Olympic Swimmers Ryan Murphy, Abbey Weitzeil Get Airtime on ESPN’s College GameDay

Olympic swimmers Ryan Murphy and Abbey Wetizeil appeared on College GameDay on Saturday, marking more swimmer highlights from ESPN’s flagship Saturday morning college football pregame show.

Production began in the wee hours of the morning in Berkeley, with the show beginning at 9AM Eastern Time, which is 6AM California time.

Murphy told SwimSwam that “the pit” behind the broadcasters opened at midnight and that people started lining up Friday night to get a coveted spot. By the time that he arrived at 5:15 AM, it was almost full.

This was the show’s first visit to Berkeley in 31 years of on-location filming. The Golden Bears, 3-1, have only one win over a top 10 team in the last 20 years, and have the chance to grab another against #8 Miami in what is now somehow an intra-conference matchup in the world of realignment.

Cal is riding high this season with a 21-14 win over football blueblood Auburn and a narrow 14-9 loss to Florida State in their last outing two weeks ago.

The game kicks off at 10:30 Eastern, 7:30 Pacific, on Saturday.

Murphy, Weitzeil, and Canadian hammer thrower Camryn Rogers, another former Cal Golden Bear, were among the featured athletes. Rogers won a gold medal in Paris.

Murphy won three medals in Paris: bronze in the individual 100 backstroke, silver in the men’s 400 medley relay, and gold as a member of the finals quartet in the mixed 400 medley relay.

Weitzeil won gold as a prelims leg of that same mixed medley relay and added a silver via a finals swim in the women’s 400 free relay.

The group were stationed on a set of bleachers full of Cal Olympians and swimmers, and Murphy got some on-air interview time.

Swimming has taken a few notable spotlights on the show this season. Michael Phelps was the ‘guest picker’ for the Bowman Bowl between Michigan and Texas earlier this season, and a sign referencing the suspension of the Notre Dame swim team took a prominent spot behind the broadcasters five weeks ago.

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Andrew
1 month ago

Ryan Murphy is a generational cornball

barelyaswammer
1 month ago

What a monumental choke. Yeah, they should have been able to kneel it out on a targeting penalty, but the last 18 minutes was a breakdown of epic proportions.

BGray
1 month ago

Cal freshman Lucca was in the crowd too!

Buckeyeboy
Reply to  BGray
1 month ago

Thanks dad

BGray
Reply to  Buckeyeboy
1 month ago

Yeah, I’m Lucca BATTAGLINI’s dad.

SwimmerTX
Reply to  BGray
1 month ago

A good amount of the team was in attendance. Outside of the Olympians (Seeliger, Jones, Hanson etc), looks like Tyler Kopp, Colby Hatton, alum Luke Rodarte, and the entire sophomore class was there and dressed in Cal polos

Coach Michael
1 month ago

Stanford Steve’s kids swim and he personally has made a point to post about swimming in all the pools on the campuses Game Day has been to this season. Great for the swimming world

Thank you Stanford Steve and SVP for giving our sport the props it deserves. Their Olympic conversations on the SVPod were must listen

About Braden Keith

Braden Keith

Braden Keith is the Editor-in-Chief and a co-founder/co-owner of SwimSwam.com. He first got his feet wet by building The Swimmers' Circle beginning in January 2010, and now comes to SwimSwam to use that experience and help build a new leader in the sport of swimming. Aside from his life on the InterWet, …

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