Kirk Herbstreit shed real tears after Ohio State’s national championship win

The Ohio State Buckeyes held off a late push by Notre Dame to secure the national championship on Monday night by a score of 34–23.

Color commentator Kirk Herbstreit was on the call for the game along with play-by-play man Chris Fowler, and after the game emotion poured out of Herbstreit, who was brought to tears by his alma mater’s victory.

Herbstreit played quarterback at Ohio State for four years and is a well-known passionate supporter of the Buckeyes. Although he does his best to remain objective in the booth, it was clear that once the fight finally got going, there was too much to take in.

When ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt invited Herbstreit and Fowler in for a conversation about SportsCenterHerbstreit could be seen wiping the tears away from his eyes.

Asked about his feelings at the moment, Herbstreit expressed pride in Ohio State’s resilience this year, especially after many had written them off following a heartbreaking loss to archrival Michigan at the end of the regular season.

“They went to hell and back,” Herbstreit said. “We can try to make it sound soft, but I talk to these players, I talk to these coaches. I know what they went through after the Michigan loss. I know the pain. I know a lot of people thought ‘to hell with this guy,’ I know what it did. That’s real life.”

Herbstreit praised Ohio State head coach Ryan Day for keeping the noise out while some called for his job after the loss to the Wolverines.

“He just took it, took the high road, didn’t say anything, went out and got his team ready to play four games and they won them. I think that’s why I’m emotional. What these guys faced. And if you noticed, they just kept talking about each other. They didn’t talk about anything else. It was each other. It was the coaches. It was the guys in that locker room who believed they could do this.”