Did Desmond Howard mean to take a shot at ESPN senior college football writer Pete Thamel when College GameDay was at Michigan/Ohio State in November? Howard said that wasn’t the case at all.
Howard was a guest on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday, and co-host Ty Schmidt did his best Thamel impersonation to figure out if the two were able to bury the hatchet after Desmond’s viral “put your big boy pants on” line.
“Just curious after the College GameDay in Ann Arbor, Michigan where I was inside the stadium unfortunately because I couldn’t go out there. Has the score been settled?” Schmidt asked. “I’ll be honest with you, you got that great dig in on me. You said, ‘Hey Pete, you know you did all this reporting, maybe put your big boy pants on and come out here and kinda face the mongrels in the Michigan crowd.”
After Howard collected himself from laughing at Ty’s impersonation, he responded saying no bad blood ever developed between he and Pete Thamel after his comment. He chalked it up to people blowing it completely out of proportion.
“There was never a score to settle,” he said. “Everything is clickbait nowadays, and so people try to make something small out of something big. And that’s exactly what that was.”
McAfee jumped in saying it was clear that Howard was just trying to make a joke at Thamel’s expense, since Pete’s reporting on the scandals at Michigan drew the ire of Wolverine fans. Desmond Howard said that’s exactly what he was doing was joking.
“I thought it was funny,” Howard said. “I thought it was hilarious personally, you know what I mean?”
“I think Des was talking shit and then like the way it went, especially with how Pete Thamel became public enemy number one for this entire thing, it got taken the other way,” McAfee responded.
McAfee went further to defend the cohesiveness of the unit of people involved in making College GameDay come to life every week during the season.
“That College GameDay production room, we got a good team over there,” McAfee said, making a gesture with his hands to signify how tight everyone is.
