ESPN College Gameday will NOT come to Lexington for Auburn-Kentucky

ESPN had a couple of perfect opportunities to bring College Gameday to Lexington this season, but the worldwide leader has elected to go elsewhere.

After passing over the Arkansas-Kentucky matchup on Feb. 1 for North Carolina-Duke (a game that was never competitive), College Gameday again looked over the Wildcats, picking another SEC showdown for the Saturday, March 1 edition. Instead, the Jay Bilas and company will head to Gainesville for a Top 10 matchup between Texas A&M and Florida.

At least with No. 7 Texas A&M vs. No. 2 Florida, fans should be treated to a great game, although it’s currently scheduled for broadcast on the SEC Network. But ESPN could have set up shop in Lexington as No. 17 Kentucky hosts top-ranked Auburn the same day on ABC. Oh well. Robbed once again…

While browsing through Florida’s website, I noticed this will be the eighth time in school history the Gators will be included in College Gameday. Seven of those games actually came against Kentucky, the most recent one a loss for the ‘Cats in Feb. 2017. With six times hosting, Florida is now among the top five most frequent schools to host College Gameday, joining Duke (15), North Carolina (14, Kansas (12), and UK (9).

Kentucky is 11-11 across its 22 overall College Gameday appearances but has served as host just nine times at Rupp Arena. The last time UK was part of the show was back in Feb. 2019. We’ll have to wait until at least the 2025-26 season to see if that finally changes.