In July, TNT Sports announced that they’d landed a package of 14 Mountain West football games on a multi-year deal that begins this fall. Those games will air linearly on truTV and stream on Max. And they’ve now announced their broadcast talent for those games, including a studio show (30 minutes both pregame and postgame, plus halftime, covering news and highlights from around the conference and around college football) hosted by Adam Lefkoe and featuring analysts Champ Bailey (who’s making his high-level broadcasting debut), Takeo Spikes, and Victor Cruz. Here’s more on that from a release:
TNT Sports has announced its commentator lineup ahead of its opening week of Mountain West football coverage. Week 1 on truTV and Max will kick off with the San José State Spartans – led by new head coach Ken Niumatalolo – hosting the Sacramento State Hornets on Thursday, Aug. 29, at 10 p.m. ET. Ari Wolfe (play-by-play), Darius Walker (analyst) and Jared Greenberg (reporter) will call the action from San José.
…Studio coverage throughout the season for TNT Sports will be hosted by Adam Lefkoe with a talented and accomplished roster of analysts:
Champ Bailey – Pro Football Hall of Famer in 2019, following an NFL career as a perennial Pro Bowl cornerback for Washington and Denver. Dual threat at Georgia on offense, defense and special teams, earning All-America, All-SEC and Bronko Nagurski honors over three seasons in Athens.
Takeo Spikes – A Two-Time NFL Pro Bowl linebacker, 15-Year NFL veteran and SEC legend at Auburn. He previously served as an analyst with the SEC Network, along with NBC Sports, SiriusXM and Sky Sports.
Victor Cruz – Super Bowl champion with the New York Giants after making the roster as an undrafted free agent in 2010. Following his retirement from the NFL in 2018, joined ESPN as an NFL analyst. Named an all-conference wide receiver his final two seasons at the University of Massachusetts.
After that San Jose State-Sacramento State game next Thursday, the next game in this package will be Texas A&M Commerce at San Diego State on Saturday, Aug. 31. Wolfe, Walker, and Greenberg will call that one from San Diego, which is notable considering the conversations that have popped up around remote broadcasting.
Beginning with Week 2, TNT Sports will have four double-headers throughout the season. That means they need another announcing team, and that will see J.B. Long will handle play-by-play for those games, with Mike Golic Jr. serving as analyst. Beyond Greenberg, other reporters for TNT Sports’ Mountain West coverage will include Lauren Jbara, Nabil Karim and Bridget Howard.
This will be the first time that TNT Sports (formerly WBD Sports, formerly Turner Sports) is televising college football since 2006. But they’re coming back to the sport in a notable way; beyond this Mountain West package, they’ll also have two first-round College Football Playoff games this year and next year, and will add two quarterfinal games each year beginning in 2026. So it makes sense for them to assemble a CFB broadcasting team, and it will be interesting to see how Bailey and Cruz in particular do as college football analysts. The full TNT Sports Mountain West schedule can be found here.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.