Kirk Herbstreit offers defense as ESPN’s College Gameday catches heat over controversial interview

College GameDay has come under fire recently.

Last week, ESPN's beloved Saturday morning college football pre-game show had US Senator Ted Cruz on to discuss the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), which he co-sponsored.

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Cruz, who has met with a chorus of boos by fans in attendance, told College GameDay host Rece Davis that his bill “protects the student’s ability to be compensated to receive name, image, and likeness compensation.”

“There are no rules, and the situation with the transfer portal, where kids go and transfer two, three, four, five times, it’s terrible for the game. It’s terrible for the players. It’s terrible for the schools, and it’s terrible for the families,” Cruz said.

“And so, the reason Congress is acting is because Congress created this problem. It was the federal antitrust laws that were used to bring the lawsuits that struck down all the rules, and so the Protect College Sports Act is bipartisan legislation that’s very simple.”

ESPN received criticism for its decision to broadcast political messaging on the show without balancing it out with a counter-voice, and for the general politicization of College GameDay.

Kirk Herbsreit, one of the show's analysts alongside Pat McAfee, was asked about the backlash this week, claiming he didn’t “know anything about” Cruz’s politics beforehand.

“I was first really impressed,” Herbstreit said on Friday, via Mississippi Today.

“I’ve never seen a guy booed that long and be able to just power through that. You know, I don’t know if he could hear what I could hear, but it was pretty — I think he was booed pretty much the entire time he spoke.

“I don’t really get into politics. It’s just not — I’m kind of an independent guy, right down the middle of the fairway. I’m for America, so whoever helps us as a country, I’m for.

"Whether it’s somebody on the left, somebody on the right, so I don’t really follow it. I don’t know anything about his political views. I don’t know what he’s for or against. I care about football, my family, and my faith, and my country. Those are things I love.

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“And so, I don’t really pick sides, and I was surprised. I didn’t know what his deal was, so him being booed, I asked people, ‘Like, what’s going on here?’ And we had him on because they were gonna be voting this week, and maybe he could give us some insight to what’s going on. That was really it. So we’re not picking sides in any way at all. We just want to see the chaos that’s surrounding this sport kind of be reeled in, and if this will help us get to that, then great.

Herbstreit went on to say that he ultimately deferred matters of the PCSA to College GameDay co-host Nick Saban.

"Now, the fact that the guy that sits right next to me, Nick Saban, was heavily involved in putting this act together, this guy loves college football more than anybody I’ve ever met," Herbstreit said.

"And so if he’s happy about what this could do, then I follow his lead. But yeah, that was surprising. But, again, I don’t really follow it, so I didn’t really understand it.”

Herbstreit and College GameDay is in Oxford, Mississippi this weekend for Lane Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss with LSU.

Kiffin, the former Ole Miss coach, abandoned the Rebels before the College Football Playoff (CFP) to accept the role as the head coach of the Tigers, signing a seven-year deal worth an estimated $12 million annually.

Earlier in the week, Morgan Freeman was confirmed as College GameDay's celebrity guest picker for the matchup, which will be played at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium in front of an extremely hostile crowd under a strict ban.