Where will College GameDay be?

A guess, for fun. ESPN announces each week's location the Monday before, so as of Week 11 the show's stops through Week 11 are known. Here is the rest, from what has won the show's attention in past seasons and what the season simulation says about who will be ranked where. Not an official anything, and not a ranking.

Confirmed

Wk	Date	Game	Site
1	Sep 5	Clemson at LSU	Baton Rouge, LA
2	Sep 12	Ohio State at Texas	Austin, TX
3	Sep 19	LSU at Ole Miss	Oxford, MS
4	Sep 26	Texas at Tennessee	Knoxville, TN
5	Oct 3	Ohio State at Iowa	Iowa City, IA
6	Oct 10	Georgia at Alabama	Tuscaloosa, AL
7	Oct 17	Notre Dame at BYU	Provo, UT
8	Oct 24	Houston at Utah	Salt Lake City, UT
9	Oct 31	Minnesota at Indiana	Bloomington, IN
10	Nov 7	Miami (FL) at Notre Dame	South Bend, IN
11	Nov 14	Oregon State at Boise State	Boise, ID

The forecast

Each row is a game's chance of being the one, out of every game that week, averaged over 4,000 simulated seasons. The rankings in those seasons come from the same résumé-heavy blend the season simulation uses for the committee. About 5% of the time, every week, the show goes somewhere that is not an FBS game at all.

Week 12 · Nov 21

Chance	Game	Site	Why
37%	Georgia at South Carolina	Williams-Brice Stadium	usually ranked around #3 and #19
9.4%	LSU at Tennessee	Neyland Stadium	usually ranked around #14 and #12 · both top 10 in 16% of seasons
8.0%	SMU at Notre Dame	Notre Dame Stadium	usually ranked around #32 and #5
3.2%	UCLA at Michigan	Michigan Stadium	usually ranked around #8 and #41
3.2%	Kentucky at Missouri	Memorial Stadium	usually ranked around #14 and #23
2.1%	New Mexico at Wyoming	War Memorial Stadium	usually ranked around #41 and #96
2.1%	Virginia Tech at Miami (FL)	Hard Rock Stadium	usually ranked around #53 and #5
1.6%	Texas Tech at Baylor	McLane Stadium	usually ranked around #18 and #38
1.6%	Iowa at Illinois	Memorial Stadium (Champaign, IL)	usually ranked around #17 and #32
1.0%	Texas A&M at Oklahoma	Memorial Stadium (Norman, OK)	usually ranked around #41 and #23
1.0%	Utah at TCU	Amon G. Carter Stadium	usually ranked around #6 and #62
1.0%	Indiana at Washington	Husky Stadium	usually ranked around #9 and #46
0.9%	Clemson at Duke	Wallace Wade Stadium	usually ranked around #33 and #35
0.6%	Pittsburgh at Louisville	L&N Federal Credit Union Stadium	usually ranked around #47 and #30
0.5%	Colorado at Cincinnati	Nippert Stadium	usually ranked around #84 and #57
22%	Every other game (51 of them)
5.3%	Somewhere off the schedule — an FCS game, a surprise

Week 13 · Nov 28

Chance	Game	Site	Why
53%	USC at UCLA	Rose Bowl	usually ranked around #14 and #8 · both top 10 in 18% of seasons
4.4%	Air Force at New Mexico	University Stadium (NM)	usually ranked around #68 and #42
3.9%	Duke at Wake Forest	Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium	usually ranked around #35 and #20
2.4%	Oklahoma at Missouri	Memorial Stadium	usually ranked around #22 and #24
1.7%	Louisville at Kentucky	Kroger Field	usually ranked around #29 and #15
1.7%	Texas at Texas A&M	Kyle Field	usually ranked around #3 and #40
1.2%	Auburn at Alabama	Bryant-Denny Stadium	usually ranked around #31 and #2
1.2%	Michigan at Ohio State	Ohio Stadium	usually ranked around #40 and #11
1.1%	South Carolina at Clemson	Memorial Stadium (Clemson, SC)	usually ranked around #19 and #34
1.0%	Baylor at Houston	TDECU Stadium	usually ranked around #36 and #22
0.8%	Washington at Oregon	Autzen Stadium	usually ranked around #44 and #11
0.8%	Toledo at Ohio	Peden Stadium	usually ranked around #68 and #83
0.7%	Georgia Tech at Georgia	Sanford Stadium	usually ranked around #106 and #2
0.7%	Tennessee at Vanderbilt	FirstBank Stadium	usually ranked around #12 and #61
0.6%	Florida at Florida State	Doak Campbell Stadium	usually ranked around #23 and #56
19%	Every other game (50 of them)
5.3%	Somewhere off the schedule — an FCS game, a surprise

Who is likely to host from here

Team	Hosts at least once, Weeks 12–14	Plays in a stop at least once
UCLA	53%	60%
South Carolina	37%	37%
Tennessee	9.4%	16%
Notre Dame	8.0%	8.3%
Missouri	5.5%	5.5%
New Mexico	4.4%	6.6%
Wake Forest	3.9%	7.7%
Michigan	3.2%	4.4%
Wyoming	2.5%	2.5%
Miami (FL)	2.3%	6.2%

Army–Navy

GameDay went to Army–Navy every year from 2014 to 2021 and has not since. We give it about 10% for the December game, weighted toward the last four years, in which it went 0 times.

How it works, and how well

The model is a choice among the week's games. Each game gets a score from a handful of things about the two teams, and its chance is its share of the week's total. The big ones: how highly the worse of the two teams ranks, where each doubling of its rank roughly halves a game's chances (to 50% of what they were); whether both teams are in the top 25, which makes a game about 2.7 times as likely; and losses, each of which, between the two teams, cuts its chances by about 62%. Smaller: how the teams ranked last season, and how often GameDay has wanted them lately, which is a fair definition of a brand.

The show does not like to return to the same campus: a host that has already hosted this season has its game's chances cut to 63% of what they were. GameDay has gone back to a host that had already hosted that season at 11 of 129 regular-season stops since 2014, so this is a discount, not a rule. The discount is applied only to hosts already announced, so a school that might host twice before the season ends is not marked down for a stop that has not happened yet. This year it has not yet gone back to a host. It has featured LSU, Ohio State, Texas and Notre Dame more than once, but never as the host twice.

What did not help, once the rankings were known: whether GameDay had already visited either team this season, as host or guest, how recently the host had hosted, how close the game is expected to be, and whether the host is in the SEC or Big Ten.

Two tests, both on 2014–2025 (2020 aside). Given the real rankings for each week, the model picks the actual GameDay game out of about 52 candidates first 65% of the time and in its top three 89% of the time, leaving each season out in turn (a coin toss among the games would be 2%). The harder test is this page's job: stand at the end of Week 3, simulate the rest of the season, and forecast every stop from Week 8 to the championship game. Across 69 stops, the real site was the model's first choice 42% of the time, in its top three 65%, and in its top five 78%.

What we got wrong: games that are big for reasons the ratings cannot see. Week 11 is the current example.

Wk	Announced	Our chance	Our rank	Our first choice
11	Oregon State at Boise State	0.4%	#13	USC at Indiana (23%)

Those weeks were announced before this page existed and were not used to fit anything, which makes them the one live test. Early-season stops lean on preseason reputation more than the model does; it was built for Week 8 on.

Past locations from NCAA.com's history of the show; announcements from ESPN.