Brent Musburger jokes that Katherine Webb comments took heat off Brian Kelly

Musburger jokingly remarked during a recent edition of "The Shamrock" podcast that his words helped temporarily overshadow the fact that Brian Kelly, who was serving as Notre Dame Fighting Irish coach that fateful evening, was in the middle of suffering what became a 42-14 blowout defeat.

"Coach Kelly, who I know very well now down at LSU, having left Notre Dame, I still tease him that when he got blown out by Alabama in that national championship game, I took all the heat off him because I called a beauty queen beautiful," Musburger explained, according to Jaclyn Hendricks of the New York Post. 

"I was the villain that night, in the eyes of the media, especially the 'woke' journalists of some of the papers around the country. I say, 'Coach, you’d have been under the gun if it wasn’t for me.' He laughs. He’s a good old politician, we’ll see what he does."

Per John Ourand of Sports Business Journal, ESPN later apologized for Musburger's original comments. 

"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," ESPN said in January 2013. "However, we apologize that the commentary in this instance went too far and Brent understands that." 

The Post's Jenna Lemoncelli mentioned that Webb, now married to McCarron, defended Musburger as recently as this past February. Webb and McCarron have three children together. 

Meanwhile, the Barrett Sports Media website noted in August that Musburger, 83, currently works as an analyst for an NFL pregame show with the Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN).