Fired ESPN Analyst Blasts Pat McAfee, Kirk Herbstreit: ‘Most Overly Sensitive People I’ve Ever Met’

ESPN college football analyst Ryan Leaf isn’t afraid to speak his mind. It’s a huge part of what made the former Washington State quarterback a compelling figure on the network.

In 2023, Leaf criticized ESPN colleagues Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Pat McAfee for making fun of a Washington State-Oregon State matchup during a College GameDay episode.

That led directly to an ESPN coordinating producer pulling Leaf off-air, as he described in detail in an interview on OutKick’s Hot Mic with Jonathan Hutton and Chad Withrow.

“In my situation, the coordinating producer who and I had an incredible relationship with said, ‘Hey, you know, I think we’re going to pull you off games the rest of the season,'” Leaf said. “And I’m like, you know, you told me week in and week out, I’m your number one guy.”

Leaf was hired by ESPN as a college football analyst in June 2019. He described to Hutton and Withrow how his tenure ended.

“The coordinating producer calls me and I said, well, you’re not making this decision,” Leaf said. “Who’s making this decision? He said, ‘Well, someone above my pay grade.’ And I said, well, you need to have someone above your pay grade call me. So they did and by that time I had confirmed with people on why it happened. So when I got them on the phone, I was just like, yeah, I think this is about right. I think you and I, we don’t have shared values and so I think this is probably the proper decision.”

Herbstreit responded directly to Leaf’s criticism in a Twitter/X post of his own.

However, according to Leaf, Herbstreit, and McAfee reached out to him after the incident and tried to downplay the war of words.

“I had some good texts with Kirk and Pat after that,” he told Hutton and Withrow. “They tried to play it off like ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Just silly stuff.”

Leaf, 48, is also among the co-hosts of “The Opening Drive” on SiriusXM NFL Radio. The former NFL quarterback has been transparent about his shortcomings on and off the field, lending his voice to an autobiographical podcast called “Bust | The Ryan Leaf Story.”

Considering some of the trials and tribulations Leaf has put himself and those around him through, a disagreement about the portrayal of two college football teams as playing “The No One Watches Us Bowl” is relatively tiny.