Kirk Herbstreit on WVU Bandwagon, Wants GameDay at Backyard Brawl

Rich Rodriguez’s return to West Virginia has sparked so much intrigue that it has a former WVU doubter fully bought in. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit is actually so onboard with this new era of WVU football that he wants College GameDay to travel to Morgantown so he can see the Mountaineers in action.

“It’s a new era in Morgantown and I am officially on the bandwagon,” proclaimed Herbstreit on Wednesday’s Pat McAfee Show.

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This is, of course, notable because Herbstreit famously bet against West Virginia a lot throughout the past two seasons. And while he lost his bet with McAfee when WVU won nine games in 2023, the disaster that was the 2024 season led to Neal Brown being fired and Rodriguez eventually being hired back.

Just like everyone else, the game Herbstreit wants to be in town for is the Week 3 showdown with Pitt in the 108th edition of the Backyard Brawl.

“Oh my God, I hope we go to that? Can GameDay go to that,” asked an excited Herbstreit while looking at WVU’s schedule. “Oh, we gotta go to that.”

"We've gotta get back to Morgantown with College GameDay this season" ~ @KirkHerbstreit

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We will see what happens, but Herbstreit is far from the first person to voice wanting GameDay to cover the Backyard Brawl. In fact, Rodriguez made a sales pitch of his own back in May.

Rodriguez made his pitch directly to Rece Davis, the iconic show’s host, while appearing on the ESPN College GameDay Podcast.

“It’ll be maybe the most electric atmosphere in college football that weekend. I’m hoping that we’ll have GameDay there. That would be nice. I mean, they’ll put on a show. You’ll see the blue lot cranking like you’ve never seen it before. This place will be sold out. There might even be some that go to the extreme of buying a Pitt season ticket, so they can come to the West Virginia game against Pitt. I don’t know who else is playing that weekend, but there will not be one that’s more intense.”

Rich Rodriguez Makes Pitch for College GameDay at 2025 Backyard Brawl

“Oh my goodness. Can you even imagine? That would be such a scene. I mean, we already saw what the scene was when he took his show to Morgantown,” said Davis, seemingly onboard with the idea.

Davis is, of course, referring to the last time GameDay traveled to Morgantown for a 2014 game between West Virginia and TCU. The Horned Frogs won a close battle 31-30. College GameDay was also in town in 2011 when then No. 16 WVU hosted a then No. 2 ranked LSU team for a top 25 matchup. WVU lost to the Tigers 47-21.

Rodriguez didn’t get to experience those games though. Those Mountaineer teams were coached by Dana Holgorsen.

GameDay did cover the rebirth of the Backyard Brawl in 2022, but that game was in Pittsburgh. It was also not the main GameDay game of that week. They were able to add the Brawl to their schedule due to the game being played on a Thursday night and their Saturday matchup taking place in nearby Columbus, Ohio.

WVSN photo by Kelsie LeRose

Getting college football’s premiere show back in town for a game would certainly be a big deal and be a great way to cap of this current four-year series between the two historic rivals.

Pitt holds a 2-1 edge in this recent series, having won in 2022 and then last season. West Virginia was victorious in Morgantown in 2023.

Possible matchups that could be picked instead of the Brawl are Wisconsin at Alabama, Florida at LSU, Georgia at Tennessee and Texas A&M at Notre Dame.

For a related story, Mike Asti detailed three reasons to be optimistic about WVU in 2025.