College GameDay, a weekly show in which a select group of ESPN analysts travel to college campuses to cover the most notable football and basketball games of the season, is a tradition dating back to 1987.
On September 30, College GameDay came to Duke University’s Wallace Wade Stadium for the first time ever as the 17th-ranked Duke Blue Devils played the 11th-ranked Fighting Irish of Notre Dame in Durham.
“The Duke students seemed to be very excited about having their first GameDay for football,” CTE teacher Kevin Schoden said. “They were pumped up and enthusiastic about what was happening; there was a pretty large crowd.”
Four students in Schoden’s Honors Adobe classes were given exclusive backstage access to the filming and production of College GameDay at Duke. Schoden has previously accompanied students to College GameDay for the UNC-Duke basketball rivalry.
“My students seemed to be pretty excited and started taking pictures right off the bat,” Schoden said. “They asked all kinds of question about editing, about how long production takes, about how many cameras there were and what they were used for. They had good questions, and they learned how everything was filmed.”
Schoden’s students were eager to document the experience, taking pictures of fans in their team colors, the state-of-the-art production trailer, and even ESPN analyst Lee Corso wearing a leprechaun costume before predicting that Notre Dame would beat the Blue Devils; Corso’s prediction came true as the Fighting Irish wound up defeating Duke 21-17.
Junior Jackson Norris, a student in Schoden’s Adobe Visual Design II class, was fascinated by the number of cameras that were used for the show’s production. “There were a ton of cameras that might get used for one or two shots and that’s it,” he said.
While College GameDay embodies the soul and spirit of college football, seeing its production from backstage showed the students just how much goes into its production.
“Seeing their creativity from the production side of things inspires me to edit my videos in my Adobe class with more of an energetic vibe,” sophomore Ray Wambugu, a student in Schoden’s Adobe Video Design class, said.
GameDay production crews rolled into Durham early on in the week, setting up stages and shooting locations in time for the early Saturday kickoff at Wallace Wade Stadium.
By the time students and fans showed up, decked out in their school colors and wearing the obligatory Home Depot helmets (Home Depot sponsors ESPN’s College GameDay), the ESPN crew was in place to capture the banners and signs that are a hallmark of College GameDay.
“People go all out for their college, and they show their spirit in a very big way,” Norris said.
