CFN's Interview with Kirk Herbstreit

Pete Fiutak talks with the ESPN star about his emergence in the college football world, what needs to be changed about the sport, and more.

CFN's Interview with Kirk Herbstreit

By Pete Fiutak   

Oh sure, ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit was Mr. Ohio State Quarterback, and the model Ohio football player from high school on up, but even with all the looks, all the gigs, all the notoriety and all the fame, he's a total geek.

Maybe it's not in the traditional spend-11-hours-a-day-on-YouTube sort of way, but Herbstreit is pure college football spaz. He's a fan through and through, and it comes across in his broadcasts and work on GameDay making him one of the network's most popular personalities. Covering a sport that inflames passions more than any other, he's done the near impossible and remained a popular figure across all conferences and all fan bases.

He's the golden boy that no one really wants to see fail. For all the years I've been doing this with CFN, I've received bazillions of e-mails from fans ripping on every announcer and every talking head on TV. I've never read one negative comment about Herbstreit, and more often than not, fans will quote him when trying to make a point. He's also been able to the impossible and be the homer Ohio State broadcaster that no one has that big a problem with. There's no question he wants to see his Buckeyes do well, but he's still able to show an impartiality that's allowed him to get away with it. It's his college football sincerity, and pure love of the sport, along with the understated brilliance of Chris Fowler and the accepted goofiness of Lee Corso, that has helped make ESPN's College GameDay the standard for pregame excellence.

I've never crossed paths with Herbstreit and never talked to him before getting a chance to interview him just after the season started on behalf of Liberty Mutual's Coach of the Year promotion. Obviously a million wacky things have happened over the course of the year, but this was done just after Appalachian State's win over Michigan, so naturally, that was what the main focus was at the time.

CFN: When you’re flying around for the night game, and traveling like you sometimes have to do, do you get a chance to actually watch the games?

KH: Yeah, I have a website that ESPN provides that has all the games, so when I get in, I get a chance to check out all the games and all the play-by-play for the key ones. Watching a lot of these other shows, like the ones late at night that Rece (Davis) does helps get me up to date, but yeah, I miss that element doing the ABC games. When GameDay is at the location of a game I’m doing, then I get to go back on the bus into my comfort zone with five TVs going to watch everything.

CFN: I can’t imagine too many people are shedding any tears for you about the travel side of things. 

KH: Yeah, it’s pretty sweet. It’s a dream.

Fans across the country are encouraged to visit www.coachoftheyear.com between September 6 and November 27 to vote for the college football coach who they believe embodies   responsibility – not only to his own team and players, but also in society and in his community.  All football head coaches at an NCAA-member college or university at all division levels are eligible for consideration.

“The Liberty Mutual Coach of the Year award differentiates itself from other college football trophies by recognizing the positive impact our coaches make on the lives of the student-athletes they mentor and the communities in which they live,” said Herbstreit.  “This is also the only award that gives fans a voice in choosing the winner, both through their votes and the commentary they submit on why their coach is the most responsible both on and off the field.”

The winner will be announced on December 5th.

CFN: Ten, 15 years ago, did you imagine getting to this level and being as high-profile as you’ve become?

KH: Of course not. You can’t dream of something like this. It’s not why you get into the sport in the first place. You get into it because you love doing it, and wherever it takes you is wherever you go. For me, I just love college football. I love to talk about it, I love to debate about it, I love to watch it all unfold in front of us. It never gets old, and to think about it 15 years ago, no, I can’t believe I’ve gotten so far so fast. But I can’t think of it like that. I’m enjoying it, but now, I have my nose down and I’m working. Maybe I’ll realize later what’s going on, but right now, I’m just trying to bust it.

CFN: To be a coach at this level, you have to be nuts. These guys are great, but they’re all insane, usually in a fun way. Take Greg Schiano. He actually believed he could not only make Rutgers a winner, but an actual superpower.

KH: Yeah, we see these guys as finished products, but their success stories are always amazing with the ways they work their way up. What I always find amazing is the behind the scenes story with the wife and the kids and the whole dynamic. You want to talk about a sacrifice being a head coach, be the wife of the head coach. These coaches are rarely home, and then during the off-season they’re out recruiting. I actually thought about coaching coming out of Ohio State, but my dad, having coaches with Woody and Bo, I really enjoyed that aspect of it and thought it was for me, but the more people I talked to, the Bob Stoopses of the world, they kept telling me, “Look, you got to understand what doing this really means.”

CFN: You actually got encouragement from Bob Stoops?

