Michigan football radio broadcasters Jim Brandstatter and Dan Dierdorf are set to retire following the end of the 2021 season, their eighth year together.
Ahead of Saturday’s season-opening game broadcast, play-by-play announcer Brandstatter, 72, and colour analyst Dierdorf, 73, announced their joint decision to call it quits.
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Brandstatter had been the radio analyst on Michigan games for 34 years when he shifted responsibilities and Dierdorf joined the booth in 2014.
The two said they reached the decision early this year.
“Neither of us wants to make this about us,” Brandsatter said, according to The Detroit News report. “It’s about Michigan football. We had a great run. I have had the best run of all. It’s been a dream job. Now, it’s time to move on and get somebody else in there.”
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“I thank the gods of broadcasting that brought Dierdorf to work the final eight years. It isn’t often when you get an opportunity to go out on your own in this business and do it in the best scenario possible, and that’s exactly what I got.
After three decades in the television booth calling NFL games for ABC and CBS, Dierdorf joined the Michigan football broadcast. He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the Pro Football Hall of Fame. From 1987 until 1999, he was a member of ABC’s Monday Night Football team before moving to CBS. After the 2013 NFL season, he left television broadcasting.
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He said that working with Brandstatter was the sole reason he took the Michigan position.
“That sealed the deal,” Dierdorf said, who made a promise at the time to then-athletic director Dave Brandon that he would be part of the radio broadcast for three years.
Both of them wanted to make their exit quietly and didn’t want to be the story today or this season and will make their goodbyes later this fall.
