About Kirk Herbstreit... I Am Not a Fan

(Photo by Craig Jones/Getty Images)

So there I am, sitting on my couch last night, watching ESPN's College Football Live Sunday night show, and after the ad nauseum references to Florida, some one reminded Dari Nowkhah, Desmond Howard and Shaun King that there was actually more than one game played this past weekend.

Inevitably, the subject of whom might play for the national title arose.  After all, the season's first edition of the Bowl Championship Series rankings were released just hours earlier.  It was as good a time as any to predict what will happen 10 weeks from now, right?

Now, I have no personal dog in the fight, as my Alma Mater isn't even ranked in the top 20 in the BCS standings.  As I continued to watch their commentary unfold before a national audience, they decided to bring in Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musberger to offer up their two cents worth.

Down the line, one by one, they all offered up apologies to USC for not being ranked above schools without membership into the "old boys club."  Spelled out, Cincinnati and Boise State, specifically.

Herbstreit seemed actually upset that the voters hadn't done as he instructed them earlier on Saturday, and waited for his Saturday-ending top five to let them know how to cast their votes before sending them in.

He went on to argue how impressive USC's schedule had been...actually mentioning Washington as one of the tough teams USC had faced.  (You may recall Washington.  They went 0-12 last season and have an "impressive" 3-4 record this season.)  In case you didn't know, USC lost to Washington this year.

Herbstreit also brought up the "tough" road win USC pulled out in Columbus against the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes (his alma mater).  The same Ohio State team that just lost to Purdue, a team with a 1-5 record coming in to their game against OSU.  And the game wasn't close friends.  Purdue man-handled the Buckeyes.

Late Saturday night after the games had completed for the day, when asked his opinion about Boise State or Cincinnati reaching the national championship game if they were the only two undefeated teams left, he went so far as to say nothing the Broncos could do, "even if they won all of their remaining games by 50 points," would be enough to put Boise State in the national title game.

Essentially, he came out and admitted he had a predetermined bias against Boise State, and to a degree, Cincinnati.  I won't get into conspiracy theories about his concern for the perception of Ohio State University in his home state of Ohio.  Herbstreit is smart enough to know that they don't call Ohio the "Buckeye State" for nothing, and he has no fear that Cincy will ever unseat them as kings of the state.

No, this was all about his personal dislike for those that would dare challenge the old guard, of which he is a card-carrying member.

Kirk, or "Herbie" as his peers on ESPN's College Game Day refer to him, annually hammers away at the "strength of schedule" argument when discussing teams he personally does not want to ascend to the championship game.  During Sunday night's broadcast, his targets were the aforementioned Boise State and Cincinnati, and to a lesser degree Iowa.

I say to a lesser degree when referencing Iowa, because I don't believe Herbstreit means what he says about Iowa not having the strength of schedule.  If Iowa were undefeated at the end of the year, and there was no Texas, Alabama or Florida still unbeaten, you can rest assured Herbstreit would absolutely vote Iowa into the championship game.  They do, after all, represent the Big 10—an acceptable conference in his eyes—that could play for the title.

You can tell Herbstreit's true intentions in the way he discusses the Big 10 versus how he discusses the WAC or Big East conferences.  He is careful to preface that "the perception of the Big 10 Conference is that it isn't very strong."  Yet he comes right out and states the WAC nor Big East are strong enough in his eyes to merit a spot to play for the national title.  He doesn't even bother to sugar coat his feelings towards those conferences.  He doesn't say anything about it only being a "perception " that the Big East is weak.

All that aside, looking closer at Herbstreit's own argument about strength of schedule, one must consider all the facts equally, and not solely from the "$Two-Billion-Dollar-ESPN-Investment-in-the-SEC" side of the argument.

Herbstreit claims Boise State doesn't play a strong enough conference or non-conference schedule, and thus is undeserving of playing in the BCS championship game.  Okay, fair enough.  I concede that argument, if for no other reason than the NCAA's own ranking of each team's strength of schedule has Boise State ranked all the way down at number 92.

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