A year ago, ESPN\u2019s \u201cCollege GameDay\u201d staff was scrambling to get out of Lubbock, Texas.<\/p>\n
Severe storms were rolling through the Great Plains. Tornadoes, hail and lightning had caused flights to be delayed at the nearest airports that were … not so near after all.<\/p>\n
Lubbock has a local airport \u2014 the Lubbock Preston Smith International Airport \u2014 with flights mainly going to Dallas, Austin, Houston and a few places out West. But if those flights get canceled, well, that can cause some trouble. <\/p>\n
\u201cGetting out of Lubbock, it\u2019s not really close to a whole lot of places, and I think like the next major airport is like five hours away,\u201d Jake Daigle, a \u201cCollege GameDay\u201d operations specialist, told The Salt Lake Tribune.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasically all of the airports got shut down, and we were all driving five hours plus to find a flight. Some of us were driving even further to try and either get home or get to the next airport, and as we were driving, flights were getting canceled left and right.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Donovan Kelly | Special to The Tribune) Pat McAfee at ESPN’s “College GameDay” at BYU, Oct. 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
Some were unlucky and had to stay in Lubbock until Wednesday. <\/p>\n
A year later, many of those people are feeling pretty lucky to have an extended stay in Utah. <\/p>\n
Get The TribUte newsletter. The go-to source for U. of U. sports fans, delivered every Friday.<\/p>\n
No. 2 BYU hosted the popular college football pregame show last week when the Cougars upset No. 4 Notre Dame in Provo.<\/p>\n
ESPN decided to stay in the state, traveling just 40 minutes up the road to Salt Lake City and the University of Utah for the No. 10 Utes\u2019 matchup against No. 14 Houston. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn a normal season, we\u2019re going everywhere,\u201d Daigle said. \u201cBeing able to stay in the state of Utah, specifically, has been amazing. <\/p>\n
\u201cAn hour drive between Provo and Salt Lake makes life super, super easy. I will say, after the grind of the first half of the season that we\u2019ve experienced, this was a welcome break for our drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some drivers and crew members have been able to go home for a few days \u2014 a rarity during the football season. Others, though, opted to stay in Utah for the week to enjoy a quasi-vacation.<\/p>\n
Daigle is one of those who decided to stay, and he and the crew are getting a full taste of Utah.<\/p>\n
(Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah fans during the broadcast of ESPN\u2019s \u2018College GameDay\u2019 at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025.<\/p>\n
Early in the week, the ESPN crew hiked Bell Canyon, taking in the remaining fall foliage and the rocky peaks of the Wasatch Front. <\/p>\n
The group hiked the lower waterfall trail, a roughly 5-mile hike with an elevation gain of about 1,500 feet.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first two-and-a-half miles I was like, \u2018I got this,\u2019 and then that last half mile was straight vertical. It took me like an hour on the final way there. I was like, \u201cHoly cow, that was crazy!\u2019\u201d Daigle said.<\/p>\n
Hikes weren\u2019t the only thing on the books. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, the crew planned a trip out to some hot springs, and the Bonneville Salt Flats was on the wish list as well. <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve also been to local favorites like Lucky 13 and Red Iguana \u2014 which, Daigle said, is always at the top of his list when he visits the state. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t get to do stuff like this all the time, so I think that was the added benefit of the layover,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of the uniqueness of hosting \u201cCollege GameDay\u201d in the same state back-to-back. And the in-state rivalry between BYU and Utah only adds to that. <\/p>\n
The Utes have an opportunity to one-up the Cougars\u2019 showing from a week ago. Utah officials have spent the week asking ESPN what BYU did and how the U. can top it, Daigle said.<\/p>\n
(Donovan Kelly | Special to The Tribune) Steve Young and Kirk Herbstreit during ESPN’s “College GameDay” at BYU, Oct. 17, 2026.<\/p>\n
Topping the Provo \u201cGameDay\u201d could be a tall task. <\/p>\n
BYU\u2019s show was a hit. <\/p>\n
ESPN announced that the broadcast from the BYU campus was the most-watched \u201cGameDay\u201d of the season and the third-most-watched regular-season episode ever.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur contacts here [at Utah] were like, \u2018Hey, what did BYU do?\u2019 or \u2018Hey, how did they do this?\u2019\u201d Daigle said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey really respect BYU and what they do, but also you can tell that they really want to beat them, not just on the field, but by making this \u2018GameDay\u2019 even more spectacular.\u201d <\/p>\n
Utah is well-versed in hosting \u201cGameDay.\u201d This will be the seventh time the U. has hosted the pregame show, and the third since 2023. <\/p>\n
So what does ESPN and Utah have in store for this weekend? Well, Daigle can\u2019t disclose that information, but he can tease it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll have to watch Saturday,\u201d Daigle said. \u201cThere will be some fun hijinks here Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ll have a couple extra things that we normally may not have.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a crew accustomed to packing up and moving on to the next campus, the back-to-back Utah stops have offered something rare: time to slow down and take it all in.<\/p>\n
\u201cUtah is such an unsung place,\u201d he said. \u201cMore people need to come to Salt Lake and just see this part of the country because it really is something that is just not given enough credit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually telling my wife this \u2014 but I don\u2019t know how you guys work here at all. All I want to do is go disappear into the mountains and not work.\u201d <\/p>\n
The short trip allowed at least some time to do just that. <\/p>\n
sltrib.com is now free to access \u2014 no subscription required. We made this decision because we believe access to trustworthy, independent news shouldn\u2019t depend on what you can afford \u2014 especially as misinformation and AI-generated content continue to rise.<\/p>\n
Free to read doesn\u2019t mean free to produce. Our reporters show up every day to ask hard questions and hold powerful institutions to account. That work takes resources. As a nonprofit newsroom, we rely on support from people who believe it matters. Make a donation today to fund local news that serves Utah communities.<\/p>\n
You can help us bring more local news to more communities today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year ago, ESPN\u2019s \u201cCollege GameDay\u201d staff was scrambling to get out of Lubbock, Texas. Severe storms were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,99,22887,22888],"class_list":["post-893006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-university-of-utah","tag-utes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}