Speaker 1: This week on The Day Pash podcast, we talked with
Speaker 1: multiple Emmy Award winning broadcaster and the face and voice
Speaker 1: of college football on ESPN and ABC, Kirk Herbstreet, who
Speaker 1: never envisioned when he was playing quarterback at Ohio State
Speaker 1: in the nineties then he would be where he is today,
Speaker 1: had no goals of, Hey, one day I'll go on
Speaker 1: TV or one day I'll work at ESPN. Nothing like that.
Speaker 1: It just sounded like a fun job. I grew up
Speaker 1: listening to talk radio, and I thought that sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Herb Street, like me and many
Speaker 1: other broadcasters, started in talk radio and coming up you'll
Speaker 1: learn how Herb Street went from a very low paying
Speaker 1: job to being one of the top announcers in all
Speaker 1: of sports. Kirk's also going to talk about his new
Speaker 1: book Out of the Pocket, Football Fatherhood, and College Game
Speaker 1: Day Saturdays. He'll discuss his relationship with his dad and
Speaker 1: also how his parents divorce help shape him his relationship
Speaker 1: with his dad on television Lee Corso that's something that
Speaker 1: Kirk will dive into as well. Herb Street will also
Speaker 1: talk about some of the things he loves about college
Speaker 1: football right now and the twenty twenty one season and
Speaker 1: also some of the things he doesn't like. Right now,
Speaker 1: Kirk will get into the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals and
Speaker 1: Kyler Murray. That's all coming up on the Dave Pash Podcast.
Speaker 1: We are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting
Speaker 1: partner of the Arizona Cardinals and Hila River Hotels and Casinos.
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Twitter at pashpod. So
Speaker 1: here he is ESPN ABC announcer Kirk Herbstreet Herbie, great
Speaker 1: to talk to you, man, appreciate you doing this. I
Speaker 1: definitely want to get into the book and spend some
Speaker 1: considerable time there. But first give me your thoughts on
Speaker 1: the college football season so far. What stands out to
Speaker 1: you the most through the first month of the season. Wow,
Speaker 1: I think it's the first time that it just feels
Speaker 1: so open, you know, access feels open to conference championships,
Speaker 1: to potential heavyweight bowl games, to the playoff. You know,
Speaker 1: we always talked about the possibility of the sport needing
Speaker 1: to expand the playoffs to keep more people interested. Because
Speaker 1: it's a foregone conclusion that Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, maybe
Speaker 1: a Georgia, maybe in Oklahoma and everybody else don't. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about it. Sometimes that's how it feels, I think
Speaker 1: for the fan bases, and you know, this year, it
Speaker 1: just feels like everybody's vulnerable, you know, coming out of
Speaker 1: the year of COVID last year, it feels like they're
Speaker 1: they're really I mean, you could say Alabama's the best,
Speaker 1: but they've got a old miss this week and that
Speaker 1: could get sideways potentially in Georgia. They're gonna have some challenges,
Speaker 1: including this weekend with Arkansas. So I don't know, it
Speaker 1: just feels I like it. By the way, it feels
Speaker 1: like we've got we've got a lot more intrigued with
Speaker 1: more and more upsets, more parody, and even a group
Speaker 1: of five team like Cincinnati, you know, playing Notre Dame
Speaker 1: this weekend, trying to throw their into the ring. So
Speaker 1: I think it's been fun. Kirk, you have Georgia this week,
Speaker 1: and I know you've been watching tape. It seems to me,
Speaker 1: I mean, look, they've they've had great players for a
Speaker 1: long time and especially recently, but it seems like they've
Speaker 1: got more dudes than ever. Have you Is that stood
Speaker 1: out to you when you're watching film? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that the area is where you see it the most
Speaker 1: number one depth at wide receiver. You know that that's
Speaker 1: been an achilles heel of theirs. You know, they had
Speaker 1: George Pickens and then kind of other guys. You know,
Speaker 1: Kier's Jackson has come on last year in this year,
Speaker 1: and Jermaine Burton. But I don't know. I just feel
Speaker 1: with A. A. D. Mitchell and this young tight end
Speaker 1: that they have Rock Bowers. They haven't even played their
Speaker 1: starting tight end. He's been hurt Tony in Washington. It
Speaker 1: just feels like they've got a better group there so
Speaker 1: they can rotate and stay fresh and stay fast. And
Speaker 1: then on defense they're just terrifying. I mean, Jordan Davis
Speaker 1: gets a lot of the attention, but DeVante Wyatt you've
Speaker 1: seen he's got ninety five and eighty eight. Jalen Carter,
Speaker 1: he's a backup. He might be the most talented, most gifted,
Speaker 1: Like five years from now and we're looking at this team,
Speaker 1: the guy that might be crushing NFL quarterbacks is Carter.
Speaker 1: So yeah, they're loaded. And one thing I noticed I
Speaker 1: did their game Week one against Clemson. They've got a
Speaker 1: good mix of veterans that are played and then a
Speaker 1: wave of young or young as far as experience, but
Speaker 1: just some guys that have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: chip on their shoulder. They've had to pay their dues,
Speaker 1: they had to sit behind Richard LeCount and others, you know,
Speaker 1: in that secondary. A lot of those guys moved on
Speaker 1: to the NFL and so they had to sit there
Speaker 1: and wait. So they're playing with some urgencies. So I
Speaker 1: think when you mix that whole thing up, this Georgia
Speaker 1: defense has got a strong personality and a strong love
Speaker 1: for each other. And I think it's pretty evident when
Speaker 1: you get around him. You just saw Spencer Rattler on
Speaker 1: Saturday night. He's from here. I had them week one
Speaker 1: when they kind of let two lane back in the
Speaker 1: game and it got a little too close for comfort
Speaker 1: there at the end, he was he was probably the
Speaker 1: Heisman favorite coming in. Where do you see him now?
Speaker 1: And who are some of the candidates. I know it's
Speaker 1: you know, not even October, but who are some of
Speaker 1: the candidates you think that'll be there at the end
Speaker 1: for the Heisman. Well, first, I think we have to
Speaker 1: just try to put in perspective what happened to him
Speaker 1: as past Saturday. I mean, he like you said, he
Speaker 1: was a Heisman front runner, not for his team but
Speaker 1: for the nation. And he's being booed off the field
Speaker 1: week four, and in fact, they were channing, you know,
Speaker 1: we want Caleb, we want Caleb. The stands were meeting
Speaker 1: Caleb Williams, the backup quarterback. I don't know if I've
Speaker 1: ever in all the years I've been covering the sport
Speaker 1: and playing the sport. I mean, you always hear, you know,
Speaker 1: from time to time you're gonna hear a backup quarterback's
Speaker 1: name chant, But for a Heisman, preseason Heisman favorite, four
Speaker 1: weeks into a season hearing that, I think it's unprecedented.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever ever seen anything like that,
Speaker 1: And it made me start to think a little bit.
