Anonymous SEC coach says ‘College GameDay’ influences hiring/firing decisions

ESPN’s College GameDay has as audacious a goal as any sports studio show ever has.

Each Saturday morning, the traveling road show decamps on a new college campus and produces a live spectacle designed to provide commentary and insight on the entire sport and the entire country.

The main desk is made up of some of the biggest stars covering America’s second-biggest sport. Reporters, insiders, and specialists join GameDay to ensure the show can cover all its bases for a national audience.

And the show’s rising viewership indicates it is satisfying this mission.

What is more surprising than GameDay‘s popularity is its influence. In a new anonymous coach poll at The Athletic, an unnamed assistant coach from the SEC shed light on just how important the commentary on GameDay is in the industry — especially coming from the man on the far right side of our television screens:

Whatever is said on “GameDay” is like gold because now more than ever the fan support matters more than anything else. The fan support is paying the bills. It always has, but even more so now. You’ve got to keep those guys happy and they get their information from those guys on “College GameDay.” If Kirk Herbstreit said some guy is doing a really good job, they’re going to believe it. If they say he’s not doing a good job, they’re going to believe it. Right, wrong or indifferent, whatever is said they’re going to believe it.

Of the six college football staffers questioned in the poll, four agreed that athletic directors are influenced by GameDay when making hiring and firing decisions.

An assistant from the Big 12 offered a similar explanation, but said an opinion from someone like Herbstreit holds weight not because of his ability to influence fans, but his ability to influence donors. Many of these people are one and the same in the NIL era, which may be the point.

GameDay is far more likely than other popular studio shows to go deep on more sensitive issues facing the sport. The best example from this past season is the show’s willingness to engage with its own biases around the Lane Kiffin-to-LSU saga. Perhaps this leads to it being taken more seriously among industry insiders. You wouldn’t expect to hear this same sentiment, for instance, about NFL decision-makers acting based on Michael Strahan’s takes on Fox NFL Sunday.

While some ADs and other college football officials likely do go to Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger, ESPN’s Pete Thamel, or The Athletic’s Bruce Feldman for more practical information, it sounds like GameDay is not only an entertaining and informative product for fans, but for university leadership as well.