Last week Kirk Herbstreit was on ESPN Radio and was asked his thoughts on the chances of football, pro or college being played as we know it this fall. Herbstreit offered is opinion and it didn’t come with much optimism.
Thursday saw Brian Kelly make an appearance on the SportsBeat on 96.1 FM in South Bend and the Notre Dame football coach was asked about Herbstreit’s comments. Let’s just say – it’s safe to believe he doesn’t so much agree with the ESPN analyst.
“Kirk does not know what he’s talking about. I mean, really? For him to talk in those terms…he’s not a scientist. He’s a college football analyst, so we’ll let the scientists determine those things.” – Kelly on Kirk Herbstreit saying he’d be shocked if college FB is played.
— Sean Stires (@SeanWSBT) April 1, 2020
Listen, I hope like all getup that Kelly is right and that college football goes off without a hitch in 2020. I do however also think it’s a bit wrong to go after Herbstreit this hard for answering the question he was asked.
Look at New York City, look at Florida largely shutting down the state today and look how big everything involving Corona-virus has become. Now do you think it’s a two foot putt that college football will operate as normal with 80,000 or so fans packing stadiums all over the country?
Herbstreit is an educated man who happens to cover college football and usually does a very good job of that. Just because his profession is in sports doesn’t mean he isn’t informed enough to think logically on his own. I get why Kelly is upset but it doesn’t take a scientist or doctor to figure out that there is a growing chance that Herbstreit is right.
The city of Toronto has shutdown regular operations until at least June 1. Kelly goes on to say that ideally, workouts would begin by the middle of June in order to get things timed out perfectly for college football. He already stated previously with Scott Van Pelt of SportsCenter that July 1 would be the necessary date to get things going by in order for a regular season schedule to be played.
Again, I can’t put into words how much I hope Herbstreit is wrong. It’d mean good news for a nation and a world that could use some right now and it’d mean that we’ve largely beat a pandemic nationwide. I hope and pray for that to be the case, but again, I’d be lying if I said I was optimistic in it happening.
We’ll post a link to the entire Brian Kelly interview once it gets posted to their website. We’ll also look at what else the Notre Dame head coach had to say in a later post so be on the lookout for that this evening. Stay safe and have a good night. -NS