Ohio State Fans Have Officially Driven Kirk Herbstreit to Insanity

College football analyst Kirk Herbstreit has officially lost his mind. The former Ohio State quarterback was previewing the Pac-12 for ESPN, and as LBS contributors Corey and Aaron pointed out to me, he actually picked the bum bum bum … UCLA Bruins to win the conference. Mind you, Herbstreit said that Oregon has a real shot at getting back to the national championship game. Oh yeah, he also put Stanford’s Andrew Luck in the same sentence as Peyton Manning and Matt Ryan. Oh, and the coach he said was under the most pressure? You guessed it, Rick Neuheisel.

So let’s recap: Kirk Herbstreit thinks Oregon can get back to the title game, Andrew Luck is as prepared for his senior year as Peyton Manning was at Tennessee, and that Rick Neuheisel is under the most pressure in the conference, yet he still picked the sorry Bruins to win the title.

Herbstreit did say USC would finish first in the Pac-12 South but because of their postseason ban, the second place team (UCLA) would go to the championship game instead. And yes, crazy enough, he thinks UCLA will beat Oregon in the Pac-12 Championship Game.

The most maddening part of Herbstreit’s prediction is that he didn’t provide any real analysis of the UCLA football team much less why he thinks they’ll be successful. He didn’t address their lack of decent quarterback play, porous offensive line, or the issue that their two best defensive playmakers were drafted.

Maybe he sees something in the Bruins nobody else sees. Or maybe he’s picking them without really knowing much about them. Or maybe, just maybe, the Ohio State fans really did drive him to the point of insanity.