Herbstreit defends himself, sources

ESPN and ABC analyst Kirk Herbstreit spoke with WDFN, Detroit recently about his role in Michigan's inability to close the deal with LSU head coach Les Miles. Herbstreit erroneously reported that Miles and Georgia Tech head coach Jon Tenuta would be headed to Ann Arbor … here's his response.

On the backlash: "I wasn't real comfortable with it - that's for sure. I leave it to the professionals to break stories, guys like you and the media that are a little bit more comfortable in that role.

"I would much rather talk about what teams are doing on the field. One thing I can assure you, you will never see me gathering news and reporting information ever again."

On why he decided to break it: "By the time Friday came around, I had some information that - trust me on this - was very accurate, based on not a source, but someone that was going to be involved in the situation. I made the mistake, I guess, telling the ESPN bosses. They are journalists and they said, 'you've got an obligation to talk about that and go with it.'

"You guys know, I, as a former player, really pride myself on my relationships with coaches and players and am just not real comfortable in breaking stories. I leave that up to Pat Forde and the others to do that stuff. When they talked about that and really thought about it over and over … it was going to happen, they didn't want to get beat on the story and they suggested that I go with it.

On LSU's offer: "I applaud LSU. Having your players sitting around the hotel, you could imagine what was going on in their minds. They decided to get proactive and beat Michigan to the punch and decided to try to lock him in and kind of force him to make a decision probably before he was ready to do so … said we cannot afford to have this thing continue to linger, let's put this to bed once and for all, are you with us or against us and decided to have an impromptu press conference. They came to some type of agreement, evidently, and had the press conference, and you could see the emotion on the face of Les Miles when he talked to the media and ended up going out and blocking out all of the distractions and winning the game."

On his apology to Miles: "I called Les late that night after the Missouri-Oklahoma game, and really called for nothing else but to apologize for it becoming such a huge story, such a distraction for him his team to have had to deal with. It was never my intent, so that was the one thing that I regretted. It became such a significant story everywhere, everywhere you turned."

On whether he felt he made a mistake: " I think it's ironic that people from LSU think that I deliberately tried to create a disturbance for them to get ready for an SEC title game and Michigan people think that I tried to prevent them from getting their coach. Are you out of your mind? That's bizarre that somebody would actually think that I did that. I didn't even think about that until people brought that up - that people would actually consider that. I simply had a very, very [good source] - I wouldn't even call the person I talked to a source. It was somebody that was going to be involved directly in this move.

On if LSU leaked it to end Michigan's chances: "I really believe that he was going to be announced as Michigan's coach, and I think that LSU felt that they were tired of hearing about this and the fact that it was on national TV. The players are sitting around; there's all this speculation. They needed to do something quickly and they did. Give them credit. And they have a long-term relationship it appears now with Les Miles."

On Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz: "Kirk Ferentz, to me, is one of the best coaches in America. You imagine how good he would he be if he wore a block 'M' into a family room compared to a Hawkeye. All due respect to Iowa, but they are always are going to be kind of that second-tier team in the Big Ten, and if Kirk Ferentz has the resources with the new stadium and everything - and they're going to - he can walk into family rooms anywhere in the country with Michigan on his sweater and he's going to be able to bring in a lot of players. There's no doubt about that. That's if in fact he ends up becoming a real player."

On whether U-M simply got outworked for Miles: "I don't know how that works behind closed doors. I know that Bill Martin was doing the right thing, being respectful to all the candidates until they were done playing. In fact, he came out the day Lloyd stepped down and said he was going to wait out of respect for them.

"I know this thing for Michigan right now is frustrating. Their fan base ... they want a coach. They want some direction. Maybe I'm just a guy that believes it is going to work itself out because of the tradition that Michigan has. They are going to find the right guy and there will be some direction, and finally Michigan will be able to get their program back to where they expect I to be.

On Boise State head coach Chris Petersen: "I think he's a star. He's known as a guy who beat Oklahoma with trick plays, but I've been to their practices, I've been around their program very closely. You're talking about a guy who has a blue-collar approach. They are equivalent to when Northern Illinois had it going really good with Joe Novak or when Iowa had it going. You can't quite get into the four or five-star recruit but you got to get that three-star guy who is a hard working, over-achieving type of guy. That's how they build their entire program. They are a tough gritty team that outworks every team they go up against.

"He's that kind of coach. He looks very soft spoken, he looks very nice, he's the classiest kind of guy that you're ever going to meet. If you hear his name surface, be very excited because he is a terrific coach."