We might not have an exciting slate of college football this Saturday, but that doesn’t mean College GameDay has to follow suit.
The best game of the day is Michigan-Oklahoma, the only ranked matchup of the weekend, so that’s where the traveling roadshow landed for its first weekend of the post-Lee Corso era. With Corso stepping back from his iconic headgear picks, there was always going to be some uncertainty about how the show would fill that void.
In Norman, playing to the crowd, ESPN college football insider Pete Thamel decided to channel his inner Pat McAfee — and apparently Chappell Roan — by delivering an injury update in the form of a “Hot to Go” parody about Cal transfer running back Jaydn Ott. Of course, Thamel was just following the lead of Cal fans, who had already turned the Chappell Roan hit into a viral “Ott To Go” anthem for their now former running back.
Pete Thamel putting the Entertainment in ESPN, set with a Jaydn Ott injury update in the form of a Chappell Roan ballad. pic.twitter.com/K0LSBCTfq0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 6, 2025
“Jaydn Ott, the transfer from Cal, was limited last week with a shoulder injury,” Thamel began. “And Rece, as you know, I’m delighted to be able to report this injury update in the form of a song, with apologies to our friends at the Calgorithm. O-T-T-T-O-G-O, Jaydn Ott is set to go.”
Rece Davis wasn’t about to be outdone by his podcast co-host, adding his own rendition: “Snap and clap and hit the goal, to the house it’s time to go.”
Of course, Thamel also had to update viewers on North Carolina quarterback Gio Lopez, who left Monday’s 48-14 loss to TCU with a back injury. But apparently, his creativity peaked with Chappell Roan, because a “Chapel Bill” joke was sitting right there.
Look, if you’re going to do a pop culture bit on live television, you might as well commit to it. And somehow, inexplicably, this actually worked. Maybe there’s something about the combination of college football and Chappell Roan that just hits different.
The whole thing was ridiculous in the best possible way. Either way, College GameDay managed to make injury updates entertaining, which is more than we can say for most of Saturday’s actual games.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.