GameDay Goes to Oxford: LSU at Ole Miss Anchors Week 3 After Texas Beat Ohio State

By Marcus Cole

Week 3 has a Friday night and a Saturday night. Miami visits Wake Forest on Friday, Sept. 18, at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN in Winston-Salem. LSU visits Ole Miss on Saturday, Sept. 19, at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC in Oxford. ESPN's College GameDay is in Oxford for that Saturday. Texas already beat Ohio State 24-23. That final is the door this week walks through.

Gameday Signal is not rewriting last Friday's preview of Austin. Austin has a score. Hollywood Smothers scored from 1 yard with 25 seconds left. Gianni Spetic added the kick. Texas is 2-0. Ohio State is 1-1. The show that sat on the Texas campus last Saturday is now assigned to The Grove Stage.

The object this week is not a poll. The object is two posted windows and one posted show. Friday in Winston-Salem. Saturday in Oxford. 8 a.m. CT for the show. 6:30 p.m. CT for the game.

Friday Is the First Clock

Miami is 2-0. The Hurricanes beat Florida A&M 77-7 on Thursday, Sept. 10, at Hard Rock Stadium. They led 49-0 at halftime. They added 28 in the third quarter. The fourth quarter was empty for Miami and had FAMU's only score. That is the last posted Miami final. It is eight days old on this Friday file. It is still the last number.

Wake Forest hosts at Allegacy Federal Credit Union Stadium. The ACC and Miami both posted 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN when the window was assigned in May. The window has not moved. This desk will not invent a Friday final. The game is the first FBS snap of the week this column will mark.

Friday is not a satellite of Saturday. It is an ACC game with a national window. A reader who skips Friday to wait for Oxford is skipping a posted conference game. The Signal does not skip posted games.

Oxford Is the Saturday Anchor

Ole Miss is 2-0. The Rebels beat Louisville 41-38 on Sunday, Sept. 6, at Nissan Stadium. Lucas Carneiro kicked a 48-yard field goal as time expired. They beat Charlotte 41-9 on Saturday, Sept. 12, at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium. Kewan Lacy scored on runs of 9 and 2 yards. Trinidad Chambliss threw touchdown passes of 14 yards to Johntay Cook II and 9 yards to Horatio Fields. Carneiro added field goals from 57 and 41 yards. Attendance was 68,134.

LSU is 2-0. The Tigers beat Clemson 51-10 on Saturday, Sept. 5, in Baton Rouge after a weather delay. Sam Leavitt and Dilin Jones each ran for 113 yards in that game. LSU posted 644 yards of offense. They beat Louisiana Tech 45-14 on Saturday, Sept. 12, again in Baton Rouge. Both clubs now travel to the same Saturday for their SEC openers.

The game is the Magnolia Bowl. ABC has it. Kickoff is 6:30 p.m. CT, which is 7:30 p.m. ET. Lane Kiffin is the visiting head coach. Pete Golding is the home head coach. Kiffin left Oxford after the 2025 regular season. Golding kept the club through a playoff run that reached a semifinal. Those are the posted coaching facts. They are why the show is here.

What GameDay Actually Is on This Saturday

Ole Miss announced the show on Aug. 21. It is the third time College GameDay has come to Oxford. The first was 2014 against Alabama. The second was 2021 against Texas A&M, when Kiffin was the guest picker. Saturday is the third. The set is on The Grove Stage. The show starts at 8 a.m. CT.

Rece Davis is the host. Kirk Herbstreit is on the school's analyst list. Desmond Howard is on it. Pat McAfee is on it. Nick Saban is on it. This desk will not invent a guest picker. If one is named later, the later file can carry it. This file carries the posted start and the posted site.

GameDay was in Baton Rouge on Sept. 5 for Kiffin's LSU debut against Clemson. It was in Austin on Sept. 12 for Texas and Ohio State. Oxford is the third Saturday in a row for the show on this sport's biggest campus dates. That travel list is a fact. It is not a brand speech.

Austin Is Closed. It Still Explains Why Oxford Is Loud.

