College GameDay looked like it had everything figured out after Lee Corso’s retirement. The show had found its new chemistry with Pat McAfee and Nick Saban joining the crew, and the ratings were strong.
Problem solved, right? Not exactly.
New reporting from The Athletic’s Chris Vannini reveals just how close ESPN came to losing Kirk Herbstreit, too.
By 2022, Herbstreit was burning out on GameDay after 29 years. Most of the people he’d started with were gone, and the show felt different. When he added Thursday Night Football duties for Amazon Prime, the writing was on the wall. Between that, calling Saturday games for ESPN, and showing up for GameDay every week, something had to give
“Everyone I started with on the show, except Lee Corso, is gone – behind the scenes, on the camera, behind the camera,” Herbstreit said on the SI Media Podcast. “So when I was at Year 25, Year 26, doing now Amazon, doing the Saturday night game, I love GameDay, but do I really want to keep doing it? I love Rece and Dez and Coach. I love everybody, but it’s tiring.”
GameDay seemed like the logical choice to drop when his contract came up after the 2026 season. Then McAfee showed up and everything changed.
“I had to look myself in the mirror and be like, can I do all three jobs?” Herbstreit told Vannini. “Pat coming on the show, it’s been a game-changer for me and for the show. He brings a certain level of intensity and energy. Him and I have a great relationship.”
Herbstreit went from someone questioning whether he wanted to continue GameDay to someone who couldn’t imagine leaving. McAfee’s energy didn’t just change the show’s dynamic, but it also led Herbstreit to completely reevaluate his approach to television.
“I just realized there’s so much more to him than wearing a tank top and standing on top of a chair and yelling,” Herbstreit told SI‘s Jimmy Traina. “Pat walks into a room and provides energy to the room. And I’m talking undefeated. I’ve never seen him walk into a room quiet, have a tough day at home. We all do that, I do that. He doesn’t do that.”
The chemistry became so important to Herbstreit that when McAfee was considering not returning for another season, Herbstreit told him directly that he’d follow him out the door if he left.
Now Herbstreit talks about GameDay completely differently. He credits McAfee’s energy with changing his entire perspective, and says that between McAfee and Saban joining the show, ESPN couldn’t force him off the set if they tried.
The veteran analyst who was ready to walk away from the show is now hoping to sign extensions with both ESPN and Amazon.
“I’m loving the NFL. I would never want to leave that job on Thursday, and I love GameDay,” he continued. “I can’t imagine not sitting in that seat. It’s a dream to have all three of these. I hope to be able to sign an extension at some point with both Amazon and ESPN.”
Herbstreit’s contract runs through 2026, so ESPN has some time to figure out whether this current group can stick together. For now, at least, they don’t have to worry about losing their longest-tenured GameDay personality
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.