Speaker 1: In this era of name, image and likeness, how much
Speaker 1: is this. It's a new world that we're in. And
Speaker 1: you're familiar with Spencer because he's from out there. I
Speaker 1: think part of his deal for me after doing QB
Speaker 1: one was he needed to grow up, he needed to mature.
Speaker 1: He'll tell you he has his teammates, his coaches will
Speaker 1: tell you that, but he I think he is profited
Speaker 1: the most off of anil and I just wonder, kind
Speaker 1: of like in the world that you live in with
Speaker 1: the Cardinals, it's a different kind of fan base. With
Speaker 1: the NFL, they make money, they get booed, their high expectations.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if we're starting to cross the line
Speaker 1: that it's no longer college kids and all that, but
Speaker 1: now it's it's it's this nil. These guys are being
Speaker 1: paid and their higher expectations, and if they don't produce,
Speaker 1: then they're going to feel the wrath of the fan base.
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're going there, but it certainly
Speaker 1: felt like that this past Saturday in Norman. And if
Speaker 1: you look at DJ at Clemson, he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of nil. He's got a lot of pressure that he's
Speaker 1: dealing with. Look at the quarterback Sam Howe was another
Speaker 1: one at North Carolina that was highly touted in the preseason.
Speaker 1: I just think that in this era of coming off
Speaker 1: the Summer Olympics with Smone Biles, where she started to
Speaker 1: feel some anxiety and pressure to have to deliver and
Speaker 1: almost live up to unrealistic expectations and it got the
Speaker 1: best of her. I wonder if we're going to start
Speaker 1: to see some of that in college football, especially at
Speaker 1: that position where nil is the most likely going to be.
Speaker 1: These quarterbacks are going to attract most of the opportunity.
Speaker 1: These I just wonder if we're starting to see some
Speaker 1: some different things. But as far as to answer the question,
Speaker 1: I think Bryce Young at Alabama's helping himself. He's kind
Speaker 1: of been able to block out the noise. I'm kind
Speaker 1: of looking down the road if JT. Daniels continues to
Speaker 1: play well and Georgia keeps wedding, I think he's a
Speaker 1: guy that definitely would be under consideration. And I think
Speaker 1: my favorite as we sit here right now three or
Speaker 1: four weeks in, is Matt Carroll at Old Miss. You know,
Speaker 1: I think he's playing well. He's in an offense where
Speaker 1: he's going to put up astronomical numbers, and he's got
Speaker 1: a little bit of an edge to him. I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to see how they play this weekend against Alabama.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to what you said. I
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about what you said about the connection now
Speaker 1: with nil and players making money, so that it's almost
Speaker 1: like open season, that a fan now has the right
Speaker 1: to do a college athlete where maybe before you wouldn't
Speaker 1: see that or certainly wouldn't see it this early in
Speaker 1: the season on a team that's top five. That's a
Speaker 1: great point. I wonder if we're going to start seeing
Speaker 1: more of that because we've crossed the line now. Look,
Speaker 1: it's always been a business, but there's a line that's
Speaker 1: been crossed, so now they're professionals as well as being
Speaker 1: college athletes. And I also think that's a reason why
Speaker 1: a lot of college coaches are looking to go to
Speaker 1: the NFL. Look, you and I know Urban Meyer pretty well.
Speaker 1: We just played Urban the other day. You know, Texas
Speaker 1: comes after him. He doesn't take it. Why the NIL
Speaker 1: is a big deal when it comes to you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just the parents anymore. You got to recruit agents, basically,
Speaker 1: and I don't think a lot of college coaches want
Speaker 1: to do that anymore because now you're dealing with so
Speaker 1: much more on a daily basis. Is that something you
Speaker 1: think we'll see from a coach's standpoint, where they start
Speaker 1: more college coaches like Cliff and Matt Rule and Urban
Speaker 1: start to look for the NFL. We'll have to see.
Speaker 1: I know in talking to coaches, they're all very very
Speaker 1: concerned not just with NIL but transfer portal. You know,
Speaker 1: there are coaches now that feel they have to try
Speaker 1: to play guys just to try to keep them happy. Like,
Speaker 1: when did we ever get into a world of college football,
Speaker 1: big time college football where some of the not all,
Speaker 1: some of the coaches, I don't want to say they're
Speaker 1: walking on eggshells, but they're aware of their players, and
Speaker 1: they're aware of they don't want their players to get
Speaker 1: their feelings hurt. They don't want their players to get disgruntled.
Speaker 1: What can I do to try to make this guy
Speaker 1: happy even though he's not playing. We had a game
Speaker 1: the other night for Ohio State was playing and one
Speaker 1: of their linebackers, who evidently was upset with the amount
Speaker 1: of playing time he was receiving, got into a heated
Speaker 1: exchange with the linebacker coach how Washington, and in the
Speaker 1: middle of the game, he started to take off his
Speaker 1: equipment and then was escorted off the sideline through his equipment,
Speaker 1: you know, into the locker, took a shower, left, tweeted
Speaker 1: out some nasty you know things out of I'm sure
Speaker 1: of emotion and trustration, but it all stems um amount
Speaker 1: of playing time. And that's a real thing, I guess
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one. That you imagine if I don't
Speaker 1: know Woody Hayes or Bear Bryan or any of these guys,
Speaker 1: they never ever even thought about dealing with that. So
Speaker 1: it is a different landscape. Um. I personally, after watching
Speaker 1: a lot of this and being around all over the country,
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever think we're in a time
Speaker 1: where I would recruit the parents more than right now,
Speaker 1: Like you got you got a kid, you're recruiting. I
Speaker 1: would get to know what's the family, what's their motivation,
Speaker 1: what kind of people are they, what kind of person
Speaker 1: is his kid? Does he love football? That's a rarity anymore,
Speaker 1: he actually love football, you know, not not Instagram, not
Speaker 1: the celebrity aspect, not the monetary aspect. But does he
Speaker 1: love going to practice? Does he love his craft? I
Speaker 1: would find kids that love football, and I would find
Speaker 1: parents that want their kids to grow in every way
Speaker 1: and not just be told yes, yes, yes all the time.
Speaker 1: So it's a different I don't think coaches are going
Speaker 1: to leave immediately because the money is really good and
Speaker 1: end of the day, the lifestyle is pretty good, but
Speaker 1: they do need to be smart about building their program
Speaker 1: and not feeling as if they have to be. You know,
Speaker 1: whatever the player needs, we got to keep them happy.
Speaker 1: That's not the answer to this at all. And just
Speaker 1: watch Nick Saban. You know, if Nick Saban gets sideways
Speaker 1: with a player, he lets the player know. This is
Speaker 1: the culture, this is the way I run my operation.
Speaker 1: Either get on board or get the hell out of here.
