BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – If you know your folk history, you may have heard of the Hadacol Caravan Show from the early 1950s.

Traveled throughout the South and Midwest – including stops in Indianapolis and Terre Haute in Indiana.

It featured real stars of the day—Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Hank Williams—but mixed it with a traveling circus, a fireworks display, and other similar fare. All to produce a dietary supplement, Hadacol, which later turned out to be nothing more than a tonic. It quickly fell out of favor in the early 1950s, but the Caravan was considered the last true traveling medicine show.

I’m not so sure that’s accurate. ESPN College GameDay doesn’t offer a tonic — although football is a tonic for the masses more than Hadacol ever was — but it travels, it’s hugely popular and it certainly puts on a show.

Hoosiers On SI got a behind-the-scenes pass at the festivities Saturday morning. It wasn’t exactly accessible, but it opened a window into the wild world of College GameDay.

We were asked to arrive early. Very early. The sun was still sleeping when I and a few colleagues arrived around 7am. If you didn’t know where to go, all you had to do was follow the beat of “Seven Nation Army”. He played as a piper for the Indiana faithful.

Bleary-eyed, some of us may have been, once we were dropped into the set, we realized we had very little to complain about in the way of lack of sleep.

The pit had long been filled with Indiana students by the time I arrived. One of them was Gilbert Resnik of Fort Wayne. He was lucky enough to be in the front row in the pit next to the stage.

I asked him how long he had been standing in line to get his first seat.

“I’ve been here since 4 p.m.,” Resnick said. Like 4pm on Friday.

“Three of my roommates went out, no sleep, just took a 20 minute nap, but it was too much energy! Too much adrenaline! You can’t sleep on College GameDay here,” Resnick said.

That’s a long time to wait without food, drink or, ahem, amenities, although you could leave your seat in the pit to use the portable toilets. Those insignificant details didn’t matter to Roessling.

“Lie on the floor, waste time, hang out with the boys. It’s amazing. It’s great for the culture,” Resnick said.

The air staff are surprisingly active when it comes to encouraging the crowd. Bands lining the pens give them a chance to run a gauntlet of adoring fans. the hype never stops.

The College GameDay pit is divided into several laned pens for the cameramen and on-air staff to walk around. ESPN has the process of setting up the pit down to a science in terms of what it needs to broadcast versus giving fans a chance to go crazy. It’s impressive.

Every little detail has been refined through trial and error since College GameDay began its telecasts in 1993. There are even columns built into the lock gates in front of the main stage. These are used by aircrew when they want to have the crowd as a background for their photos.

There are three stages. Main set featuring Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit. Poor “Stanford Steve” Coughlin gets a very small desk to himself at stage left. There is a side set where I do stand-up segments and interviews. There is another set used for overtaking.

All the while, the place is bubbling. Production assistants, cameramen and crew are buzzing like worker bees. There are VIPs to assist. There are guests on set that have to be ushered in and out of a very tight area on 17th Street. It’s a constant activity…all with a concert-like crowd in the background.

The calmest creature in the midst of it all is Ben, Herbstreit’s dog, who has lived a dog’s life in the midst of all this madness. He wanders unaware of how special this is for Indiana students who have never experienced GameDay before.

The crowd is constantly egged on by the stage directions and music. College GameDay is famous for its signs. Favorite themes were Curt Cignetti, the Michael Penix Indiana-Washington connection, and cool Purdue.

There were “We Want Bama” chants — even though Indiana caught and passed Alabama in the actual poll. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was played several times. So was “Hoo Hoo Hoosiers.”

Corso arrived shortly before the show aired at 9am. He wore an Indiana starter jacket from his coaching era. For the concerns about his health, Corso looked pretty good. He was as energized by the occasion as anyone else.

Everyone wanted to be a part of this occasion. A sizeable portion of the Indiana men’s basketball team wandered onto the set and later appeared on one of the stages.

Accustomed to being the center of attention, players like Malik Reneau, Trey Galloway, Luke Goode, Anthony Leal and Myles Rice stood there in awe, just like everyone else.

Once the show started, backstage access was limited to an observation point behind the main stage. I couldn’t get into the crowd and talking to any of the air staff was strictly forbidden.

It was a disappointment. I stayed long enough to see Curt Cignetti appear on set before we were kicked out for good.

But I got the point. College GameDay is a loud and wildly popular travel show. College football is an undeniable tonic.