The first round of the expanded College Football Playoff took place over the weekend. While the on-campus environments and unique matchups between teams that don’t normally play lived up to everyone’s expectations, the games themselves did not, as they were largely blowouts where the home teams steamrolled the lower-ranked road sides.
It led to a lot of time that needed to be filled, and there were plenty of things that got thrown around by various ESPN personalities that didn’t exactly go over well. This included Kirk Herbstreit, who discussed the “lunatic fringe” at Ohio State that is fed up with head coach Ryan Day, and at one point, brought up another ESPN show, First Take, after Chris Fowler called out “nonsense” from “pundits on this network and other places” who “talk about that with certainty.”
“First Take tried to fire him,” Herbstreit said. “They thought he was done, so, I’ll be excited to see what they talk about on Monday after this performance. They had him out and were trying to find replacements, but here he is. He’s still got his hat on, he’s still coaching.”
Now, this is First Take we’re talking about here, so there was no bigger guarantee on the planet than this getting addressed. And unsurprisingly, that happened, with both Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe addressing Fowler and especially Herbstreit directly.
“Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit, outstanding, dynamic duo, it’s an honor and a privilege to call them my colleagues, that we work here at the same network, alright?” Smith said in an effort to add some diplomacy to the situation. “And I said this in fun to both of them: Stop, stop it. Chris Fowler, it’s ridiculous, no it’s not. Kirk Herbstreit, First Take tried to get him fired. That is not true, I did! Not First Take. That was me, Stephen A., I’m gonna own that. And what did I say specifically, Kirk Herbstreit? Because you gotta quote me accurately, my brother. I watch you on College GameDay, I don’t misquote you, don’t misquote me. What I said was, this man Ryan Day, if he doesn’t get a national championship, he should go. Even with a 66-10 record. I didn’t stutter one bit, I ain’t stuttering now.”
Smith then goes into Day’s struggles against Michigan, and how he hasn’t won a national title, all that stuff. Still, his whole rant was basically what you expect on an ESPN debate show that is trying to gin up a story where Stephen A. Smith and First Take are the main characters, which is the standard operating procedure for Stephen A. Smith and First Take.
What was considerably different was Sharpe, who … well, his response got a bit more personal.
“I’m gonna be a good teammate, I’m gonna let it slide — Everybody’s at ESPN. Because had you not taken the route you’ve taken, I would’ve lit their asses up,” Sharpe said. “I’m gonna let it slide. You know what guys, congratulations, Ohio State, you won the game. But hey, if we’re gonna be on the same team, if we’re gonna work for the same network, don’t do that. Kirk, Chris Fowler, I promise you, if you ever mention any platform that I’m on again and talking about ‘I wonder what they’re going to say as negativity,’ I promise you, ESPN ain’t got enough bosses to keep me off y’all for what I’m going to say. So, I’ma let y’all slide today, I’ma turn it over to [Dan Orlovsky] before I get myself in trouble. But don’t play with me.”
As both Sharpe and Smith mentioned in passing, Ohio State beat Tennessee, 42-17. This is all pretty wild, as the extremely short list of people who can say whatever they want at ESPN without fear of anyone getting too mad at them includes both Smith (and, by extension, Sharpe) and Herbstreit. At the same time, this public of a spat between some of the most visible people at the network — particularly when it pits the show ESPN built its entire morning programming around against arguably the single most valuable non-NFL property in all of American sports — absolutely seems like the sort of thing that has to be addressed ASAP.
Still, in a weekend where a lot of people did not exactly cover themselves in glory with how they discussed the sport, I think you can make the case that all of this was the nadir for something very loosely trying to present itself as college football analysis.
(via Awful Announcing)