the ring with a major change to its ACC Huddle pre-game show. Instead of broadcasting on the campus of the ACC Network's "game of the week", which was usually a game that was far down the card of the league's biggest weekly games, it will now broadcast from the campus of what it perceives to be the best game each week.
The show will be hosted by Taylor Tannebaum and feature former Virginia Tech WR Eddie Royal, analyst Eric Mac Lain, and the newly hired Jimbo Fisher, the ex-Florida State and Texas A&M head coach. Fisher won a National Championship as the head coach of the Seminoles back in 2013. Fisher was fired by A&M late in the 2023 season and has been out of coaching ever since.
How Fisher will be on TV remains to be seen. He has joined the broadcast desk as an analyst a few times during his coaching career, and he's certainly got the ball knowledge.
The SEC Network has had success with its "SEC Nation" show, which runs as alternative programming to ESPN's College GameDay. SEC Nation typically travels to the top SEC game week-to-week, not necessarily contingent on what will air on the network. It tries to avoid doubling up with GameDay, but that happens from time to time.
Per Front Office Sports, ACC Huddle will model itself after College GameDay.
ACC Huddle's revamped show will have a big Week 1 showcase
With College GameDay and Big Noon Kickoff both in Columbus for the major Week 1 showdown between Ohio State and Texas, the new ACC Huddle will have a major opportunity for a showcase for viewers who are looking elsewhere.
It won't draw GameDay or even Big Noon ratings, but it will be flying solo for what is probably the second biggest game of Week 1: LSU at Clemson in Death Valley.
The storylines will be aplenty. Both LSU and Clemson fancy themselves as National Championship contenders. Brian Kelly and LSU will be looking to break an unfortunate streak: the Bengal Tigers have lost five consecutive season openers, and unfortunately for them, this is probably the most difficult hurdle to clear.
The winner of this game will be immediately seen as one of the title favorites.