It appears that the 2014 Rose Bowl and the BCS National Championship Game were the last college football games Brent Musburger called for ESPN. Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch reports in his weekly media column that ESPN is making the move now as Musburger’s contract will expire when college basketball season ends.
Deitsch cites a tweet from ESPN tome co-author James Andrew Miller that Musburger will be offered the top play-by-play position at the SEC Network.
Believe this will be Brent's last @espn game. If he stays w/@espn it will be as #1 PxP for new #SEC network. #BCSChampionship
— James Andrew Miller (@ESPNBook) January 7, 2014
However, Musburger has not given any indication whether he will take the offer and Deitsch reports that Brent is unhappy with how his contract negotiations have been going.
It appears that ESPN’s two college football studio hosts stand to benefit. College GameDay host Chris Fowler looks to be the man on his way to become lead play-by-play man joining his GameDay co-hort Kirk Herbstreit in the booth. ESPN management may want Fowler to focus only on play-by-play and not pull a GameDay/Saturday Night Football doubleheader as Herbstreit does.
Should Fowler do just play-by-play, College Football Final host and Thursday Night play-by-play voice Rece Davis could be on his way to replace Chris on GameDay.
There was talk about Mike Tirico pulling a Saturday Night Football/Monday Night Football double, but that does not appear likely at this point as ESPN executives feel he needs to be at MNF meetings on Saturday and Sunday.
Joe Tessitore may become the Thursday night voice if the Alleged Worldwide Leader wants Davis to focus on GameDay.
All this shuffling still has to be approved. It would be a much different lineup in 2014 than in 2013 and it positions ESPN for the new College Football Playoff era that begins with the upcoming season that begins in August.
So to sum up, Brent Musburger appears to be on his way out. The top college football teams and studio may look like this when all is said and done:
College GameDay — Rece Davis/Lee Corso/Kirk Herstreit/Desmond Howard/David Pollack
SEC Nation (SEC Network) — Joe Tessitore/Tim Tebow/Paul Finebaum (?)
College Football Final — Scott Van Pelt (?)/Lou Holtz/Mark May
Saturday Night Football/One playoff semifinal/Championship Game — Chris Fowler/Kirk Herbstreit
ESPN Primetime/One playoff semifinal — Brad Nessler (?)/Todd Blackledge
Thursday night — Rece Davis or Joe Tessitore/Jesse Palmer/David Pollack
If Musburger is done, it’s too bad that he wasn’t able to say goodbye, but perhaps he’ll get an opportunity at the Big 12 Tournament in March. I felt he should have had the opportunity to call the first few years of the College Football Playoff, but it appears that ESPN wants to go in a different direction.
We’ll see how this all shapes up later this year. I’ll talk with James Andrew Miller in this week’s edition of the Fang’s Bites podcast about this story and look at what’s ahead for ESPN in 2014.
