ESPN’s College GameDay is finally making the trip back to Provo.
For Week 7, the flagship pregame show is headed to BYU for the first time in 17 years, setting up shop for a matchup of unbeaten College Football Playoff contenders when No. 3 Notre Dame visits No.
8 BYU on Oct. 17 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
It’s only the second time College GameDay has ever been in Provo. The first came on Oct. 24, 2009, when TCU beat BYU 38-7.
“Cougar fans, it’s been awhile,” the show’s official account posted shortly after 7 p.m. ET, confirming the crew is “headed to Provo for the first time since 2009 for Notre Dame-BYU.”
The choice fits a packed Week 7 board, but this one rose to the top. ESPN host Rece Davis had already signaled on the Sept. 28 episode of the College GameDay podcast that BYU was a strong possibility, while noting the decision still wasn’t locked in.
“I’m not trying to give away secrets, no decision has been made, but there’s a really good chance we’ll be at BYU,” Davis said.
He also called the game “might be the best game of the weekend.” That’s hard to argue with given the rest of the slate, which includes Ohio State at Indiana, a rematch of last season’s Big Ten title game, plus Florida at Texas and Alabama at Tennessee.
There’s also the TV angle. The game lands in ABC’s prime-time window, and Notre Dame’s home games air exclusively on NBC. That makes Provo a perfect stage for ESPN to build a Saturday around the Irish, coming one week after GameDay was at Coleman Coliseum for Georgia at Alabama.
Both teams arrive unbeaten, and both showed plenty in their most recent games. Notre Dame moved to 6-0 with a 58-7 win over Stanford on Saturday in South Bend, where Marcus Freeman’s team had the game buried early with a 37-0 halftime lead.
BYU improved to 5-0 and 3-0 in Big 12 play with a 24-10 win over Iowa State on Friday night. Sophomore quarterback Bear Bachmeier delivered his best passing day of the season, throwing for 329 yards and two touchdowns, then added a career-high 109 rushing yards. The Cougars are 5-0 for a third straight season, which is a first in program history.
BYU’s defense did its part, too. Kalani Sitake’s group held the Cyclones to 200 total yards and just 2 of 13 on third down. The Cougars, though, will have to face Notre Dame without running back LJ Martin, the reigning Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, who is reportedly out 4-6 weeks with an ankle injury.
Notre Dame has the edge in the all-time series, 7-2, but Provo has already seen BYU get the better of the Irish once before. Notre Dame’s last visit there ended in a 20-17 BYU win in 2004. The teams most recently met in 2022, when Notre Dame beat BYU 28-20 in Las Vegas.
This one also has a chance to make history in LaVell Edwards Stadium. The Oct. 17 matchup is on track to become the first meeting of two top-10 teams there, with both programs entering the season as the top two at-large teams left out of last year’s 12-team Playoff field. The home-and-home series replaced Notre Dame’s annual game against USC, and BYU is scheduled to return to South Bend in 2027.
In Other News...
Notre Dame Already Faces One Annoying BYU Narrative Before Kickoff
With kickoff still ahead, Notre Dame is already dealing with the kind of side conversation that tends to follow a high-profile nonconference game. BYU will be without leading running back L.J. Martin because of a lower-body injury, and the Cougars have leaned even more heavily on quarterback Bear Bachmeier since Martin went down. For the Irish, the betting line has them favored by 10.5 points, which only adds to the early chatter about how the matchup will be framed.
Notre Dame knows the result will be judged well beyond the box score, especially if the conversation shifts toward strength of schedule after the game. If BYU looks short-handed on offense, it could become another talking point for a team that is trying to make every quality opponent count. The irony is obvious enough: before either side takes the field, one of the main debates already has little to do with who wins and everything to do with how the game gets remembered. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame's Blowout May Have Revealed The Offense's New Identity
Notre Dames rout of Stanford on Saturday was the kind of performance that can reshape how a team sees itself. The 58-7 win was the most lopsided in series history, and it came with a season-high 361 rushing yards, the sort of output that usually says as much about identity as it does about execution. Freshman running back Jonaz Walton looked like the player driving that conversation, piling up 181 rushing yards, 28 more through the air and two touchdowns while giving the offense a clear downhill edge.
CJ Carr did not need to carry the same weight he has in some earlier games, but he still managed 181 passing yards, 41 rushing yards and three touchdown throws, which is its own sign of balance. Jaden Greathouse has also started to look like a more consistent piece of the passing game, finding the end zone in consecutive contests, and together those developments suggest Notre Dame may be settling into an offense built less around one star turn and more around a series of dependable answers. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dame Just Got A Big Secondary Boost At The Right Time
When Leonard Moore was sidelined with a concussion against Stanford, Jayden Sanders stepped into the starting lineup and gave Notre Dame exactly the kind of steadiness it needed in the secondary. Sanders wound up tied for the team lead in defensive snaps and came out of the game with an 86.3 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, a strong indicator that he handled the increased workload without the defense taking a step back.
Sanders also made his presence felt on the ball, finishing with two pass breakups and helping keep completions down on his side of the field. For a Notre Dame defense trying to stay settled in the back end, getting that kind of performance from a replacement starter was a timely development, especially with Moores status still part of the bigger picture. [Read more 🡒]