If you are planning to show up at Ayres Hall with a handmade sign and dreams of getting five seconds of ESPN fame, there is one thing to know before you break out the poster board.
Not every sign is getting through.
ESPN’s College GameDay is returning to Knoxville on Saturday, Sept. 26, as Tennessee hosts No. 1 Texas at Neyland Stadium. It will be GameDay’s 13th trip to Knoxville, and this visit comes with an unusual schedule: two hours outside at Ayres Hall, followed by the final hour inside Neyland Stadium before the noon kickoff.
For fans heading to campus, the signs may be funny. The rules are not complicated.
Leave politics, websites and giant signs at home
According to Knoxville News Sentinel reporting on ESPN’s policies for the Tennessee-Texas show, fans cannot bring signs that are vulgar, political or religious.
Signs also cannot advertise websites ending in .com, .net or .org, and signs entering the pit cannot be oversized or attached to poles.
Those rules are consistent with College GameDay policies published by other universities hosting ESPN. Vanderbilt, for example, lists the same restrictions on vulgar, political, religious and website-related signs and says signs are inspected before fans enter the pit.
So yes, your Texas joke has a chance.
Your six-foot billboard on a broom handle does not.
Fans should also expect signs to be checked before entry. If a sign does not meet the rules, it can be removed.
That inspection is worth remembering before spending Friday night creating something that never makes it behind the cameras.
The pit has even more rules
Getting close to the GameDay stage comes with another set of restrictions.
Knox News reports that bags, food, drinks, pens, pencils, markers and dry erase boards are prohibited in the pit. Throwing objects is also prohibited.
That means fans hoping to make last-minute edits should finish their masterpiece before arriving.
The same restrictions appear in longstanding ESPN GameDay guidance published by universities around the country. Recent guidance from Texas Tech, for example, prohibited bags, food, drinks and writing tools from its GameDay pit.
The pit is generally first-come, first-served, so arriving early matters.
But there is an important difference between arriving early and moving onto the lawn Friday night with camping gear. According to the Knox News report, overnight camping is not permitted on the Tennessee campus for this GameDay appearance.
Ayres Hall is only hosting part of the show
Fans accustomed to GameDay’s usual three-hour outdoor broadcast should pay attention to Saturday’s schedule.
ESPN will broadcast from the Ayres Hall lawn from 9 to 11 a.m. ET. Then the program will move inside Neyland Stadium for its final hour, from 11 a.m. until kickoff.
That is because Tennessee and Texas kick off at noon ET on ABC, and GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit will move from the pregame show to the broadcast booth. He is scheduled to call the game with Chris Fowler and Holly Rowe.
It makes for a compressed morning on The Hill.
Anyone hoping to experience both the outdoor GameDay crowd and the start of the football game will not have much time to wander around once the show begins moving toward Neyland.
Campus traffic changes start before Saturday
The television production is also changing normal campus routines days before kickoff.
The University of Tennessee said ESPN production trucks were scheduled to begin staging near Ayres Hall on Wednesday morning. Parking beside the Ayres Hall lawn will be closed through Saturday, and access to Circle Drive from Cumberland Avenue will be limited.
The university is also warning students, employees and visitors to allow extra time around The Hill because of pedestrian and traffic changes.
In other words, Saturday morning is not the only time Knoxville will notice GameDay is in town.
This is a rare Tennessee-Texas matchup
Even without ESPN setting up on campus, this would be one of Tennessee’s biggest home games of the year.
Both teams enter the weekend 3-0, and Texas is ranked No. 1. Tennessee is opening SEC play after wins over Furman, Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State.
It is also the first regular-season football meeting between Tennessee and Texas.
The schools have played three times before, but every previous matchup came in the Cotton Bowl. Their most recent meeting was all the way back on Jan. 1, 1969, when Texas won 36-13. Texas leads the series 2-1.
Then there is the Manning angle.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning will be playing at Neyland Stadium, creating an obvious connection to Tennessee legend Peyton Manning, his uncle. The family connection has made an already big SEC game even more unusual.
It has also fueled plenty of guessing about who ESPN might choose as its celebrity guest picker.
Who is the GameDay guest picker?
As of Sept. 23, ESPN had not publicly announced the Tennessee-Texas guest picker in the sources reviewed for this story.
That has not stopped the speculation.
Knoxville News Sentinel writers have floated several Tennessee-connected possibilities, including Peyton Manning and other well-known Vols figures. But until ESPN makes an announcement, those names are possibilities, not confirmed guests.
The mystery adds one more reason for fans to watch as Saturday approaches.
The simplest GameDay plan
For anyone heading to Knoxville, the best strategy is straightforward: arrive early, finish your sign before entering the pit and keep it clean enough for national television.
And remember the unusual timeline.
GameDay starts at 9 a.m. at Ayres Hall, moves into Neyland at 11 a.m., and Tennessee-Texas kicks off at noon on ABC.
That is a lot of football packed into one Tennessee morning.
Just don’t bring the marker into the pit.
Sources
Knoxville News Sentinel — reporting by Afton Pratt on College GameDay sign, pit and arrival rules, supplied as the source article for this story.
University of Tennessee Athletics — College GameDay schedule and Tennessee-Texas information. UT’s College GameDay announcement
University of Tennessee Athletics — official Tennessee-Texas game information. Tennessee vs. Texas Game Center
University of Tennessee Parking and Transportation — campus closures and traffic changes. College GameDay parking and traffic information
Vanderbilt Athletics and Texas Tech Athletics — published ESPN College GameDay sign and pit policies used to confirm the general restrictions.
