Skip to main content
Texas

FOX's Gus Johnson: "When Texas is good, college football is good"

Joe Cookby: Joe Cook09/28/23josephcook89
gus-johnson-mistakenly-gives-nsfw-call-on-iowa-block-shot
Photo by Porter Binks/Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

On the latest episode of On Texas Football, Fox’s Gus Johnson discusses the Texas Longhorns, his start in the industry, and some of his best stories in the booth.

[Join Inside Texas and get ONE MONTH of Longhorn intel for just $1!]

Johnson, the play-by-play voice of Fox’s No. 1 college football broadcast team and the soundtrack to some of the most heart-pounding moments in the sport over the past decade, discusses what has changed in college sports over the past 15 years. Johnson pointed out NIL and the transfer portal.

“Kids can just go from one school to the next depending on how they feel,” Johnson said. “This season, it’s almost as if every school I go to to call a game, there’s 35 or more new players. Deion (Sanders) at Colorado, they have 80. That’s just the norm now.”

The topic switches to Johnson’s experience with Texas football, including his historic call of Cameron Dicker’s game-winning field goal in the 2018 Red River Shootout. Johnson has been the soundtrack to many great moments and gave his thoughts on how to handle those situations.

“These are things that are going to be played for eternity,” Johnson said. “The No. 1 thing is that you don’t want to screw it up. You really don’t want to screw it up and live with that for eternity. I think what I try to do is just focus on the game and focus on the players and the stories of the players. Whether or not that’s something they’ve done outside of the game that particular day or what they’ve done in the game that particular day, I think it’s all about people being able to overcome obstacles, people digging down and finding something in themselves that they didn’t think existed, and to me that’s my strength to be able to focus on those kind of attributes of human beings. That’s what I think about. I don’t think about the call very much until after the game is over.”

He’d continue, “I think more than anything I try to talk from my heart and my spirit, not from my head. I think over time that’s really, really worked well for me.”

Johnson then discusses his connections with Steve Sarkisian dating back to his Washington and Southern Cal days.

[Sign up NOW for the Inside Texas newsletter for Texas Longhorns daily updates and breaking news in your inbox!]

“I root for Sark,” Johnson said. “Hopefully they’ll continue to play extremely well. I think (Quinn) Ewers is turning a lot of heads keeping Arch Manning on the bench. I know everybody wants to see him play. When Texas is good, college football is good. There are certain teams that you need to be great. The Alabamas, Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, USC, Notre Dame, you need those teams to be good. When those teams are good college football is perfect.”

Johnson also discusses Sanders at Colorado, his start in journalism, his time at Harvard, and one of his favorite calls.

You may also like