ESPN MediaZone

Merril Hoge

NFL Analyst

Former NFL running back Merril Hoge is an analyst for a variety of ESPN’s popular programs, including NFL Live, NFL Matchup, NFL PrimeTime and SportsCenter. He also contributes insight and analysis to ESPN’s annual Super Bowl and NFL Draft coverage and appears on multiple platforms, including ESPN Radio and ESPN.com.

Hoge, who joined ESPN in 1996 as a game analyst and sideline reporter for ESPN2’s college football coverage, also called Arena Football League telecasts in 2007 and in the late 1990s.

An eight-year NFL veteran, Hoge spent 1987-93 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was the team’s starting running back for six of those seasons.  He set the team record for most receptions by a running back, totaling 50 in 1988 and was one of only two Steelers to rush for more than 100 yards in back-to-back playoff games.  He concluded his career in 1995 with the Chicago Bears after suffering a series of concussions.

A 1987 graduate of Idaho State University with a degree in education and minor in health and fitness, Hoge set 11 school records, including career rushing attempts, career rushing yards, career all-purpose yards, season rushing attempts, season rushing yards and season all-purpose yards.  He also scored 44 touchdowns, a Big Sky Conference record.

Outside of his television work, Hoge runs the successful Merril Hoge Football Camps each summer for youths at various sites. The camps feature a multitude of NFL standouts.  Additionally, he co-hosts the Hoge Ward Celebrity Golf Classic for children with Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward to raise funds and awareness for the Highmark Caring Place, a center for grieving children, adolescents and their families after the loss of a loved one.

Hoge, who battled non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2003, received the Chairman’s Advocacy Award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in 2004 and 2008 for his outstanding participation in driving awareness for LLS and its mission.  Hoge is also extremely active in concussion research and in the prevention and treatment of brain injuries. In the fall of 2009, Hoge testified at a congressional hearing on head injuries in football, and, in January 2010, he was appointed to the NFL MTBI Committee, which initiates research and advises the NFL on best practices for concussion prevention and management.  Hoge was also named in March 2010 to the board of directors for USA Football, the sport's national governing body on youth and amateur levels.

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