ESPN Called Out For Offensive BYU Article — Reporter Ryan McGee Apologizes After Backlash

BYU came into last Saturday's Top 10 showdown with Texas Tech as double digit underdogs and as most of the country expected, the Cougars walked out with their first loss of the season.

For players, coaches, and fans, what was disappointing was the team played like it was asleep — the 10:00 am start time didn't help — as the Red Raiders rolled to a 29-7 victory.

However, what was even more disappointing was an ESPN article from Ryan McGee the following day who put the Cougars in his "Bottom 10." For those that aren't aware, the Bottom 10 is a weekly series that highlights the Top 10 worst teams. One of the running gags of the Bottom 10 is the No. 5 spot.

For whatever reason, that spot is typically reserved for biggest blunder of the week such as a ranked team getting blown out to a team with a losing record, or an FBS team losing to an FCS team. Think something big, crazy or unpredictable.

Yet, for some reason, McGee put BYU in there after losing a Top 10 showdown, but it wasn't the "Bottom 10" ranking that left people upset, it was what McGee wrote that drew a lot of heat and criticism online.

As you can see from my tweet, McGee wrote: "Legend has it that after the angel Moroni showed Joseph Smith the Golden Plates upon which the Mormon Church was founded, he also warned Smith to make sure to heed the oft-forgotten inscription located on the scratched up backside of the plates: "BEWARE THE COVETED FIFTH SPOT LEST IT BITE YOU IN THE BEHIND IN LUBBOCK."

As a man who loves to joke around, I understand McGee was trying to be cute and spice things up, but this was not it. Like the saying goes, there is a time and place for everything, and that was not it. And the fact that he doesn't do this for other religious schools came off as cheap shot.

Was I offended? A little bit, but what made it worse is that not only did McGee think it was ok initially, but his editors and entire ESPN staff approved it as well. Then they tried to sweep things under the rug by quietly updating the article in the morning and hoping nobody would notice.

After getting called for that too, McGee then had to publicly apologize later that afternoon.

To put some perspective, we're less than two months away from a shooting rampage at an LDS Church, where people were gunned down and the church was set ablaze. The shooter’s motive was rooted in anti-religious beliefs, specifically his conviction that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — commonly known as Mormons — were antichrists.

Having a sports reporter trying to weave religion into a sports topic for no reason at all, and who included the words "legend has it..." at the very start to give off the impression that the beliefs of church members are just a myth, fake, is a slap in the face.

Does McGee do that for the Methodists at SMU? Nope.

Does he do that for the Christians at TCU or Notre Dame. Nope.

So why would he do so for BYU?

In September I wrote an article titled "Offensive Chants Towards BYU Must End — NCAA, Universities Must Take Action" and now it seems I need to update that to include sports journalists from taking cheap shots as well.

I'm glad McGee was forced to apologize and that ESPN corrected the article to something different, but none of that should have been needed in the first place. Do better ESPN.

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