ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit and Joey Galloway highlighted a messy reality about transfer portals that nobody wants to talk about. It’s the financial nightmare waiting for players who enter the portal without a guaranteed landing spot. And for Herbstreit, this isn’t an abstract concern. It’s hitting his own family directly as his son navigates life at Michigan.​

In Kirk Herbstreit’s recent podcast, Galloway addressed the elephant in the room. “What happens when you jump in the portal, and you’re waiting around, but that rent payment is still coming due? I don’t know how that works,” he said. 

Herbstreit jumped in to reveal his own family’s brush with this exact situation. “One of Chase’s roommates is gone up at Ann Arbor,” Herbstreit said, using his son’s nickname. “So, I was like, I asked Chase, I was like, if he leaves a do we cover his rent? I don’t know what’s going on here.”

Galloway noted, landlords aren’t exactly known for their flexibility when money’s on the line. For regular college students, this would be stressful enough. But for athletes juggling classes and the environment of Division I football, it adds even more complexity to an already chaotic situation.

Chase Herbstreit committed to Michigan in December 2024. He joined a quarterback room with the No. 1 overall Bryce Underwood. Underwood obviously claimed the QB1 role, but Herbstreit is continuing the grind – both on and off the field.

How the ultimate Buckeye family ended up in Maize and Blue

The son of Ohio State’s former quarterback ended up at Michigan because the Buckeyes never actually offered him a scholarship. Kirk Herbstreit dropped this bombshell on the “Pardon My Take” podcast in December, explaining that while Chase was “the Ohio State junkie” in the family, Ryan Day’s staff simply didn’t pursue him hard enough. 

“Ohio State did not really pursue him to the point of offering him a scholarship,” Kirk said flatly. He added that they came close but ultimately passed on the three-star quarterback. Michigan, on the other hand, saw something they liked during Chase’s campus visit, where Kirk famously wore blue and a Michigan lanyard. The decision became pretty straightforward when you strip away the emotion. Take a full scholarship to a Big Ten powerhouse, or walk on at your dream school that didn’t believe in you enough to offer you a spot.​

Sherrone Moore deserves credit for seeing past the rankings and betting on Chase’s intangibles, which is what Kirk highlighted when discussing the commitment. “Sherrone Moore and his staff believe, and I think they saw his competitive spirit and his fire and what he did on the field this year to give him an opportunity,” Herbstreit explained. “It’s very different for our family because behind the scenes, it’s scarlet and grey our entire lives.” 

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Moore later clarified that while he knows Kirk well, the recruitment was really about Chase and what he could bring to the program down the line. For Chase, though, it worked out perfectly. He landed at a program that genuinely wanted him, and he gets to compete in a quarterback room alongside Bryce Underwood while carving out his own identity separate from the scarlet and gray legacy.​