College football’s Week 5 spotlight is headed to Iowa City.
ESPN’s College GameDay will be on hand for Iowa’s showdown with No. 7 Ohio State on Saturday, marking the show’s first trip back to Iowa since 2006.
The announcement came Sunday on social media, and it sets up a big-stage morning for a Hawkeyes team that has opened 4-0 and is coming off a dramatic 20-19 win over then-No. 18 Michigan to begin Big Ten play.
Ohio State enters at 3-1 and already has one conference win after beating Illinois 42-19.
This will be the third time GameDay has featured Iowa, and the last visit to Iowa City came on Sept. 30, 2006, before another Iowa-Ohio State matchup. Both teams were 4-0 that day, Ohio State was ranked No. 1, and the Buckeyes rolled to a 38-17 win over a No.
13 Iowa team. Iowa’s first time hosting the show came in 1996, also for a game against Ohio State.
The Hawkeyes were last part of a GameDay featured game in 2021, when the show traveled to Ames for the Cy-Hawk game between No. 10 Iowa State and No.
9 Iowa. Two years earlier, Iowa State fan Carson King’s sign at the 2019 GameDay show in Ames - asking for Busch Light money and displaying his Venmo account’s address - went viral and helped generate more than $3 million in donations, which King gave to the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.
GameDay’s panel includes host Rece Davis and analysts Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and Nick Saban. A guest will join the group for the closing segment, where the crew makes its picks for the day’s biggest games and wraps with Iowa-Ohio State.
McAfee had already been hinting that GameDay might be headed back to Iowa, and Herbstreit also teased a possible return to Iowa City during an appearance on McAfee’s ESPN show. On Saturday, McAfee leaned into the possibility during the Iowa-Michigan pick segment, choosing the Hawkeyes and saying there were “GameDay implications in Ann Arbor.” Saban also picked Iowa to beat Michigan.
GameDay begins at 8 a.m. Saturday and runs until the 11 a.m. games kick off.
Iowa and Ohio State are set for 2:30 p.m. Saturday on CBS.
In Other News...
Iowa Just Got Caught In A Big Ten Ranking Shakeup
The AP Top 25 is headed for a notable reset after a wild weekend across the Big Ten and beyond, with No. 12 USC taking its first loss of the season in a 41-27 defeat to No. 20 Oregon. That result alone figures to shake up the next poll, and it came in a slate filled with other ranked teams also falling, setting up a round of movement that could ripple through the conference hierarchy.
For Iowa, that kind of shuffle matters because every week in a crowded Big Ten comes down to positioning, perception and what the teams above you do. USCs stumble is the kind of opening that can change the way the league looks on paper, even before Iowa has to settle anything on the field, and the full effect of this weekend may not be clear until the new rankings are released. [Read more 🡒]
Iowas Wild Finish Vs Michigan Was Nearly Ruined At The Line
Iowas comeback against Michigan came down to the kind of late-game scramble that can turn a wild finish into a mess in a heartbeat. With the clock down to two seconds, a catch moved the Hawkeyes to the 16-yard line and Hank Brown looked ready to either spike the ball or sell a fake spike, only for the officials to stop things before the next snap because of the rule against clock spikes with fewer than three seconds left.
The interruption could have been a killer, but Brown later said it actually helped Iowa settle in for the final play. Instead of rushing through the moment, the Hawkeyes had a brief reset before Brown delivered the completion to Reese Vander Zee that helped cap the finish everyone will remember, even if the stoppage nearly became the detail that overshadowed it. [Read more 🡒]
Future Hawkeyes Quietly Made A Strong Statement Friday Night
Friday night offered a useful snapshot for Iowa fans keeping an eye on the future, as several 2027 and 2028 commits turned in notable performances across high school games in multiple states. The slate included confirmed results, individual production on both sides of the ball, and a few quiet nights too, with some prospects sidelined or on bye weeks as their schedules unfolded.
For a program that sells development as much as anything, these weekly check-ins matter because they show how those young pieces are progressing against real competition. The mix of tackles, yards, touchdowns and game outcomes gave the Hawkeyes plenty to monitor, even if not every commit was in action, and the broader picture was simple enough: the class is starting to stack up some attention before it ever reaches Iowa City. [Read more 🡒]