Speaker 1: You know, it's pretty simple. And guys don't cross Coach
Speaker 1: Saban because they fear the consequences. You've become the face
Speaker 1: and voice of college football over the last twenty years,
Speaker 1: certainly at ESPN. I'm curious, Kirk, when you left Ohio
Speaker 1: State after playing quarterback there, and I remember you playing
Speaker 1: quarterback there because my sophomore year at Syracuse the first
Speaker 1: college football game I ever did you probably remember the
Speaker 1: game was at the Carrier Dome against Ohio State and
Speaker 1: you were the quarterback. Did you ever envision when you're
Speaker 1: playing at Ohio State. I don't know how much you
Speaker 1: even thought about broadcasting back then, but did you imagine
Speaker 1: at all your life turning out the way it has? No? No,
Speaker 1: not at all. I was a business major at Ohio State,
Speaker 1: and you don't like any quarterback at a school you
Speaker 1: hope to one day be able to play in the NFL,
Speaker 1: and when that was not a reality, I just kind
Speaker 1: of thought, Okay, I'll just try to go get a job.
Speaker 1: And Ohio State was really good. They had a guy
Speaker 1: there named Larry Romanov who helped people when they graduated
Speaker 1: with contacts. And I did a couple of pharmaceutical sales
Speaker 1: interviews and medical sales and Worthington Industries, and all those
Speaker 1: interviews went really well, and I had second to third
Speaker 1: in a couple cases and was about to accept just
Speaker 1: a job in pharmaceutical sales. And I just, on my own,
Speaker 1: for whatever reasoned out to a local AM station in
Speaker 1: Columbus and said, hey, if you ever need me, you know,
Speaker 1: being a former captain and player and loved it to
Speaker 1: help you guys out with your Higo State coverage. And
Speaker 1: they got back to me, you know, like a month later,
Speaker 1: and said your timing is great. We're going to go
Speaker 1: to an all sports format and we need a host
Speaker 1: and we'll pay you twelve thousand dollars and you're going
Speaker 1: to do a show in the afternoon drive with At
Speaker 1: that time, we called him the Voice of the Buckeys,
Speaker 1: Terry Smith. He's now with the Anaheim Angels and I joined.
Speaker 1: I passed up on what would be considered lucrative, more
Speaker 1: traditional jobs which they were offered, and I just passed
Speaker 1: on them to just had no goals of way, one
Speaker 1: day I'll go on TV, or one day I'll work
Speaker 1: at ESPN, nothing like that. It just sounded like a
Speaker 1: fun job. I grew up listening to talk radio, and
Speaker 1: I thought that sounds like a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: I took the job for twelve thousand, no, no, four
Speaker 1: o K, nothing, just twelve thousand dollars, which to me,
Speaker 1: I didn't come from any money, so it sounded like
Speaker 1: pretty good money to me, and so I took it
Speaker 1: and things just changed. That was summer of ninety three,
Speaker 1: and I was at ESPN in the fall of ninety
Speaker 1: five as a sideline reporter. My first fall there. I
Speaker 1: don't remember you doing sidelines. I don't, so that's how
Speaker 1: you started. And then how did college Game Day come about? Well?
Speaker 1: I worked with Todd Christiansen. He was my analyst when
Speaker 1: I was a sideline reporter. Dwayne Stats, who was a
Speaker 1: baseball guy. He was the play by play guy that
Speaker 1: I worked with, and we we we started on a
Speaker 1: new station called ESPN two, and so we would be,
Speaker 1: you know, in the Mountain West. You know, I was
Speaker 1: on the sidelines one time on on the sidelines at
Speaker 1: Fort Collins and Urban Meyer who recruited me when he
Speaker 1: was at Ohio State as a GA. He's a receiver
Speaker 1: coach for Earl Bruce and he sees me, He's like,
Speaker 1: what the heck are you doing over here? You know,
Speaker 1: how are you in Fort Collins? And we just we
Speaker 1: always kid about that, but yeah, it was cool. It
Speaker 1: was cool just to kind of learn the business and
Speaker 1: the good and the bad and had a really bad
Speaker 1: producer that made my life miserable and surprised. You know,
Speaker 1: you look back at that time that I stuck with
Speaker 1: it based on that that experience that year. But anyway,
Speaker 1: after that season got named Moe Davenport asked me to
Speaker 1: do arena football and be the color analysts, just to
Speaker 1: see if I could do games. And Todd Christensen was
Speaker 1: going to do play by play and he was an analyst.
Speaker 1: Gonna try try and play by play. So we did
Speaker 1: an arena football year the spring summer of ninety five
Speaker 1: or ninety six, and some guy named Kurt Warner was
Speaker 1: the the quarterback for the Iowa Barnstormers, who ended up
Speaker 1: becoming the MVP of the of the It was the
Speaker 1: season that year, and ironically they're making a movie out
Speaker 1: of his life. And that year was my year being
Speaker 1: around arena football. So I was in Des Moines, Iowa
Speaker 1: almost like every other week, called Kurt Warner's games. That
Speaker 1: little did I know what he would become, you know,
Speaker 1: with the rams and what a future Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: career he had. And during the middle of that year,
Speaker 1: I got another call. Craig James had left game day
Speaker 1: to go to CBS and they said, literally, Devenport told me,
Speaker 1: you're not going to get the job, but at this
Speaker 1: early stage of your career, it'd be really good experience
Speaker 1: for you to go through the audition that we're going
Speaker 1: to have for you and a few other people, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna fly in Fowler and Courso and just see
Speaker 1: how it goes. And so I flew in in the
Speaker 1: middle of I was, like I said, in the middle
Speaker 1: of my arena seasons. I flew in and did the
Speaker 1: audition and sweated bullets through it. I was terrified. I
Speaker 1: was like twenty four, twenty five years old. I was
Speaker 1: so scared sitting next to Lee and Chris and they
Speaker 1: did the whole theme music. We did like a fake segment,
Speaker 1: and that was it. I left and went back on
Speaker 1: the roads do an arena football. And a month or
Speaker 1: two later, my agent called me and said that I
Speaker 1: think Howard Katz saw something with Lee and I and
Speaker 1: he wanted to take a just take a chance and
Speaker 1: hire me over the other people that were applying for it.
Speaker 1: And that was it. That was in the summer of
Speaker 1: ninety six, and then I started that fall fall of
Speaker 1: ninety six. So it seems like seven or eight years ago.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it was. Whatever it is twenty six
Speaker 1: years ago. So we're going to dive into the book
Speaker 1: here out of the Pocket Football Fatherhood and college Game
Speaker 1: Base Saturdays, and I'm curious what inspired you to write it.
Speaker 1: But let's go back one second, because I wasn't going
Speaker 1: to ask you because I had no idea that you'd
Speaker 1: covered arena football. Kurt was actually the first guest on
Speaker 1: this podcast. Now cool. Yeah, known Kurt for a while,
Speaker 1: obviously spent time here, and we had him on for
Speaker 1: an hour, could have had him on for two. Just
Speaker 1: so many great stories. Was there anything can you think back,
Speaker 1: was there anything that stood out to you that year?
