There was a time whenever Kirk Herbstreit showed up in your town, it meant ESPN’s “College GameDay” had come to your city. Your team was playing in the biggest college football game of the week.
Sure, it still means all that, yada, yada, yada.
Now, it means college football fans get to see Ben, one of Herbstreit’s four golden retrievers.
Herbstreit and Ben arrived for a promotional appearance Friday at the Raising Cane’s restaurant near the Texas campus to talk about Saturday’s game against Georgia and shoot a new TV commercial.
Herbstreit typically does not do predictions on games he will be calling on TV. He said Saturday’s matchup between the fifth-ranked Bulldogs (5-1, 3-1 SEC) and the top-ranked Longhorns (6-0, 2-0) will be similar to the other high-profile SEC clashes we’ve seen this season.
“I think if you go back and really look, what I found was who won the line of scrimmage, won the game,” Herbstreit said. “So as you come into this game, I'm feeling the exact same way.
“I mean, you look at Texas with what Sark’s done three years of building the roster for these games, and they’ve passed every test up to this point. This could be a different contest, because he prides himself on winning the scrimmage. So it’s impossible to predict. It’s impossible to predict how it'll play out. But I think that story — who's running the ball and who's defending the run — that’s going to win the win game.”
Herbstreit also revealed if forced to choose today who he would take first in the draft between quarterbacks Carson Beck (Georgia) or Quinn Ewers (Texas), he'd probably choose the Longhorn.
The Horns are five-point favorites in what can be argued is the biggest game in Royal-Memorial Stadium history. Herbstreit will also be at his normal post on the GameDay set, which is setting up shop on the South Lawn under the UT Tower.
As part of shooting the Raising Cane’s commercial, Herbstreit and Ben interacted with the company’s owner and founder Todd Graves and his yellow lab Cane III. Cane is Graves’ personal family dog and the restaurant’s mascot.
Ben did not travel with Herbstreit last week, and it was noticed around the college football world. Herbstreit said his golden retriever has three types of cancer that requires intense medical supervision.
“Yeah, I guess it’s very rare,” Herbstreit said. “It started with leukemia, and then they were concerned at that point — this is back in March — they didn’t know how long he had, just seeing how it would continue to go. They put him on chemo. Initially, it was at home where you just give him a pill, and most recently, his numbers were elevated. That's why he didn't come with me last week.
“So now they’re injecting the chemo,” he added. “He’s taking three different chemos. He takes that one, and I give him two other forms of a pill every day. His numbers came down drastically after a week. So that's why he's back out in the road with me. But we see how he responds to this.”
Herbstreit said Ben’s demeanor makes him a perfect traveling companion. Ben roams around free instead of being on a leash. Friday at Raising Cane’s people on the street stopped to take pictures, some people jumped out of their cars for a closer shot of the famous pair.
“It’s just, he’s a family member,” Herbstreit said. “So when you have somebody, you know whether it’s a person or a dog, in this case, going through something, you're just trying to keep him happy. And you don't take any day for granted.
“Every day I wake up I see him with his tail wagging. I'm like, you know, it's a great day to celebrate. So having him out on the road, I think, again, helps him as much as helps me, because he's he loves being in the mix of being part of the part of what's going on. So it's been fun.”
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