Former Auburn University head football coach Pat Dye did not like the selection of Alabama native Condoleezza Rice to the new 13-member College Football Playoff committee, and he made it known in no uncertain terms on Birmingham sports talk radio station WJOX.
“All she knows about football is what somebody told her, or what she read in a book, or what she saw on television,” Dye opined. “To understand football, you’ve got to play with your hand in the dirt. I love Condoleezza Rice and she’s probably a good statesman and all of that, but how in the hell does she know what it’s like out there when you can’t get your breath and it’s 110 degrees and the coach asks you to go some more?”
Rice responded to Dye’s criticism last night on ESPN. Colin Cowherd asked Dr. Rice what she would say if Dye was sitting in front of her.
“I would say, ‘coach I respect you. I remember your great run at Auburn, and I certainly respect you. But I just respectfully disagree.'”
“There are others on the committee who’ve not played football,” Rice continued. “I just might note, with all due respect to my dear friend Roger Goodell and Paul Tagliabue, probably the most influential NFL Commissioner was Pete Rozelle. He never played football. So you can be a student of something and not experience it, and I consider myself a student of college football. I am, Colin, after all, a student of Russia but I’ve actually never been Russian either. You can know something from following it and studying it, and I spend a lot of my Saturday with college football.”
What do you think about Rice being selected to the committee?
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