Kirk Herbstreit tried to wave off the political fallout around College GameDay, but his comments only made the conversation louder.
The spark came on Sept. 12, when College GameDay had Sen. Ted Cruz on the set to promote the Protect College Sports Act. Cruz spent much of the segment getting booed, and when the moment kept echoing into the following week, Herbstreit was asked about it by local reporters in Oxford before LSU-Ole Miss.
“I don’t really follow it. I don’t know anything about his political views,” he said.
“I don’t know what he’s for or against. I care about football, my family, my faith and my country.”
That answer shifted the debate from a simple booking choice to a broader question about Herbstreit himself. He later expanded on that stance in Oxford.
“I don’t really get into politics, I’m an independent guy - right down the middle of the fairway,” Herbstreit said. “I’m for America, so whoever helps us as a country, I’m for.”
He also said the reaction to Cruz caught him off guard.
“Him being booed, I had to ask people, ‘What’s going on here?’”
The response online was swift and skeptical. One fan posted, “Kirk has never heard of this guy he was tweeting about 10 years ago.”
Another shot back, “What do you mean you don’t follow it? Like what?
Your in media you can’t pretend like you have no idea what’s going on in America,”
On the Mississippi Today clip, @MOOOOrion wrote, “Imagine lying to make yourself look ignorant.”
@NebutronX added, “How do you know who’s good for America, then?”
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wolken also pushed back, saying, “He has tweeted about politics and politicians, including Ted Cruz, so he’s just lying,” Wolken said. “Kirk follows 844 people on X. That list is public.”
Jeff Pearlman went even further in a since-deleted TikTok video. “You’re Kirk Herbstreit, you’re college-educated, you have four kids,” he said.
“You don’t know anything about Ted Cruz, one of the most famous political figures in America?” Pearlman called the shrug “inexcusable just as an American.”
For all the noise, Herbstreit remains one of the most visible voices in college football, alongside Lee Corso and on the GameDay desk. That’s a big reason the clip took off so fast.
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