Odds are you’ve seen Merril Hoge on television.
He’s one of ESPN’s marquee NFL analysts, appearing almost daily on shows such as “SportsCenter,” “NFL Live,” and “NFL Matchup.” He’s also an author, highly-successful motivational speaker and philanthropist.
Hoge was also one of the best all-purpose running backs in Big Sky Conference football history. So good in fact, that the former Idaho State star ranks 34th on the list of the Big Sky Conference’s “50 Greatest Male Athletes.”
Earlier this year, while speaking at his alma mater, Hoge had nothing but great things to say about his time in the Big Sky.
“The Big Sky Conference was superbly advanced in college football with a pro-style offense,” he said. “ISU, Idaho, Weber, Nevada, NAU all ran it. We had a very pro-style system here. We ran from split-backs, I-Backs and did all the things NFL teams were doing. When I got to the NFL and what I noticed right away was that the kids from Michigan, Florida, Georgia or LSU had no concept on how to run a route or to pass block. In the NFL you have 48 hours to really make your mark. The conference I played in really trained me to adapt to that because I did that for four years.
Hoge was a star at Pocatello’s Highland High School and had a goal to play in the NFL. He ended up staying very close to home and enrolling at Idaho State, becoming a great “Local Boy Does Good” story.
“I didn’t know what a scholarship was until my season year,’’ Hoge told Idaho State’s Steve Schaack during a visit to ISU this past summer. “I wanted to start as a freshman. I didn’t care where that was. I didn’t have my heart set on any university. I wasn’t highly recruited. I would argue that I only had one scholarship and that was Idaho State and that one was almost given to a running back in Mountain Home.’’
Hoge flourished with the hometown Bengals. He still holds the school record for single-season rushing attempts with 213. His 1,041 rushing yards in 1985 ranks fifth in school history, and his 900 yards in 1984 is the ninth-best single-season mark.
But he wasn’t just a runner. In 1985, he led the Big Sky Conference in all-purpose yards with an average of 192.1 per game, which is the ISU school record and still ranks seventh in school history. At the time, no one in league history had averaged more all-purpose yards in a season. He tallied 1,041 rushing yards, 708 receiving yards and 364 kick return yards for a total of 2,113, which was also a league record.
Hoge finished his career with 5,453 all-purpose yards, which at the time was second all-time in league history. It still ranks No. 8 on the list. He scored 31 rushing touchdowns, which ranks second in ISU history.
“When other colleges were not doing it, the Big Sky Conference was,’’ Hoge said. “We had more of an NFL flavor to what we did than any conference in the country.’’
Hoge achieved his dream of playing in the NFL. He was selected in the 10th round of the 1987 draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he was a perfect fit for the hard-nosed reputation of the “Steele City.”
He started 84 career NFL games and played in 114. He rushed for 3,139 yards and 21 touchdowns, and had 2,133 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns. His career came to an end prematurely with the Chicago Bears in 1994 because of concussions.
He has transitioned into the television world after his career ended. He got his start in broadcasting while he was with the Steelers as a rookie. In his second season, he had the opportunity to partake in a 30-minute radio segment on Mondays.
“The one catch was I had to go to the station and do it live in studio,” Hoge told Idaho State. “The first day I went there I opened the door and I had never been in a studio setting. Something just grabbed me. I wanted to do this. It evolved from there. I had no intentions of doing television. It was a luck accident that I am grateful for.”
