Veteran ESPN SportsCenter anchor Steve Levy, former Texas head coach Mack Brown and sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung will return to call the 2016 Popeyes Bahamas Bowl between Eastern Michigan (7-5) and Old Dominion (9-3) for ESPN on Friday, Dec. 23 in Thomas A. Robinson National Stadium at 1 p.m. ET.
Levy will call the play-by-play for his third Popeyes Bahamas Bowl, while Brown (analyst) and Hartung (sideline) both called the 2015 game.
Steve Levy has been an anchor on SportsCenter since joining ESPN in August 1993. In addition to his SportsCenter duties, in 2016, Levy returned to the college football play-by-play booth to work an afternoon window on ABC or ESPN with Brian Griese and field analyst Todd McShay. He was also the lead play-by-play announcer for ESPN’s telecasts of the World Cup of Hockey 2016.
Along the way, he has also handled play-by-play on the NHL (1995-2005) on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC Sports, college football on ESPN2 (1999-2002) and the NCAA Division I men’s hockey semifinals and finals – “The Frozen Four” – in 1998 and ‘99. The versatile Levy has also served as the studio host for ESPN’s NHL telecasts and co-hosted The NFL on ESPN Radio — previewing, reviewing and updating National Football League games all day on Sundays throughout the season.
Mack Brown, former National Championship winning coach at Texas, joined ESPN in 2014. He works as a game analyst on ESPN Friday night college football and a studio analyst on college football Saturdays on ABC.
Brown was the head coach of the University of Texas Longhorns from 1998-2013, where he won the National Championship in 2005, played for the National Championship against Alabama in 2009, plus won two Big 12 Championships. Prior to that, Brown was the head coach at the University of North Carolina (1988-97), Tulane University (1985-87) and Appalachian State University (1983). He was named ACC Coach of the Year in 1996. He previously held assistant coaching positions at Oklahoma, LSU, Iowa State and Memphis State.
Brown compiled a 244-122 overall record as a collegiate head coach, and also won the Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award (2005), Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award (2008) and was a two-time Big 12 Coach of the Year (2005, ‘09) while coaching the Longhorns.
Kaylee Hartung is an award-winning college sports reporter for ESPN. Hartung regularly appears on SportsCenter and contributes to ESPN’s coverage of college football, basketball and baseball as an in-game reporter. She is currently the sideline reporter for SEC Network’s Primetime Football Game with legendary broadcaster Brent Musburger and analyst Jesse Palmer.
Hartung joined ESPN in the fall of 2012 as an anchor and reporter for Longhorn Network. She hosted Longhorn Network’s flagship program Longhorn Extra, reported for Texas GameDay and crafted feature stories – two of which garnered LoneStar Emmys. When SEC Network launched in the fall of 2014, Hartung was tabbed as a reporter for the channel’s flagship college football program, SEC Nation.
For more information on the 2016 Popeyes Bahamas Bowl, visit PopeyesBahamasBowl.com.
