It’s no secret that for one reason or another, many Ohio State fans hold some deep seeded animosity towards ESPN’s lead college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit.
In particular, certain members of the Columbus media have a long history of criticizing the former Buckeyes quarterback, often veering into territory that can seem personal in nature. Count Mike the “Common Man” Ricordati among that group.
On Monday’s episode of Common Man & T-Bone on 97.1 The Fan in Columbus, Ricordati doubled down on his past opinions of Herbstreit when it came to comments he made about Ohio State fans on the College Football Playoff rankings show, quipping that the Buckeyes might be better off playing on the road so they don’t get booed by their home crowd.
“I like how everybody’s just discovering now that Kirk Herbstreit is a douchebag… This is a guy who’s always been ashamed of college football fans. This is a guy who makes his living talking down to you.” – 97.1 The Fan’s Mike Ricordati in Columbus pic.twitter.com/gemxrJytJc
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 9, 2024
“I like how everybody’s just discovering now that Kirk Herbstreit is a douchebag,” the host began. “Like, I’ve been talking about this for 20 years, welcome to my world. Now there’s stuff behind the scenes and there’s some personal stuff that goes into my story. But this is a guy who’s always been ashamed of college football fans. This is a guy who makes his living talking down to you. For some reason, people still eat it up. They think he’s the every man.”
“This is the thing with Herbie, and it’s one of the worst character traits I’ve ever found in this business, and there are lots of people like this. They will talk lots of crap about you, they will say lots of things behind your back, they will go to bosses and complain about you. But if they come to you in person, they’re just the nicest guy. And that’s what I always hear about Herbie, when people talk about him, ‘he’s the nicest human, he’s so friendly…’ I’m sure he is like that. The people who have worked with him have a different story about him, that’s all,” Ricordati’s co-host Jonathan “T-Bone” Smith added.
“He has disdain for fan bases like ours. He really does. And you can hear it when he talks, and then he plays the victim card, like ‘that’s what I get for having an opinion.’ How many shows you need to be on douche,” Ricordati said.
“There’s a happy medium between Desmond Howard who is wearing Lloyd Carr’s soiled underwear every single week and see a Michigan player murder someone right in front of him, ‘I didn’t see anything,’ there’s a fine line between that and talking about your alma mater all the time with disgust in your voice,” Ricordati added.
Now there’s plenty of history between Ricordati, the radio station, and Herbstreit. Back in the day, Ricordati hosted a show with Scott “The Torg” Torgerson who posted a wildly inappropriate tweet wishing death on Herbstreit’s College GameDay colleague Desmond Howard. Herbstreit subsequently defended Howard on a different 97.1 The Fan program, and Torgerson got fired.
“The Torg” is still railing against Herbstreit in 2024, posting to his X account Monday calling the ESPN analyst “an entitled prick” to Ricordati’s co-host Jonathan “T-Bone” Smith.
He is an entitled prick bone. He thinks this city owes him something but the reality is this city and our former company bent over backwards for him. In his world Columbus owes him. He hates the fans and this city. He wants everyone to bow down to him. He’s trash and soon…
— The Torg (@TorgRadio) December 9, 2024
Herbstreit has been on the receiving end of criticism from the Buckeyes faithful for some time. It even famously prompted him to move out of Columbus back in 2011. Here’s what he said at the time:
“Nobody loves Ohio State more than me. I still have a picture of Woody Hayes and my dad (Jim, a former OSU player) in my office, and nobody will do more than I do for the university behind the scenes. But I’ve got a job to do, and I’m going to continue to be fair and objective. To continue to have to defend myself and my family in regards to my love and devotion to Ohio State is unfair.
“From a sports perspective, this is rough. I love Ohio State. Love the Blue Jackets. Love the Reds. Those are my hobbies. I don’t like moving. I love living here. I don’t want to leave. But I just can’t do this anymore. I really can’t keep going like this.
“Eighty to ninety percent of the Ohio State fans are great. It’s the vocal minority that make it rough. They probably represent only 5 to 10 percent of the fan base, but they are relentless.”
Sure, it’s notable that he thinks a home crowd could actually prove detrimental during Ohio State’s first round playoff game against Tennessee. But that may not be such a hot take when a large portion of the fan base is calling for the head coach to be fired after an embarrassing fourth straight rivalry loss to Michigan.
It’s a sad and bizarre tale given Herbstreit is the most prominent analyst in college football and an Ohio State alum. He has tried for years to be balanced in his opinions, and seems to do a decent job of it, but clearly he goes too far in trying to achieve that for many in Buckeye Nation, regardless of what may or may not have happened behind the scenes.
Perhaps it’s the contrast between Herbstreit and his GameDay colleague Howard that rubs Ohio State fans the wrong way. Howard unapologetically bleeds maize and blue, while Herbstreit tries to moderate his opinions and remain neutral. Neither is necessarily wrong, but there’s a reason that Herbstreit will be calling the National Championship and an NFL playoff game this year, while Howard will not.
The Herbstreit hate from the Columbus media is probably a bad look to anyone outside of central Ohio. Over a decade on and there is clearly no love lost between the radio station and Herbstreit. And over a decade after leaving Columbus, Herbstreit continues to call out the “lunatic fringe” of Buckeyes fans, so there’s probably some hard feelings that still exist on both sides.
