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Kirk Herbstreit receives broadcasting advice from Troy Aikman, Joe Buck
By Keith Farner
Published:
Kirk Herbstreit made waves over the offseason with the addition of Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” to his broadcasting schedule each week. Along with ESPN’s “College GameDay” and a primetime game each Saturday, Herbstreit will also call an NFL game each Thursday.
Another well-known broadcaster, Troy Aikman, offered advice to Herbstreit about calling 2 games per week, since he’s done it as well, albeit both NFL games.
During a media conference call this week, Aikman shared his thoughts on the jobs and Herbstreit’s reputation:
“I’ve talked to Kirk,” Aikman said, via Awful Announcing. “I consider Kirk a friend. We visited through the process. We talked after he got the Amazon job. Having been on that schedule, as Joe touched on a little bit earlier, we’re doing a Sunday/Thursday. He is doing a Thursday/Saturday. I guess the good thing for Amazon is they get a fresh Kirk Herbstreit on Thursday.
For “Game Day” and the game, it will be a lot. It’s a lot, but he is a real pro. Anyone who has been around him knows that. I mean, he is relentless in his preparation, which is the only way you can tackle this.”
Aikman noted that he understands Herbstreit is already busy and has multiple commitments throughout the season, including when GameDay is not where the primetime game is on a given week.
“I don’t envy him. I will say that. Because for the last 4 years the schedule that we’ve kept, it’s grueling,” Aikman said. “Nobody cares. The viewers at home don’t care, nor should they, but I don’t know that anyone — I don’t even know that people in the industry realize how much preparation goes into broadcasting a one football game during the week, let alone trying to double up with two games in one week.”
For his part, Joe Buck, Aikman’s long-time broadcast partner, said Herbstreit is talented enough that he could even do play-by-play.
“I think if you are a talented broadcaster and there’s no more talented broadcaster than either the guy on this screen that I’m looking at or Kirk, they can handle it. He will be okay. He will be tired, but he will be okay,” Buck said.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
