Brent Musburger
By Brandon Contes on

Nearly a decade ago, Brent Musburger infamously gushed over Katherine Webb while calling the 2013 National Championship Game and the iconic sportscaster is now blaming “woke journalists” for highlighting the incident.

The 83-year-old joined Pete Sampson and Matt Fortuna on The Shamrock podcast this week where they discussed his remarks about Webb, who was dating Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron at the time of Musburger’s gawking. Webb and McCarron have since married.

Some people found Musburger lauding the physical attributes of a woman 50 years his junior a little cringey, others decried the comments as sexist which prompted an apology from ESPN. But according to Musburger, he did then Notre Dame head football coach Brian Kelly a favor.

“Coach Kelly, who I know very well, now down at LSU having left Notre Dame,” Musburger said. “I still tease him when he got blown out by Alabama in the national championship game, I took all the heat off him because I called a beauty queen beautiful. I was the villain that night in the eyes of the media, especially the woke journalists in some of the papers around the country.

“And, I say, ‘Coach, you’d have been under the gun if it wasn’t for me.’ And he laughs. He’s a good old politician. We’ll see what he does.”

For those who don’t remember the incident, Webb was in the stands during the 2013 National Championship Game between Notre Dame and Alabama. The cameras panned to Webb who was sitting next to McCarron’s mother, and the view from the broadcast booth caused Musburger to ogle into his microphone.

“When you’re a quarterback at Alabama, you see that lovely lady there?” Musburger said on the broadcast. “She does go to Auburn but she also is Miss Alabama and that’s A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend…You quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman. Wow.”

The comments were weird and cringey and surely caused some of the audience to feel a little uncomfortable. Musburger was not fired or suspended over the incident, nor should he have been; his career was largely unharmed. But somehow, according to Musburger, the woke journalists deserve blame for calling him a little creepy, cringey and unprofessional after the 74-year-old sportscaster was being a little creepy, cringey and unprofessional.

[The Shamrock]

About Brandon Contes

Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com

View all posts by Brandon Contes