KH: Yeah, do you believe it?

CFN: What’s weird to me is seeing all these guys like Bret Bielema at Wisconsin, Pat Fitzgerald at Northwestern, and now Lane Kiffin taking over at Oakland, get these huge jobs. These guys are my age and they’re in charge of running these major programs. To me, head coaches should be old, godlike figures, the Joe Paternos of the world. How do you see this new wave of young guys changing things up?

KH: These guys have earned their way in by being stars as assistants and working within the programs, so they’re young, but they’re probably more ready than a lot of people think. The thing about being a head coach now is that you have to have the ability to stand up on a podium in front of the media after one of your players got a DUI, and handle that in a comfortable manner. You have to be able to handle yourself well when people are grilling you, because there are a lot of things going on outside of just the football aspect of it. These coaches, first and foremost, have to be able to handle the society part of this. Next, they have to be able to stand up in front of the alumni and get them excited for the program and its direction. And then, you’ve got to be able to go into the film room and coach. It’s more than just like it was back in the day in the 50s and 60s when you could just grind away in practices and in the film room and coach. Now you have this new wave of young guys who are a little more used to the media crush and how it all works. It’s a different era, and guys can move up quickly.

CFN: How stunned were you by the Michigan loss to Appalachian State?

KH: I was blown away. On GameDay that morning, I delivered L.C. (Lee Corso) some cupcakes. We thought this was a joke. It’s I-AA, it’s an embarrassment to the fans and the schools to have these games set up, and then a few hours later you have this all-timer of an upset. I understand Appalachian State is good at the I-AA level, or whatever it is these days, but imagine losing to a MAC school if you’re a Michigan or a Ohio State, but losing to a I-AA school, it’s not just the humiliation you have to deal with, it affects the aura of the program which affects recruiting and affects the perception of the school. Right now, it’s trendy to jump on Michigan, and I think it’s trendy to call Lloyd Carr to be fired, but if they come out and play against Oregon like I think they will, and take out a week’s worth of embarrassment, then it could salvage the season. But if they come out and lose to Oregon, because they have so many seniors who came back to win a national title and be the BCS championship type team, then the season is officially over.

CFN: That’s exactly what I got out of these guys. All Chad Henne and Mike Hart talked about was beating Ohio State and playing for the national title, and they seemed to completely gloss over the first 11 games of the year.

KH: Yup. Whoa there, you still have a ton of work to do and a ton of big games to play. They clearly were not prepared ….

CFN: Was that the players’ fault or the coaches’ fault?

KH: I’ve been around the locker rooms and I’ve seen both sides of things, and I think the biggest challenge for the coaches nowadays is to get the players to believe that these second and third tier teams really can beat them. No matter what you say or how many threats you come up with or how many ways you tell them that Appalachian State actually has a dangerous quarterback, they’re still cocky enough at that level to think, “We got it, we can turn it on when we need to.” I guarantee you that Lloyd Carr and his staff were pounding it home that they were Division I-AA champs and that they were good, and I guarantee you the players didn’t really believe it. “Gotcha coach, we hear you, we’re ready.” Then they went out there and looked heavy legged and slow and unprepared. It’s as much, if not more on the players, and the human nature of the players than the coaches. The players are too arrogant at that level, and I’m not talking about Michigan here, it’s everyone on a top five, top ten team, to think they could lose like that.

CFN: Through all you’ve seen and all you’ve experienced, what’s one thing the average fan doesn’t get about the college game?

KH: They see Saturday, and they see a player is wearing No. 5 or wearing No. 7 and know that he’s their main man, he’s their guy, but they don’t get the trials and tribulations of what these guys go through during the week. These guys have girlfriends and class and tests and papers and things the every-day students have, and they also have to deal with life in the spotlight every single moment of every single day during the week. Obviously there are good parts to that, but there are a lot of bad, and a lot of stereotypes, that they have to deal with. In today’s day and age of YouTube and the Internet, anything they do could be out there. Some guys get that and some guys don’t. You’ve got to have the right mindset to deal with being prepared and all the time involved. There’s the 40 hours the players are supposed to be involved, but if you’re really doing it, and really doing it the right way, you’re doing a lot more than that. A lot. You’re going in for extra film work, you’re going in for extra workouts, you’re doing far, far more than what everyone else thinks they’re doing, and then they have to deal with school. It’s a lot of wear and tear of doing it all, and always having to make good decisions. People don’t understand how much work goes into the week before they get on the field. Of course they enjoy it and of course it’s fun, but fans just see the finished product and don’t see all the work.

