Video reveals Lee Corso was misquoted by Jake Dickert, spawning ESPN, Washington State rant
Lee Corso said nobody wants Washington State or Oregon State, but his exact pronunciation was misconstrued by Cougars coach Jake Dickert.
Once that happened, it set off a firestorm involving Dickert, Ryan Leaf and Kirk Herbstreit. Dickert claimed Corso said “in the nobody watches bowl” while on College GameDay as the crew made their picks for the game.
But Corso clearly said “nobody wants us” after the two schools were the last two remaining schools in the Pac-12 after realignment this summer.
Corso, 88, can sometimes be misheard. That’s natural when it comes to an old gentleman on television. But he even followed up with “nobody wants those poor guys.”
Looks like Leaf and Dickert misfired.
Dickert has been vocal about his team being worthy of Power 5 status and league membership, so the talking from College GameDay threw him for a loop.
“I think nationally, there’s a lot of noise out there,” Dickert said after the win over Oregon State. “I caught something this morning, I was watching GameDay, and Corso comes on and he says ‘The No One Watches Bowl.’ And I don’t really understand that. What’s the merit, once again? Because the facts say people watch the Cougs and the people watch the Cougs more than every team that’s left over in the Big 12.”
Dickert had opened the roughly 90-second point about fighting for a spot while much of the sport passes them over by explaining how much internal care and buy-in there is. From the sound of it, Dickert believes he has a team capable of going toe-to-toe with the best.
Right now, the Cougars are 4-0 and have wins over Wisconsin and Oregon State, among others.
Obviously, Herbstreit came to the defense of Corso, who made the initial comments that were misheard. Ultimately, it seems to be much ado about nothing. Plus, despite the Pac-12 breaking up, a lot of the attention in college football media was pointed towards the conference.
Corso is a mainstay on the pregame program and has been for decades. He’ll continue to do so until his eventual retirement from broadcasting.
But for right now, it looks like his comments were, not only taken out of context, but misheard.