Speaker 1: I mean, did you have a sense at all about
Speaker 1: where things could go for him? Did you meet with
Speaker 1: him back? He Yeah, we met with him. He was
Speaker 1: so classy and so down to earth, and you know,
Speaker 1: the whole story of him being out of the game
Speaker 1: and then getting that opportunity and the NFL game was
Speaker 1: so different. You know, what Mike Martz did was just
Speaker 1: so it was just a game changer. It was hard
Speaker 1: to envision a guy playing arena football would be able
Speaker 1: to go and play in the NFL in that era.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't done. By the way, we were in
Speaker 1: Phoenix all the time. There was a guy named Hunky
Speaker 1: Cooper was on the team, and I think it was
Speaker 1: a rattler switch the name of their team, and we
Speaker 1: were it was used to be called the America West Arena,
Speaker 1: and we'd go in there and they're fan base, they
Speaker 1: loved it. I think Danny White might have been the
Speaker 1: if I remember right. Danny White, the old Cowboys quarterback,
Speaker 1: I think was the coach. But it was fun. We'd
Speaker 1: go in there and they would get fired up. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just remember him being this really hard working, blue
Speaker 1: collar kind of guy, just appreciative of the opportunity. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if even he thought that the NFL
Speaker 1: was in his future at that time. Before he made
Speaker 1: that transition, guys would get like tryouts in the NFL,
Speaker 1: but almost all of them maybe made it, like to
Speaker 1: the practice squad and then come back to the arena game.
Speaker 1: So it was it was very unheard of to imagine,
Speaker 1: especially a quarterback, getting an opportunity and then taking advantage
Speaker 1: of it the way he did so out of the
Speaker 1: pocket football fatherhood and college game day Saturdays. Kirk, what
Speaker 1: inspired you to write it and why now? Well, Gen Wojahowski,
Speaker 1: who's a colleague of yours in mind at ESPN, he
Speaker 1: approached me. He's approached me a couple of times about
Speaker 1: the idea of writing a book and never holding this,
Speaker 1: but I just didn't really feel like I had anything
Speaker 1: to say that people would want to read about, so
Speaker 1: I just have always just said, ah, maybe later, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe when I retire. And then he approached me April
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, right in the middle of COVID and quarantine,
Speaker 1: back in the time when people were like wiping the
Speaker 1: groceries down and just we didn't know where we were
Speaker 1: as a country, and I just thought it was maybe
Speaker 1: a good time to reflect and a good time to
Speaker 1: just think about some things that I've compartmentalized, you know,
Speaker 1: on a personal level for over forty years and didn't
Speaker 1: really know what we were going to get into. I
Speaker 1: wanted to do more than just football and broadcasting, you know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: stuff I had been through that probably unless you write
Speaker 1: a book or you do a podcast, you never really
Speaker 1: would talk about. And you know, I think people see
Speaker 1: you or me and they just they think they know
Speaker 1: you based on the job you do, but they really
Speaker 1: don't know you. So I decided to take him up
Speaker 1: on it. And I thought I had enough of, you know,
Speaker 1: some stuff that I could talk about that might resonate
Speaker 1: with some people, and maybe people would would appreciate just
Speaker 1: me being vulnerable and talking about some things. And so
Speaker 1: we did it, and he came to Nashville a few
Speaker 1: months later, and we just sat down for a whole week.
Speaker 1: He would come over eight or eight or nine in
Speaker 1: the morning, and we'd sit there at all about six
Speaker 1: o'clock at night. We did that for a whole week
Speaker 1: and he had spoken with about forty or fifty people
Speaker 1: by the time he came to visit with me, my
Speaker 1: mom and my sister and a lot of close friends,
Speaker 1: and so he was bringing up things. I was like,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, how do you know that story? You know?
Speaker 1: And so we would reminisce and talk about things, and
Speaker 1: like I said, we went back. My parents divorced when
Speaker 1: I was about eight, and I had lived I don't
Speaker 1: know how you know, for you, but I lived in
Speaker 1: a neighborhood. It was kind of like that movie A
Speaker 1: fan Loot, you know, where it's just you're out in
Speaker 1: the yard, or your your playing ball, or you freeze
Speaker 1: tag connect four big wheels, you know, in the creek, whiffleball,
Speaker 1: backyard football. It was just non stop twelve months out
Speaker 1: of the year. And that was my life until I
Speaker 1: was eight, and then my parents divorced and and then
Speaker 1: that was it and my dad went from being my hero.
Speaker 1: He played at Ohio State. He was a captain. He
Speaker 1: coached with Woody and with bow and he would take
Speaker 1: me to Ohio State games and it was just for me.
Speaker 1: It was the as good as it could be. I mean,
Speaker 1: I loved college football from the time I could really
Speaker 1: remember more than anything else. And so to sit on
Speaker 1: Woody Hayes's lap after a game and look through his
Speaker 1: glasses with his black hat on, with his short sleeved
Speaker 1: white shirt, or put Archie Griffin's helmet on the years
Speaker 1: he was winning Heisman Trophy. Those were like, I'm completely
Speaker 1: addicted to this sport and my dad was my hero.
Speaker 1: And then boom, they get a divorce, and my brother
Speaker 1: and sister and I and I we all moved with
Speaker 1: my mom to a different area and I never went
Speaker 1: back to that neighborhood. And so and then my mom
Speaker 1: got remarried and my dad got remarried, and then a
Speaker 1: couple of years later they both got divorced again. So
Speaker 1: I just had a lot of step brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: and moms and dads just kind of going in and
Speaker 1: out of my life and just didn't I had a
Speaker 1: lot of just dysfunction that I was around. And so
Speaker 1: I thought, number one, I hadn't really thought about a
Speaker 1: lot of those those moments in a long time. And
Speaker 1: number two, I thought, there are a lot of kids
Speaker 1: that are going through that currently that maybe me telling
Speaker 1: the story would help them, or maybe there's parents that
Speaker 1: went through it themselves, that are out there that have
Speaker 1: some kind of you know, struggles that they deal with
Speaker 1: going back to that time in their life, or maybe
Speaker 1: they're going through a divorce themselves right now. So divorce
Speaker 1: can be, as we all know, can be really challenging
Speaker 1: to deal with, and especially when we deal with multiple divorces.
Speaker 1: And and so I went to like I think I
Speaker 1: went to seven or maybe it was eight schools and
Speaker 1: nine years. So I moved around a bunch and I
Speaker 1: was a painfully shy kid, so every time I moved,
Speaker 1: it was a nightmare to walk into a new classroom
Speaker 1: and a new school. And so there's a there's a
Speaker 1: lot there about stories behind that. And I just thought
Speaker 1: it was it was okay to do and weren't for Geane,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't have done it. But he, I think
Speaker 1: made it a lot easier, you know, just sit down.
