ESPN writer Ryan McGee changed a reference he made to Joseph Smith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in his Bottom 10 college football column, apologizing for “earlier insensitivities.”
McGee ranked previously unbeaten BYU No. 5 in his column after its loss to Texas Tech.
In the first version of his column, McGee said the following:
“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.”
The column, which was published Wednesday, came under scrutiny on social media.
McGee revised the column and took to X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday morning and said the story had been revised to remove the reference.
“New — and revised — #Bottom10 is up. Apologies for earlier insensitivities. Certainly wasn’t my intent. But BYU is still in the Coveted Fifth Spot. Ill-advised jokes can be deleted. Ill-advised gameplans cannot," McGee wrote.
The new version of the article says the following about BYU:
“BYU lands in the Coveted Fifth Spot after hauling truckloads of gear out into the middle of West Texas seeking fortune, fame and riches, only to come up empty and get run out of town by a bunch of mysterious masked Raiders. In other words, the entire plot of that Billy Bob Thornton TV series.”
No. 12 BYU (8-1) hosts TCU (6-3) on Saturday at 8:15 p.m. MST.