As you watch the very first Football Night in America iteration of the regular season, you’ll probably be treated to a large helping of Cris Collinsworth, Al Michaels‘ new partner in the booth with John Madden retiring over the offseason to focus his time on Turducken engineering.

(He sure was, ladies… he sure was.)

And as you watch Mr. Collinsworth, be sure to watch for any instances in which he criticizes youthful indiscretions of various players. For while the league’s current disciplinary system scarcely allows players to so much as acknowledge that another woman is attractive, Collinsworth certainly took liberties with the more lax standards of professionalism in his day; in the video below, you’ll see him waxing eloquently on the high school girls that love him so much. Really.

As WITH LEATHER, who unearthed the video, puts it:

I don’t know how you can watch this clip of Cris Collinsworth during a 1980s halftime piece for Monday Night Football and NOT think of Matthew Mcconaughey’s character from Dazed and Confused. They are the same guy. The same. Guy.

And yes, telling people your best dating bloc, agewise, is 14-18 is about the most Wooderson-esque thing you can possibly say without leaving yourself open for statutory rape charges.

Of course, Collinsworth is older and wiser now, with a family and everything, and those days are ovah. Said he to DEADSPIN on the subject:

As a family man I am extremely embarrassed by an interview I did when I was in my early twenties about dating. My comments were insulting, immature, and foolishly intended as a joke. They do not reflect how I lived my life then or now.

I was asked to do something humorous about dating, and it has been a major embarrassment to me since the day I said it.

I apologize to anyone who has ever had the misfortune to see it now or a quarter-century ago.

Sincerely
Cris Collinsworth

And that should about do it for the controversy, unless Collinsworth chooses to address it again - given the complete nature of his apology, that’s doubtful. But we hope it’s at the back of his mind the next time he sees somebody preening or otherwise acting like less than a consummate professional. He may know better now, but he knew exactly where they were coming from back then.