Jake Dickert calls out Lee Corso, ESPN for calling Washington State-Oregon State 'The No One Watches Bowl'
The theme of Week 4 — particularly the later windows — seems to have involved head coaches calling out octogenarian former head coaches. As Ryan Day let fly on Lou Holtz, Washington State head coach Jake Dickert made it clear he didn’t like how Lee Corso had appraised the Cougars matchup with Oregon State.
The Beavers and Cougars are the two remaining members of the Pac-12 Conference, now trying to forge a sustainable future. Dickert has been vocal about his team being worthy of Power 5 status and league membership, so Corso calling the game “The No One Watches Bowl” on ESPN’s “College GameDay” rankled the Cougars head man.
“I think nationally, there’s a lot of noise out there. I caught something this morning, 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 and the people watch the Cougs more than every team that’s left over in the Big 12,” Dickert said in his postgame presser after his team won a 38-35 thriller.
Dickert had opened the roughly 90-second point about fighting for a spot while much of the sport passes them over by explaining how much internal care and buy-in there is. From the sound of it, Dickert believes he has a team capable of going toe-to-toe with the best.
Right now, the Cougars are 4-0 and have wins over Wisconsin and Oregon State, among others.
“Our team is greater than the sum of its parts. I saw a tweet again today, we got zero five stars, zero four stars. We’ve got zero. But we’re greater than the sum of our parts because of our connection and how we play and the buy in that they have to their job. I think it speaks volumes for 18-to-23-year-old young men to buy into that. It’s not easy. And I just told RJ and BJ, ‘Come back for year six.’ This is why they came back. This is as much on them as it is on us and what we’re trying to create because of those guys and their leadership. So, we’re building something special,” Dickert said.
And so Dickert, clearly confident in his team in 2023 and program as a whole, was bothered to see Corso, on the flagship pregame show for the sport, dismiss his team.
He more than intimated at how the TV networks — largely ESPN and FOX — have shaped the current wave of conference realignment that stripped the Pac-12 for parts. And Dickert clearly isn’t backing down soon.
“So I — coach Corso, he’s at the point now where they give him the sheet and he, you know, he reads off of it and they try to make a joke, it didn’t even make sense. It’s well documented what ESPN has done to try to get this, get our league to where it’s at. I would love to have a conversation with coach Corso about the value that he sees in breaking up the premiere West Coast conference. And I’d also love to have a conversation with coach Corso about how he thinks student athletes and mental health and flying them all over the country is a positive thing. I’m open to those conversations,” Dickert said.