2003 - Kirk Herbstreit Knows Football

Everyone had Hurricanes in a rout, only OSU fans and Kirk knew ...

Nobody believed Ohio State had a chance, no experts were willing to pick the Buckeyes and everyone was prepared for the route ... well everyone except ONE man.

Just prior to kickoff of the 2002 BCS National Title Game, ESPN’s College Gameday crew of Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herstreit were about to make their individual predictions for the Miami Hurricanes – Ohio State Buckeyes national title game.  Miami was not only an 18 ½ point favorite, but Miami was 34-0 and had not lost a college football game in over 2 and a half seasons.  They were a dynasty and quite frankly, just plain scary.  Nobody was giving Ohio State a chance to even stay on the field with Miami let alone beat them.  On paper this was a plain and simple mismatch. 

So Fowler gives his prediction for a UM win, and then Corso picks the U as well, and now its Herbstreits turn.  As you may know, ol’ Herbie was the QB for the Buckeyes back in the early 90’s but even with that, there was no way he was predicting one of the biggest upsets in college football history. Hell Ohio State had needed a last second, desperation pass in the last seconds to beat Purdue 10-6.  How the hell were they going to beat a Miami Hurricane team that had not lost in 34 games? Face it Herbie, The BEATDOWN is near! 

Well Herstreit looks straight into the camera, he starts waving a flyer.  He looks up at it, points, and says “It’s an invitation. Back to Back National Championship Celebration: Gloria Estefan, Clinton Portis, Sly Stallone.  Why are we even playing this game?” Miami is Back to Back National Champions!” He then looks again directly into the camera and says “ Ohio State”, and then after a short pause ... “THEY WILL SHOCK THE WORLD!" the cameras then cut away to the game.  Now I am sure most of the country was saying “Is that guy nuts?  Have they drug tested him?”  NOBODY believed the Buckeyes had a chance, except for that one man ... and that is why Kirk Herbstreit KNOWS FOOTBALL!

The shirt sold strong for about a year and many stories came in about close relatives of Kirk who had purchased up to 50 shirts from several of our Ohio retailers.  Every other day it was “Guess who was in my store and just bought one of those Kirk Herbstreit Knows Football shirts?” We even sent one over to Lee Corso and received a nice phone call from Coach Corso.  He did say “ Oh no, watch out for Herbstreit’s  swollen head now!”