Kirk Herbstreit leaving ESPN 'College GameDay' early as he faces race against time

Kirk Herbstreit is gearing up for an incredibly hectic few hours as he's due to duck out of ESPN College GameDay early while it's live in Oregon with the usual gang.

He recently covered Thursday Night Football alongside Al Michaels, as he called the San Francisco 49ers' dominant over the Seattle Seahawks up in the Pacific Northwest. Immediately afterward, he jetted off to Eugene for Saturday's upcoming show.

He'll join the crew only to leave mid-broadcast, racing against the clock on a three-hour flight to Dallas to provide commentary for the Red River Rivalry game at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday afternoon - in one of the other highly-anticipated games this weekend.

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From Portland, he's making a break for it in order to make it on time for the Cotton Bowl clash where the number-one ranked Texas Longhonrs faces off against the Oklahoma Sooners.

Herbstreit mentioned on-air last week, "Ironically, Chris [Fowler], I'm leaving GameDay like an hour early, in the middle of the show. I'm going to have to make it, because our OU-Texas game starts at 3:30. So I'm going to leave GameDay and hopefully make it."

Every week, the College GameDay team brings excitement to a different location, and this time they're set up in Eugene for what promises to be a nail-biter between the Oregon Ducks (3) and the Ohio State Buckeyes (2).

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The Texas Longhorns are set for a 3:30pm kick-off (ET) against Oklahoma at the Dallas Cowboys' ATandT Stadium, with Oregon's game scheduled for later that evening. The Longhorns, currently ranked number one, will see Quinn Ewers return to the starting lineup after recovering from an abdominal injury, reports the Express US .

This, meaning Arch Manning will be back on the bench, despite his stellar performance over the past two weeks filling in for the senior. Even though Manning is expected to take over as the starter next season, head coach Steve Sarkisian is sticking with his regular starter moving forward, who could potentially be the number one overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

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