Father, son will share ESPN2 booth

Published Oct. 16, 2010 2:23 p.m. ET

foxsports

Bob Griese and his son, Brian, are often told they sound alike.

But as they work ESPN2's Minnesota-Purdue game together Saturday, they might sound different than they do normally.

"We have a natural way of jabbing each other," Brian says.

"When we're together, we always have a need to poke at each other," Bob says.

As they match up, Brian has the size, but Bob has a big edge in experience. After starring as a quarterback at Purdue and with the Miami Dolphins, Bob, starting in 1982, called five years of NFL games on NBC and then joined Keith Jackson to call ABC's main college football games. Brian, after retiring in 2008 from an 11-season quarterbacking NFL career, is in his second on-air season for ESPN/ABC.

Bob didn't expect Brian to follow him into TV, or even into football. "I told my three sons, 'Don't plan on doing what I did, playing NFL football. And pick a college for an education, not its football program. If you want to play football, you can walk on.' "

Brian ended up being named Rose Bowl MVP when he led Michigan to the national title in the 1997 season -- after not following in Bob's footsteps. Bob recalls Brian telling him Purdue "did the best job recruiting me and wants me the most." But he felt it would be too much to try to follow his father in becoming a Boilermaker. So Brian went to Michigan as a walk-on -- getting a scholarship within weeks.

Bob called Brian's Rose Bowl and was overcome with emotion when his son was named MVP. But initially, Bob wasn't assigned to call his son's games until, Brian says, "they figured it might be good TV."

Bob didn't cut his son much on-air slack. When Brian was playing Ohio State, Bob said the Buckeyes needed "to pressure the Michigan quarterback. They've got to hit him." That, Brian says, drew fire from a key critic: "His mother, my grandmother, called him to say, 'Don't you dare talk about my grandson that way!' "

Could Saturday's game, with the Grieses working a three-man booth with announcer Dave Pasch, lead to more Griese on-air pairings?

"We'll see where it goes," Bob says. And if it's going to happen, Brian says, there's no point in waiting: "It's not like he's getting any younger. He's already collecting Social Security."