The Dave Pasch Podcast - Kirk Herbstreit

a lot of fun. Herb Street, like me and many other broadcasters, started in talk radio and coming up you'll learn how Herb Street went from a very low paying job to being one of the top announcers in all of sports. Kirk's also going to talk about his new book Out of the Pocket, Football Fatherhood, and College Game Day Saturdays. He'll discuss his relationship with his dad and also how his parents divorce help shape him his relationship with his dad on television Lee Corso that's something that

Kirk will dive into as well. Herb Street will also talk about some of the things he loves about college football right now and the twenty twenty one season and also some of the things he doesn't like. Right now, Kirk will get into the NFL, the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray. That's all coming up on the Dave Pash Podcast. We are presented by bet MGM, the official sports betting partner of the Arizona Cardinals and Hila River Hotels and Casinos.

You can also follow us on Twitter at pashpod. So here he is ESPN ABC announcer Kirk Herbstreet Herbie, great to talk to you, man, appreciate you doing this. I definitely want to get into the book and spend some considerable time there. But first give me your thoughts on the college football season so far. What stands out to you the most through the first month of the season. Wow, I think it's the first time that it just feels so open, you know, access feels open to conference championships,

to potential heavyweight bowl games, to the playoff. You know, we always talked about the possibility of the sport needing to expand the playoffs to keep more people interested. Because it's a foregone conclusion that Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, maybe a Georgia, maybe in Oklahoma and everybody else don't. Don't

worry about it. Sometimes that's how it feels, I think for the fan bases, and you know, this year, it just feels like everybody's vulnerable, you know, coming out of the year of COVID last year, it feels like they're they're really I mean, you could say Alabama's the best, but they've got a old miss this week and that could get sideways potentially in Georgia. They're gonna have some challenges, including this weekend with Arkansas. So I don't know, it

just feels I like it. By the way, it feels like we've got we've got a lot more intrigued with more and more upsets, more parody, and even a group of five team like Cincinnati, you know, playing Notre Dame this weekend, trying to throw their into the ring. So I think it's been fun. Kirk, you have Georgia this week, and I know you've been watching tape. It seems to me, I mean, look, they've they've had great players for a long time and especially recently, but it seems like they've

got more dudes than ever. Have you Is that stood out to you when you're watching film? Yeah, I think that the area is where you see it the most number one depth at wide receiver. You know that that's been an achilles heel of theirs. You know, they had George Pickens and then kind of other guys. You know, Kier's Jackson has come on last year in this year, and Jermaine Burton. But I don't know. I just feel with A. A. D. Mitchell and this young tight end

that they have Rock Bowers. They haven't even played their starting tight end. He's been hurt Tony in Washington. It just feels like they've got a better group there so they can rotate and stay fresh and stay fast. And then on defense they're just terrifying. I mean, Jordan Davis gets a lot of the attention, but DeVante Wyatt you've seen he's got ninety five and eighty eight. Jalen Carter,

he's a backup. He might be the most talented, most gifted, Like five years from now and we're looking at this team, the guy that might be crushing NFL quarterbacks is Carter. So yeah, they're loaded. And one thing I noticed I did their game Week one against Clemson. They've got a good mix of veterans that are played and then a wave of young or young as far as experience, but just some guys that have a little bit of a

chip on their shoulder. They've had to pay their dues, they had to sit behind Richard LeCount and others, you know, in that secondary. A lot of those guys moved on to the NFL and so they had to sit there and wait. So they're playing with some urgencies. So I think when you mix that whole thing up, this Georgia defense has got a strong personality and a strong love for each other. And I think it's pretty evident when you get around him. You just saw Spencer Rattler on

Saturday night. He's from here. I had them week one when they kind of let two lane back in the game and it got a little too close for comfort there at the end, he was he was probably the Heisman favorite coming in. Where do you see him now? And who are some of the candidates. I know it's you know, not even October, but who are some of the candidates you think that'll be there at the end for the Heisman. Well, first, I think we have to just try to put in perspective what happened to him

as past Saturday. I mean, he like you said, he was a Heisman front runner, not for his team but for the nation. And he's being booed off the field week four, and in fact, they were channing, you know, we want Caleb, we want Caleb. The stands were meeting Caleb Williams, the backup quarterback. I don't know if I've ever in all the years I've been covering the sport

and playing the sport. I mean, you always hear, you know, from time to time you're gonna hear a backup quarterback's name chant, But for a Heisman, preseason Heisman favorite, four weeks into a season hearing that, I think it's unprecedented. I don't think I've ever ever seen anything like that, And it made me start to think a little bit. In this era of name, image and likeness, how much is this. It's a new world that we're in. And

you're familiar with Spencer because he's from out there. I think part of his deal for me after doing QB one was he needed to grow up, he needed to mature. He'll tell you he has his teammates, his coaches will tell you that, but he I think he is profited the most off of anil and I just wonder, kind of like in the world that you live in with the Cardinals, it's a different kind of fan base. With the NFL, they make money, they get booed, their high expectations.

