Oregon to Host ESPN’s ‘College GameDay’ For UCLA Football Showdown

For the second year in a row, the Bruins and Ducks will take college football’s biggest stage to prove who belongs at the top of the Pac-12.

ESPN announced its “College GameDay” crew would be heading to Eugene on Oct. 22 for No. 11 UCLA football’s (6-0, 3-0 Pac-12) road matchup with No. 12 Oregon (5-1, 3-0 Pac-12) late Saturday night. The two teams last met in October of 2021, and “College GameDay” came to Westwood for that decisive showdown as well.

The stakes may be even higher this time around too, with the Bruins and Ducks standing as the lone teams who remain undefeated in Pac-12 play. UCLA is also the only team in the conference to have an undefeated record overall, thanks to USC’s loss to Utah on Saturday night.

The Ducks left Pasadena with the win last fall, beating the Bruins 34-31 after quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson exited the game with an injury on the potential game-winning drive in the final minutes. Thompson-Robinson has remained healthy thus far in 2022, and he has performed well enough to garner attention for national awards such as the Heisman Trophy in recent weeks.

Auburn transfer quarterback Bo Nix has been putting up big numbers of his own this season, setting up a battle between two of the Pac-12’s most productive quarterbacks on national television.

UCLA-Oregon College GameDay Part II pic.twitter.com/GAqKusAiHU
— UCLA Football (@UCLAFootball) October 16, 2022

Host Rece Davis leads “College GameDay”’s weekly panel of college football experts and personalities, with Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, David Pollack, Pat McAfee and Lee Corso making up the rest of the regular crew. The show consists of feature videos, film analysis, coach interviews and more, before they make their way to the always-iconic ending.

The team, along with ESPN's resident betting expert Chris "The Bear" Fallica and a rotating location-themed guest, makes their picks for all the big games around the country at the conclusion of the show every week. The final prediction is always for the host game, and Corso tops it all off by donning the headgear of the mascot of the team he thinks will win – so either Joe Bruin or The Duck this time around.

In 2021, Corso picked the Bruins – as did guest predictor Bill Walton – but the Ducks came out on top.

UCLA has played in nine total GameDay games since the tradition started back in 1993, and three have come against Oregon. The Bruins are 3-6 in those contests, with their last win coming in 2015 on the road against Arizona.

Oregon is 4-5 in its last nine GameDay appearances, but it is 16-11 all-time. The Bruins beat the Ducks after hosting GameDay in 1998, but they lost the premier matchups in 2000, 2013 and 2021.

Since 2000, UCLA is 3-14 against Oregon, and it has not picked up a win in the head-to-head series since 2017. UCLA also has not won in Eugene since 2004. Each of the last two matchups were decided by three points, though, so the Bruins have been making up ground in a sense.

Whoever emerges victorious this coming Saturday, with the college football world’s eyeballs locked on them, will be in the driver’s seat for making the Pac-12 Championship Game.

“College GameDay” will air live on ESPN from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. PST. The game, meanwhile, is set to kick off at 12:30 on FOX or FS1.

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