Kirk Herbstreit recently brushed off complaints about Taylor Swift’s NFL presence, attributing the negativity to a general societal tendency to find things to criticize, citing a trend stretching back four years.
In doing so, the ESPN college football analyst related the conversation back to himself during a recent interview with Fresh Life Church’s Faith and Football program, indirectly mentioning how he drew the ire of Florida State fans after the Seminoles were snubbed from this year’s College Football Playoff.
“My job — I talk with guys who are artists and musicians, especially living in Nashville, and they try to relate to what they do versus what I do, and I said, ‘Listen, you get on the stage and you perform. And people are excited to come see you, and they have a great time,’ whether it’s a Luke Bryan or Kenny Chesney or those kind of guys,” said Herbstreit. “I said, ‘For me, they get excited until I don’t pick their team to win, or if I don’t say positive about their team.”
Herbstreit, reflecting on recent online exchanges with fans of a specific ACC team, discussed an observed increase in the heated nature of such conversations while employing the term “lynch-mob mentality” in a not-so-subtle reference to Florida State.
“I deal with fanbases. It’s social media; it’s a different level of a lynch mob mentality. Every year, we deal with it. This year, I feel like, has been maybe especially a little bit louder,” Herbstreit said. “In our world of college football, it’s very subjective; it’s not like the NFL…There are different tiebreakers. The NFL made it up, and that’s the team that goes — there’s no discussion. College football, it’s a debate; it’s subjective.”
Herbstreit emphasizes his extensive experience and expertise, being in the business for 28 years. He claims to be a “voice of reason” for college football and highlights his thorough research and analysis before presenting his personal opinions on team rankings.
“This year, there were about seven teams that were deserving of being in those four spots. And I said the four that I think, it ended up being the four that I thought would go, went,” he continued. “So then those teams sitting at five and six and seven, you feel that wrath from that fanbase, which I guess is natural. As if I had anything to do with it. But I’ll tell you, it can be dark.”
That dark that Herbstreit references involves the personal cost of witnessing negativity, acknowledging the emotional toll it takes while trying to be a pleaser himself. And with that, balancing objectivity with fan expectation remains a complex challenge for analysts like Herbstreit, especially when considering the pressure of public opinion and the increasingly vitriolic nature of online discourse.
