By Tom Hoffarth (DailyNews.com) —

Check out the new promo for ESPN’s “College GameDay,” in which studio analyst Kirk Herbstreit, sitting in the talent bus going over his prep work, hears his cell phone go off, looks at the caller ID, and ignores it.

Chris Fowler asks him whom he’s ducking.

Herbstreit admits it’s USC coach Pete Carroll - who, as the camera pulls back, is in the bus doorway, looking straight at Herbstreit, somewhat perturbed.

“Hey, dude, you can’t take my calls?” Carroll asks.

Herbstreit fumbles for an excuse.

“Coach, it’s the bus, sometimes we get really bad reception,” he says - just as his phone goes off again, and Lee Corso gets this horribly pained look on his face.

Surely, the fans of Ohio State can get a laugh out of that. Right?

Herbstreit straddles a goofy line that seems to divide a homer from a traitor when it comes to myopic Buckeyes fans who question his loyalty these days. They, more than anyone, cling to the Herbstreit DNA report that shows he was once their quarterback, captain of the OSU squad, son of a former OSU assistant under Woody Hayes, now married to a former OSU cheerleader, living with her and their four sons just two miles from the OSU campus, doing a daily sports-talk radio show on the OSU flagship station.

When Herbstreit works in the booth with Brent Musburger on ABC’s telecast of the USC-Ohio State game from the Coliseum on Saturday night, plenty of Buckeyes fans will dissect his every analytical snippet and post Internet updates, trying to gauge his support for the team’s cause.

For better or worse, it comes with the territory, Herbstreit has learned. The reaction is how he chooses to deal with it - 16 years after he took his last snap in Columbus.

“When I’m home with my family, I have a rooting interest,” Herbstreit said of his Buckeyes loyalties. “But when I’m on the air, I have a job to be objective and I don’t have a problem doing that. Most Ohio State fans hate me, I think. Most think I’m too objective.”

That was evident before the season when he went on the record predicting a Florida-USC matchup in the BCS championship. It meant only one thing to Buckeyes believers - he’d already decided that the Trojans would defeat Ohio State in this monstrous early-season contest.

“Most of the people in Ohio didn’t like that, but I wasn’t trying to prove a point,” said Herbstreit, whose vote in the latest AP poll has Florida at No. 1, USC at No. 2 and Ohio State at No. 6.

As for the beer-bonged Ohio State perceived bias, he’s dealing with it in a sober manner.

“I’d probably say in the first two, three, four years working on the national level, I erred on the side of going the opposite way to let people know that I wanted to call it as I saw it,” Herbstreit admitted. “But what’s happened since then, I’ve become numb to it. I have just as good a relationship with Pete Carroll and (offensive coordinator) Steve Sarkisian as I do with the Ohio State staff, and that goes with every team.

“(Saturday night), I won’t be cheering for Ohio State in my mind, or jumping up and down (after a big play), I’ll be hitting my talk-back button to tell the producer to give me an iso on the cornerback. I’ll be so focused and locked into what I’m doing.

“I love the Buckeyes, but when I step onto ‘GameDay,’ or a broadcast booth, I have no issues. I don’t tell myself, ‘OK, really try hard not to be an Ohio State homer.’ I don’t think I am.

“I’m guessing that people who didn’t know I went to Ohio State wouldn’t even know.”

We’re guessing maybe they do now.

HERBSTREIT AT A GLANCE

Age: 39

College career: Four-year letterman at Ohio State, started as a senior in 1992, voted team MVP, threw for 1,904 yards, led squad to the the Citrus Bowl.

Radio career: Two years as a sideline reporter on the Buckeyes radio broadcasts; launched a sports-talk show, “Herbie and Benz,” on The Fan SportsRadio 1460 in Columbus in 1993, which he still does.

TV career: Worked at the Columbus CBS affiliate on the weekends (1993-94). ESPN2 started using him as a sideline reporter in 1995. Joined ChrisFowler and Lee Corso on ESPN’s “College GameDay” show in 1995.

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