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

He traveled throughout the South and Midwest, including stops in Indianapolis and Terre Haute, Indiana.

It featured real stars of the era – Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Hank Williams – but mixed it with a traveling circus, fireworks and similar fare. All this to sell a food supplement, Hadacol, which later turned out to be just a tonic. It quickly fell out of favor in the early 1950s, but the Caravan was considered the last true traveling medical exhibition.

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

Hoosiers On SI got a backstage pass to the festivities Saturday morning. It wasn’t quite full access, 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 several colleagues and I arrived around 7 a.m. If you didn’t know where to go, you just had to follow the rhythm of “Seven Nation Army”. He played like a Pied Piper to the Indiana faithful.

Some of us may have gotten teary-eyed, but once we got on set, we realized we didn’t have much to complain about when it came to lack of sleep.

By the time I arrived, the pit was full of Indiana students for a long time. One of them was Gilbert Resnik of Fort Wayne. He was lucky enough to be in the front row in the pit near the stage.

I asked how long he had been waiting in line to get his special seat.

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

“Three of my roommates went out, didn’t sleep, just took a 20 minute nap, but that’s too much energy! Too much adrenaline! You can’t sleep on College GameDay here,” Resnick said.

It’s a long wait for no food, no drink, or, uh, no facilities, although you can leave your spot in the pit to use a portable toilet. These insignificant details did not matter to Roessling.

“Lay down on the floor, waste time, hang out with the guys. It’s incredible. It’s great for the culture,” Resnick said.

The on-air staff is surprisingly active when it comes to getting the crowd excited. The lanes that cross the enclosures give them the chance to compete against adoring fans. The hype never stops.

The College GameDay pit is divided into several pens divided by corridors for camera operators and on-air personnel to move around. ESPN has the process down to a science in terms of what it needs for broadcast rather than 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 remote broadcasts in 1993. There are even risers built into the crash gates in front of the main stage. These are used by on-air staff when they want to have the crowd as a background for their shots.

There are three stages. The main set features Desmond Howard, Rece Davis, Pat McAfee, Nick Saban, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit. Poor “Stanford Steve” Coughlin finds himself with a tiny office on stage left. There is a secondary set where they do stand-up segments and interviews. There is another set used for overflow.

All the while, the place is moving. Production assistants, camera operators and crew are buzzing like worker bees. There are VIPs to watch. There are guests on set who need to be taken in and out of a very confined area straddling 17th Street. It’s 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 entire life in the midst of this madness. He wanders around without realizing how special it is for Indiana students who have never experienced GameDay before.

The crowd is constantly incited 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 the mockery of Purdue.

There were chants of “We Want Bama” – even though Indiana caught up and overtook Alabama in the actual voting. “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was sung many times. Just like “Hoo Hoo Hoo Hoosiers.”

Corso arrived shortly before the show aired at 9 a.m. He wore an Indiana starter jacket from his own coaching era. Regarding concerns about his health, Corso looked pretty good. He was as excited about this opportunity as anyone else.

Everyone wanted to participate in this occasion. A significant portion of the Indiana men’s basketball team wandered onto the set and later appeared on one of the stages.

Accustomed to being the object of attention, players like Malik Reneau, Trey Galloway, Luke Goode, Anthony Leal and Myles Rice were there, amazed, like everyone else.

Once the show started, backstage access was limited to a simple observation point behind the main set. We couldn’t go into the crowd and it was strictly forbidden to speak with the on-air staff.

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

Yet we understood. College GameDay is a loud and very popular traveling show. College football is an undeniable tonic.