ESPN College GameDay will be coming back to East Lansing this weekend for the second year in a row.
The show was here for last year's game against Notre Dame, which the Spartans lost 31-24. East Lansing was not the first choice for GameDay last year, but Hurricane Ivan forced ESPN to make a change and come to a safer location.
This year, though, it seems as if East Lansing was the first choice for ESPN and the GameDay crew.
"This is a game that has a pretty large story line along with it," ESPN spokesman Mike Humes said. "Penn State is looking to wrap up the Big Ten title and MSU is just trying to get into a bowl game."
But with various other big games on Saturday's schedule, it still came as a little bit of a surprise that the ESPN crew is coming to East Lansing.
Other choices included going to Ann Arbor for the annual clash between No. 9 Ohio State and No. 17 Michigan, heading down to Auburn for the matchup between No. 8 Alabama and No. 11 Auburn or traveling to the West Coast for the game between No. 16 Fresno State and No. 1 Southern California.
But time conflicts and previous coverage of these teams ruled out the locations.
"We look at all types of different games before choosing where we want to go," Humes said.
This will mark the fourth time that GameDay crew will be on the MSU campus. Along with last year's visit, the show was here for the 1997 and 1999 games against Michigan.
"We deserve to have GameDay here even if our record isn't the greatest," marketing senior Andrew Wessel said. "It will be great to get our name out there."
One of the only things that the Spartans have going for them right now is their record against opponents ranked in the top 10. MSU is 9-1 in its last 10 games against top-10 opponents.
"There is potential for an upset this weekend," said human resource management senior Nick Pierce.
GameDay first aired in 1986 and started traveling to campuses in 1993. The show is known for being at the biggest game of the week.
GameDay is hosted by Chris Fowler, who is joined each week by analysts Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit. The show runs numerous special stories on the teams that are playing the game they are at and breaks down other key games being played that weekend.
At the end of the show, Corso and Herbstreit make their predictions for the top games and leave the game they are at for the final pick. Corso is known for putting on some type of headgear from the school he is picking — normally the mascot's head piece.
Last year, the show's set was located on the southeast corner of the stadium between Lot 91 and Shaw Lane. The site for this year's set has not yet been determined.
The national broadcast will begin at 10:30 a.m. Saturday.
