It started as a head-scratcher. When ESPN announced comedian and podcaster Theo Von would be the Week 6 guest picker for College GameDay in Tuscaloosa, fans didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. After all, Alabama vs. Vanderbilt isn’t exactly where you’d expect the “ This Past Weekend ” host to drop punchlines. But as it turns out, the joke might be on the doubters. Because what followed wasn’t controversy, it was ratings gold.

Rece Davis , the cool-headed captain of GameDay, took to his Instagram story on October 7 with the kind of numbers every network exec dreams of. “Collegegameday’s Week 6 trip to @univofalabama scored the 2nd most-watched reg. season episode EVER!” he wrote. And he wasn’t exaggerating. The show pulled in 2.8M viewers from 9AM to noon ET, u

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