Kirk Herbstreit, Chris Fowler Will Call NFL Game for ESPN In January

Kirk Herbstreit and Chris Fowler are used to calling some huge Saturday football games. In January, they'll be on the call for a major NFL game, ESPN announced on Tuesday.

On Saturday, Jan. 8, ESPN will broadcast back-to-back games with playoff implications. The doubleheader is being billed as Monday Night Football: Doubleheader Saturday by the network.

The normal Monday Night Football crew—Steve Levy, Brian Griese, Louis Riddick, Lisa Salters and John Parry—will handle one of the matchups. The other will feature Fowler, Herbstreit and Laura Rutledge of NFL live.

As of now, the matchups for both games are to be determined. According to ESPN, both Week 18 games "will have playoff implications," whether they feature teams in the wild card or division title hunt, or teams playing for better seeds or potential first-round byes. The two matchups will be announced by the NFL following the Week 17 results.

This will be the second NFL game that the college football stalwarts have called in the last two seasons. After a wave of speculation that they could land the job full-time, Herbstreit and Fowler called a Week 1 Giants-Steelers game last season.

Sports Illustrated's Jimmy Traina was among the many praising their efforts in their first-ever NFL broadcast afterward.

“It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that Fowler and Herbstreit called a very good game,” he wrote last September. “There's a reason why they work college football's national championship game each year. The pair have worked together for ages now, they have chemistry and Herbstreit is as good a football analyst as there is on all of TV.

“But it was still impressive to see them switch from college to NFL so effortlessly. The pace is very different. College drags on forever with so much time in between plays thanks to the clock stopping on first downs. The NFL is much quicker and much crisper. Fowler and Herbstreit had no issues at all handling the transition.”

The Jan. 8 game will be right in the middle of a busy run for the broadcast duo. Herbstreit and Fowler are set to call the College Football Playoff semifinal between No. 2 Michigan and No. 3 Georgia at the Orange Bowl on Dec. 31, and the Rose Bowl between Ohio State and Utah the next day, Jan. 1. They'll also be on the call for the national championship game on Monday, Jan. 10 in Indianapolis.