Detroit Radio: Karsch, Jansen Make Michigan Broadcast Team

Popular Detroit sports radio host Doug Karsch will be the play-by-play voice of Michigan football games, and Jon Jansen, who was a two-time captain at Michigan, will handle the analysis beginning this fall. The announcement was made Tuesday by Learfield and Michigan.

The Detroit News reports they replace Jim Brandstatter and Dan Dierdorf, both former Michigan players who had shared the booth since 2014 and last fall announced their retirement after the 2021 season. Brandstatter had been part of Michigan radio in some form since 1987, while Dierdorf, the NFL and College Hall of Famer who had been with the Monday Night Football broadcast team, took over as color analyst in 2014.

Karsch, 52, made his radio debut in 1994 on Ann Arbor’s WTKA, He has been a longtime part of the Michigan radio crew as a sideline reporter and hosted pre-game coverage with Jansen. He currently is co-host of “Karsch & Anderson” on WXYT-FM 97.1 The Ticket. Jansen, 46, is co-host of the “Stoney and Jansen” show on 97.1 and also handles a number of MGoBlue podcasts for Michigan athletics and hosts the “Inside Michigan Football” radio show with football coach Jim Harbaugh every Monday during the season. Jansen also has filled in on Michigan football radio as analyst when Dierdorf was not available.

During the “Inside the Trenches” podcast on Tuesday, Jansen asked Karsch what it’s like to hear him described as the “voice of Michigan football.”

“I’m numb to this. It hasn’t sunk in,” Karsch said. “I think it will sink in as we get closer to the season. I already started watching film of (opening opponent) Colorado State. I started reading the entire college football rulebook.

“I’m completely numb to the fact this is reality. I had long talks with Jim Brandstatter and Dan Dierdorf, and (Tigers radio voice) Dan Dickerson and I had a long conversation. He told me he had done one inning of Tiger baseball before he got that job. I’ve been on the network for 16 years, I’ve done a bunch of games in studio, I’ve done a few spring games, I’ve done tons of Michigan baseball and softball, women’s basketball, I did some men’s basketball, some of their preseason scrimmages. You and I have been in studio working on it, so it’s crazy.”

Karsch then asked Jansen his reaction to being named the new radio analyst.

"I've been very fortunate throughout the course of my life to have a number of dreams come true, to be able to play football at Michigan, to play in the NFL, and this is the next, professionally, of a dream job," Jansen said. "To be able to learn from Dan and Jim for such a long time, I think it will shape a lot of what we will be doing in 2022 as well as in the future.

"I've got a lot of respect for what they were able to do professionally, but also the relationship that they have and also the relationship we also have as we look toward this broadcast, because you don't have as much fun as we had in the pregame show without having a personal relationship, professional relationship."