Roman Reigns Appears on ESPN College Gameday

The new WWE Universal Champion continues to make the media rounds, this time on one of the most popular football broadcasts in the U.S.

Roman Reigns appeared Saturday morning during ESPN’s College Gameday as a guest picker when it came to predicting games this week. Reigns is of course no stranger to football. The WWE star was a high school football star in Florida, being named Defensive Player of the Year in the state during his senior season.

His success in high school catapulted Reigns to a successful college football career at Georgia Tech where he started three years as a defensive tackle. Following college, two NFL teams (the Minnesota Vikings and Jacksonville Jaguars) signed Reigns, but he was unable to make the regular season on either team. Reigns’ football career came to an end following one year in the Canadian Football League where he played for the Edmonton Eskimos.

Despite the career change to professional wrestling, there’s no doubt Reigns still follows his former sport quite closely. His successful past in the sport made for a perfect fit in joining the Gameday cast on Saturday morning.

Reigns entered the set in Fort Worth, Texas (where Gameday was on hand for the big TCU vs. Ohio State game) with the WWE Universal Title, complete with his theme music and a fog machine. The crowd overwhelming cheered him. No WWE boo-birds were evident here. Roman wore a Georgia Tech polo shirt in homage to his alma mater.

Luke Bryan and Owen Gray were shown as previous celebrity pickers and they showed clips of Reigns’ career at Georgia Tech. Then the panel of College Gameday made their first picks, which was Reigns’ match with Braun Strowman tomorrow night at Hell In A Cell. All four members picked Reigns. The ESPN crew then brought out a College Gameday belt that Lee Corso wore during the picks segment.

Reigns’ picks for college football Saturday: Georgia Tech, Kansas, Vanderbilt, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Washington, LSU, and TCU. In the big game (Ohio State vs. TCU), Reigns mentioned he’s going to be in Texas all weekend (Hell In A Cell is in San Antonio), so he said he would be making 15,000 friends (those in attendance at Gameday) with his pick, who erupted in cheers when he picked the Frogs.