"Comin' to Your City" remains the opening theme for ESPN's College GameDay— a Saturday morning preview of the day's football slate. Yet unlike the last 16 seasons, it isn't sung by Big & Rich, the duo that co-wrote it and made it a crossover hit in 2005.
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Instead, the Cadillac Three steps in as the rocking band necessitated by the song, and they're joined by two transcendent superstars. Country radio listeners who weren't paying attention to the screen likely recognized those two voices, which belong to Darius Rucker and Lainey Wilson.
ESPN announced the switch on Aug. 28 with a video which shows each act expressing their excitement about joining the College GameDay fold.
"I just want to be the first thing people see and hear Saturday morning to get them fired up," the Cadillac Three's Jaren Johnston said while sporting a Tennessee Volunteers cap.
Wilson's dog Hippie wore a tiny LSU Tigers tee for an interview clip during which the "Heart Like a Truck" singer-songwriter shared that she's got some "very impressed family members" since scoring her new gig.
A noted sports fanatic and University of South Carolina alum, Rucker added that he's a longtime fan of the ESPN series.
"I've watched that opening so many times," Rucker explained. "I used to sit in my room and go, 'I've got to write a song so I can do the opening of GameDay.'"
The opening video shows the collaborators owning an outdoor stage before talking part in some literal tailgating. There's orange everywhere — more because of show sponsor Home Depot than the Volunteers or the Texas Longhorns. And in a nice hat-tip to the song and its history with ESPN, Big & Rich's Big Kenny and John Rich make a quick cameo.
