Kirk Herbstreit Unhappy ABC Showed KSU-Texas To Only 36% Of The Country

This is fun! We got our hands on some raw, off-air satellite backhaul footage from tonight's Kansas State-Texas broadcast on ABC, and in the post-game we're invited to listen in on Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musburger discussing the day in college football—and, notably, why so few people were able to watch their broadcast.

ABC's distribution plan for Saturday night's dual broadcasts of KSU-UT and Michigan-UConn was baffling enough, but that they sent the #1 team of Herbie & Musburger to the #2 game is even weirder. Here's which markets saw which game:

As it turned out, the "stinker" of a Michigan-UConn game turned out to be competitive, with the Wolverines coming from behind late to disappoint the Huskies. KSU-UT, meanwhile, was an easy and relatively boring win for the Longhorns.

We're on Herbie's side here. Even if the game in Austin was destined to be a poopfest, it was a compelling story nonetheless; the sturm und drang encircling the Texas coaching staff alone made it a must-watch. Here's a full transcript of what the two gents talked about:

KH: I still don't know why they didn't put Texas-K'State... bigger audience. This brand's still, despite their struggles, it's still an interesting story.BM: [sigh] I would think the upper Midwest..KH: Yeah, I guess.BM: ...would be the one they wanted.KH: But I would think they would just put it...BM: What game was on Fox tonight?KH: Arizona State, I think? Stanford?BM: Oh. Slaughter.KH: Yeah.BM: I guess.. that wasn't close, right?KH: No. No, it was ugly.BM: 35-21, Auburn puts 21 on 'em, eh?KH: Yeah.BM: Okay, Billy, are we gonna do this thing or... you want this game first, right?

(The rest is chatter relating to the SportsCenter cut-in which they were about to record. They did it in one take, and Herbstreit especially is impressive in how he gathers his thoughts in about fifteen seconds before engaging in a lengthy discussion of all of next week's games. Herbstreit is a true professional, and the insights provided by this video only bolster our strong opinion of him.)

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