I'm just wondering if we're starting to cross the line that it's no longer college kids and all that, but now it's it's it's this nil. These guys are being paid and their higher expectations, and if they don't produce, then they're going to feel the wrath of the fan base. I don't know if we're going there, but it certainly felt like that this past Saturday in Norman. And if you look at DJ at Clemson, he's got a lot of nil. He's got a lot of pressure that he's

dealing with. Look at the quarterback Sam Howe was another one at North Carolina that was highly touted in the preseason. I just think that in this era of coming off the Summer Olympics with Smone Biles, where she started to feel some anxiety and pressure to have to deliver and almost live up to unrealistic expectations and it got the best of her. I wonder if we're going to start to see some of that in college football, especially at that position where nil is the most likely going to be.

These quarterbacks are going to attract most of the opportunity. These I just wonder if we're starting to see some some different things. But as far as to answer the question, I think Bryce Young at Alabama's helping himself. He's kind of been able to block out the noise. I'm kind of looking down the road if JT. Daniels continues to play well and Georgia keeps wedding, I think he's a

guy that definitely would be under consideration. And I think my favorite as we sit here right now three or four weeks in, is Matt Carroll at Old Miss. You know, I think he's playing well. He's in an offense where he's going to put up astronomical numbers, and he's got a little bit of an edge to him. I cannot wait to see how they play this weekend against Alabama.

I want to go back to what you said. I hadn't thought about what you said about the connection now with nil and players making money, so that it's almost like open season, that a fan now has the right to do a college athlete where maybe before you wouldn't see that or certainly wouldn't see it this early in the season on a team that's top five. That's a great point. I wonder if we're going to start seeing

more of that because we've crossed the line now. Look, it's always been a business, but there's a line that's been crossed, so now they're professionals as well as being college athletes. And I also think that's a reason why a lot of college coaches are looking to go to the NFL. Look, you and I know Urban Meyer pretty well. We just played Urban the other day. You know, Texas comes after him. He doesn't take it. Why the NIL is a big deal when it comes to you know,

it's not just the parents anymore. You got to recruit agents, basically, and I don't think a lot of college coaches want to do that anymore because now you're dealing with so much more on a daily basis. Is that something you think we'll see from a coach's standpoint, where they start more college coaches like Cliff and Matt Rule and Urban start to look for the NFL. We'll have to see. I know in talking to coaches, they're all very very

concerned not just with NIL but transfer portal. You know, there are coaches now that feel they have to try to play guys just to try to keep them happy. Like, when did we ever get into a world of college football, big time college football where some of the not all, some of the coaches, I don't want to say they're walking on eggshells, but they're aware of their players, and they're aware of they don't want their players to get

their feelings hurt. They don't want their players to get disgruntled. What can I do to try to make this guy

happy even though he's not playing. We had a game the other night for Ohio State was playing and one of their linebackers, who evidently was upset with the amount of playing time he was receiving, got into a heated exchange with the linebacker coach how Washington, and in the middle of the game, he started to take off his equipment and then was escorted off the sideline through his equipment, you know, into the locker, took a shower, left, tweeted out some nasty you know things out of I'm sure

of emotion and trustration, but it all stems um amount of playing time. And that's a real thing, I guess in twenty twenty one. That you imagine if I don't know Woody Hayes or Bear Bryan or any of these guys, they never ever even thought about dealing with that. So it is a different landscape. Um. I personally, after watching a lot of this and being around all over the country, I don't think I ever think we're in a time where I would recruit the parents more than right now,

Like you got you got a kid, you're recruiting. I would get to know what's the family, what's their motivation, what kind of people are they, what kind of person is his kid? Does he love football? That's a rarity anymore, he actually love football, you know, not not Instagram, not the celebrity aspect, not the monetary aspect. But does he

love going to practice? Does he love his craft? I would find kids that love football, and I would find parents that want their kids to grow in every way and not just be told yes, yes, yes all the time. So it's a different I don't think coaches are going to leave immediately because the money is really good and end of the day, the lifestyle is pretty good, but they do need to be smart about building their program

and not feeling as if they have to be. You know, whatever the player needs, we got to keep them happy. That's not the answer to this at all. And just watch Nick Saban. You know, if Nick Saban gets sideways with a player, he lets the player know. This is the culture, this is the way I run my operation. Either get on board or get the hell out of here. You know, it's pretty simple. And guys don't cross Coach

Saban because they fear the consequences. You've become the face and voice of college football over the last twenty years, certainly at ESPN. I'm curious, Kirk, when you left Ohio State after playing quarterback there, and I remember you playing quarterback there because my sophomore year at Syracuse the first college football game I ever did you probably remember the game was at the Carrier Dome against Ohio State and you were the quarterback. Did you ever envision when you're

playing at Ohio State. I don't know how much you even thought about broadcasting back then, but did you imagine at all your life turning out the way it has? No? No, not at all. I was a business major at Ohio State, and you don't like any quarterback at a school you hope to one day be able to play in the NFL, and when that was not a reality, I just kind of thought, Okay, I'll just try to go get a job.

