Courtesy USA Today

(November 6, 2009) When ESPN/ABC's Bob Griese was off last weekend because he'd been suspended for using an ethnic stereotype on-air, viewers might have thought they were listening to him anyway. TV college football this season got a rarity — a father-son pair of game analysts on ESPN/ABC in Bob Griese and his son, Brian.

Brian says he never planned to become an NFL quarterback-turned-analyst like his father. After 11 NFL seasons, he wasn't sure if he'd keep playing — "I would have gone back if the situation was perfect." He always thought after playing he'd get an MBA but decided "it wasn't worth it. … I thought I'd try out the TV thing this fall and see if I liked it."

Brian, who'll call Oklahoma State-Iowa State (ABC regionalized, 3:30 p.m. ET), says "not much has surprised" him about TV. But then, he'd heard about its inner workings from way back. Like when he was a Michigan QB and Bob, then ABC's lead analyst, didn't initially work his games. "ABC said it was a conflict-of-interest. He never said he didn't want to. Then, ABC thought maybe it would be a human-interest story and help ratings."

When Bob started calling Brian's games — which included Brian leading Michigan to the national title with a Rose Bowl win in 1998 — he seemed to go out of the way not to praise his son on-air — or even call him by name. Once, says Brian, his grandmother heard Bob say on-air that Ohio State needed to "get more pressure on the Michigan quarterback" and she called her son Bob "with a dirty message — 'don't talk about my grandson that way.' "

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