College GameDay has become a staple in college football as fans tune in on Saturday mornings ahead of a long day of watching games.

But many fans don’t know how the show came to be the event that it is today. Chris Fowler, one of the orginal members of College GameDay, discussed the show’s origins on the Dan Patrick Show on Monday.

The original GameDay took place ahead of a huge matchup in 1993.

“1993, No. 1 vs. No. 2 at Notre Dame, Florida State. Bowden versus Holtz, it was an epic kind of regular season game,” Fowler said. “We had been waiting for, had been lobbying to get the show on the road for a while in the regular season. Nobody really wanted to spend the money. That matchup justified it and it was pretty cool. We didn’t know what we were doing out there at South Bend, but we stumbled on it. We got through it, and it was the birth.”

Fowler said he and the crew could feel that the show was going to be a hit once they got to Notre Dame’s campus and felt the energy from the students and fans.

“We had done it at bowl games, but that wasn’t the same as doing it on campus, so once you felt the energy,” Fowler said. “The pep rally at Notre Dame Friday night was wild. (Lee) Corso said he wanted to change his pick after watching the energy at Notre Dame’s campus Friday night. But ended up going with the alma mater incorrectly in that case.”

While the initial show was a success, it wasn’t until the 1994-95 season that the show started to build up the crowd it has today. Now, it’s become synonymous with college football.

“94-95, we took it on the road more regularly and these crowds began to build,” Fowler said. “Because that first day, it’s in the lobby of the Hall of Fame. People had wandered in Saturday, let’s check out some trophies, where’s the Rockne display, what the hell’s going on over here, is it a TV show? They really stumbled in like not knowing what they were seeing, again, we weren’t very high-profile back then. But still, you could tell once the game was over and they all spilled back in there to celebrate, and Holtz storms out of his office, up on the set, and just arrives unannounced and sits down and takes a victory lap. We knew at that point to be on a campus for these big games was going to be something. We also knew we had a lot to learn how to stage it.”