Rece Davis 'angered' by backlash to Kirk Herbstreit's comments on bowl opt-outs

ESPN College GameDay analyst Kirk Herbstreit has received a lot of backlash over the last week after some controversial comments while talking about players opting out of bowl games. Herbstreit made a statement that blamed college football players for not loving the game of football. While Herbstreit’s comments rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, the backlash has truly “angered” fellow GameDay host Rece Davis.

“He went back and clarified it,” Davis said on “The ESPN College Football Podcast” on Monday. “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.”

and, as befits a show that shouldn't even need to be on, the hosts are wilding out with "today's youth are entitled and it's the fault of video games" nonsense pic.twitter.com/4EdBFuTivH

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 1, 2022

Herbstreit later went back to offer clarification on what he meant by his comments, but Davis is angry due to people not listening to the entirety of his sentiment.

“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.’”

Davis urged fans to listen to the entirety of Herbstreit’s clarification

When attempting to clarify his comments, Herbstreit again reiterated that he doesn’t understand why players skip bowl games. But he said that his point in the end was that if you’re going to skip a bowl game, why not sit out the entire year?

“We’re focused on they skip a meaningless bowl game .. why stop there? If it’s all about the endgame – which is getting to the NFL – pull a Micah Parsons. Ja’Marr Chase. If the goal was to get there, skip your entire third year,” Herbstreit added. Go to Phoenix — go train, stay healthy. That was my point in that segment. I don’t get skipping a bowl game. If it’s about saving myself from a meaningless bowl game, skip yourself from the whole season.”

Davis isn’t the only GameDay host to come to the defense of Herbstreit. David Pollack also tweeted a message showing that he has his colleague’s back.

“I can speak to my 10 years being around @KirkHerbstreit,” Pollack tweeted. “He cares about the sport of football more than anyone I have ever met, he is constantly trying to make it better. He has pulled me aside many a times and talked about ways we could make the game better.”