Without ever giving the appearance of trying to, former Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit has become—along with broadcast partner Chris Fowler—the face of 21st-century college football. His opinions on the state of the game make headlines; it is his voice in the heads of daydreaming youngsters across the nation.
When EA Sports resurrected the College Football video-game franchise two years ago, it seemed natural that Herbstreit would return. However, according to a Monday evening report from Pete Nakos of On3, Herbstreit will not be a part of the game’s commentary team this year.
With this in mind, here are five names—one individual commentator and a pair of two-man booths—that should replace Herbstreit in future editions of College Football.
Todd Blackledge, NBC
Blackledge—the 65-year-old former Penn State quarterback who finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 1982—has not worked for the ESPN family of networks since the 2022 season, after which he left the network to become Noah Eagle’s running mate on NBC’s Big Ten coverage. In these new surroundings, Blackledge remains one of the game’s formidable color voices, having lost none of the authoritative air he cultivated alongside ESPN stalwarts like Sean McDonough and Brad Nessler.
The question is whether EA Sports would be willing to use a non-ESPN announcer in a game that freely appropriates much of that network’s aesthetic. There is precedent: former Georgia linebacker David Pollack lent his voice to the game despite being laid off by ESPN in the summer of 2023. If College Football’s developers want a no-nonsense voice to pair with Fowler’s, Blackledge is an intriguing option. Maybe Todd’s Taste of the Town can join the game as well.
Sean McDonough and Greg McElroy, ESPN
Has any announcer had a better mid-2020s than McDonough, the National Sports Media Association’s reigning National Sportscaster of the Year? His call of Ole Miss’s upset of Georgia in January’s Sugar Bowl was one of the great single-game commentary performances in the sport’s history. Fowler and Herbstreit are joined at the hip in the minds of many college football fans—but Herbstreit’s reported departure could present a chance for College Football to remake its booth entirely.
Enter McDonough and McElroy, the quarterback of Alabama’s 2009 national championship team. McDonough’s cadence and economy of volume feel well-suited to video games in a way that more excitable commentators’ (Fox’s Gus Johnson, for instance) do not. He can keep it even-keeled for Texas blowing out Louisiana Tech, he can step on the gas for a thrilling ACC championship, and he can probably do both in a recording studio. McElroy is a natural foil, and—crucially—neither seems like they’d be above helping out the much-loved franchise.
Bob Wischusen and Louis Riddick, ESPN
But what if they are? McDonough, in particular, is busy this time of year with NHL obligations. Enter—well, someone about equally busy in Wischusen, who handles hockey as well as the Jets’ radio broadcasts in the fall. Like McDonough, Wischusen’s reputation has grown in recent years—particularly for his hockey work. He’d be a terrific addition to the College Football franchise, but he’s not the most intriguing potential piece here. That honor would go to Riddick.
Riddick, a running back-turned-defensive back for Pittsburgh in the Panthers’ final independent years, has a specific gift that lends itself well to video games: he is very good at simplifying complex concepts for unfamiliar audiences (The greatest-ever practitioner of this art, of course, has his name on the NFL’s video game). There’s a reason that NFL teams have eyed Riddick for general manager jobs forever. If EA Sports can bottle and successfully deploy Riddick’s cerebral approach to the game—and perhaps pair it with Wischusen’s energy—the reported loss of Herbstreit will sting much less.
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