CFN: What’s one thing you’d change about college football?

KH: (Long pause) One thing I’d like to do from scheduling standpoint, and this is no disrespect to Appalachian State, but I’d prefer to see Virginia Tech vs. LSU, Cal vs. Tennessee type of games. The thing that bothers me is the different agendas when it comes to schedules. You have the athletic directors who want to pay off the debt. You have the coaches who want the eight wins and a bowl game. And then you have the players and fans, and they want the big matchups, they want the big challenges. I would mandate that four of the six BCS conference would have to play at least two of their non-conference games against other BCS teams.  Whatever you do with your other non-conference games is up to you.

CFN: But considering these guys have to hit the ground running from day one, and there isn’t a four-five game preseason like the NFL to tune up, wouldn’t the overall product be better if everyone played one cupcake first?

KH: Take Virginia Tech. They have the emotion of East Carolina to start, but they’ve been thinking about LSU all off-season and preparing since January. I think when you start out with a tough opponent, you focus better. When you get through those long two-adays, the big games help get you focused and going rather than starting off with an Appalachian State or Kent State. If you’re Tennessee and starting out against California, even though it was a loss, it gets everyone’s attention all summer. As far as execution, they only had something like three penalties …

CFN: I was totally shocked there weren’t many seven turnover, 12 penalty games in the opening week.

KH: Yeah ... I’m always shocked by that. The bottom line is that these college teams jump into it right away. There were some sloppy plays, look at Florida State at Clemson with a few problems getting the plays in and general execution, but that wasn’t that bad. If Michigan had played Oregon week one, it probably would’ve been far more focused. I think they’ve been thinking about Oregon all off-season and didn’t pay any attention to Appalachian State. They came out and looked like they were going through the motions and looked slow.

CFN: You’re not buying into the whole “Big Ten is slow” myth, are you?

KH: Oh no, no. The Big Ten took a big hit from a PR standpoint after the debate at the end of last year, and then Michigan gets blasted in the second half against USC, Ohio State looks awful for four quarters against Florida, and then there’s Appalachian State beating Michigan. The Big Ten has always been viewed, as I travel across the country, as the most overhyped, overrated conference by fans everywhere. For that to happen, it gave everyone a chance to confirm what they already believed. Now the league has become a punchline for the SEC and Pac 10 fans. Now they’re really having some fun. The reality is that if you took the elite teams in the Big Ten, and this isn’t my opinion, this is NFL stopwatch fact, since they time everyone including the upper-classmen, if you were to take Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Wisconsin, and took their 40 scores and didn’t show who the teams were and matched them up with the SEC, you wouldn’t know the difference between those four and the SEC teams.

The only difference would probably be on the defensive line. If you’re talking linebackers and wide receivers and defensive backs and running backs, the Big Ten 40 times are all going to be just as strong or better, but some of those SEC teams, the LSUs and Floridas and Auburns, those depth and speed and athleticism on the lines are different. In my 12 years, that’s one of the things I’ve noticed as I go across the country. The defensive linemen in the SEC are freaks. They’re beautiful specimens. Glenn Dorsey, Tyson Jackson, Quentin Groves, Derrick Harvey … you might see one or two of these guys here and there in the Big Ten, and the other conferences, but you just don’t have the abundance like you do in the SEC.

CFN: Especially at tackle. You can find speed rushers anywhere by putting a bigger linebacker up front, and you can find big, beefy tackles in the Big Ten, but there just isn’t the speed and athleticism inside like there is in the SEC.

KH: Dorsey gets all the attention, but watch these teams and look at how they run up front, and that’s why when you see them go against the Big Ten offensive lines, and anyone’s offensive line, actually, they just look so, so much faster, and that feeds into the overall speed myth.

CFN: Given GameDay’s current place in the college football world, how cognizant are you that what you’re saying helps the coaches and pollsters form their opinions? Do you feel an added responsibility beyond just having to pull off a good show?

KH: I guess we do, but it’s all still amazing to me. I’m so privileged to be in this position, and I love to work with Chris and Lee and the guys behind the scenes, but the reality is that I look at my job today the same way I did in September of 1996. That’s to be prepared for the show. Know the topic, and always, always … be … prepared. At the end of the day, my opinion is going to be wrong, it’s going to be right, and that’s O.K. as long as I’m prepared and that I know the topic we’re talking about and am ready to go. I don’t look at it as added pressure because people watch the show, I’d rather talk to the coaches and players to get some good insight rather than look at it like we carry a lot of weight.