Speaker 1: And he also gave me authority of being able to
Speaker 1: edit stuff that I wouldn't. I would open up to
Speaker 1: him and then I'd be like, Okay, can we cut
Speaker 1: that out or I don't know about that. And knowing
Speaker 1: that he gave me that that ability to do that,
Speaker 1: I think helped me to open up to him and
Speaker 1: say stuff that I really had never really told many
Speaker 1: people at all. Well, your your vulnerability definitely comes through,
Speaker 1: and also your humility, and that's something I've always appreciated
Speaker 1: about you. It definitely comes through. I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things that makes you so likable on TV,
Speaker 1: as you do come off as very real and I
Speaker 1: didn't know that about your background. My parents got divorced
Speaker 1: at age eighteen, senior in high school, living in Madison, Madison, Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: and I it forced me to say, you know, I
Speaker 1: really want to go away to school because I just
Speaker 1: don't want to escape. I don't want to be around this.
Speaker 1: So I went to Syracuse for broadcasting, but also kind
Speaker 1: of to escape. And so, you know, when you think
Speaker 1: back of those memories, it is interesting, interesting how those
Speaker 1: things really shape you that you can maybe kind of
Speaker 1: file away and not really think about because you don't
Speaker 1: want to think about, but then you realize how much
Speaker 1: that's impacted your life. Yeah, yeah, man, I didn't know
Speaker 1: that that would be a very different journey. You know,
Speaker 1: at eighteen, was it before your senior year, during your
Speaker 1: senior year, it was the it was the summer between
Speaker 1: my junior and senior year, and I was the best
Speaker 1: time I ever I know, and I was, and I
Speaker 1: was a kid who got into a lot of trouble
Speaker 1: already in high school that that did not help. The
Speaker 1: rebellious stage got got a lot worse. Yeah, well that's Uh,
Speaker 1: you need to write a book because you have a
Speaker 1: You have an incredible story too, just on so many
Speaker 1: different levels about your faith and how you came to that.
Speaker 1: I would love to hear a lot of great details
Speaker 1: about that because I know, just from talking with you
Speaker 1: in the past, a little bit about it. But I
Speaker 1: think that would be fascinating for you to share that.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I think a lot of people just
Speaker 1: want me to write a book about Bill Walton's That's
Speaker 1: usually what people say, Uh, what do you? What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you think in the book? I mentioned again
Speaker 1: your your humility comes through, your vulnerability comes through What
Speaker 1: do you think about? The book might surprise people who,
Speaker 1: to your point, think they know you because they see
Speaker 1: you on TV, but maybe they really don't know other
Speaker 1: than the personal uh stuff with your parents growing up. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe that Like I said, I feel like based on
Speaker 1: the perception that people create, I think people think that
Speaker 1: I was born on third base, you know, kind of saying,
Speaker 1: and not that there's anything wrong with people that are
Speaker 1: born on third base, that I just wasn't, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think because you wear a suit in a
Speaker 1: tie and you have blonde hair and blue eyes, and
Speaker 1: it's like, look at this guy, Yeah he didn't. He's
Speaker 1: never had a work a day in his life. Look
Speaker 1: at look at this life. You know. I think for
Speaker 1: some people that's a perception for a lot of broadcasters,
Speaker 1: you know, and especially for me because I was so
Speaker 1: young when I when I got to ESPN. I mean
Speaker 1: I was, like I said, twenty five or six when
Speaker 1: I first started. And you know, I've always admired I
Speaker 1: love Tom Brady as a player, you know. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: that special that ESPN did, I think it was called
Speaker 1: the Brady six. Maybe they did a special on him
Speaker 1: and they have him relive the day he was drafted
Speaker 1: and here he is after I don't know at that
Speaker 1: time when they filmed us, I don't know, his's five
Speaker 1: or six super Bowls, whatever it was, and here he
Speaker 1: is reliving after he's won several Super Bowls and being
Speaker 1: in the discussion at that time is the greatest to
Speaker 1: ever play. To me, he is the greatest to ever
Speaker 1: play quarterback. And here he is reliving that day and
Speaker 1: talking about it. This quarterback went and then that quarterback went,
Speaker 1: and I, you know, I just decided I was just
Speaker 1: going to go take a walk. And he's he's talkies.
Speaker 1: You can almost feel him reliving it, and he starts
Speaker 1: to cry about how emotional it was and how painful
Speaker 1: it was for him to get past. And here he is,
Speaker 1: this isn't like it happened last week. You know, it
Speaker 1: happened several years and several you know, super Bowl rings
Speaker 1: before that. And I just love the Brady finds a
Speaker 1: way to keep an edge about him, and to this day,
Speaker 1: I watched him, you know, the other day they didn't
Speaker 1: win the game against the Rams, but he still has
Speaker 1: like this, this edge. And I'm never comparing myself to
Speaker 1: Tom Brady at all, but I am comparing myself to
Speaker 1: him as far as when he looks in the mirror,
Speaker 1: he sees a six round draft pick. No matter what
Speaker 1: he does, that's what he sees. And that allows him
Speaker 1: to stay hungry and stay motivated. And when he retires,
Speaker 1: then maybe he'll see himself as Okay, I'm a Hall
Speaker 1: of Famer and all that, and I'm going to go
Speaker 1: to Canton and I went on a bunch of Super Bowls.
Speaker 1: But until then, he doesn't see that. And in our business,
Speaker 1: I've had a little bit of success on some shows
Speaker 1: and done whatever. But I look in the mirror and
Speaker 1: I still see a guy that was on ESPN two
Speaker 1: covering the Rattlers and just trying to make a name
Speaker 1: for myself and just trying to get my foot in
Speaker 1: the door, and just trying to prove that I belong.
