Warde Manuel Rips Kirk Herbstreit's 'Ridiculous And Sad' Comments On U-M
After Michigan football had to pause in-person team activities Monday and Tuesday due to an increasing number of positive COVID-19 cases within the program, ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit, a former Ohio State quarterback who never beat the Wolverines during his time in Columbus, made controversial comments insinuating the Wolverines would "wave the white flag" and not play next week against Ohio State, no matter the amount of positive virus cases.
“I still think Michigan waves the white flag, and potentially avoids playing Ohio State next week. … Michigan could opt out, basically, of that game, and keep Ohio State out of six games to qualify for the Big Ten Championship,” Herbstreit said.
Herbstreit's alma mater has only played four outings thus far and would need to compete in two more to be eligible for the Big Ten Championship game, after the Buckeyes decided to cancel last week's game against Illinois due to their own COVID concerns.
Herbstreit later apologized via Twitter, stating he "had no business at all saying that."
In a video interview with MGoBlue TV Wednesday evening, University of Michigan Director of Athletics Warde Manuel ripped Herbstreit's remarks.
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"I think it's ridiculous," a fired up Manuel said. "I have to pause because of my words. I was angered, infuriated by the insinuation that Michigan would do anything other than play a football game. We've been playing this game since 1879. 1879. We're the winningest program for a reason because we play whoever is in front of us. The only way we want to keep anybody from moving on is to beat them on the fields of play.
"To insinuate that, to say something other than that is a statement by a fool. It is something that is — I can't tell you how embarrassed I am for the Big Ten conference to have one of their representatives who played this game to say that about any team in this conference and to say it about college football and the student-athletes around this country who are trying to play games during a pandemic is ridiculous and sad."
The Michigan Wolverines announced Wednesday that their game against Maryland this weekend would be canceled due to concerns with COVID-19 cases within the program. Manuel reiterated that the decision was made with the health and safety of the student-athletes being of the utmost importance.
"In the conversations with our medical professionals about the uptick that we were seeing in positive COVID cases with our team, it led them to bring forth the decision that we needed to pause, for the health and safety of our student-athletes, our staff and our coaches," Manuel said.
"We've been great. Our student-athletes, our coaches and our staff have been great in preventing this. ... We are going to always move in the direction that our medical professionals believe we should. We are in the middle of a pandemic. It is the highest case count in almost every state and in our nation.
"I'm proud of our student-athletes and what they have done — and our coaches — to get us this far. But, as one of my colleagues texted me after the decision was announced, COVID is undefeated as it relates to this."
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