And Ohio State was really good. They had a guy there named Larry Romanov who helped people when they graduated with contacts. And I did a couple of pharmaceutical sales interviews and medical sales and Worthington Industries, and all those interviews went really well, and I had second to third in a couple cases and was about to accept just

a job in pharmaceutical sales. And I just, on my own, for whatever reasoned out to a local AM station in Columbus and said, hey, if you ever need me, you know, being a former captain and player and loved it to help you guys out with your Higo State coverage. And they got back to me, you know, like a month later,

and said your timing is great. We're going to go to an all sports format and we need a host and we'll pay you twelve thousand dollars and you're going to do a show in the afternoon drive with At that time, we called him the Voice of the Buckeys, Terry Smith. He's now with the Anaheim Angels and I joined.

I passed up on what would be considered lucrative, more traditional jobs which they were offered, and I just passed on them to just had no goals of way, one day I'll go on TV, or one day I'll work at ESPN, nothing like that. It just sounded like a fun job. I grew up listening to talk radio, and

I thought that sounds like a lot of fun. So I took the job for twelve thousand, no, no, four o K, nothing, just twelve thousand dollars, which to me, I didn't come from any money, so it sounded like pretty good money to me, and so I took it and things just changed. That was summer of ninety three, and I was at ESPN in the fall of ninety five as a sideline reporter. My first fall there. I don't remember you doing sidelines. I don't, so that's how

you started. And then how did college Game Day come about? Well? I worked with Todd Christiansen. He was my analyst when I was a sideline reporter. Dwayne Stats, who was a baseball guy. He was the play by play guy that I worked with, and we we we started on a new station called ESPN two, and so we would be, you know, in the Mountain West. You know, I was on the sidelines one time on on the sidelines at Fort Collins and Urban Meyer who recruited me when he

was at Ohio State as a GA. He's a receiver coach for Earl Bruce and he sees me, He's like, what the heck are you doing over here? You know, how are you in Fort Collins? And we just we always kid about that, but yeah, it was cool. It was cool just to kind of learn the business and the good and the bad and had a really bad producer that made my life miserable and surprised. You know, you look back at that time that I stuck with

it based on that that experience that year. But anyway, after that season got named Moe Davenport asked me to do arena football and be the color analysts, just to see if I could do games. And Todd Christensen was going to do play by play and he was an analyst.

Gonna try try and play by play. So we did an arena football year the spring summer of ninety five or ninety six, and some guy named Kurt Warner was the the quarterback for the Iowa Barnstormers, who ended up becoming the MVP of the of the It was the season that year, and ironically they're making a movie out of his life. And that year was my year being around arena football. So I was in Des Moines, Iowa

almost like every other week, called Kurt Warner's games. That little did I know what he would become, you know, with the rams and what a future Hall of Fame career he had. And during the middle of that year,

I got another call. Craig James had left game day to go to CBS and they said, literally, Devenport told me, you're not going to get the job, but at this early stage of your career, it'd be really good experience for you to go through the audition that we're going to have for you and a few other people, and we're gonna fly in Fowler and Courso and just see how it goes. And so I flew in in the middle of I was, like I said, in the middle of my arena seasons. I flew in and did the

audition and sweated bullets through it. I was terrified. I was like twenty four, twenty five years old. I was so scared sitting next to Lee and Chris and they did the whole theme music. We did like a fake segment, and that was it. I left and went back on the roads do an arena football. And a month or two later, my agent called me and said that I think Howard Katz saw something with Lee and I and he wanted to take a just take a chance and hire me over the other people that were applying for it.