Speaker 1: That's who today, who who I see. And so it's
Speaker 1: easy for me to stay hungry. It's easy for me
Speaker 1: to be humble because there's no other way to be,
Speaker 1: first of all, and then secondly, if I ever feel
Speaker 1: like I don't need to prep right, I don't, you know,
Speaker 1: look at I've all these things I've accomplished, Like I
Speaker 1: just I can't even imagine being that way. And I
Speaker 1: just love staying like you. You texted me, I was
Speaker 1: studying film, you called me. I was studying film like
Speaker 1: it's Monday, and I'm just digging in on Georgia. And
Speaker 1: after we hang up, I'm going to dig in more
Speaker 1: on Arkansas, and it's just all I know, and hopefully
Speaker 1: it helps me to do the job that I do
Speaker 1: and and I'll do that until I retire. But and
Speaker 1: also feel like my faith, you know when when it
Speaker 1: comes to I don't know, I feel like humility. If
Speaker 1: you're really into your faith, humility, it's just kind of
Speaker 1: it kind of comes to you. You know. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm no better than anybody as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: So I think it makes it. It makes it pretty simple,
Speaker 1: you know, when when you look at the grand scheme
Speaker 1: of things. I always tell people, Kirk that being on
Speaker 1: a broadcast team is like having a second family. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I got to imagine, I know, you get into
Speaker 1: this a lot in the book, your relationship with with
Speaker 1: Lee Corso. I'm sure you have a million memories. I mean,
Speaker 1: how much is he like a second father to you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He is. I mean he wasn't at first because he
Speaker 1: was just funny, you know, and I would I would,
Speaker 1: I just get the biggest kick of him with his
Speaker 1: one liners and his you know, he says stuff that
Speaker 1: nobody else would say, and he can he can get
Speaker 1: away with it because he was Lee Corso. And I
Speaker 1: just first four or five years, I just kind of
Speaker 1: looked at him, like, you know, my buddies would come
Speaker 1: out to the show and we'd all sit around he
Speaker 1: can launch or something, and he would tell one story
Speaker 1: after another after another. We would just all laugh and
Speaker 1: just could not get enough of him, right. And then
Speaker 1: you know, I got married, and then I had kids,
Speaker 1: and my kids were born prematurely. You know, they were
Speaker 1: in the nick you for eight weeks, and I started
Speaker 1: to go through real grown up stuff. My dad one
Speaker 1: of the things I talked about the book. As much
Speaker 1: as he was my hero, he didn't really listen. And
Speaker 1: I saw what happened over time as I just shut
Speaker 1: down talking to him about anything of real, any meaning,
Speaker 1: not because I didn't want to, but because it was
Speaker 1: so painful. The one person I wanted to share things
Speaker 1: with he didn't listen. And so I got into a
Speaker 1: habit of just not, Hey, how's how things going, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's going good, it's going good, that kind of conversation,
Speaker 1: as opposed to really because if I started to tell
Speaker 1: him what was really happening, he just didn't hear it.
Speaker 1: And so lee in the back of these some of
Speaker 1: these photos and things we would do, I would start
Speaker 1: to talk to him about it, and I found out,
Speaker 1: holy cow, he's listening. And then another conversation and another,
Speaker 1: and you start talking about real things. And I'm a
Speaker 1: big guy that believes in talking to, you know, people
Speaker 1: that are older than me because of their wisdom, their
Speaker 1: own life experiences. I love listening to a guy like that,
Speaker 1: if they're willing to sit and talk, I just love.
Speaker 1: I just always have enjoyed that. And so here I
Speaker 1: am talking and open up my heart to him, and
Speaker 1: there he is listening. And then like Don Corleone or
Speaker 1: Yoda from Star Wars, he would just kind of kind
Speaker 1: of pat me on the hand and kind of give
Speaker 1: me a sentence. After I just said twenty minutes worth
Speaker 1: of my concerns, he just would pat me on the
Speaker 1: hand and kind of just say, you know, here's the answer. Boom.
Speaker 1: And I would just be like, that's it. I'm worrying
Speaker 1: about all this stuff for nothing. He's like, don't worry,
Speaker 1: trust me, you know. And so over time, years, years
Speaker 1: and years would go by, and more and more I
Speaker 1: would talk to him about stuff and I would just
Speaker 1: sound it fascinating how much I was not intentionally trying
Speaker 1: to build a relationship. I was just like you do
Speaker 1: with your friends, you know, you just start to build
Speaker 1: a connection in a bond and then like you know, seven, eight, nine,
Speaker 1: ten years go by, now we're at twenty six, and
Speaker 1: it's like he's like a dear friend, like people you
Speaker 1: work with and people that are listening. Maybe there's people
Speaker 1: that they work with that they're like that for them.
Speaker 1: And then he had a stroke about twelve years ago,
Speaker 1: and then it was on what we all were just like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, is he okay? Are we gonna lose
Speaker 1: him to the show? Is he gonna be all right?
Speaker 1: And then he fought like crazy, you know, was this
Speaker 1: speech therapist to get back and had the courage to
Speaker 1: go on national TV without a teleprompter and it's like
Speaker 1: doing a circus act without a net and he's out
Speaker 1: there talking. At that time, he was probably seventy four
Speaker 1: and he's out there after a stroke, determined to be
Speaker 1: on the show. And then then I became like he's
Speaker 1: been helping me all these years. You know, the least
Speaker 1: I can do is try to be there for him,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of been my role, and it's,
Speaker 1: you know, I try to help him, but I try
Speaker 1: not to ever make it look like I'm helping him,
Speaker 1: you know, because he doesn't want that, So I just
Speaker 1: try to do it subtly. But yeah, he's he's a
Speaker 1: dear friend to everybody, but the fact I've been with
Speaker 1: him for twenty six years. He's the sweetest guy you're
Speaker 1: ever gonna meet. He's just the man. You know, we
Speaker 1: love him. You do a great job. It's noticeable, Kirk,
Speaker 1: how respectful you are of him, and how if there's
Speaker 1: a time where he might be struggling to come up
Speaker 1: with what he wants to say, you help him along
Speaker 1: or I mean, you're it's it's really noticeable how the
Speaker 1: friendship comes through on the air. Oh that's cool. I
Speaker 1: you know, I hear that a lot, probably more than
Speaker 1: anything else from people. I hear about that. And so,
Speaker 1: like I said, I'm just trying to do it in
Speaker 1: a way that's that's dignified. And you know, if it's
Speaker 1: a one little word, I can kind of say, you know,
Speaker 1: under my breath and and it kind of gets him
Speaker 1: like a little bit of a pit stop, because people
Speaker 1: need to understand he's eighty six I think now, and
Speaker 1: it's not as cognitive thinking. It's it's from the from
Speaker 1: the stroke. He just sometimes can't get his words out.
Speaker 1: So if he didn't have that stroke, he'd be eighty
Speaker 1: six playing seventy five like it or seventy even. I mean,
Speaker 1: he is amazing with how how sharp he is. And
Speaker 1: I just think about when I was a kid, my grandparents,
Speaker 1: or you think about somebody that you know, they get
Speaker 1: into their seventies or eighties, if they're if they're able
Speaker 1: to continue to be healthy and active. Just think about
Speaker 1: somebody eighty six years old and he's out there on
Speaker 1: the set. He's catching flights, you know, he's flying around.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know how it is on the road.
Speaker 1: It's a grind right for all of us. Hotel rooms
Speaker 1: and and we do everything we can, our ops teams
Speaker 1: everything they can to try to make it as easy
Speaker 1: as they can for him. But the reality is, you
Speaker 1: still got to get up, you still got to get
Speaker 1: on these flights, you still got to stay in the hotels.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and there he is. You know, with he
Speaker 1: he'll be quick to tell you I got I got
Speaker 1: my shot, and I got my booster. I'm good to go,
Speaker 1: you know, because last year he couldn't travel. This year
Speaker 1: he's he's out on the road with us every week.
Speaker 1: So he's still amazing, he really is. And and and
Speaker 1: I worked a lot of NBA games with Huby Brown.
