Most fans spend the last weekend of October picking a costume and a couch for Halloween. ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit has a different plan this year: three days, three stops, and a Saturday that puts him on two different broadcasts with very little room to breathe. The mileage alone makes it one of the most demanding stretches of his season.
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“Kirk and Peter are staying east of the Mississippi this week, traveling over 1,500 miles this week with stops in Green Bay for TNF, Bloomington for College GameDay, and Atlanta for Florida-Georgia,” Front Office Sports shared on Instagram.
The 1,500 figure is a rounded one. The legs listed add up to about 1,564 miles, though that is a map-based estimate.
It began Thursday. Herbstreit left his home base in Nashville and headed to Green Bay for the Panthers-Packers game on Amazon’s Thursday Night Football, about 581 miles away. On Friday, he travels to Bloomington, Indiana, roughly 377 miles, to get ready for College GameDay.
Saturday is where it gets tight. GameDay runs from 9 a.m. to noon ET on ESPN, with Rece Davis hosting alongside Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee, and Nick Saban. As soon as the show wraps, Herbstreit has about 392 miles to cover to Atlanta, where Florida and Georgia kick off at 3:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
That leaves about three and a half hours between the end of the show and the opening kickoff. After the game, he still has another 214 miles to get back to Nashville.
Bloomington will have a big day. No. 4 Indiana, 7-1 and coming off a win at Michigan, hosts Minnesota in front of a homecoming crowd, and the Hoosiers are favored. The one question around Indiana is quarterback Josh Hoover, who appears to have a right arm injury. He went 8-of-18 for 81 yards against Michigan and threw only one pass in the second half.
At his weekly news conference on October 26, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti said, “I expect him to be fine and better this week.”
This is the show’s 40th season and its 33rd year of road shows, and it is back in Bloomington for the first time since its previous visit, when it set up on the south lawn of Memorial Stadium.
This time the crew sets up at Showalter Fountain, which gives it far more room. Locals have also leaned into a purple-themed fan movement called the “#drenchgang,” which grew out of Indiana’s secondary using “drenched” to describe locking down a receiver. Upland Brewery and The Upstairs Pub are among the places that have joined in.
The Atlanta leg is just as loaded. No. 3 Georgia is 6-1 and has won five straight over Florida, but the Bulldogs are coming off a bye week after a 27-24 home loss to Auburn. Florida is 5-2 and beat Texas 27-24 on the road in its last game. Georgia is favored.
Both Florida quarterbacks, Tramell Jones and Aaron Philo, are listed as questionable. Head coach Kirby Smart has made clear that he is taking the Gators seriously, saying he has “a lot of respect” for them.
Herbstreit starts his week under the lights in Green Bay. On Saturday he will cover the No. 4 team in the morning and the No. 3 team in the afternoon, with only a few hours and a few hundred miles between them. The plan leaves almost no margin for delays.