Pat McAfee responds to Ryan Leaf, Jake Dickert: 'Shut up, Washington State. I'm sick of you'
Pat McAfee had a response to Ryan Leaf and Washington State head coach Jake Dickert that will surely quiet down the drama between the Cougars and ESPN.
After the Cougars defeated then-No. 14 Oregon State last weekend, Dickert said in the postgame he felt ESPN’s College GameDay show disrespected the Cougars earlier in the morning. “It’s well-documented what ESPN has done to try to get our league to where it’s at,” Dickert said then.
When former Cougar quarterback Ryan Leaf aired his frustrations on social media over the incident, it ignited a war of words between Leaf and ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.
Dickert revealed this week he called ESPN’s Lee Corso to clarify his postgame comments, but that didn’t stop McAfee from taking a shot at Wazzu during their latest appearance on GameDay.
“Who cares,” McAfee yelled as Rece Davis noted that Ol’ Crimson was making its 292nd consecutive appearance on GameDay. “Were you guys showing this flag when they were 1-11 in 2009? How about when they were 2-10 in 2010? You were? That’s wild. So when they sucked, you guys were showing that every single week on the biggest college football show? Wow! Handle success, Ryan Leaf.
“Jeez. I want a West Virginia flag flying up there every single time. … Shut up, Washington State. I’m sick of you. Waste of time on this show.”
When Davis said the Cougar fanbase would win him back when he went to the Palouse, McAfee said, “I doubt it. They come after Coach Corso?”
During McAfee’s little tirade, the rest of the GameDay panel just laughed. Herbstreit chimed in at one point and said, “Act like you’ve been there before.”
Earlier this week, Wazzu head coach Jake Dickert and former QB Ryan Leaf criticized College GameDay for turning Oregon State-Washington State into a joke.
Pat McAfee appeared to respond this morning. And then some. pic.twitter.com/3ia6Ze7gko
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 30, 2023
Desmond Howard also said he felt Dickert (and Ohio State’s Ryan Day, who got into it with Lou Holtz last week) was being thin-skinned, though he doesn’t really seem to fully understand what Dickert was upset about.
“Why would you say anything about Lee Corso?” Howard said. “You’re gonna come after them because they didn’t pat your team on the back when they were doing bad? They gave their honest criticism of your team and what they saw?”
“I thought that it was thin-skinned, they were hypersensitive, and it wasn’t their best moments at all.”
Desmond Howard criticizes Dickert, Leaf, as well as Ohio State’s Ryan Day for going after Lee Corso and Lou Holtz. pic.twitter.com/RDDq9FNw1Q
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 30, 2023