Speaker 1: Hughby just turned eighty eight, and he's still I just
Speaker 1: got a voicemail from him today. It's like a two
Speaker 1: minute voicemail and he's so sharp and so dialed in
Speaker 1: and so jacked up for the season. It's just love that.
Speaker 1: God love him, God love him that they have a passion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think if there's a lesson for all
Speaker 1: of us as we get older, it's it's to have
Speaker 1: have something you look forward You wake up and you
Speaker 1: look forward to it. You know, you look forward to
Speaker 1: because that's how you stay engaged, and you stay motivated,
Speaker 1: and you stay you know, you stay excited about life
Speaker 1: because I know is my my dad has passed. But
Speaker 1: my mom, you know there's some show go through some
Speaker 1: you know periods where it's like she gets a little
Speaker 1: down or she's going through you know that's normal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you got a football season thankfully for her is
Speaker 1: like she's like me. She she loves every second of it.
Speaker 1: So that's that's definitely a good good time of the
Speaker 1: year for her. Well, a couple more we'll get you
Speaker 1: out of here. I do want to ask you about
Speaker 1: the Cardinals and Kyler Murray. But one more thing that
Speaker 1: you do discuss in the book. And I have an idea,
Speaker 1: but don't really know exactly what a typical Saturday is
Speaker 1: like for you during college football season from sun up
Speaker 1: to sundown. Our producer Jim Mhandro asked me before we
Speaker 1: started the interview, how does Kirk go from college game Day,
Speaker 1: which could be in another in one city, and then
Speaker 1: go do the Saturday primetime game on ABC in an
Speaker 1: entirely different city while prepping for both all week long.
Speaker 1: So what is a typical Saturday for you? What time
Speaker 1: do you get up? What's your routine? And then, yeah,
Speaker 1: what time do you shut it down? So there's two
Speaker 1: different Saturdays. There's the saturdays where game day in the
Speaker 1: game I'm calling in the same spot. In that case,
Speaker 1: I just do game day in the morning from nine
Speaker 1: am Eastern to twelve and then we'll go to the
Speaker 1: All State bus And on the back of that bus
Speaker 1: it's me and Bear and a couple other guys and
Speaker 1: the lighting is low. Five TVs are on the air
Speaker 1: conditioning set at sixty five and we're just in heaven
Speaker 1: watching games being fans. You know, we're yelling at each
Speaker 1: other and making fun of each other's picks and top rights.
Speaker 1: We're looking at you know, like we're just it's like
Speaker 1: we're a sports bar. So we do that. I've got
Speaker 1: my board in front of me and I'm making notes
Speaker 1: and I'm still kind of prepping for the game, but
Speaker 1: I've done so much work it's kind of like the
Speaker 1: haze in the bar, and it's a good distraction for me.
Speaker 1: So we're from about twelve fifteen, twelve twenty all the
Speaker 1: way up until an hour before kickoff at the game.
Speaker 1: The bus is parched right upside of the stadium. And
Speaker 1: then about an hour before the game, I'll go out
Speaker 1: like you do, and I'll go out and you know,
Speaker 1: talk to the players and coaches that are warm it out,
Speaker 1: mainly the coaches, and get some final thoughts, and then
Speaker 1: I'll go up into the booth and call the game.
Speaker 1: And that's like a normal Saturday. And then last week,
Speaker 1: you know, out of fifteen Saturdays, i'd say seven or
Speaker 1: like last week, which is where game day was in Chicago.
Speaker 1: So you're in Chicago getting ready Thursday, Friday, and then
Speaker 1: Saturday morning you do game day and then assumes game
Speaker 1: days over. They'll take me to the nearest airport and
Speaker 1: then Disney will fly myself and Bear and me and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Wiley and a couple other people. We fly. Where
Speaker 1: will we last week? Norman? So we went from Chicago
Speaker 1: to Norman. As soon as we get there, there's a
Speaker 1: guy waiting for us. He picks us up, takes us
Speaker 1: straight through the stadium and then we get there's the
Speaker 1: All State bus there. So we get on the bus
Speaker 1: there and get our you know, lighting down, air conditioning on,
Speaker 1: games on, and we watch games and until we get
Speaker 1: ready to go in and call the game. With Oklahoma
Speaker 1: and West Virginia, it just kind of splits, you know,
Speaker 1: from from depending on where we are this week, it's
Speaker 1: actually in the same spot, so it's in Athens, So
Speaker 1: I'll be at the Georgia Arkansas game, which I assume
Speaker 1: you got to get off the air a little bit
Speaker 1: early right to get up to the booth because it's
Speaker 1: a twelve o'clock kick, right. Yeah. I think I think
Speaker 1: they've got a trick or two up their sleeve this week.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be. I think it's gonna
Speaker 1: be like a twelve o eight kick, So I think
Speaker 1: I'm staying all the way through the show for the
Speaker 1: head gear. I think Chris is going to have his
Speaker 1: Vinskully moment for the first like five minutes, so call
Speaker 1: the game by himself and then I'll run up there
Speaker 1: and join him. Speaking of Chris, you guys have done
Speaker 1: NFL games in the past, and you know, did a
Speaker 1: fantastic job, not surprisingly. How much NFL do you consume?
Speaker 1: I actually do. I I grew up a kind of
Speaker 1: a Bengals fan and then moved to Nashville and Rapes.
Speaker 1: My buddy got the job there, and I started to
Speaker 1: watch the Titans. But I'd really like to just watch
Speaker 1: the players, you know, like I'll watch the Cardinals because
Speaker 1: of Kyler Murray, you know, I'll watch the Packers. I
Speaker 1: like to watch some of these players do their thing,
Speaker 1: like you know, watching the Packers competing against the Niners.
Speaker 1: That was so much fun. So but I consume it,
Speaker 1: you know, I definitely I watch as much as I can.
Speaker 1: I love the nationally televised, the bigger games. You talked
Speaker 1: about Kyler. You covered him in college, as did I.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. Is there anything that surprises you as you
Speaker 1: watch him now in the NFL. No. I always wondered
Speaker 1: as the game has evolved in these last five or
Speaker 1: six years, where the the NFL is becoming more and
Speaker 1: more like college. And I think there was a time,
Speaker 1: as you know, when the NFL, he's always kid, you know,
Speaker 1: like Jaws and those guys National Football League. You've got
Speaker 1: to make plays from the pocket, you know. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's such a different game today. I mean, you
Speaker 1: look at what Baker Mayfield does and Kyler Murray does,
Speaker 1: and of course Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. It's just
Speaker 1: it's the college. It's a lot of these college offenses
Speaker 1: that it's almost reversed. The college game is filtering to
Speaker 1: a lot of these NFL offenses, and so there's no
Speaker 1: longer this, wow, he's only five eleven or he's only
Speaker 1: six feet tall. You don't you don't hear, I mean,
Speaker 1: he still hear some of the old guard people say that.
