Fans Outraged Over Lainey Wilson's 'College GameDay' Performance

ESPN kicked off its 40th season of "College GameDay" in Baton Rouge this Saturday. While the atmosphere at the start of the show was outstanding, the opening act was questionable to say the least.

It was announced earlier this week that country singer Lainey Wilson would be the first guest picker of the season for "College GameDay." The "Heart Like a Truck" singer said she'd perform a few songs during her time in Louisiana. What we didn't know though is that she'd open the show by singing "Comin' to Your City."

While this must have been an awesome opportunity for Wilson, the early responses to her performance haven't been positive. In fact, most fans said she sounded terrible on "College GameDay."

"This Lainey Wilson performance is cringe," one fan said. "Just give me a Saban rant on LSU."

"Get Lainey Wilson off my screen give me the old theme song version," a second fan wrote.

"I'd rather listen to chalk on a whiteboard than to listen to Lainey Wilson," another fan commented.

"Wow, this Lainey Wilson opening act is absolutely awful. You've messed up this tradition. And I'm a huge Lainey fan," another person replied.

This Saturday's episode of "College GameDay" will mark its 500th road show. That's an incredible achievement for the show that Lee Corso helped make famous.

There'll be plenty of laughs and entertaining segments on "College GameDay" before Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Nick Saban and Pat McAfee make their predictions for tonight's showdown between Clemson and LSU.

We can't wait to see how McAfee fires up the LSU crowd this Saturday.

This story was originally published by The Spun on Sep 5, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.