College GameDay’s Kirk Herbstreit threatens to ‘quit’ ESPN if forced into career move amid subtle shot

Kirk Herbstreit is one of the most respected voices in college football.

The ESPN and Amazon Prime football analyst is renowned for his insight and knowledge of the college game, and is a key member of the College Gameday, ESPN’s flagship Saturday morning show.

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But despite Herbstreit’s affiliation with ESPN, don’t expect him to feature in some of the hot take, ‘clickbait-driven’ debates that regularly appear on the network.

In fact, it seems Herbstreit would rather quit and retire altogether than have to participate in shows that are built around arguing various number of hot button issues.

Herbstreit appeared on The Inner Circle Podcast recently where he shared his thoughts on the modern sports media landscape and industry at large.

He traced the need for ‘loud’ and ‘viral’ back to the early ESPN First Take days, which has since become the template for so many TV shows.

“I think it started with Skip Bayless and Stephen A. because they kind of had a thing with them way back, way back at ESPN, where they would just kind of ‘Let’s argue to argue’ kind of thing,” Herbstreit said.

“And it works for them, but I think other shows copied it and it just has become — I have to turn it off because it makes me get really frustrated as a sports fan and as somebody in the industry.”

Herbstreit then went as far as to say he would quit if he was ever forced to take part in such shows.

“I watch some of these shows on various networks, especially the NFL shows, and it drives me crazy where our industry has gone,” Herbstreit said.

“And politics are obviously this way, too, but it’s a lot of clickbait. It’s a lot of like really loud comments that will maybe go viral. ‘I might not believe in it, but it’s gonna go viral, and people are going to know who I am.’ Man, I will quit before I ever do that. Like, if that’s what it takes to make it, I would never do this.”

Herbstreit’s comments could be seen as a shot to his own employer, given ESPN are widely accredited with berthing that style of sports debate show.

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However, the former Ohio State quarterback was quick to praise the network for its College GameDay coverage, saying the crew are allowed to focus on the game itself, rather than viral moments.

“On GameDay, we don’t do that. Again, Pat [McAfee’s] crazy and fun, but we make it about the players, we make it about the coaches, and we make it about the storylines. We really don’t make it about us,” Herbstreit said.

“And the reason I’ll tell y’all that is if it ever changed, I would be so fast gone out of studio television. But I’m lucky. I kind of live on an island where we’re allowed to still talk ball and still just have fun talking about ball.”

Herbstreit’s comments come amid the news that ESPN may be forced into pulling the plug on a College GameDay staple.

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