Pete Thamel is a college football senior writer for ESPN. One of the industry’s most widely respected reporters, Thamel covers college football year-round for ESPN, as well as college basketball. Thamel is College GameDay’s Insider for both football and men’s basketball, contributing weekly reports from on-site campus locations across the country. He’s in his 23rd overall season as a national college sports reporter for various publications.

A top news-breaker and storyteller, Thamel joined ESPN in January 2022. His multiplatform role includes writing for ESPN.com and appearing on studio programs, including College GameDay, SportsCenter, College Football Live, Get Up, and the Pat McAfee Show. Thamel is also a regular host/contributor to ESPN’s College GameDay podcast. 

An award-winning reporter, Thamel joined ESPN from Yahoo Sports, where he covered college sports and the NFL since 2017. Thamel also worked for five years as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, covering college football and basketball, and he previously spent nine years as the national college sports reporter for the New York Times.  

Thamel was named the 2022 co-National Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. A member of the Football Writers Association of America, Thamel has also earned numerous FWAA writing honors over the past two decades in addition to APSE awards, including first place for beat reporting in 2017 and breaking news in 2011. In 2006, The New York Times nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.  

 Thamel graduated from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.