And that was it. That was in the summer of ninety six, and then I started that fall fall of ninety six. So it seems like seven or eight years ago. I can't believe it was. Whatever it is twenty six years ago. So we're going to dive into the book here out of the Pocket Football Fatherhood and college Game Base Saturdays, and I'm curious what inspired you to write it. But let's go back one second, because I wasn't going to ask you because I had no idea that you'd

covered arena football. Kurt was actually the first guest on this podcast. Now cool. Yeah, known Kurt for a while, obviously spent time here, and we had him on for an hour, could have had him on for two. Just so many great stories. Was there anything can you think back, was there anything that stood out to you that year? I mean, did you have a sense at all about where things could go for him? Did you meet with

him back? He Yeah, we met with him. He was so classy and so down to earth, and you know, the whole story of him being out of the game and then getting that opportunity and the NFL game was so different. You know, what Mike Martz did was just so it was just a game changer. It was hard to envision a guy playing arena football would be able to go and play in the NFL in that era. It just wasn't done. By the way, we were in

Phoenix all the time. There was a guy named Hunky Cooper was on the team, and I think it was a rattler switch the name of their team, and we were it was used to be called the America West Arena, and we'd go in there and they're fan base, they loved it. I think Danny White might have been the if I remember right. Danny White, the old Cowboys quarterback, I think was the coach. But it was fun. We'd

go in there and they would get fired up. But yeah, I just remember him being this really hard working, blue collar kind of guy, just appreciative of the opportunity. And I don't know if even he thought that the NFL was in his future at that time. Before he made that transition, guys would get like tryouts in the NFL, but almost all of them maybe made it, like to the practice squad and then come back to the arena game.

So it was it was very unheard of to imagine, especially a quarterback, getting an opportunity and then taking advantage of it the way he did so out of the pocket football fatherhood and college game day Saturdays. Kirk, what inspired you to write it and why now? Well, Gen Wojahowski, who's a colleague of yours in mind at ESPN, he

approached me. He's approached me a couple of times about the idea of writing a book and never holding this, but I just didn't really feel like I had anything to say that people would want to read about, so I just have always just said, ah, maybe later, you know,

maybe when I retire. And then he approached me April of twenty twenty, right in the middle of COVID and quarantine, back in the time when people were like wiping the groceries down and just we didn't know where we were as a country, and I just thought it was maybe a good time to reflect and a good time to just think about some things that I've compartmentalized, you know, on a personal level for over forty years and didn't

really know what we were going to get into. I wanted to do more than just football and broadcasting, you know. I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about stuff I had been through that probably unless you write a book or you do a podcast, you never really would talk about. And you know, I think people see you or me and they just they think they know you based on the job you do, but they really don't know you. So I decided to take him up

on it. And I thought I had enough of, you know, some stuff that I could talk about that might resonate with some people, and maybe people would would appreciate just me being vulnerable and talking about some things. And so we did it, and he came to Nashville a few months later, and we just sat down for a whole week. He would come over eight or eight or nine in the morning, and we'd sit there at all about six

o'clock at night. We did that for a whole week and he had spoken with about forty or fifty people by the time he came to visit with me, my mom and my sister and a lot of close friends, and so he was bringing up things. I was like, Oh my gosh, how do you know that story? You know? And so we would reminisce and talk about things, and like I said, we went back. My parents divorced when I was about eight, and I had lived I don't know how you know, for you, but I lived in

a neighborhood. It was kind of like that movie A fan Loot, you know, where it's just you're out in the yard, or your your playing ball, or you freeze tag connect four big wheels, you know, in the creek, whiffleball, backyard football. It was just non stop twelve months out of the year. And that was my life until I was eight, and then my parents divorced and and then that was it and my dad went from being my hero.

He played at Ohio State. He was a captain. He coached with Woody and with bow and he would take me to Ohio State games and it was just for me. It was the as good as it could be. I mean, I loved college football from the time I could really remember more than anything else. And so to sit on Woody Hayes's lap after a game and look through his glasses with his black hat on, with his short sleeved white shirt, or put Archie Griffin's helmet on the years

he was winning Heisman Trophy. Those were like, I'm completely addicted to this sport and my dad was my hero. And then boom, they get a divorce, and my brother and sister and I and I we all moved with my mom to a different area and I never went back to that neighborhood. And so and then my mom got remarried and my dad got remarried, and then a

couple of years later they both got divorced again. So I just had a lot of step brothers and sisters and moms and dads just kind of going in and out of my life and just didn't I had a lot of just dysfunction that I was around. And so I thought, number one, I hadn't really thought about a

lot of those those moments in a long time. And number two, I thought, there are a lot of kids that are going through that currently that maybe me telling the story would help them, or maybe there's parents that went through it themselves, that are out there that have some kind of you know, struggles that they deal with going back to that time in their life, or maybe

they're going through a divorce themselves right now. So divorce can be, as we all know, can be really challenging to deal with, and especially when we deal with multiple divorces. And and so I went to like I think I went to seven or maybe it was eight schools and nine years. So I moved around a bunch and I was a painfully shy kid, so every time I moved, it was a nightmare to walk into a new classroom and a new school. And so there's a there's a

lot there about stories behind that. And I just thought it was it was okay to do and weren't for Geane, I probably wouldn't have done it. But he, I think made it a lot easier, you know, just sit down. And he also gave me authority of being able to edit stuff that I wouldn't. I would open up to him and then I'd be like, Okay, can we cut

