Don’t twist Kirk Herbstreit’s words.
The ESPN college football analyst was caught on a hot mic at the start of the fourth quarter of TCU’s 48-14 beatdown of North Carolina saying, “You’re bad,” while letting out a loud groan.
Herbstreit’s comment raised some eyebrows during an otherwise boring game in Bill Belichick’s Tar Heels coaching debut, and went viral after both the Bartstool X account and the X account for the popular Barstool podcast “Pardon My Take” posted the audio.
He first quote tweeted the “Pardon My Take” post, which had the caption, “They’re bad,” with the implication being that Herbstreit made the remark about a North Carolina team that trailed, 41-14, at home entering the fourth quarter.
“(I) Said ‘you’re bad’ to my spotter Deron for something he said as we were coming back on air. Manipulation at its finest!” Herbstreit wrote at 12:01 a.m. ET.
Seven minutes later, he went after the Bartstool post that read, “‘They’re bad.’ Kirk Herbstreit got caught on the hot mic.”
“Must be a slow night..not sure why this is so confusing,” Herbstreit wrote. “I said ‘YOU’RE bad’ to my spotter Deron for something funny he said when we were just coming back on air.”
Herbstreit later added that calling blowouts like Monday’s game is incredibly difficult when the score is so lopsided with 15 minutes remaining.
“Instead of making up things I said how bout giving Rece (Davis), Holly (Rowe), and I some love for getting through that game –- those games are by far the toughest games you announcers have to call,” he posted.
He also retweeted a post from Tony Granieri, a spotter for ESPN, who tweeted that he stood three feet to Herbstreit’s right in the booth and the analyst indeed said “you’re bad.”
Folks ran with the audio after a much-hyped North Carolina debut for Belichick instead turned into one of the ugliest losses of his career.
North Carolina had a well-scripted first drive where it scored a touchdown to grab a 7-0 lead before things totally unraveled from there.
The Tar Heels had an uneven performance on both sides of the ball, but their quarterback play was especially troubling.
Gio Lopez completed just 4 of 10 passes for 69 yards and threw a terrible pick-six to bury them in the first half, giving the Horned Frogs a 17-7 lead.
He was eventually benched for Max Johnson, who did a better job in mop-up duty.
“Obviously, we have a lot of work to do,” Belichick said postgame. “We need to do a better job all around — coaching, playing, all three phases of the game. It wasn’t up to what it needs to be. I know we’re a lot better than that.
“They outplayed us, out-coached us, and they were just better than we were tonight. That’s all there was to it. They did a lot more things right than we did. Give them credit for being the better team.”
The Tar Heels are set to face Charlotte on Saturday in their next test.
