College GameDay: Nick Saban's College Football Playoff predictions and first GameDay picks, including Florida State vs. Georgia Tech
COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS OFFICIALLY BACK, and with it, of course, is ESPN's College Gameday. And the show was on the road for its first international show, taking it to Dublin, Ireland for No. 10 Florida State's matchup against Georgia Tech in Week 0.
We here at For The Win made our own Week 0 picks and season-long predictions, but here's how the GameDay crew saw the Dublin weekend playing out.
In addition to the minimal Week 0 Saturday schedule, GameDay made picks for Thursday's and Friday's Week 1 games, including North Carolina-Minnesota, Colorado-North Dakota State and TCU-Stanford.
Following his retirement at the end of the 2023-24 college football season, Nick Saban made his official debut as part of College GameDay's broadcast team. And obviously, that came with his picks and predictions for the season.
As far as upcoming games go, Saban picked North Carolina over Minnesota, Colorado over North Dakota State and TCU over Stanford. For the Dublin game, Saban went with Florida State beating Georgia Tech.
.@PatMcAfeeShow gave Nick Saban props on his first pick as a CGD analyst 🤝 pic.twitter.com/CW0gKgFwUI
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) August 24, 2024
Looking at how the overall season will play out, Saban shared his predictions for the Power Four conference champions and who will play in and win the College Football Playoff national championship game. He picked:
ACC champion: Florida State
Big Ten champion: Ohio State
Big 12 champion: Utah
SEC champion: Georgia
And Saban predicted Georgia will win the national championship with a win over Oregon.
Saban also shared his College Football Playoff predictions. In addition to Georgia, Oregon, Florida State, Ohio State and Utah, he also picked Alabama, Notre Dame, LSU, Ole Miss, Penn State, Texas and Liberty to make the playoff.
The crew makes their CFP predictions before the season gets underway 🏆 pic.twitter.com/x39PM7EgkG
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) August 24, 2024
Guest picker WWE and Irish wrestling star Sheamus went with Minnesota over North Carolina, but made the same picks as Saban for the other select Thursday and Friday Week 1 games. But for the Dublin game, Sheamus picked Georgia Tech to top Florida State.
THE FIRST COLLEGE GAMEDAY GUEST PICKER OF THE YEAR‼️@WWESheamus has arrived 🇮🇪 pic.twitter.com/iEt2wwnJ8O
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) August 24, 2024
.@WWESheamus stands alone in picking Georgia Tech to beat Florida State 😮 pic.twitter.com/nSB73alhXY
— College GameDay (@CollegeGameDay) August 24, 2024
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This article originally appeared on For The Win: College GameDay: Nick Saban's College Football Playoff predictions and first GameDay picks, including Florida State vs. Georgia Tech