ESPN Makes Kirk Herbstreit Announcement Ahead of 2026 College Football Season

While most of the attention at ESPN these days appears to revolve around famous names and faces that are getting canned from the network, one such luminary familiar to college football fans will be staying firmly in place this coming season.

Veteran analyst and broadcaster Kirk Herbstreit will return as the color analyst for the network’s main broadcasting team on ABC and ESPN, alongside play by play man Chris Fowler and sideline reporter Holly Rowe, from the start of the season through the College Football Playoff national championship.

Herbie is an ESPN veteran

ESPN Makes Kirk Herbstreit Announcement Ahead of 2026 College Football Season — USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The coming 2026 season will signal the 13th year that Fowler and Herbstreit will be seen on ESPN’s main college football coverage in the same booth, in addition to their 30th year overall as colleagues working the NCAA on the worldwide leader in sports.

They first started working together for ESPN on College GameDay in 1996.

Herbstreit will also continue his duties as an analyst for College GameDay throughout the season before taking over for ABC’s most important Saturday night college football games alongside Fowler and Rowe.

ESPN has been firing people left and right

The famed four letter network spent the last few years discarding some of its most familiar names, and picked up with another round of layoffs just in the last couple of weeks.

Most notably, in late July, ESPN brass booted Ryan Clark, the veteran NFL analyst who had been with the channel since 2015, after informing him of their decision while he was taping an episode of NFL Live, not even allowing him to finish the show.

By the next day, that wave hit veteran Karl Ravech, who had been on the ESPN airwaves for 33 years. Then came the forced exit of SportsCenter anchor David Lloyd, NFL insider Tom Pelissero, and others.

But some big names are staying

At the same time ESPN is letting some notables go, it will lay out serious money to keep others, including one very big name associated with college football.

Amid reports of major layoffs, ESPN is also in the midst of negotiations with College GameDay firebrand and host of his namesake program Pat McAfee on an extension that is set to pay him in the neighborhood of $60 million to $65 million per year, according to The Athletic.

ESPN also announced it agreed to a multiple-year contract extension with former Florida quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who will continue his work on SEC Network in addition to spots during the College Football Playoff and on SportsCenter.

Part of that crew going forward will be Kirk Herbstreit.

Few voices in college football carry the weight of Herbstreit’s analysis. Since joining ESPN some 30 years ago, the former Ohio State quarterback has become arguably the sport’s most recognizable and influential analyst.

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