Jac Collinsworth leaves ESPN and ACC Network, returns to NBC

After three years with ESPN, Jac Collinsworth (son of NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth) is returning to NBC. While a student at Notre Dame from 2013-17, Collinsworth (seen at right above interviewing Los Angeles Rams’ coach Sean McVay in 2017) worked on the sideline production team for Fighting Irish football games on NBC, served as a social media correspondent for NBC at the 2016 Rio Olympics, and was a sideline reporter for NBC Sports telecasts of the Notre Dame Blue-Gold spring football game in 2016 and 2017. Now, he’s heading back there.

Following his first NBC stint, Collinsworth went to ESPN in the summer of 2017. There, he’s worked there on Sunday NFL Countdown (especially with features), NFL Live, and other NFL coverage. He was named as the host of the ACC Network’s weekly (during football season) flagship football show The Huddle this past summer, and did that all fall. But now he’s returning to NBC, where he’ll once again be involved in football and Olympics coverage, and he sounds excited about it.  Here’s more from NBC’s release:

Host, interviewer, and storyteller Jac Collinsworth, who has covered the NFL for the last three seasons as a host and features reporter at ESPN, is returning to NBC Sports Group beginning in March. He will work across a wide range of NBC Sports properties, including the Olympics, NFL, and Notre Dame Football, on linear and digital platforms. Specific assignments will be announced in the coming weeks.

Collinsworth, the son of NBC Sunday Night Football analyst Cris Collinsworth, rejoins NBC Sports Group, where he previously worked on Notre Dame Football in on- and off-camera capacities. He also served as NBC Olympics’ first-ever social media correspondent at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“We saw the potential for Jac to become a unique television personality when we worked with him as a college student, and his most recent reporting, interviewing and storytelling reinforced that thinking,” said Sam Flood, Executive Producer & President, Production, NBC & NBCSN. “Having worked many games and events over three decades with Cris, we’ve decided not to hold that against Jac.”

“For as long as I can remember my dad has been my coach. Now we’re teammates. Life doesn’t get much better than that,” Collinsworth said. “It feels good to be home.”

Collinsworth’s parentage has undoubtedly opened doors for him, especially early on (it’s not every first-year Notre Dame student who gets a chance to work on NBC’s coverage of Fighting Irish games), but he does have some prominent ESPN work under his belt at this point. And it’s interesting to see him leaving there, especially with him being a high-profile ACC Network face (at least for football coverage). But NBC does have an appealing list of properties to work on, especially with the Olympics, and Collinsworth’s experience with Notre Dame and Olympics work with NBC does make him a logical fit for the network. It will be interesting to watch what specific assignments he gets.

[NBC Sports Group Press Box; screengrab from Jac Collinsworth on YouTube]