that out or I don't know about that. And knowing that he gave me that that ability to do that, I think helped me to open up to him and say stuff that I really had never really told many people at all. Well, your your vulnerability definitely comes through, and also your humility, and that's something I've always appreciated about you. It definitely comes through. I think that's one of the things that makes you so likable on TV, as you do come off as very real and I

didn't know that about your background. My parents got divorced at age eighteen, senior in high school, living in Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, and I it forced me to say, you know, I really want to go away to school because I just don't want to escape. I don't want to be around this. So I went to Syracuse for broadcasting, but also kind

of to escape. And so, you know, when you think back of those memories, it is interesting, interesting how those things really shape you that you can maybe kind of file away and not really think about because you don't want to think about, but then you realize how much that's impacted your life. Yeah, yeah, man, I didn't know

that that would be a very different journey. You know, at eighteen, was it before your senior year, during your senior year, it was the it was the summer between my junior and senior year, and I was the best time I ever I know, and I was, and I was a kid who got into a lot of trouble already in high school that that did not help. The

rebellious stage got got a lot worse. Yeah, well that's Uh, you need to write a book because you have a You have an incredible story too, just on so many different levels about your faith and how you came to that. I would love to hear a lot of great details about that because I know, just from talking with you in the past, a little bit about it. But I think that would be fascinating for you to share that.

I appreciate that. I think a lot of people just want me to write a book about Bill Walton's That's usually what people say, Uh, what do you? What do you? What do you think in the book? I mentioned again your your humility comes through, your vulnerability comes through What do you think about? The book might surprise people who, to your point, think they know you because they see you on TV, but maybe they really don't know other

than the personal uh stuff with your parents growing up. Um, maybe that Like I said, I feel like based on the perception that people create, I think people think that I was born on third base, you know, kind of saying, and not that there's anything wrong with people that are born on third base, that I just wasn't, you know. And I think because you wear a suit in a tie and you have blonde hair and blue eyes, and it's like, look at this guy, Yeah he didn't. He's

never had a work a day in his life. Look at look at this life. You know. I think for some people that's a perception for a lot of broadcasters, you know, and especially for me because I was so young when I when I got to ESPN. I mean I was, like I said, twenty five or six when I first started. And you know, I've always admired I love Tom Brady as a player, you know. But beyond that, that special that ESPN did, I think it was called

the Brady six. Maybe they did a special on him and they have him relive the day he was drafted and here he is after I don't know at that time when they filmed us, I don't know, his's five or six super Bowls, whatever it was, and here he is reliving after he's won several Super Bowls and being in the discussion at that time is the greatest to ever play. To me, he is the greatest to ever play quarterback. And here he is reliving that day and

talking about it. This quarterback went and then that quarterback went, and I, you know, I just decided I was just going to go take a walk. And he's he's talkies. You can almost feel him reliving it, and he starts to cry about how emotional it was and how painful it was for him to get past. And here he is, this isn't like it happened last week. You know, it happened several years and several you know, super Bowl rings

before that. And I just love the Brady finds a way to keep an edge about him, and to this day, I watched him, you know, the other day they didn't win the game against the Rams, but he still has like this, this edge. And I'm never comparing myself to Tom Brady at all, but I am comparing myself to him as far as when he looks in the mirror, he sees a six round draft pick. No matter what he does, that's what he sees. And that allows him

to stay hungry and stay motivated. And when he retires, then maybe he'll see himself as Okay, I'm a Hall of Famer and all that, and I'm going to go to Canton and I went on a bunch of Super Bowls. But until then, he doesn't see that. And in our business, I've had a little bit of success on some shows

and done whatever. But I look in the mirror and I still see a guy that was on ESPN two covering the Rattlers and just trying to make a name for myself and just trying to get my foot in the door, and just trying to prove that I belong. That's who today, who who I see. And so it's

easy for me to stay hungry. It's easy for me to be humble because there's no other way to be, first of all, and then secondly, if I ever feel like I don't need to prep right, I don't, you know, look at I've all these things I've accomplished, Like I just I can't even imagine being that way. And I just love staying like you. You texted me, I was studying film, you called me. I was studying film like

it's Monday, and I'm just digging in on Georgia. And after we hang up, I'm going to dig in more on Arkansas, and it's just all I know, and hopefully it helps me to do the job that I do and and I'll do that until I retire. But and also feel like my faith, you know when when it comes to I don't know, I feel like humility. If you're really into your faith, humility, it's just kind of it kind of comes to you. You know. It's like, I'm no better than anybody as far as I'm concerned.

So I think it makes it. It makes it pretty simple, you know, when when you look at the grand scheme of things. I always tell people, Kirk that being on a broadcast team is like having a second family. Sure, and I got to imagine, I know, you get into this a lot in the book, your relationship with with Lee Corso. I'm sure you have a million memories. I mean, how much is he like a second father to you? Yeah?

