Kirk Herbstreit Makes Big Admission About Pat McAfee and ‘College GameDay’

Pat McAfee isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

However, his boisterous disposition and energetic personality made quite an impression on ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, who recently admitted during an appearance on the “SI Media with Jimmy Traina” podcast that McAfeee was responsible for keeping Herbstreit from leaving his role as a host of the ever-popular college football pre-game show “College GameDay.”

“He's completely made me re-evaluate 29 years of my career,” Herbstreit said . “You get to points, you know everyone I started with on the show except Lee Corso is gone. Behind the scenes, on the camera, behind the camera. Other than Lee, a lot of people are gone. So when I was at like Year 25, Year 26, doing Amazon, doing the Saturday night game, I love ‘GameDay,’ but I do I really want to keep doing it?”

“I love Rece [Davis} and Des[mond Howard] and [Corso]. I love everybody, but it's tiring and then, man, Pat's energy has really changed my view on that. Then you bring [Nick] Saban in and it's like, man, you couldn't pull me off ‘College GameDay’ right now. And a lot of that has to do with just the overall vibe of that whole show.”

One could understand if Herbstreit was experiencing some degree of burnout.

His schedule keeps him pretty busy from hosting “College GameDay” on Saturday morning, broadcasting ESPN’s prime-time college football game on Saturday night and “Thursday Night Football” with Al Michaels on Amazon Prime.

But despite his hectic schedule, Herbstreit has been reinvigorated by McAfee’s enthusiastic exuberance.

“Pat walks into a room and he provides energy to the room, and I'm talking undefeated,” Herbstreit added. “I've never seen him just kind of walk into a room, quiet, had a tough day maybe at home. We all do that. I do that. He doesn't do that. I'm telling you, man, the ‘GameDay’ people feed off of his energy.”