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Al Michaels has an idea for the title of Kirk Herbstreit’s next book.
“The Man Who Never Sleeps,” Michaels said on a conference call with reporters last week.
Herbstreit knows he will spend little time this fall with his eyes closed. That’s what he signed up for when he became the color commentator alongside Michaels on Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football for the NFL on top of his ESPN responsibilities, which could be summed up as “college football czar.”
Herbstreit has evolved into the network’s lead voice in the sport. He has been a panelist on “College GameDay” since 1996 and calls the weekly primetime game on ABC, a role he returns to Saturday when Ohio State faces Notre Dame.
A typical Saturday starts with Herbstreit on the desk and ends with him in the booth. Football diehards will watch him call the sport’s main attraction 48 hours apart this fall.
This is how Herbstreit, 53, plans to do it – including advice from those who have previously juggled a grueling broadcasting schedule.
Remembering 2006
While mapping out his hectic fall, Kirk Herbstreit thought about 2006. That year, Disney gained the rights for “Saturday Night Football” on ABC. Herbstreit initially paired with Brent Musburger through the 2013 season before being joined by current partner Chris Fowler.
But Herbstreit thought about another former partner, Mike Tirico, whom he called games on Thursday nights with for years before Saturdays.
“In that one year (2006),” Herbstreit said, “I had to do both. It was 2006. I did a Thursday night game with Mike, ‘GameDay,’ and then I called the Saturday night game with Brent.”
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Goodbye Sunday
On Sunday, Herbstreit would recharge the batteries. Now that he has weekly NFL responsibilities (Herbstreit and Fowler have called a handful of Monday Night Football contests on ESPN in recent seasons), he can’t afford a day off.
“I won’t have that anymore,” he said, “so Sunday will be a prep day for me now.
“And now, if we’re doing the (Pittsburgh) Steelers and the (Cleveland) Browns … I’m going to be dialed in the previous Sunday into watching Steelers and Browns and then studying film all week. So, I’m just going to have to figure it out. I’ve got an idea but I need to get into a routine.”
Herbstreit will have two standalone college football weekends to grease his wheels, but his game preparation schedule remains a work in progress.
“I really am not going to know truly what my week is until I get through a couple of games where I’m doing both the Thursday night game and the stuff I’m doing on the weekends,” Herbstreit said.
Advice from Troy Aikman
If anyone can empathize with Herbstreit this fall, it would be Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. The broadcasting duo, going on 21 years together, will debut on ESPN’s Monday Night Football this year. But for the past four years at Fox, they called games on Thursday and Sunday.
Now teammates at ESPN, Aikman and Herbstreit are longtime friends and visited with one another while both were up for the Prime Video analyst gig.
“We talked after he got the Amazon job,” Aikman said. “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.”
‘Nobody cares’
One of the more disheartening aspects of the grind is that nobody cares, Aikman said.
“Nobody cares,” Aikman said. “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 one football game during the week, let alone trying to double up with two games in one week.”
Aikman said that anybody who knows Herbstreit cannot question his dedication.
“It will be a lot. It’s a lot, but he is a real pro,” Aikman said. “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.
“I mean, if you are not one of those guys, you get exposed just because the viewers know. You can’t fool people. I don’t know that you ever could, but you damn sure can’t now. They just know way too much.”
How Herbstreit manages it all? To that, Aikman says good luck.
“I don’t envy him. I will say that,” Aikman said. “Because for the last four years the schedule that we’ve kept, it’s grueling.”
Advice from Joe Buck
If a Thursday-Sunday schedule was tough, imagine being Buck – who had Major League Baseball postseason duties on NFL off days for Fox.
Staying on top of storylines and reading (and sleeping) on planes is essential, Buck said.
“(Herbstreit) is one of those guys that I think could do anything in this business,” Buck said. “He could do play-by-play, I believe. He is that talented.
“But at the same time, I think if you are a talented broadcaster – and there’s no more talented broadcaster than either (Aikman) or Kirk, they can handle it. He will be okay. He will be tired, but he will be okay.”
Follow Chris Bumbaca on Twitter @BOOMbaca.
