UNIVERSITY PARK – It was announced late on Saturday night that the famed and popular College GameDay show on ESPN would go to Penn State next weekend to highlight the Michigan-PSU game.

The network typically chooses the biggest game of the week, or a game of significant intrigue. SMU administrators had been lobbying throughout Saturday afternoon for the show to come to University Park.

The Dallas Morning News reached out to ESPN on Sunday to see if it had given any consideration to bringing the show to SMU.

“SMU’s success has certainly caught the attention of College GameDay this season,” a network spokesman responded, “and we gave strong consideration to bringing the show to campus this weekend for the game vs. Temple.”

The network also stated that it would have an SMU feature on the College GameDay telecast on Saturday. The show airs from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. CT on Saturday.

SMU athletic director Rick Hart, as well as Dallas mayor Eric Johnson tweeted in support of SMU hosting College GameDay, before the final decision was announced,

College GameDay is aired every Saturday during the college football season. The backdrop is typically hundreds of rowdy fans, many of them will hold signs for the nation to see.

Given the ESPN statement to The News, and the location where the network inevitably decided to go, the decision to go to Penn State was directly correlated to PSU’s Saturday night win at Iowa. Had the Hawkeyes won, SMU probably would have hosted the show.