ESPN College GameDay will be in South Bend next week and the show has never meant less to college football

It's rare that ESPN sends College GameDay to a site for a game that one of its networks isn't broadcasting, but Miami-Notre Dame isn't just any game. The flagship preview show in college football will be in the house for the Hurricanes and the Irish.

This move makes sense. It's the biggest game of the season, and the show's primary competitor, Fox's Big Noon Kickoff, generally sticks to the Big Ten games that it will broadcast immediately after the show. 

Whether this move makes Miami fans happy generally depends on your tolerance of Pat McAfee.

McAfee has basically hijacked the show and, depending on who you ask, taken a big chunk of the charm out of it with his antics. The show has always tried to balance sizzle with steak, but with the addition of McAfee and the departure of well-respected storytellers like Tom Rinaldi, College GameDay seems to have stopped trying to appeal to those who want information about what's ahead on any given Saturday.

College GameDay's appearance at Miami-Notre Dame is one to watch

McAfee is a big personality who does and says ridiculous things often without having a second thought put into them. That's his brand, and in today's world, it's the loudest voice that often wins, and networks are buying into the idea that controversy creates cash.

So, for those involved, maybe the show's transformation into the "Pat McAfee Show weekend wrap-up featuring College Football" was a necessary change. A bunch of guys talking about college football for three hours without a country music concert and some dude ripping off his shirt might be boring. Besides, you can watch ACC Huddle if you want to hear stuff about the actual game, right?

Whether it's the contracted love affair with the SEC (and, for all you who are brave enough to watch, log the minutes spent talking about ESPN's signature conference compared to the time they spend on Miami-Notre Dame) or the endless shilling for the "Protect College Sports" Act, ESPN's College GameDay has lost its way. It will probably find it again in a few years, but for now it is what it is.

And that's a shame. I should be looking forward to the show next week because when the Hurricanes and the Irish are good, the atmosphere surrounding the game is electric. But I have no faith that the show is going to be about the game or about any football game on Saturday. Maybe they'll let Nick Saban say something occasionally, but there's only so much the old coach is going to do to deflect from the silliness. 

College GameDay is no longer about college football. It's not a celebration of pageantry or whatever other cliché lines they want to throw out there. It's about ESPN, and maybe that's why the call letters are first in the title of the show. The network has made the choice to let the show cater to the lowest common denominator, and while I am hopeful they will give it a rest next week, that's highly unlikely to happen. 

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