He is. I mean he wasn't at first because he was just funny, you know, and I would I would, I just get the biggest kick of him with his one liners and his you know, he says stuff that nobody else would say, and he can he can get away with it because he was Lee Corso. And I just first four or five years, I just kind of looked at him, like, you know, my buddies would come out to the show and we'd all sit around he can launch or something, and he would tell one story

after another after another. We would just all laugh and just could not get enough of him, right. And then you know, I got married, and then I had kids, and my kids were born prematurely. You know, they were in the nick you for eight weeks, and I started to go through real grown up stuff. My dad one of the things I talked about the book. As much

as he was my hero, he didn't really listen. And I saw what happened over time as I just shut down talking to him about anything of real, any meaning, not because I didn't want to, but because it was so painful. The one person I wanted to share things

with he didn't listen. And so I got into a habit of just not, Hey, how's how things going, Yeah, it's going good, it's going good, that kind of conversation, as opposed to really because if I started to tell him what was really happening, he just didn't hear it. And so lee in the back of these some of these photos and things we would do, I would start to talk to him about it, and I found out, holy cow, he's listening. And then another conversation and another,

and you start talking about real things. And I'm a big guy that believes in talking to, you know, people that are older than me because of their wisdom, their own life experiences. I love listening to a guy like that, if they're willing to sit and talk, I just love. I just always have enjoyed that. And so here I am talking and open up my heart to him, and there he is listening. And then like Don Corleone or Yoda from Star Wars, he would just kind of kind of pat me on the hand and kind of give

me a sentence. After I just said twenty minutes worth of my concerns, he just would pat me on the hand and kind of just say, you know, here's the answer. Boom. And I would just be like, that's it. I'm worrying about all this stuff for nothing. He's like, don't worry, trust me, you know. And so over time, years, years and years would go by, and more and more I would talk to him about stuff and I would just sound it fascinating how much I was not intentionally trying

to build a relationship. I was just like you do with your friends, you know, you just start to build a connection in a bond and then like you know, seven, eight, nine, ten years go by, now we're at twenty six, and it's like he's like a dear friend, like people you work with and people that are listening. Maybe there's people that they work with that they're like that for them. And then he had a stroke about twelve years ago, and then it was on what we all were just like,

oh my gosh, is he okay? Are we gonna lose him to the show? Is he gonna be all right? And then he fought like crazy, you know, was this speech therapist to get back and had the courage to go on national TV without a teleprompter and it's like doing a circus act without a net and he's out there talking. At that time, he was probably seventy four and he's out there after a stroke, determined to be on the show. And then then I became like he's

been helping me all these years. You know, the least I can do is try to be there for him, and so that's kind of been my role, and it's, you know, I try to help him, but I try not to ever make it look like I'm helping him, you know, because he doesn't want that, So I just try to do it subtly. But yeah, he's he's a dear friend to everybody, but the fact I've been with him for twenty six years. He's the sweetest guy you're ever gonna meet. He's just the man. You know, we

love him. You do a great job. It's noticeable, Kirk, how respectful you are of him, and how if there's a time where he might be struggling to come up with what he wants to say, you help him along or I mean, you're it's it's really noticeable how the friendship comes through on the air. Oh that's cool. I you know, I hear that a lot, probably more than anything else from people. I hear about that. And so, like I said, I'm just trying to do it in

a way that's that's dignified. And you know, if it's a one little word, I can kind of say, you know, under my breath and and it kind of gets him like a little bit of a pit stop, because people need to understand he's eighty six I think now, and it's not as cognitive thinking. It's it's from the from the stroke. He just sometimes can't get his words out. So if he didn't have that stroke, he'd be eighty six playing seventy five like it or seventy even. I mean,

he is amazing with how how sharp he is. And I just think about when I was a kid, my grandparents, or you think about somebody that you know, they get into their seventies or eighties, if they're if they're able to continue to be healthy and active. Just think about somebody eighty six years old and he's out there on the set. He's catching flights, you know, he's flying around. I mean, you know how it is on the road.

It's a grind right for all of us. Hotel rooms and and we do everything we can, our ops teams everything they can to try to make it as easy as they can for him. But the reality is, you still got to get up, you still got to get on these flights, you still got to stay in the hotels. And yeah, and there he is. You know, with he he'll be quick to tell you I got I got my shot, and I got my booster. I'm good to go,

you know, because last year he couldn't travel. This year he's he's out on the road with us every week. So he's still amazing, he really is. And and and I worked a lot of NBA games with Huby Brown. Hughby just turned eighty eight, and he's still I just got a voicemail from him today. It's like a two minute voicemail and he's so sharp and so dialed in and so jacked up for the season. It's just love that.

