ESPN’s College GameDay has some of the biggest stars in sports media on its panel, including Nick Saban and Pat McAfee, who have helped keep the show the most popular college football pregame show. However, Kirk Herbstreit says the true star of the show is his golden retriever, Peter, the true show-stealer for ESPN, even going as far as to compare his dog to global pop music sensation Taylor Swift.
“Ben kind of started this,” Herbstreit said, according to Awful Announcing. “Peter, I call a Taylor Swift of college football. His popularity; it’s insane. I think you could add all of us on the GameDay set combined, and I don’t think it adds up to Peter’s popularity.
“It’s the wildest thing I have ever seen. I’ve become just a dog handler when I am on the road. People are like, ‘Can I have my picture with Peter?’ And I say, of course.”
People on social media weren’t very thrilled with the comparison.
“He is genuinely such a loser,” one person wrote on Twitter.
“Yes, in the way that I could not even begin to consider caring about either one of them,” someone else added.
“The schtick is way overdone and IMO an intentional distraction so people won’t criticize him so much for his espn sec takes etc,” another person added.
It’ll be interesting to see if Herbstreit continues to bring Peter around even as fan criticism begins to mount.
About Qwame Skinner
Qwame Skinner has loved both writing and sports his entire life. In addition to his sports coverage at Comeback Media, Qwame writes novels, and his debut; The First Casualty, an adult fantasy, is out now.