The Florida State Seminoles have had nothing short of a disastrous start to the 2024 college football season, losing their first two games of the year after their undefeated season last year. But despite this, ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit was quick to jump to the Seminoles’ defense on College Gameday.
The Gameday cast made their picks for Saturday’s matchup between Florida State and Memphis, a game that means quite a bit to Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield considering he formerly coached under Norvell at Memphis.
It was split for the Gameday cast, with Pat McAfee, Nick Saban, and guest picker Dawn Staley all picking Memphis. Meanwhile, Desmond Howard, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit all sides with Florida State.
While discussing his pick, Herbstreit made it a point to call out those “disrespecting” Florida State.
“Don’t forget, this is Mike Norvell’s former team,” said Herbstreit. “Memphis, before he came to Tallahassee. I can’t believe all of the disrespect for Florida State.”
“I can’t believe all the disrespect towards Florida State. I apologize for that.” – Kirk Herbstreit 🏈📺🎙️😂 pic.twitter.com/l9r4R3OvmX
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 14, 2024
Those who picked Memphis, specifically Desmond Howard, and Pat McAfee, then began laughing as Herbstreit attempted to stick up for Florida State.
“There is no disrespect,” said McAfee.
After coming into the season as the No. 10 ranked team in the country, it’s hard not to “disrespect” this Florida State team after their incredibly disappointing start to the season. Particularly because it has been a drastic fall from grace after their impressive year last season.
It’s also quite interesting to see Herbstreit defending Florida State after FSU fans decided to relentlessly boo Herbstreit on the Week 0 edition of Gameday in Dublin, Ireland.
Regardless, Florida State finds themselves trailing by two scores in the fourth quarter to Memphis. So unless we get a fourth-quarter comeback from Norvell’s team, it seems like all of the “disrespect” is absolutely warranted for the Seminoles.