God love him, God love him that they have a passion. Yeah, you know, I think if there's a lesson for all of us as we get older, it's it's to have have something you look forward You wake up and you look forward to it. You know, you look forward to because that's how you stay engaged, and you stay motivated, and you stay you know, you stay excited about life

because I know is my my dad has passed. But my mom, you know there's some show go through some you know periods where it's like she gets a little down or she's going through you know that's normal. Yeah, but you got a football season thankfully for her is like she's like me. She she loves every second of it. So that's that's definitely a good good time of the year for her. Well, a couple more we'll get you out of here. I do want to ask you about

the Cardinals and Kyler Murray. But one more thing that you do discuss in the book. And I have an idea, but don't really know exactly what a typical Saturday is like for you during college football season from sun up to sundown. Our producer Jim Mhandro asked me before we started the interview, how does Kirk go from college game Day, which could be in another in one city, and then go do the Saturday primetime game on ABC in an entirely different city while prepping for both all week long.

So what is a typical Saturday for you? What time do you get up? What's your routine? And then, yeah, what time do you shut it down? So there's two different Saturdays. There's the saturdays where game day in the game I'm calling in the same spot. In that case, I just do game day in the morning from nine am Eastern to twelve and then we'll go to the All State bus And on the back of that bus it's me and Bear and a couple other guys and

the lighting is low. Five TVs are on the air conditioning set at sixty five and we're just in heaven watching games being fans. You know, we're yelling at each other and making fun of each other's picks and top rights. We're looking at you know, like we're just it's like

we're a sports bar. So we do that. I've got my board in front of me and I'm making notes and I'm still kind of prepping for the game, but I've done so much work it's kind of like the haze in the bar, and it's a good distraction for me. So we're from about twelve fifteen, twelve twenty all the way up until an hour before kickoff at the game.

The bus is parched right upside of the stadium. And then about an hour before the game, I'll go out like you do, and I'll go out and you know, talk to the players and coaches that are warm it out, mainly the coaches, and get some final thoughts, and then I'll go up into the booth and call the game. And that's like a normal Saturday. And then last week, you know, out of fifteen Saturdays, i'd say seven or like last week, which is where game day was in Chicago.

So you're in Chicago getting ready Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday morning you do game day and then assumes game days over. They'll take me to the nearest airport and then Disney will fly myself and Bear and me and Jonathan Wiley and a couple other people. We fly. Where will we last week? Norman? So we went from Chicago to Norman. As soon as we get there, there's a guy waiting for us. He picks us up, takes us straight through the stadium and then we get there's the

All State bus there. So we get on the bus there and get our you know, lighting down, air conditioning on, games on, and we watch games and until we get ready to go in and call the game. With Oklahoma and West Virginia, it just kind of splits, you know, from from depending on where we are this week, it's actually in the same spot, so it's in Athens, So I'll be at the Georgia Arkansas game, which I assume you got to get off the air a little bit early right to get up to the booth because it's

a twelve o'clock kick, right. Yeah. I think I think they've got a trick or two up their sleeve this week. I think it's going to be. I think it's gonna be like a twelve o eight kick, So I think I'm staying all the way through the show for the head gear. I think Chris is going to have his Vinskully moment for the first like five minutes, so call the game by himself and then I'll run up there and join him. Speaking of Chris, you guys have done NFL games in the past, and you know, did a

fantastic job, not surprisingly. How much NFL do you consume? I actually do. I I grew up a kind of a Bengals fan and then moved to Nashville and Rapes. My buddy got the job there, and I started to watch the Titans. But I'd really like to just watch the players, you know, like I'll watch the Cardinals because of Kyler Murray, you know, I'll watch the Packers. I like to watch some of these players do their thing, like you know, watching the Packers competing against the Niners.

That was so much fun. So but I consume it, you know, I definitely I watch as much as I can. I love the nationally televised, the bigger games. You talked about Kyler. You covered him in college, as did I. I'm curious. Is there anything that surprises you as you watch him now in the NFL. No. I always wondered as the game has evolved in these last five or six years, where the the NFL is becoming more and

more like college. And I think there was a time, as you know, when the NFL, he's always kid, you know, like Jaws and those guys National Football League. You've got to make plays from the pocket, you know. And it's just it's such a different game today. I mean, you look at what Baker Mayfield does and Kyler Murray does, and of course Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. It's just it's the college. It's a lot of these college offenses

that it's almost reversed. The college game is filtering to a lot of these NFL offenses, and so there's no longer this, wow, he's only five eleven or he's only six feet tall. You don't you don't hear, I mean, he still hear some of the old guard people say that. But truly, it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter to run Cliff Kingsbury's offense. I don't care if you're six

