Merril Hoge

Pro Football Analyst

Former NFL fullback Merril Hoge is an analyst for a variety of ESPN’s popular NFL programs, including NFL Live, the year-round weekday NFL news and information show; the X’s and O’s-oriented NFL Match-Up; and Football Friday on ESPNEWS.  He also contributes insight and analysis to ESPN’s annual NFL Draft coverage and to both ESPN Radio and ESPN.com.

In 2007, Hoge expanded his pro football responsibilities to include game analysis alongside Ron Jaworski on Arena Football League telecasts.  Hoge, who joined ESPN in 1996 as a game analyst and sideline reporter for ESPN2’s college football coverage, previously worked AFL games for ESPN in the late 1990s.

An eight-year NFL veteran, Hoge spent 1987-93 with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was the team’s starting fullback for five of those seasons.  He set the team record for most receptions by a running back, totaling 50 in 1988.  He concluded his career in 1995 with the Chicago Bears.

A 1987 graduate of Idaho State University with a degree in education, 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.  Hoge, who battled leukemia in 2003, received the Champions Award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in 2004.  He remains active in generating awareness in the fight against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma