ESPN will air two premier college football matchups this coming weekend on its family of networks. ABC will broadcast a Top 20 matchup between the 10th-ranked Oregon Ducks and everyone’s favorite 19th-ranked Colorado Buffaloes in the afternoon. ESPN will also air the annual tilt between rivals Arkansas and 12th-ranked LSU in the evening. Lead announcers Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will be in Baton Rouge, however, instead of Eugene, Oregon.
The Worldwide Leader made the announcement on the announcer assignments in a press release issued out early Monday.
The move comes at a time when the network and its rivals are helplessly competing over Deion Sanders-Colorado coverage. Big Noon Kickoff will once again be in Boulder on September 30, the day that Caleb Williams and USC will be in town. Just this past weekend, both Fox, as well as ESPN’s College GameDay were in Boulder for the Colorado-Colorado State game. So, perhaps it’s a little surprising that the network’s lead announcers will be down south and not up in the Pacific Northwest. And, perhaps maybe, you’re still screaming about “SEC bias.”
But, as a gentle reminder: College GameDay this week won’t be at Oregon. The network’s pregame show is set to emanate live from South Bend, Indiana, for the anticipated Top 10 matchup between Notre Dame and Ohio State. So, it would be a tall order for Herbstreit to leave GameDay in the Eastern time zone and go out west to join Fowler for a 12:30 local time kick.
Thus, the decision doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Fowler has a busy week ahead of him, as he’s started it off by calling the Carolina-New Orleans Monday Night Football game on Sept. 18. Herbstreit, of course, will be on the call for Amazon Thursday Night Football this week for the Giants-49ers game.
About Chris Novak
Chris Novak has been talking and writing about sports ever since he can remember. Previously, Novak wrote for and managed sites in the SB Nation network for nearly a decade from 2013-2022