Every once in a while the red in Kirk Herbstreit's blood turns scarlet.
When talking about Ohio State and the Buckeyes' chances of holding onto the No. 4 spot in the College Football Playoff rankings if a combination of COVID cancellations and Big Ten rules keep them out of the league title game on ESPN's rankings reveal show Tuesday night, the former Ohio State quarterback all but accused the Wolverines of ducking a game that won't happen for another 11 days.
"I still think Michigan waves the white flag and doesn't play Ohio State next week," Herbstreit said.
Given a chance to clarify by Rece Davis, Herbstreit doubled down. "I've talked to a lot of coaches around the country who have said they really feel teams are opting out of playing games because they don't want to get humiliated. They don't want to lose with the team that they have," he said. "They don't necessarily have too many COVID positives, they don't want to take the field with the team they have and go get embarrassed, so they're basically waving the white flag and saying, 'We can't play.'"
Keep in mind, Michigan hasn't missed a game yet, making them one of six Big Ten teams to play all six scheduled games to this point. The Wolverines have paused in-person activities this week, but Saturday's game with Maryland remains on as of this writing, as does the Dec. 12 trip to Columbus. Ohio State, meanwhile, has already missed two games -- one of their opponent's doing, one of their own. The Buckeyes believe they can play Michigan State on Saturday, but missing any game for any reason would take them out of the Big Ten title game and doom them to compete for the fourth Playoff bid as a 6-0 non-conference champion. Also keep in mind Herbstreit's sons are walk-ons at Clemson so we don't have to think too hard about one of the coaches tickling his ears with conspiracy theories. Aware that he stepped in it, Herbstreit quickly apologized on Twitter.
Herbstreit has always, before now, been fair to Michigan in his analysis and the maize and blue are never going to love him no matter what he says simply because of his college days, and tonight's comments will serve as another log on that fire.
Update: On Wednesday morning, Desmond Howard returned the favor, managing to get a dig in at Ohio State and Michigan State simultaneously.