It’s funny how life works sometimes. Two years ago, Booger McFarland left ABC’s college football studio show for the analyst job on Monday Night Football. His replacement was Jonathan Vilma. This summer, Vilma left ESPN for an NFL game analyst role with Fox Sports, and his replacement on ABC’s college football studio show is…Booger McFarland.

ESPN announced the move in its college football studio release today. McFarland will work with Kevin Negandhi and Mark Sanchez, who replaced Mack Brown last summer. The studio role really suited McFarland better than his game analyst job, and given Vilma’s departure, slotting him back into this position simply makes sense.

The most significant change across the rest of ESPN’s studio lineups is Wendi Nix being named the main host of College Football Live. Nix was previously the primary host of NFL Live before Laura Rutledge took over this summer. CFB Live had been using a rotation of hosts in recent years on the show.

As for College GameDay, this Saturday’s edition will be a preview show with Rece Davis in studio and Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, Desmond Howard, and David Pollack chiming in from their studios at home. The Week 2 edition of GameDay will be going on the road to a location yet to be announced, but if you skim the schedule, Wake Forest seems like a good bet, since they’re hosting Clemson in primetime on ABC.

Other studio coverage of note: the ESPN Saturday studio coverage and College Football Final will be anchored by Matt Barrie, joined by analysts Joey Galloway and Jesse Palmer. Kevin Connors hosts the ESPN2 coverage, along with Sanchez and Jim Mora.

[ESPN]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.