Kirk Herbstreit comments on busy schedule, addresses commitment to College GameDay
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Kirk Herbstreit is a busy man every college football season. He has been especially busy in 2022, adding Thursday night NFL games for Amazon to his ESPN/ABC assignments.
During a recent media conference call, Herbstreit was asked how he has handled the increased workload.
“This has been… When I signed on, I signed a 5-year deal with Amazon, and I re-upped a 5-year deal with ESPN, so that I linked them together. I knew when I signed on to do the Thursday Night game, I knew that it was going to be a big challenge, as far as… Because I’m a big prep guy. And so to be able to get on air, it requires a lot of work for me, to watch film, and get ahold of the coaches and the players, and all of that. ”
Herbstreit points to his outlook as helping handle the physical toll of constant travel and early wake-up times.
“So I’ve really almost… It sounds stupid, but I’ve tried to stay incredibly grateful and positive,” Herbstreit said. “I think when you get tired, it’s easy to complain, it’s easy to say, “Then I have to go to Montana, and then I got to fly all…” It’s so easy to go that path, and I’ve done the opposite. I’ve just been… I’ve tried to stay almost in a Navy Seal mentality. No one cares. End of the day, you could sit there and talk about… You guys maybe do it in your business like, “Oh, you’re never going to believe this. I’ve got to get up at 4 a.m.” And people are just like, “Oh, really? That’s great.” No one cares.
“And so, once you accept that nobody cares, you don’t need to complain. And so, I don’t ever complain about anything. I bust my ass as hard as I can to be prepared, the most prepared analyst I can be. I try to keep everything in a silo. Like this week, I don’t have Thursday night, but normally, I’d be prepping very hard with my boards that I have that are made for me, and then I just put all my notes on them.”
Herbstreit actually gets a break this week. The NFL’s Thursday night game is on NBC instead of Amazon for Thanksgiving. Throughout the season, though, Herbstreit has been making some long trips on quick turnarounds. One media member asked Herbstreit if he had thought giving up GameDay or if he remained committed to the pregame show.
“I’m completely committed,” Herbstreit said. And I think the part when people are like, ‘Geez, you call a game on Thursday and then you call a game on Saturday,’ that’s hard. But then when you throw a 3-hour… You’re talking about every game or every… West Coast to East Coast. That’s probably the tricky part is being prepared for a three-hour studio show. But no, I would never even let my mind think of that.
Herbstreit said scheduled adjustment is a few years down the line for now.
“I’m already thinking about what do I want to do after my 5 years? Do I want to stop working? Do I want to just enjoy my family? Do I want to just do GameDay? Do I just want to call a Saturday night game? I don’t know what, I’m already thinking about, okay, I’m on the treadmill for four more years, and then see where I am at that stage of life and see what I’m going to do. But no, it hasn’t never [sic] even crossed my mind to take something off my plate.”
Herbstreit is back at his alma mater Ohio State for Saturday’s GameDay ahead of No. 2 OSU vs. No. 3 Michigan.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
