ESPN announcer criticized for comment following death of Carley McCord

An ESPN announcer was slammed by viewers on Saturday after referring to the death of an LSU football coach’s daughter-in-law as a “distraction” ahead of the College Football Playoff semifinal in Atlanta.

“Certainly our thoughts and prayers with coach and his family, as he gets to do his job and try to put away the distraction of losing his daughter-in-law just hours before kickoff,” ESPN’s Matt Barrie said on-air hours after Carley McCord, the relative of Tigers’ offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger, was one of five people killed in a small Louisiana plane crash.

McCord, 30, was on her way from Lafayette, La., to the Peach Bowl in Georgia when the plane crashed in a post office parking lot shortly after takeoff.

The flight’s lone survivor was in critical condition.

Ensminger, who coached the game against Oklahoma, was seen hugging players on the field during warmups around the time Barrie made his comment.

The website, “Awful Announcing,” received nearly 2,000 likes on a tweet criticizing Barrie’s comment, while others also chimed in.

“Let’s not refer to an LSU assistant coach losing one of his children in a plane crash as a ‘distraction’ from the football game at hand,” tweeted college football writer Alex Kirshner.

Kirshner added in a follow-up tweet: “The football game is the distraction, not the death of a child.”

Football fan James Niemeyer wrote, “Try and put away the distraction of losing his daughter-in-law”?!? Jesus ESPN can we not categorize the loss of human life, especially one that’s family, as a “distraction”? Come on…”

And hockey writer Adam Gretz said: “No idea who this dude on the ESPN pregame show is but I think he just said ‘Put away the distraction of losing his daughter-in-law …’ I mean … what the hell.”

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