ESPN’s GameDay headed to Philly for Temple-Notre Dame

As of about 9 a.m. – lunch time on the East Coast, mind you – the only bone ESPN had thrown fans was a tweet from its Direct of Public Relations, Keri Potts, asking media to just stalk the College GameDay twitter site for a decision instead of continuing to flood her inbox with inquiries. Notre Dame will play in primetime this weekend at Temple (8 p.m. ET, ABC) and against Boston College at Fenway Park November. 21 (7:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN).

“The fact the decision has taken this long is unprecedented and means at least one decision maker in the room is pushing for Pullman”, the insider said prior to the announcement. Temple is ranked for the first time in decades, and that likely played a role in their decision, according to many college football analysts.

On top of that, Kirk Herbstreit is a contributing factor in this.

But Washington State fans have had a presence at every GameDay since the October 2003 season, when a grassroots campaign to get the show to come to Wazzu started with an 800-mile drive from Albuquerque to Austin. So it always made sense for the show to be in Philadelphia.

But the struggles of the team have left them off college football’s map for a while, until this year.

After its road loss at undefeated Clemson, Notre Dame’s offense-featuring star quarterback DeShone Kizer, running back C.J. Prosise and wide receiver Will Fuller-put up 41 points in back-to-back wins over Navy and USC.

What looked like a game you could have done without watching (at least when looking at the schedule before the season) has turned into a nationally-ranked much-watch game, though, and all the credit in the world has to go to Temple for that.

A victory for Temple, on the other hand, would give the Owls another serious boost in their chase for the Group of Five conferences’ spot in the coveted New Year’s Six bowl games.