New Year’s Day began with ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit uttering a line on College GameDay that would echo for hours, with the blowback becoming deafening as unfortunate events unfolded hours later in New Orleans.
"I think this era of player just doesn't love football,” Herbstreit said, in discussing players opting out of bowl games to protect their bodies from injury and thus protect their professional futures. Fellow analyst Desmond Howard opined that today’s players have “a sense of entitlement." Two of the highest-paid men in the college athletics broadcast space suggested that the kids these days, they’re cheating the billion-dollar enterprise that is just now beginning to compensate them for a fraction of their worth.