ESPN’s Rece Davis Says He Was ‘Angered,’ ‘Irritated’ by Everyone Bashing Kirk Herbstreit Over Controversial Comments

1. Hello and welcome to the first edition of Traina Thoughts in 2022. A lot has happened since I left you guys on Dec. 22.

One thing that stood out to me took place on New Year’s Day. Given that it was a holiday and I was on vacation, I was barely paying attention to Twitter. I had glanced at my feed just three or four times that day, and based on tweets I skimmed without investigating what happened, I assumed Kirk Herbstreit had murdered someone.

The man was just getting bludgeoned by one person after another all day long. Twitter is all about the pile on when someone screws up, but this seemed over the top.

The next day I did the research on what exactly took place and saw the video of Herbstreit saying today’s college football player doesn’t love football.

When I first heard the comment, I wasn’t outraged and just chalked it up to an old-school guy resisting change.

An NFL prospect now realizes playing in a Mayonnaise Bowl isn’t nearly as important as protecting himself and maximizing his earning potential. If someone wants to translate that into “doesn’t love football,” that’s on them for being out of touch.

But Kirk Herbstreit being out of touch on that issue does not make him a bad guy. That one comment doesn’t change the fact that he’s been one of the top, if not the top, ambassadors for college football.

But in this day and age, if you say one thing out of line, you need to get raked over the coals.

Herbstreit’s College GameDay partner, Rece Davis, however, had enough of the backlash and defended Herbstreit on The ESPN College Football Podcast, which came out Monday.

“He went back and clarified it,” Davis said. “He was talking about a segment of players who look solely at the ‘NFL or bust’ and everything else is a far second. There is nothing wrong with having that goal and it was a perspective and he clarified it.

The reaction I saw to it angered me. From a lot of our colleagues in the media, from some fans. And, look, you have to wear it. When you do what we do for a living, it’s incumbent on you to say exactly when you mean and inevitably, sometimes we aren’t going to be as precise, or in this particular case a little more broad than what we meant. But it was really unfortunate to me that people didn’t listen to the whole thing or chose not to listen to the whole thing when he went back and clarified because some of his points are completely valid and he went back and even said the phrase, ‘I’m not talking about all of them.’"

And yet, to attach injuries to it and then use Kirk’s status to be able to get more attention for what you want to say really ticked me off. I know it’s part of the business. To know how much he cares about this sport and to know his attachment to it, not only from an emotional level, but having sons who play, and from his relationships with players now and his desire to want the best for them. To portray that as something more than just an in-the-moment, overly broad statement, which by the way was completely clarified in the same segment, irritated me.”

Davis also shared this sentiment on Twitter.

While I agree with Davis that many people piled on to get a shine off ripping Herbstreit, and I respect Davis for defending a colleague, I don’t think Herbstreit’s clarification matters. If you’re trying to convince people that you don’t have a problem with today’s college football players, it doesn’t help to bring up the fact that they play videos games—which has absolutely nothing to do with a player skipping a bowl game because he wants to make sure he’s healthy for the NFL draft.

But Davis’s overall points were well thought-out and made sense, unlike those of David Pollack, who followed up Davis’s comments on the podcast with this absurd take:

“There are several people in the media that do our job that have to be negative all the time about our sport. Our sport is so great and we get to cover it and you’re as positive as it gets, and Kirk is as positive as it gets most of the time. I think it’s just interesting that we have to take it to negative town every time we can find an outlet to take it to negative town.”

The main reason Pollack’s statement makes no sense is because Herbstreit was the one who took it to “negative town” by saying “today’s college football player doesn’t love football.” Herbstreit got lit up because HE was being negative about today’s player.

Also, it’s not anyone’s job to be positive about college football. In fact, you could make the argument that the sport doesn’t get enough negative coverage, considering what a cesspool it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I love college football and watch a million games every Saturday. But let’s not pretend it’s pure and wholesome. Coaches bolt on their teams before the season is over, the kids get criticized for not playing in bowl games and ESPN pays $470 million a season to air games for which the participants aren’t paid.

2. Turn away, David Pollack. I have very negative college football news. Unwatchable games played on New Year's Eve combined to give ESPN a big ratings dip for the college football playoffs.

3. ESPN's graphics department used the famous Office scene of Kevin dropping the pot of chili during last night's game against the Steelers to explain what has happened with the Browns this season.

4. In my opinion, the best things to happen in sports over the holidays was a reporter asking Bill Belichick for his New Year's resolutions right after the Patriots lost to the Bills and then following up a few days later when Bill told her to ask next week.

5. Brett Kern may just be a punter, but he will not let his Titans teammates disrespect him.

6. The latest Sports Illustrated Media Podcast is a year-end roundtable with Good Morning Football's Peter Schrager and CBS Sports Radio's Andrew Perloff.

Over the course of the one-hour conversation, we discussed the viral video of a reporter asking Bill Belichick for his New Year's resolutions right after the Pats lost to the Bills, Fox's John Madden documentary and whether this NFL season has be tainted by so many players missing games because COVID-19 protocols.

We also mentioned some sports media figures who stood out in 2021, looked back at the best comedies, dramas and documentaries each of us watched over the past year, talked about how we handle celebrity sightings, revealed our pop culture blind spots and much more

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Stitcher.

You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The statute of limitations on saying "Happy New Year" has expired.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.