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Florida Gator legend Cris Collinsworth elected to Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame

On3 imageby:Keith Niebuhr•07/31/23•

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Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images

Cris Collinsworth was an All-American in high school, an All-American with the Florida Gators and a Pro Bowl receiver in the NFL.

And, he has become a legend after his playing days, too.

Collinsworth, a longtime NFL analyst on television. has been named to the 2023 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Class.

Per a University of Florida release, Collinsworth is the only NFL analyst other than John Madden to receive a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Event and he earned the award nine times.

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“He currently sits alongside Mike Tirico in the NBC Sunday Night Football announce booth,” UF Communications noted. “His career began in 1990 when he joined NBC Sports as a game analyst for NFL coverage and selected college-football broadcasts. In 2005, Collinsworth joined the NFL on Fox broadcast booth alongside play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and former quarterback Troy Aikman to form the broadcaster’s lead broadcast team.”

Collinsworth’s fellow inductees include, among others, Ernie Johnson, the long-time NBA on TNT studio-show host. The 2023 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Class will officially be inducted Dec. 12 in New York.

Collinsworth was a standout quarterback at Titusville (Fla.) Astronaut when he signed with the Gators in the late 1970s. He began his Gators career at that position before moving to receiver. There, he flourished and ended up catching 120 passes for 1,937 yards and 14 touchdowns.

He was named to the Florida Gators Athletic Hall of Fame in 1991.

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As an NFL receiver, Collinsworth was named to the Pro Bowl three times and was three times named second-team All-Pro. He recorded 417 catches for 6,698 yards and 36 touchdowns in the NFL before retiring at age 28 due to injuries that severely limited his playing abilities.

Collinsworth is one of the best receivers in Gators history

This is a clip from Collinsworth’s Wikipedia page about his time at Florida: “Florida’s option attack struggled against top defenses in Collinsworth’s freshman season of 1977, so Coach (Doug) Dickey decided to transition his team from a run-oriented offense to a more balanced pro set attack for 1978. Collinsworth was moved to wide receiver, where his new position coach was former Gator quarterback Steve Spurrier in his first year as a coach. Though Florida’s offense did not improve enough to save the jobs of Dickey or his coaching staff, Collinsworth flourished in his new role. He was named a first-team All-Southeastern Conference selection in 1978, 1979 and 1980, and was named both a first-team All-American and a first-team Academic All-America in 1980.”

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