A joke about last week’s Pac-12 matchup between Oregon State and Washington State on ESPN’s College GameDay didn’t sit well with former Cougars quarterback Ryan Leaf.
In the final moments of Saturday’s show live from Notre Dame, the desk was making picks for that day’s games when the Cougars/Beavers matchup came up. Desmond Howard, Pat McAfee and guest picker Vince Vaughn all picked the Cougars. It was when it was Lee Corso’s turn to pick that the joke at issue with Leaf came up.
“In the ‘Nobody Wants Us Bowl,'” Corso said alluding to the fact that Oregon State and Washington State are the only two schools in the Pac-12 that have not been invited to join another conference. “Nobody wants them. Poor guys.”
Thursday on Good Morning Football on NFL Network, Leaf followed the lead of Cougars head coach Jake Dickert, who after the game took issue with the joke. Leaf used some time to call out GameDay further for not using the moment about the game to speak positively about the direction both programs were going at this point in the season.
“They’ve always been a show that celebrates college football,” Leaf said. “Instead they chose to make it a joke because Washington State and Oregon State unfortunately don’t have a conference. And it is the ‘No One Wants Us Bowl.'”
Leaf said his love for GameDay and the guys that work on the show hasn’t changed, but he just couldn’t ignore the fact that the show squandered a chance to elevate that matchup on a national stage.
he added.
This isn’t the first time Ryan Leaf has spoken out on the College GameDay crew’s coverage of the game. He and Kirk Herbstreit exchanged barbs on X (formerly Twitter) over the segment on Sunday.
Washington State and Oregon State have banded together as the rest of the conference eroded over the summer. Both university presidents have expressed a commitment to making sure a premiere west coast conference rises from the ashes of the Pac-12.
