With Inside the NBA now on board, ESPN will have the NBA studio show’s beloved host make a special appearance on College GameDay.
The College GameDay social media accounts announced on Friday that Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson will serve as the celebrity guest picker on Saturday in Atlanta alongside Rece Davis, Kirk Herbstreit, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban, and Desmond Howard.
Inside the NBA 🤝 College GameDay
Excited to have Georgia alum and sports broadcasting legend @TurnerSportsEJ as Saturday’s guest picker! pic.twitter.com/NhZy9zuLOk
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) December 5, 2025
Johnson is a Georgia alum (and played on the baseball team), and the Bulldogs take on Alabama in the SEC Championship Game on Saturday (4 p.m.; ABC) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Georgia enters the game slotted No. 3 in the College Playoff Rankings ahead of Sunday’s selection show, while Alabama comes in at No. 9.
Charles Barkley, Johnson’s Inside the NBA co-star, has appeared as a College GameDay guest picker a record six times, and was even the inaugural guest picker in October 2004.
Inside the NBA made its highly anticipated ESPN debut in October. We’ll likely see ESPN continue finding more ways to put that talent to use. Inside the NBA analyst Kenny Smith, for example, even signed a deal to appear on ESPN programming and made his NBA Countdown debut in November.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.