Hot air: Musburger, Herbstreit share Saturday night spotlight
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Column by BARRY HORN / The Dallas Morning News |
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At first blush, Brent Musburger and Kirk Herbstreit, ABC's lead college football team, make an odd couple in the booth.
Musburger, a grizzled veteran of the TV landscape, is 70 and enjoying a renaissance of a broadcast career that dates to 1968. That was the year before Herbstreit was born. Herbstreit, 40, has had a relatively meteoric rise since joining ESPN's College GameDay in 1996. That was three years after he graduated from Ohio State where he was a four-year letterman as quarterback.
In 2006, ABC partnered Musburger, Herbstreit and Bob Davie in the booth for its new Saturday Night College Football offering. The next season, only Musburger and Herbstreit returned. Musburger has settled in as Keith Jackson's replacement as college football's lead voice and Herbstreit is ABC/ESPN's star analyst. Tonight, they will call the Texas-Nebraska Dr Pepper Big 12 Championship at Cowboys Stadium. On Jan. 7, they'll call their first BCS Championship from the Rose Bowl.
But just how well do these boothmates know each other? They agreed to be subjected to separate but equal telephone interrogations earlier this week:
Do you remember the first time you met?
KH: I guess it would be the year that ABC [Musburger] and ESPN [Herbstreit] merged [2005]. There was a preseason seminar in Orlando. It might have been at a cocktail party. We probably made professional small talk.
BM: I covered him when he was a player at Ohio State. I talked to him on the sideline and he asked me a lot of questions about the broadcast business.
You are having dinner for four the night before the upcoming BCS Championship Game. Who do you invite? Who does your partner invite?
KH: I ask my dad. He and Brent are from the same generation. Brent talked to him recently and tried to talk him into coming out to the Rose Bowl. My dad has never been. They talked for 20 minutes. The conversation could have gone on for three hours. My dad gets such a kick out of Brent's stories. Brent would bring his son Scott.
BM: I would bring whichever coach loses the SEC Championship game, Urban Meyer or Nick Saban. Kirk is bringing his wife.
What is the best stadium to call a game from?
KH: The Rose Bowl. It's the Holy Grail.