Rich’s Message to Anyone Who Thinks the Holly Rowe/Sarkisian AI Slop Video Is Funny

Rich took no pleasure in this one, and said so before he started. He loves the Manning family. He also has a job to do, the same way Holly Rowe was doing hers Saturday night.

The setup was ordinary enough. There was a kerfuffle at halftime with Steve Sarkisian, a technical error that left him waiting, and he did not stick around. He had his hands full. Ohio State was all over his team at that point.

Texas won anyway. Afterward Rowe was standing with Sarkisian, and whether or not it was residue from halftime, he offered a hook 'em horns and left her standing there. The look Rowe gave the camera went viral.

Then somebody made an AI video of Sarkisian striking Rowe hard enough to put her on the ground.

Rich would not show it. He had the sound cued up from the press conference where it was raised with Arch Manning, and he decided not to play that either, telling the audience they could seek it out.

What he would do is say the thing plainly.

"It's not funny. It's not funny at all."

Manning laughed at it. Rich's read on that was measured. Manning is 22 and living in a spotlight, and Rich knows his father, his uncles, his grandfather. He said he fully expected an apology, and he was right.

What actually set Rich off was everyone else in that room.

"The reporters yucking it up. Holly Rowe is your colleague. What's the matter with you?"

That is the part he could not move past. Not the 22 year old. The working journalists who share a profession with Rowe and treated a depiction of a man knocking a woman to the ground as a punchline.

"There is nothing funny about somebody hitting a woman," Rich said. "I can't believe I've got to say this sort of thing."

He put Rowe's career next to it, because the contrast is the argument. Hall of Fame journey. Stage four cancer. Flying around the country battling it and coming back to work.

Rich also cut off the obvious deflection before anyone could reach for it.

"This isn't virtue signaling or being woke. There's a video of a coach slapping a reporter and knocking her to the ground violently. There's nothing funny about it."

Then he turned the question on his own desk, and on himself. If Rowe were standing in the back of this room, would we be laughing? He answered it before anyone else could. No. We are not.

Someone wondered aloud how many women were in that press conference.

It sounds like zero.

The part that frustrates Rich most is what got buried. The story should be how good Arch Manning looked and what a massive win that was for Texas, which is now number one. Manning could be a Heisman winner. Rich roots for that family and said so twice.

Manning did come through, and quickly. He posted an apology to Instagram.

"In my press conference yesterday, I made an insensitive comment about an AI video. There is nothing funny about it," Manning wrote. "It's easy to say I didn't mean it, but I know my words and actions were hurtful to a lot of people. I do not take that lightly and I am deeply sorry for that. I specifically want to apologize to Holly Rowe for what she has personally had to deal with because of my comments. I have a ton of respect for her and appreciate her showing me grace in this moment. I need to be better and will be more thoughtful going forward."

Rich called it pitch perfect, and pointed out the two things that make an apology real. Manning used the word sorry, which a startling number of apologies manage to avoid. And he said Holly Rowe's name.

The grace stops there, though. Rich is still not extending it to the people in that room.

Every one of them should be seeking out Rowe today. And the ones who are still anonymous, he argued, should call themselves out anyway.

"I did something wrong. I apologize, and I promise to do better. We all have to. In every facet."