Larry Brown Sports

Brent Musburger is not shying away from the Katherine Webb situation. In fact, he is embracing it.

Musburger was calling the Kansas-Iowa State basketball game in Ames Monday and was approached by a fan who brought a Katherine Webb poster. The fan, Iowa State freshman Matt Mummelthei, showed Musburger the poster, and the announcer happily signed it with a personalized message.

“She’s a 10!” he wrote.

Mummelthei tells Larry Brown Sports that he got the idea to bring a Webb and Honey Badger poster to the game because Musburger “obsessed over” both of them during the last two BCS National Championship Games. He says he spotted Musburger before the game and approached him with the posters.

Mummelthei says he was nervous and worried about approaching Musburger with the poster, but the announcer was laughing and easygoing about it.

“He just loved it,” Mummelthei says of Musburger. “He gladly signed it.”

Musburger said last month that he didn’t think he did anything wrong when he gushed about the beauty queen’s good looks during the BCS National Championship Game. Webb stated that although she hadn’t spoken to Musburger, she appreciated his compliments about her looks. She also recently said she was thankful to him for launching her career, and she even retweeted a picture of the poster.

Photo credit: Twitter/Matt Mummelthei, a proud representative of the Willow Deuces
H/T Kegs ‘N Eggs

Announcer Brent Musburger does not think he did anything wrong when he gushed over the looks of Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, during the BCS National Championship Game last week.

Musburger and analyst Kirk Herbstreit were practically drooling over Webb when ESPN flashed to her in the stands during the first quarter of the game. The video went viral on the Internet, and it helped Webb gain national notoriety.

Though Webb says she was not offended by the remarks, ESPN apologized because they felt Musburger “went too far.” Musburer apparently disagrees.

The 73-year-old broadcaster answered questions from a TMZ reporter inside a Palm Beach, Fla., airport on Tuesday. When he was asked if he felt like his comments were inappropriate, Musburger took a long pause and answered, “no.”

Musburger says he has not spoken with Webb since the incident. He says he feels like she would have become famous without his comments.

When asked about ESPN’s apology, Musburger indicated he felt it was done to appease critics.

“Individuals say what individuals say, and corporations do what corporations do. Obviously, they felt it was the right thing for them to do.”

Musburger was also part of a mini-controversy on Tuesday when many viewers thought he called a female reporter “smoking” as he was signing off from a telecast Monday night. ESPN denied that’s what he said.

As you likely know, ESPN broadcaster Brent Musburger has taken a ton of heat over the past week or so for drooling over Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s girlfriend Katherine Webb during the BCS National Championship Game. Some of us thought it was hilarious while others found it to be completely inappropriate, leading to an apology from ESPN.

On Monday night, Musburger may have been at it again after he finished calling a college basketball game between Baylor and Kansas. As you can see from the video above that Awful Announcing passed along, Musburger called Holly Rowe “smoking” as he was signing off for the evening.

“For Fran Fraschilla and Holly Rowe, who was really smokin’ tonight, I want to say so long from Lawrence,” Musburger said.

Wait, what? Did he really just go there? There are a number of reasons Musburger could have decided to slip that little comment in. Was he referring to her looks and simply can’t help himself? Was he trying to say that her reporting was on-point? Could he have been making light of the Webb situation? Or, did Brent simply forget to put on his thinking cap once again. Only he knows, but I’m guessing ESPN is wishing he chose an adjective other than “smoking.”

UPDATE: Via The Big Lead, Josh Krulewitz from ESPN’s PR department pointed out that Musburger said “it was really smoking tonight” in reference to the game itself, not Rowe. After listening to the clip again, that makes sense. Excuse us for thinking Musburger would ever do something like that.

ESPN was busy issuing statements on Tuesday. First the network announced that Rob Parker was fired for his RG3 comments, and then they apologized for announcer Brent Musburger drooling over Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron’s girlfriend.

ESPN flashed to a shot of McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, during the first quarter of the BCS National Championship Game Monday. Musburger and broadcast partner Kirk Herbstreit began gushing over Webb.

“You see that lovely lady there? She’s Miss Alabama, and that’s AJ McCarron’s girlfriend,” said Musburger. “Wow, I’m telling you, you quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman, wow, whoa!

“If you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football out and throw it around the backyard with pops,” Musburger joked.

ESPN and many others didn’t find the comments too amusing. ESPN PR rep Mike Soltys issued the following statement:

“We always try to capture interesting storylines and the relationship between an Auburn grad who is Miss Alabama and the current Alabama quarterback certainly met that test. However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that.”

Webb found the praise to be complimentary.

“It was kind of nice,” Webb told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I didn’t look at it as creepy at all. For a woman to be called beautiful, I don’t see how that’s an issue.”

Webb is a certified beauty queen, so it’s most peoples’ opinion that she is attractive. Still, Musburger was so over-the-top with his comments that many people found the 73-year-old’s words to be excessive and creepy. That’s why ESPN apologized.

Brent Musburger may be 73 years old, but he’s not too old to recognize a hot young lady when he sees one. The ESPN announcer and his broadcasting partner, Kirk Herbstreit, absolutely drooled over Alabama quarterback A.J. McCarron’s girlfriend, Katherine Webb, when the young lady was shown on TV late in the first quarter of the BCS National Championship Game. The two were also quite impressed with McCarron’s mother, Dee Dee Bonner.

Musburger didn’t offer up a line quite as memorable as his “1,500 red-blooded Americans just decided to apply to Florida State,” but the whole conversation was pretty funny.

“You quarterbacks, you get all the good-looking women,” mused Musburger. “So if you’re a youngster in Alabama, start getting the football around and throwing it around the back yard.”

There actually is some precedent with Musburger reacting to attractive ladies in the stands. Remember the time he discovered Jenn Sterger and the Florida State cowgirls?

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ABC/ESPN play-by-play announcer Brent Musburger was censored for a few seconds during the third quarter of the Alabama-Michigan telecast on Saturday. There was plenty of speculation about what Musburger said to get muted by the production team, and now we have our answer.

Via Deadspin, we’ve learned that Musburger said to analyst Kirk Herbstreit, “Did I miss something, or did you not piss an SEC team to play for a national championship?”

Both announcers laughed when Musburger misspoke and said “piss” instead of “pick,” which he termed “a Freudian slip, by the way.”

ABC may have given more attention to the issue by muting the line when all it amounted to was a minor misspeak. That’s probably why they released the original video to ensure Musburger wasn’t being dirty.

Below is the censored version of the video:

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Bless announcer Brent Musburger, for he has granted us one of the greatest internet memes of all time. With the BCS National Championship between Auburn and Oregon on the line, Musburger proclaimed that Wes Byrum’s kick was for “All the Tostitos.” It was one of the most shameful, yet unusually striking calls any of us had heard, and it left viewers wondering “did he just say what I think he said?”

The answer is yes, yes he did. Here it is in case you missed it:

Purists will say that a special time in sports was ruined by marketing and capitalism, but I’ll disagree; the comical moment was a microcosm of our product placement-induced society, and it was witty. In four words, Musburger justified the millions of dollars spent by Tostitos to sponsor the National Championship Game, and one of the greatest twitter hashtags was born.

History will show that “BLeez17” of Columbus, Ohio was the first to use the #allthetostitos hashtag. Shortly thereafter, Chad S. on twitter suggested to Bill Farnwell of Football Outsiders that an #allthetostitos hashtag be utilized, and pure awesomeness began. By the end of the night, Brent Musberger’s wikipedia page was already updated to include the call, and #allthetostitos was trending on twitter. Ladies and gentlemen, the following collection of outstanding tweets is exactly why twitter was invented:

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