Lainey Wilson is going to really on her gut and her husband when she makes her College GameDay picks this weekend.
College football is officially back. Soon we’ll all be rotting away on our couches on Saturdays and Sundays, consuming an inordinate amount of calories and deleting a concerning amount of beers. It’s a tradition unlike any other, and the tradition that usually kicks off that tradition is turning on ESPN and taking in the lovely program known as College GameDay.
Traditionally hosted by Kirk Herbstreit, Rece Davis, and Desmond Howard (and before he retired last year, Lee Corso), and recently benefiting from the addition of Nick Saban and Pat McAfee, it’s simply must-watch television on Saturday mornings in the fall. It’s the appetizer to the entree that is all-day-college-football, and the program – or as McAfee says, “progrum” – likes to conclude each and every week with a celebrity guest picker.
This week’s guest picker for the LSU-Clemson matchup to start the season is country music superstar Lainey Wilson.
Though she didn’t attend Louisiana State University, she grew up in Baskin, Louisiana, and was raised as a fan of the Tigers. So she’s very excited to be there in Baton Rouge to help cheer on her favorite college football team, and is overjoyed to have the honor of College GameDay’s first celebrity guest picker of the season.
Fortunately for Lainey, she is married to someone that knows a thing or two about football: Duck Hodges. He played college football for the Samford Bulldogs, and then had himself a nice little stint in the NFL with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Wilson told Pat McAfee that he’s been helping her prepare:
“Duck is helping me out. I’ve been doing my studying. I have been going to the Lord. Honestly, I have been pulling up some stats. I was with Duck and Hardy last night and they were giving me some of their opinions. So I’m doing my research. I’m gonna have my own thoughts, and my own picks.”
Sounds like she’s certainly fielding advice from her husband, but she’s trying to come up with her own conclusions when it comes to her GameDay picks.
And since we mentioned Delvin “Duck” Hodges’ time in the NFL, it’s also worth visiting the quote that Lainey gave about not knowing her husband when he was playing professional football. Pat McAfee – a proud yinzer – said he and others on the show loved Duck when he was on the Steelers, and called his tenure with the team “good times.”
The “4x4xU” singer made sure to mention that she didn’t even know Duck when he was out on the field for the Pittsburgh franchise:
“You know what Pat, I was not around for that time. So this is all hearsay. Every now and then, he’ll pull up his YouTube page and we’ll get to (watching). I’m like, ‘Okay, I needed proof.'”
Duck will always be a beloved Pittsburgh Steeler… whether his wife knows about his time on the team or not.
It certainly sounds like Lainey Wilson is going to be watching a lot of film (just not of her husband) to get prepared for her Celebrity Guest Picker duties this upcoming Saturday. She’s going to be pulling a double duty of sorts too, because she’s also set to perform for College GameDay.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS BACK!
