College Gameday Coming to Baton Rouge for LSU-Clemson

If it wasn’t obvious that LSU-Clemson is the biggest game for week 1 of the 2026 season, the TV overlords over at Disney have officially given it their blessing. The good people of College Gameday will in fact be comin’ to your citaaaayyyy to open up the college football season, as the show announced Tuesday that they’ll be in Baton Rouge for Clemson-LSU. Just like it was last season, LSU-Clemson will be getting the ABC primetime treatment (6:30 P.

M. , September 5) with Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstriet on the call. Gameday’s trip to Baton Rouge will also be a milestone event for the show: this will be Gameday’s 40th season and 500th show overall, so expect even more pomp and circumstance than the typical Week 1 show.

In maybe even more obvious news, ESPN and ABC confirmed what we all knew would be the case: LSU and Lane Kiffin’s return trip to Oxford will also get the primetime treatment when that game rolls around on September 19. Gameday hasn’t confirmed that they’ll be going to Ole Miss for that Saturday, but it seems like it’s just a matter of when, not if. LSU under Kiffin is a lightning rod, and the whole college football world will have their eyes on the program twice in the season’s first three weeks.

This is, I suppose, what Kiffin means when he says LSU is #JustDifferent.