Speaker 1: But truly, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter to
Speaker 1: run Cliff Kingsbury's offense. I don't care if you're six
Speaker 1: to four or you're five to eleven. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you can make the throws and make the reads and
Speaker 1: be a point guard and let's go, let's go play.
Speaker 1: And he's got as good at command as anybody for
Speaker 1: that system, and he's so twitchy and he's done a
Speaker 1: really good job. Because of his baseball background, He's kind
Speaker 1: of like Russell. He just has a feel for when
Speaker 1: to get down and avoid the big It's because that
Speaker 1: was the other knock. You know, if you were an
Speaker 1: athletic quarterbacks, Oh, in the NFL, you know you can't
Speaker 1: take those hits. It's like, well, the smart guys are
Speaker 1: getting out of bounds and they're sliding underneath it and
Speaker 1: they're preserving their bodies. And so my thing with Kyler
Speaker 1: was always, does he have command of the room, like
Speaker 1: the guys want to play for him? That was the
Speaker 1: one thing I wanted to see as he went into
Speaker 1: the NFL, and I think they did at Oklahoma, and
Speaker 1: I just wanted to see that that part of his
Speaker 1: game continue to grow and mature, and it looks like
Speaker 1: it looks like it has. But that was It's fun
Speaker 1: to watch him, and it's fun to watch Cliff, you know,
Speaker 1: doing doing their thing in the NFL world. When you
Speaker 1: look at Cliff now compared to the system he played
Speaker 1: in at Texas tech U, the quintessential air raid, which
Speaker 1: is obviously evolved, you know, considerably, and you just you know,
Speaker 1: Lincoln Riley, it doesn't even look like the old air raid.
Speaker 1: How impressed are you with Cliff's ability to adapt? One
Speaker 1: thing that's always stood out to me about him is
Speaker 1: he's happy to admit he doesn't know at all and
Speaker 1: willing to change and adjust. Well, I just think he's
Speaker 1: a really intelligent guy that is willing to, as you
Speaker 1: just said, not have all the answers. So you don't
Speaker 1: have all the answers, you become a sponge, you know,
Speaker 1: and you're it's not like the days of it's my
Speaker 1: way or the highway. So he gets labeled as an
Speaker 1: air raid guy, but if you really watch his offense,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, there's air raid elements to it, but
Speaker 1: I mean they run the ball, you know. If you
Speaker 1: if you think about air raid and going way back
Speaker 1: to when it started to become the air raid, it
Speaker 1: was it was like Mike does now in Starkville, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's very little running. I mean, his
Speaker 1: quarterback the other day through it like sixty seven times
Speaker 1: or whatever, and it's just that that's the air raid.
Speaker 1: These versions of the air raid that we see, I
Speaker 1: think because of their background and where they coached as
Speaker 1: an assistant or head coach, if there's any affiliation at
Speaker 1: all to Mike Leach, they kind of get labeled that way.
Speaker 1: But you know, you know, because he's sit around and
Speaker 1: talk with him, I think he's just a bright guy,
Speaker 1: and I think he understands defense and how to attack
Speaker 1: it and where it's weaknesses are. And then he does
Speaker 1: it fast, you know. And if you can execute and
Speaker 1: find a quarterback that can understand it and execute fast
Speaker 1: and not make mistakes, then in today's game, you get
Speaker 1: a chance because it's all about processing the quarterbacks ability
Speaker 1: to process coverage, who makes the quickest decisions and the
Speaker 1: best decisions and then throws the ball accurately. And then
Speaker 1: when you sprinkle in being is dynamic of an athlete
Speaker 1: that you have in Kyler murray Man. That's a tough
Speaker 1: offense to defend. But I think the last thing I'll
Speaker 1: say is what I feel like he's grown. Like anybody
Speaker 1: else that gets better the more they do it is
Speaker 1: playing complimentary football. It's one thing to have a great
Speaker 1: innovative offense. It's another thing to have an offense that
Speaker 1: can have a four minute offense that can protect their
Speaker 1: own defense and just see it through the lens of
Speaker 1: a head coach, not just a play caller. I think
Speaker 1: in college Lane Kiffin is really maturing, you know, over
Speaker 1: the years in that area, whereas last year I think
Speaker 1: it was more all about Hey, I put forty some
Speaker 1: points on Nick Saban, so well you lost. I think
Speaker 1: now he's trying to do the best he can and
Speaker 1: trying to call it and have an understanding of what
Speaker 1: he needs to do for his own defense. And I
Speaker 1: think Cliff has definitely grown. It's just as like all
Speaker 1: of us. And the more often he does it, more
Speaker 1: experience he gets, the better he becomes. Herbie, you're the best.
Speaker 1: I can sit here and talk to you all day, man,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. Have a great show Saturday, and a
Speaker 1: great call as well. Hey, you keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: Love to join you anytime, and hope to get out
Speaker 1: there one of these days. That's a beautiful area and
Speaker 1: love to catch up with you next time I am
Speaker 1: out there. Sounds great, Kirk, Thanks man. Okay, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: spent almost an Hour with Kirk Curve Street could have
Speaker 1: gone to his book is Awesome. Out of the Pocket,
Speaker 1: Football Fatherhood and College Game Day Saturdays. You can get
Speaker 1: Kirk's book wherever you buy your books. You can also
Speaker 1: get them online. He gets into a lot of different stuff,
Speaker 1: very vulnerable and humble, talking about how his parents divorce
Speaker 1: shaped him. Also discusses his relationship with Lee Corso and
Speaker 1: his journey from being a quarterback and captain at Ohio
Speaker 1: State to becoming a multiple Emmy Award winning broadcaster for
Speaker 1: ESPN and ABC and a guy that many feel is
Speaker 1: the face and voice of college football in America. Again,
Speaker 1: that's out of the Pocket, Football Fatherhood and College Game
Speaker 1: Day Saturdays. We are presented by bet MGM official sports
Speaker 1: betting partner, Rout, the Arizona Cardinals, and Hilo River Hotels
Speaker 1: and Casinos. You can follow us along on Twitter at
Speaker 1: pash pot. Lastly, the thing that stood out to me
Speaker 1: what Kirk said about the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray
Speaker 1: was how he wanted to see if Murray would grow
Speaker 1: and develop as a leader, if he could command a
Speaker 1: locker room, which he did at Oklahoma. According to Herbstreet,
Speaker 1: I think that's a big reason why the Cardinals are
Speaker 1: three and oh. Kyler is growing, he's maturing as a leader,
Speaker 1: and guys are starting to follow him. Let's see if
Speaker 1: the Cardinals can keep it up against the undefeated Rams
Speaker 1: on Sunday. Thanks again to ESPN ABC announcer Kirk Herbstreet.
Speaker 1: I'm Dave Pash and we'll talk to you next time.
Speaker 1: I'm the Dave Pash Podcast