Kirk Herbstreit denies claims of ESPN having SEC bias: ‘Are you kidding me?’

Kirk Herbstreit wants to set the record straight.

He and ESPN undoubtedly bear responsibility for their coverage of the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff — a spectacle Awful Announcing’s Matt Yoder described as a “negative and miserable” experience. Yoder wasn’t alone in that sentiment.

As the face of ESPN’s college football coverage, Herbstreit has become a lightning rod for criticism, for better or worse.

Herbstreit also has to own his share of polarizing comments, like declaring that Indiana, which kept within 10 points of Notre Dame — the same Fighting Irish team that later dismantled Georgia — was “outclassed” and “shouldn’t have been on the field” in South Bend.

As to who should’ve been on that field, Herbstreit was seemingly hinting that perhaps Alabama, Ole Miss, South Carolina or even Miami should have instead.

But, again, he wants to set the record straight regarding his network’s perceived ESPN bias. And he did so during a recent appearance on the Andy & Ari On3 daily podcast with respected college football writers Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman.

“Let me straighten the record on one last thing. ESPN loves the SEC so much that we could not have paid for a better final four with Notre Dame and Ohio State and Penn State and Texas,” he said. “The only one missing is Michigan. If you could somehow wedge Michigan [into the CFP] — so, this idea that we want Alabama and Texas A&M and Auburn. Are you kidding me?

“Like, if you’re asking us who we would want, ‘Uh, we’ll take Ohio State every year, Notre Dame.’ This is a ratings bonanza. So if you’re going to accuse us of anything, you should accuse us of wanting Ohio State, wanting Notre Dame and these big brands. If you knew anything about ratings, that’s who you’d want. You don’t want these small little Clemsons and these small little southern schools when it comes to cheering for ratings.”

The first-round playoff matchup of Clemson-Texas — which aired at 4 p.m. ET on and competed directly with a Pittsburgh Steelers-Baltimore Ravens game on Fox — drew an audience of 8.6 million viewers across TNT, TBS, truTV and Max, according to TNT Sports PR. That audience would rank as just the 15th most-watched college football game of the year, lower than the Army-Navy game on CBS a week prior, for instance (9.4 million viewers).

“Ratings are big, massive Big Ten brands — that’s what ratings are,” said Herbstreit.

Maybe that’s true. But Herbstreit’s attempt to set the record straight only underscores the fine line ESPN walks between defending its coverage and reinforcing the perception of bias.

[On3]