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Eliah Drinkwitz apologizes after slamming Kirk Herbstreit over fears coronavirus will cancel season

ryan young
Staff writer
·3 min read

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz is another person inside college football who wasn’t thrilled with Kirk Herbstreit’s comments about the potential impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the college football season.

The ESPN analyst said last week that he’d be “shocked” if there was NFL or college football in the fall because a vaccine for the highly-contagious COVID-19 coronavirus is not expected to be available until 2021. Those comments didn’t sit well with newly hired Missouri coach Eliah Drinkwitz.

Drinkwitz slams Herbstreit

Drinkwitz, who was hired to lead the Tigers in December after a stint at Appalachian State, spoke with reporters on Wednesday and was asked about Herbstreit’s comments.

“No offense to Mr. Herbstreit, but deciding who’s going to win a football game on College GameDay is a lot different than getting the world in a panic about whether or not we’re going to play a college football season,” Drinkwitz said Wednesday, via the Columbia Daily Tribune.

“And I’m not going to get into that.”

Drinkwitz isn’t alone in his thoughts, either. Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor slammed Herbstreit on Monday, too.

“I appreciate Kirk becoming a medical doctor and telling us what we should or shouldn’t do,” Taylor told KMAN Radio in Manhattan. “But I’m not ready to go there yet.”

[ Coronavirus: How the sports world is responding to the pandemic ]

Herbstreit’s opinion is a totally valid one, and raises a concern that college football officials, athletic directors and head coaches across the country are looking into now. It’s certainly not a fun topic to discuss — everyone wants the college season to go on as scheduled — but there needs to be a plan or plans in place ahead of time amid a crisis that has infected nearly 900,000 people and killed at least 44,000 people across the globe.

Not having that conversation now would be irresponsible to everyone involved.

Drinkwitz quickly apologizes

Just hours later, Drinkwitz appeared on “The Paul Finebaum Show” and apologized for his comments.

“I did not mean anything toward Mr. Herbstreit or his opinion or even to take a shot at him. That was not my intention or point,” Drinkwitz said on the show. “I hope that he would accept my apology because I know that that kind of made the headline. My point was not to do that.”

Instead, Drinkwitz said that his point was that people should simply be focused on what’s happening now rather than what’s down the road months from now.

“For me to forecast anything in the future, I think it’s a lot of wasted energy and effort, in my opinion,” Drinkwitz said in his first interview “I think what it does is it gets people concerned about things that aren’t relevant for right now. What’s relevant for right now for us is to be taking care of our families, to maintain proper social distancing, and to adhere to the rules and standards that our administration, our president and our governor have put in place. That’s my focus.”

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