College GameDay is headed back to Boise, and the guest picker conversation is already heating up.
Pat McAfee, Kirk Herbstreit, Nick Saban and the rest of ESPN’s crew will be in town Saturday for an Idaho stop of the show, which will set up the Boise State-Oregon State matchup. The Broncos and Beavers are meeting again 16 years after GameDay’s last trip to Boise, when then-No.
3 Boise State beat No. 24 Oregon State, 37-24.
This time, Boise State enters at 8-1 and 5-0 in the Pac-12, while Oregon State is 5-4 and 3-2. GameDay will air from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Mountain time, and the game itself is set for 4 p.m. nationally on USA Network.
The obvious names are already off the board. Kellen Moore and Ashton Jeanty are not part of the discussion because both have NFL obligations on Sunday. Moore was also back in Boise on Halloween for the unveiling of his statue.
That leaves a wide-open field, and there are plenty of local ties in the mix.
One possibility is former Boise State star Ryan Clady, a Super Bowl champion offensive lineman and one of the program’s all-time greats. Another is Ian Johnson, who etched his name into Broncos lore with the famous Statue of Liberty play to win the 2007 Fiesta Bowl and finished his Boise State career with 4,183 rushing yards and 58 touchdowns.
Picabo Street, who served as the guest picker for Boise State’s 2010 GameDay appearance, would make sense again. The Olympic gold medalist skier is from Triumph, Idaho.
There’s also Hilary Knight, the Sun Valley native and captain of the United States women’s national ice hockey team. The U.S. won gold at the 2026 Olympics.
Country star Brett Young has been floated as well. He lives in Utah, is often seen around the Boise area and is a big football fan.
Former Boise State player Tyrone Crawford is another name to watch. He posted his own guest picker pitch on X, writing, “@CollegeGameDay I can be the guest picker for college gameday? Born & raised Boise native + BSU alumni 🤷🏼♂️”
Former Boise State assistant and ex-head coach Dirk Koetter still owns a home in Boise, which keeps him in the conversation too.
On the celebrity side, Bryan Cranston stands out. The Breaking Bad star is an Emmett native and owns a house on the shores of Payette Lake near McCall.
Chris Petersen would be a dream pick for many Boise State fans, but there’s a catch: he works as an analyst for FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff. Whether FOX would allow him to appear on a rival show is another matter, even if stranger things have happened.
Miesha Tate is another option. The former UFC champion is the stepmother of Boise State tight end Keawe Browne.
And then there’s Kellen Moore’s old teammate and Boise State legend Jay Ajayi, the Riggins native who was a first-round draft pick by the Dallas Cowboys and earned second-team All-Pro honors as a rookie before injuries changed the course of his career.
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