One of the great things about following Ohio State football is the number of former players that find their way to a career in media after their playing days are over. One of those players is, of course, former Buckeye quarterback and ESPN analyst, Kirk Herbstreit.
Herbie broke onto the scene at ESPN in 1996 as a part of College GameDay and has been a staple of the show ever since. He has also been a part of the network’s A-team broadcasting crew alongside Chris Fowler to call arguably the biggest college football games on the ESPN family of networks every weekend.
In other words, Herbstreit has been front and center in the media as a great OSU and college football ambassador. When he says things, people listen, so much so that Sports Illustrated ranked him as one of the most influential personalities in sports media. In fact, he lands at No. 6 on the list Jimmy Traina put together.
“Herbstreit already had the most significant voice in college football, but now he’s added the NFL to his portfolio, calling Thursday Night Football games with Al Michaels for Amazon Prime Video,” wrote Traina. “He’s also been part of College GameDay, one of the greatest sports studio shows of all time, since 1996.”
Herbstreit has been criticized by some OSU fans for not showing his Scarlet and Gray colors more, much like what we see with Michigan and fellow ESPN College GameDay talent, Desmond Howard. But I’ve always said you want a guy in the position of Herbstreit to be unbiased because when you get an honest opinion, the better comments mean much more.
Coming in ahead of Herbstreit as the top ten most influential sports media personalities were Charles Barkley, Stephen A. Smith, Big Cat and PFT, Peyton Manning, and Adam Schefter. Rounding out the top ten after Herbie were Adrian Wojnarowski, Bill Simmons, Jeff Passan, and Tom Brady.
Not sure I can say I agree with that very arbitrary list but can come alongside the notion that Herbstreit belongs in there.
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