to four or you're five to eleven. I mean, if you can make the throws and make the reads and be a point guard and let's go, let's go play. And he's got as good at command as anybody for that system, and he's so twitchy and he's done a really good job. Because of his baseball background, He's kind of like Russell. He just has a feel for when to get down and avoid the big It's because that was the other knock. You know, if you were an athletic quarterbacks, Oh, in the NFL, you know you can't

take those hits. It's like, well, the smart guys are getting out of bounds and they're sliding underneath it and they're preserving their bodies. And so my thing with Kyler was always, does he have command of the room, like the guys want to play for him? That was the one thing I wanted to see as he went into the NFL, and I think they did at Oklahoma, and I just wanted to see that that part of his game continue to grow and mature, and it looks like

it looks like it has. But that was It's fun to watch him, and it's fun to watch Cliff, you know, doing doing their thing in the NFL world. When you look at Cliff now compared to the system he played in at Texas tech U, the quintessential air raid, which is obviously evolved, you know, considerably, and you just you know, Lincoln Riley, it doesn't even look like the old air raid.

How impressed are you with Cliff's ability to adapt? One thing that's always stood out to me about him is he's happy to admit he doesn't know at all and willing to change and adjust. Well, I just think he's a really intelligent guy that is willing to, as you just said, not have all the answers. So you don't have all the answers, you become a sponge, you know, and you're it's not like the days of it's my

way or the highway. So he gets labeled as an air raid guy, but if you really watch his offense, I mean, yeah, there's air raid elements to it, but I mean they run the ball, you know. If you if you think about air raid and going way back to when it started to become the air raid, it was it was like Mike does now in Starkville, you know, I mean it's it's very little running. I mean, his quarterback the other day through it like sixty seven times or whatever, and it's just that that's the air raid.

These versions of the air raid that we see, I think because of their background and where they coached as an assistant or head coach, if there's any affiliation at all to Mike Leach, they kind of get labeled that way. But you know, you know, because he's sit around and talk with him, I think he's just a bright guy, and I think he understands defense and how to attack it and where it's weaknesses are. And then he does

it fast, you know. And if you can execute and find a quarterback that can understand it and execute fast and not make mistakes, then in today's game, you get a chance because it's all about processing the quarterbacks ability to process coverage, who makes the quickest decisions and the best decisions and then throws the ball accurately. And then when you sprinkle in being is dynamic of an athlete that you have in Kyler murray Man. That's a tough

offense to defend. But I think the last thing I'll say is what I feel like he's grown. Like anybody else that gets better the more they do it is playing complimentary football. It's one thing to have a great innovative offense. It's another thing to have an offense that can have a four minute offense that can protect their own defense and just see it through the lens of

a head coach, not just a play caller. I think in college Lane Kiffin is really maturing, you know, over the years in that area, whereas last year I think it was more all about Hey, I put forty some points on Nick Saban, so well you lost. I think now he's trying to do the best he can and trying to call it and have an understanding of what he needs to do for his own defense. And I think Cliff has definitely grown. It's just as like all of us. And the more often he does it, more

experience he gets, the better he becomes. Herbie, you're the best. I can sit here and talk to you all day, man, Thanks so much. Have a great show Saturday, and a great call as well. Hey, you keep up the great work. Love to join you anytime, and hope to get out there one of these days. That's a beautiful area and love to catch up with you next time I am out there. Sounds great, Kirk, Thanks man. Okay, Yeah, we spent almost an Hour with Kirk Curve Street could have

gone to his book is Awesome. Out of the Pocket, Football Fatherhood and College Game Day Saturdays. You can get Kirk's book wherever you buy your books. You can also get them online. He gets into a lot of different stuff, very vulnerable and humble, talking about how his parents divorce

shaped him. Also discusses his relationship with Lee Corso and his journey from being a quarterback and captain at Ohio State to becoming a multiple Emmy Award winning broadcaster for ESPN and ABC and a guy that many feel is the face and voice of college football in America. Again, that's out of the Pocket, Football Fatherhood and College Game Day Saturdays. We are presented by bet MGM official sports betting partner, Rout, the Arizona Cardinals, and Hilo River Hotels

and Casinos. You can follow us along on Twitter at pash pot. Lastly, the thing that stood out to me what Kirk said about the Arizona Cardinals and Kyler Murray was how he wanted to see if Murray would grow and develop as a leader, if he could command a locker room, which he did at Oklahoma. According to Herbstreet, I think that's a big reason why the Cardinals are three and oh. Kyler is growing, he's maturing as a leader,

and guys are starting to follow him. Let's see if the Cardinals can keep it up against the undefeated Rams on Sunday. Thanks again to ESPN ABC announcer Kirk Herbstreet. I'm Dave Pash and we'll talk to you next time. I'm the Dave Pash Podcast