ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit is taking some heat today for allegedly calling the father of five-star 2024 quarterback Dylan Raiola and encouraging him to flip his commitment from Georgia to Nebraska.
Raiola’s father, former NFL star Dominic Raiola, admitted as much in a recent interview with Rivals:
“When [Herbstreit] saw the smoke about Dylan entertaining Nebraska, he called me,” Raiola said. “He said, ‘dude, is this true? He’s got to do it.’
“His affinity for Nebraska, for a guy like that, to tell me and get behind me. I knew he needed to do it. But I wasn’t going to sit here and say ‘You need to go change that place or be a part of the change of that place.’ So when Kirk told me that … I’ve had other coaches reach out to me and say the place is special. Coach (Matt) Rhule is a special leader.”
Well, a lot of people are throwing the flag at Herbstreit and harshly criticizing him for his alleged actions.
USA Today college football reporter Dan Wolken called Herbstreit’s alleged actions “highly unethical” while other fans are downright furious that someone in the media can have that kind of influence:
If this is true, this is highly unethical https://t.co/hH5YPD4Qw0
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) February 7, 2024
“I don’t care where Raiola goes to play CFB, but when the voice of CFB does something like this, isn’t that tampering?!” one user wrote.
“I can’t be the only one that finds this extremely weird, right?” wrote another.
“Kirk Herbstreit is really feeling himself these days, huh? Between his crusade to influence the selection of the CFP playoff field & now the clandestine influencing of the recruitment of high profile players, the man isn’t even bothering with the pretense of objectivity anymore,” a Georgia fan remarked.
But at the end of the day, Herbstreit didn’t talk to Dylan Raiola, he spoke to the father – and while that may not be ethical, it’s not explicitly against the rules.