ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit could not contain his emotions after Ohio State defeated Notre Dame 34-23 in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game. In a postgame segment with SportsCenter’s Scott Van Pelt and play-by-play commentator Chris Fowler, Herbstreit came to tears when he discussed the latest Buckeye national title.
«Don’t start with me, man. I’m a little emotional,» Herbstreit said on the postgame show. «I’m just fired up for these guys. You know, when I call these games, I’m incredibly objective. I love all these Ohio State teams, but this team because of what they went through to get to this point, you’re just happy.»
Herbstreit played quarterback for Ohio State (1989-93) and one of his sons, Zak Herbstreit, is a senior walk-on tight end with the Buckeyes. The full postgame segment can be viewed here where Herbstreit goes into more detail about the adversity Ohio State faced following its shocking loss to Michigan at the end of the regular season in late November.
«They went to hell and back,» Herbstreit said. «We can try to make this sound soft. But my thing is I talk to these players, I talk to these coaches. I know what they faced after that Michigan game. I know the pain. And I know a lot of people thought, ‘To hell with this guy, who else could be the (coach)?’ And I know what that did — that’s a real-life thing.
To have to put that away and not be like, ‘What are you to question (me)?’ [Day] just handled it, took the high road, didn’t say anything, went out and got his team ready to play four games and they won it. I think that’s why I’m emotional, is what these guys faced. And if you notice, they just kept talking about each other. They didn’t talk about anything else, it was each other, it was the coaches, it was because it was those guys in the locker room that believed that they could make this run.
«You know, 20 years from now, that’s what I’ll remember is how they kept it together just by themselves and had to fight out of that dark hole that they were in. It’s pretty special to think and it’s a great example for all of us to learn about adversity. We want to quit, we want to give up. It’s a great example not just in football but in life of getting through the tough times and the good times are coming ahead. That’s what this is.»