Texas trailed 23-3 after three quarters and won 24-23. ESPN Research's note after the game said AP No. 1 teams had been 197-0 since 2004 when they held a 20-point fourth-quarter lead. Texas broke that list. Arch Manning threw the first fourth-quarter touchdown to Ryan Wingo. Smothers scored twice. The last one came with 25 seconds left.

That final is why Week 3 does not open with a clean No. 1. The poll is not this desk's job. The score is. Ohio State is no longer unbeaten. Texas is still unbeaten. The national show does not stay in Austin to watch Texas play UTSA. It moves to the next ranked Saturday that the sport already circled.

Texas hosts UTSA at 7 p.m. CT on Saturday on SEC Network+. The Longhorns' site lists the game as sold out. That is a home night after a home night. It is not the GameDay site. Hold those two Saturdays apart the same way last week's file held Ann Arbor and Austin apart.

The Other Posted Finals That Feed This Week

Michigan beat Oklahoma 17-10. That noon game last Saturday stayed inside one score. Jordan Marshall's 1-yard run at 7:53 of the fourth quarter is the posted winner. Michigan is 2-0. Oklahoma is 1-1. That result does not travel to Oxford. It travels into Michigan's own Week 3, which this desk will not invent.

Oklahoma State beat Oregon 39-31. Zane Mestemaker threw for 317 yards and ran for 109. The Cowboys ended a 21-game FBS losing streak. That result also does not travel to Oxford. It sits on the Week 2 board as proof that last Saturday was not only Austin.

The Signal is not building a national theory out of those scores. It is listing them so Friday and Saturday have a real week behind them. Miami's 77-7 is the Friday club's last number. Texas 24-23 is the reason the show left Austin. LSU 51-10 and 45-14 and Ole Miss 41-38 and 41-9 are the two 2-0 clubs walking into the Grove.

The Two 2-0 Clubs Arrive on Different Paths

Ole Miss needed a walk-off in Nashville and a home blowout in Oxford. Louisville was 41-38. Charlotte was 41-9. The first game was a Sunday night in a neutral stadium. The second was a Saturday night in Vaught-Hemingway. Chambliss threw for 225 yards against Charlotte. Lacy scored twice. Carneiro's 57-yard kick is the long posted make from that night.

LSU needed a weather-delayed opener and a second home Saturday. Clemson was 51-10. Louisiana Tech was 45-14. Death Valley had both of those. Oxford will be the first road Saturday of the Kiffin year. The Tigers posted 644 yards against Clemson. This desk will not invent the Louisiana Tech box beyond the 45-14 final the school posted.

Those paths meet at 6:30 p.m. CT. They do not meet on Friday. Friday belongs to Miami and Wake Forest. A reader who treats Friday as a commercial for Saturday is reading the week out of order.

What This Friday File Will Not Do

It will not invent a Miami-Wake Forest score. It will not invent an LSU-Ole Miss score. It will not invent a Texas-UTSA score. It will not reuse last week's "first true test" frame as if Austin had not been played. The first true test was played. Texas took it.

It will not treat Kiffin's return as a movie. The return is a coaching fact on a Saturday night in a stadium he left. Golding is the home coach. The Rebels are 2-0. The Tigers are 2-0. ABC is the network. 6:30 p.m. CT is the clock.

Gameday Signal's job on a Friday is to keep the two clocks honest. Winston-Salem is 7:30 p.m. ET tonight. Oxford is 6:30 p.m. CT tomorrow, with a show that starts at 8 a.m. CT. Texas already beat Ohio State. That is the week in the order the sport actually posted it.

Charlotte's scoring on Saturday was three field goals. Ian Kelly hit from 28 yards. He hit from 24. He hit from 28 again. Ole Miss answered the last one with Deuce Knight's 7-yard run to 41-9. Nick Cull's interception before halftime set Carneiro's 41-yard kick. Those are the posted home-opener facts. They are the last Ole Miss numbers before Kiffin walks back in.

If you want the noise, the Grove will be loud at sunrise. If you want the signal, write the times down. Friday 7:30 p.m. ET in Winston-Salem is first. Saturday 8 a.m. CT for the show is next. Saturday 6:30 p.m. CT for LSU at Ole Miss is the night. After Texas 24-23. That is Week 3.