College Gameday: HBCU Narrative Changing?

It is no doubt that ESPN’s most famous pregame show is College Gameday. College Gameday goes to campuses around the country for football and basketball and holds a live 3-hour show. We are in football season and typically the show would go to power 5 schools like Alabama, Ohio State, LSU, Texas, and many others. However, they have been to FCS schools like North Dakota State and James Madison multiple times. Unfortunately, HBCUs have seen the same treatment before the last two years the shows have only been to an HBCU event twice. Those appearances were the 2005 Bayou Classic and 2008 Hampton vs FAMU. However, the narrative may be changing in the last two years HBCUs have been getting featured on the show more often.
In 2021, the show went to the MEAC vs SWAC challenge between North Carolina Central vs Alcorn State. Of course, most recently it went to Jackson State vs Southern. This officially makes two consecutive years where HBCUs have been featured on the most famous show. The show made it their mission to see what the culture is about including them featuring the bands, Greeks, and history of our legendary campuses. In addition, on the great rivalry game getting the spotlight they also made sure to feature another classic game called the Magic City Classic between Alabama A&M vs Alabama State.
The visit to College Gameday was truly an experience that will be historic for both campuses. For the College Gameday Crew, they seemed to be woke to the fact that hour schools are amazing, and we have so much spirit as the crowd showed. Unfortunately, they chose JSU to win and they were correct, but both fanbases represented well. It is safe to say that HBCUs are coming back and that this is only the beginning. We have made our name known to all big networks and they will at least feature us once every year. We hope to continue this trend because HBCUs matter.