Kirk Herbstreit may be an Ohio State alum, but he didn’t pick the Buckeyes to win the National Championship this year.
During College GameDay‘s first episode of the 2024 season, the panel predicted who would win the title in January. Among the popular picks were the Buckeyes, but Herbstreit saw it differently.
Herbie picked the Oregon Ducks to win the title, not Ohio State. The longtime ESPN analyst predicted they would defeat the Georgia Bulldogs en route to winning it all for the first time in program history.
Desmond Howard has Oregon winning it all this year. Nick Saban has Georgia beating Oregon in the championship.
Kirk Herbstreit also has Oregon beating Georgia in the national championship.
— Zachary Neel (@zacharycneel) August 24, 2024
Oregon has become somewhat of a trendy pick this offseason. The Ducks have a lot of talent and firepower on both sides of the ball. It’s hard to see many weaknesses, so it makes sense that they’re being picked to win.
Oregon will face some challenges going to a new conference. Rarely does a team join in and win right away. Especially since Oregon doesn’t have the footprint that the Big Ten is used to. But there’s so much talent on the team that it’s hard not to see them potentially becoming an outlier.
But that’s why they play the games. It’ll all be decided on the field. We’ll see if Herbstreit’s Ohio State snub returns to bite him or if he was just ahead of the curve.
