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3 reasons you’ll all miss Lou Holtz during college football season on ESPN

By Jack Crosby

Jan 10, 2015; Arlington, TX, USA; Two time Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year recipient Lou Holtz speaks during Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year press conference at Renaissance Hotel Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 10, 2015; Arlington, TX, USA; Two time Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year recipient Lou Holtz speaks during Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year press conference at Renaissance Hotel Dallas. Mandatory Credit: Tommy Gilligan-USA TODAY Sports /
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Fight it all you want, but you’re all going to miss Lou Holtz behind the ESPN desk during college football season

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In 2004 all of us college football fans were given a gift, whether you all want to admit it or not. That gift was former Notre Dame and South Carolina head coach Lou Holtz joining the ESPN college football analyst team. While he was never on the “A-Team” when it came to covering the game that he loved for the Worldwide Leader, he was passionate with what he did and he provided us with some moments that we’ll all never forget.

On Sunday night we learned that the gift of Lou Holtz dropping his college football knowledge on us every Saturday was being taken away, as the former national title-winning head coach and ESPN had agreed to part ways with one another, beginning with this upcoming 2015 college football season.

Again, play it off all you want if that’s what you’re choosing to do, but the fact of the matter is that you’re all gonna miss that man every Saturday once the fall rolls around, and here’s why:

1) Not understanding what Lou Holtz says sometimes is awesome

Alright, it’s no secret that sometimes when Holtz was doing his job at ESPN, you couldn’t quite understand the point he was trying to get across. No, that wasn’t due to the fact that he was using lingo of the game that was just way too hard to follow, rather…well, you just flat-out couldn’t understand what in the blue hell he was saying.

That clip from last year still has people talking. To this day, if you listen closely, the common belief is that Holtz was talking about hair combing; that’s about as close to a translation as anyone has come to. Was he taking a jab at the ESPN stylist people for not being on their game that day? NO ONE KNOWS!

But, in a way, that was one of the beauties of having this man around. We all spend over 14 hours a day on college football Saturdays listening to people say some ridiculous things as they try to sound like they know what they’re talking about.

Completely not understanding what Lou Holtz was talking about was a nice comedic relief during a long day.

2) Let’s face it, there’s no better foil for Mark May

Did you hate not understanding what Lou Holtz was saying sometimes? I’m sure some of you did. However, I betcha I can figure out something that annoys you far more, and that’s Mark May trying to sound like he knows what he’s talking about.

Yes, probably what people will remember most about Holtz’s tenure at ESPN covering college football will be his legendary exchanges with May on “College Football Final,” and sometimes even in the booth when they were placed on the same broadcast team with one another.

May comes off to a lot of people as arrogant and downright condescending when he’s discussing a particular topic, and Holtz, with his fantastic demeanor, was the perfect person to sit there and, in his own unique way, tell the former Pitt standout that he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.

Remember when May try to make the argument that the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes didn’t belong back in December? GET HIM, LOU!

3) We’re college football fans, therefore we hate change

OK, so as not to make this a complete Lou Holtz love fest, was he one of the best analysts to ever come through the game of college football since the invention of the television? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. However, probably on the same level as baseball fans, we college football fans are some of the biggest “GET OFF MY LAWN!” folks on the planet. We hate change; we like things to stay the way we are.

We wake up on Saturday mornings with the College GameDay crew –which has also changed, further throwing us into a bit of a depression– and go to bed watching Holtz and May argue like 10-year-olds. It’s not Emmy Award-winning television most of the time, but it’s what we’re used to and we’re happy doing it.

Lou Holtz was as much a part of our Saturdays as our favorite teams taking the field.


Yep, on this Sunday night, April 12, 2015 we learned our college football grandpa is being taken away from us. and we are certainly not going to be better off for it.

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