Kirk Herbstreit issues an apology for misunderstood post following Army-Navy game

Kirk Herbstreit drew the ire of the college football world earlier this week. Now, he’s moving quickly to clear the air after a social media post sparked backlash following the Army–Navy game.

Herbstreit, who’s become the face of ESPN’s college football coverage, addressed the situation in a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter). He apologized for what he described as a misleading caption attached to a video clip promoting his Nonstop podcast with colleague Joey Galloway.

“Just wanted to address a mistake that we made on my socials earlier this week related to last weekend’s CFB Saturday,” Herbstreit wrote. “We posted a video where Joey Galloway and I were talking about how strange it was to be home and not traveling on a CFB weekend since the end of August and how we felt like we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We posted the video with a caption that was very misleading about ‘Weird not having any CFB this weekend.’”

Herbstreit acknowledges that the wording created a bit of confusion, appearing dismissive of games that were played, most notably the Army–Navy Game: “Some took that out of context and ran with it. That’s on me,” he wrote. “My apologies for any disrespect (albeit unintentional) to the teams that played last weekend, especially [Army] and [Navy].”

The original post, which has since been deleted, included a clip from the podcast with the caption, “Saturday not having college football threw us for a loop,” accompanied by a laughing emoji. That message quickly drew a response from Navy Athletics, which quote-tweeted the post with a photo from Saturday’s game.

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Alas, Navy went on to defeat Army 17–16 in one of college football’s most iconic rivalry games, a matchup that has occupied a standalone window on the Saturday following conference championship weekend for years. While it has no impact on the College Football Playoff, the game remains one of the sport’s most-watched events, averaging 7.84 million viewers on CBS.

In his apology, Herbstreit emphasized that the Army–Navy Game remains one of his favorite events on the college football calendar: “Not sure there is a game I personally look forward to more EVERY year than Army and Navy,” Herbstreit added. 

“They play for the love for each other and love for the game. Anybody who has ever watched me for the last 30 years on TV knows how I feel about that game.”

Beyond Army–Navy, last weekend still featured a full slate of college football action. Bowl season opened with Washington facing Boise State, the FCS playoffs held quarterfinal games, and South Carolina State defeated Prairie View A&M in the Celebration Bowl.

Listening back to the deleted clip itself, Herbstreit and Galloway never actually stated there was no football being played. Instead, they reflected on the unfamiliar feeling of being home for the first time since August without their usual travel routine.

Still, the initial caption struck a nerve. It highlighted how easily attention can drift toward the Playoff and power conference landscape at the expense of the broader sport.

Herbstreit closed his statement by reiterating that the controversy stemmed from miscommunication, not disrespect. At the least, he felt it necessary to publicly address the situation, and let the college football world know he meant no ill-will towards Army-Navy.