Saturday has been hectic for ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, who was scheduled to be in Eugene, Oregon, and Arlington, Texas within the span of only a few hours for two separate assignments. And this coincidentally almost led to Herbstreit missing the start of Saturday’s Red River Rivalry between the Texas Longhorns and the Oklahoma Sooners.
Herbstreit’s day started on the set of ESPN’s College Gameday , which was in Eugene for the primetime matchup between the Oregon Ducks and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
ESPN, who was obviously quite aware that Herbstreit was also slated to call the Red River Rivalry on ABC, had a plan for Herbstreit to get to that game on time. For the first time ever, Herbstreit departed from College Gameday early in order to catch a flight to Texas to get to the Texas-Oklahoma game, which had a kickoff at 3:30 EST.
“Not only is Dan (Lanning) leaving, but our buddy Kirk Herbstreit now has to hit the road and head out to the Red River Rivalry,” said Rece Davis on College Gameday .
“You guys have a good show,” said Herbstreit as he shook all of his castmates’ hands before leaving.
Herbstreit’s departure was even used as a segment later on in the show, showing Herbstreit in a car on the highway seemingly headed for the nearest airport.
Herbstreit made it a point to update fans on social media about his status getting to the game, which was made a bit more complicated due to traffic in Dallas for the Texas State Fair. At 2:45 EST, Herbstreit posted that he has touched down in Dallas with “plenty of time” to get to Cotton Bowl Stadium.
“We have touched down in Dallas!!! Plennnnntyyy of time to get to the stadium,” wrote Herbstreit. “Will come down to the drive into the Texas State Fair where the Cotton Bowl is and around 200,000 people are out enjoying the fair no clue there’s a game going on. Haha. Here we go!”
It’s about a 20-minute drive from the Dallas Airport to Cotton Bowl Stadium, which doesn’t even include any traffic in the area from the Texas State Fair. So Herbstreit was really up against it to get to the broadcast booth alongside Chris Fowler for the ABC broadcast.
At 3:25 EST, which is just five minutes before kickoff, Herbstreit posted a video on his X account where he was being escorted to the stadium.
It’s unclear whether this video was posted to Herbstreit’s account after he had gotten settled into the booth. Or if this was really what time he arrived to the stadium. Regardless, Herbstreit was on time when it came to the introduction to the game alongside Chris Fowler.
Herbstreit is certainly no stranger to long Saturdays. He is always on College Gameday only to later appear as a color analyst in a game later in the day. But typically, Herbstreit and Fowler have been on the call of the primetime game on ABC, which gives him plenty of time.
ESPN lucked out this time around when it came to the scheduling of Herbstreit. But in the future, ESPN may want to refrain from scheduling his responsibilities so closely together.
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