Kirk Herbstreit sets record straight on ESPN, SEC bias

A portion of college football fans seem to believe that Kirk Herbstreit and others at ESPN are biased towards the SEC and always take up for the league. Herbstreit joined Andy Staples and Ari Wasserman of On3 recently to set the record straight.

The final four teams in the College Football Playoff are Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame and Penn State, with only one of the four schools being from the SEC. According to Kirk Herbstreit, these four teams being the last ones remaining is great for ESPN.

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“Let me straighten the record on one last thing,” Kirk Herbstreit said. “You know, ESPN loves the SEC so much, that we could not have paid for a better Final 4, with Notre Dame and Ohio State and Penn State and Texas. The only one missing is Michigan, if you could somehow wedge Michigan in.

“So like, this idea that we want Alabama and Texas A&M and Auburn, are you kidding me? Like if you’re asking us who we would want, uh, we’ll take Ohio State every year, Notre Dame. Like this is a ratings bonanza.”

Herbstreit received some backlash for stating that perhaps other teams should have gotten into the playoff over Indiana after the Hoosiers were blown out by Notre Dame in the first round of the CFP. But that was simply his opinion that other teams were better.

Just because he feels like strength of schedule should be considered more when selecting playoff teams doesn’t mean he has a bias towards the SEC.

“If you’re going to accuse us of anything, you should accuse us of wanting Ohio State, wanting Notre Dame and these big brands,” Kirk Herbstreit said. “If you knew anything about ratings, that’s who you want. You don’t want these small little Clemsons and small little southern schools when it comes to cheering for ratings. Ratings are big, massive, Big Ten brands. That’s where ratings are.”

Finally, Herbstreit said that the best thing for ESPN would be a matchup between Ohio State and Notre Dame for the national championship. That would, of course, mean that no SEC teams would be in the national title game.

“If you get Ohio State-Notre Dame in the national championship, you think we’re going to be like, ‘Doggone it. If we could’ve only gotten a couple of good brands in the championship. Just didn’t work out this year,'” Herbstreit said.