Ryan Leaf (L) and Kirk Herbstreit. Ryan Leaf (L) and Kirk Herbstreit. (ESPN Press Room.)
By Andrew Bucholtz on

Two ESPN college football analysts got into quite the Twitter dustup Sunday. This started with Ryan Leaf, the former NFL and Washington State quarterback who calls some college football games for ESPN amidst his other media projects, emphasizing Cougars’ coach Jake Dickert’s post-game comments Saturday criticizing ESPN College GameDay and Lee Corso in particular:

In that clip, a wider discussion about the lack of national respect for Washington State, Dickert says at 0:40 “I was watching GameDay, and Corso comes on and he says ‘The No One Watches Bowl.’ And I don’t really understand that. What’s the merit, once again? Because the facts say people watch the Cougs.”

But the problem here is that that’s not what Corso said. He actually called it “The Nobody Wants Us Bowl,” and says “Nobody wants them, poor guys.” You can hear that here at 0:42:

The “Nobody wants us bowl” label is at least somewhat true for Oregon State and Washington State. Those are the last two teams currently intending to remain in the Pac-12, and the schools that didn’t receive power conference invitations elsewhere.

There’s still maybe a complaint to be had there, especially with it coming in a wider GameDay picks segment that saw Desmond Howard laughing after Rece Davis introduced this game with “The last two standing in the Conference of Champions, Oregon State and Washington State,” and one that saw the panel laughing after Corso’s “Nobody Wants Us Bowl” comment. But Corso’s comment wasn’t a shot at viewership. And it’s understandable that Dickert may have misheard that, but bringing that up in a postgame press conference so many hours later is interesting. And that set off this exchange between Leaf and Herbstreit, who chimed in in strong terms to defend Corso:

Leaf then took a further shot at Herbstreit, and Herbstreit exited the discussion:

Overall, Herbstreit has the stronger point here, with Dickert going off a mishearing and Leaf then further amplifying that (and blasting the studio show of a company he works for along the way). And he has a much better argument here than in some other instances where he’s either tried to defend ESPN or tried to take other media members, players, coaches, or fans to task.

But conference realignment thing is an awkward thing for ESPN to be making jokes about (as we’ve seen in the past). They have both actual provable involvement (with TV deals that include escalator clauses) and suggested behind-the-scenes involvement with valuations and overtures. (They’re far from alone there, of course, and a lot of this year’s realignment was actually much more about Fox, but ESPN certainly has played a large role in the shaping of the current makeup of college athletics conferences.)

So it’s understandable why Dickert wasn’t pleased with Corso’s comments, and why Leaf then amplified those and turned them into larger GameDay criticism. But it would have been better for everyone if Dickert had correctly stated what Corso said in the first place. (And this also isn’t the first time Leaf has really gone at it with an ESPN colleague; he went after Marcus Spears last month for Spears’ comments on Untold: Johnny Football.)

Leaf has been calling some games for ESPN since 2019, with that role continuing despite his 2020 arrest for domestic battery. (He eventually struck a plea deal that resulted in three years of probation and a 12-month class on domestic violence.) He also hosts the Straight Line podcast for PointsBet and works for SiriusXM, Westwood One, and NFL Network. Herbstreit has been working for ESPN since 1996, and has been on College GameDay since then; he also calls Thursday Night Football NFL games for Prime Video.

[Kirk Herbstreit and Ryan Leaf on Twitter]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz