​Credit: USA TODAY Network via Reuters ConnectThe middle of August can be one of the slowest times on the sports calendar. The NFL preseason has just gotten underway, but America isn’t quite ready to dive all in on its football obsession. Hockey and basketball seasons are still a couple months away. And major summer events like the World Cup have come and gone.So in a quest to share some kind of news with sports fans, ESPN went to a very weird place on Wednesday. And it’s all thanks to Oklahoma State Cowboys head football coach Eric Morris.Morris is in his first season in Stillwater after moving over from a successful tenure at North Texas. And on Wednesday, he revealed that he was getting comfortable in his new home by channeling his inner Cowboys mascot, Pistol Pete. He told reporters that he shot and killed an armadillo that was wrecking his yard.Not only was this newsworthy enough for an AP story, but also an ESPN push notification that was sent directly to fans as it was breaking news that folks apparently just had to know. All over social media, fans posted screenshots of the push notification, along with their total confusion over one of the strangest sports news updates they had ever seen.Was this really worth a push notification at 10pm pic.twitter.com/DbUGHOtusa— Brandon Carney (@BenchwarmerBran) August 20, 2026Hey @espn, are you trying to get people to turn off news notifications?
Because this is how you get people to turn off notifications: pic.twitter.com/3dDzNeN3kG— Organic Card Farmer (@FarmerCard) August 20, 2026This could be the craziest push notification I’ve ever receivedGotta love college football pic.twitter.com/DPKNhr2SyS— Adam Breneman (@AdamBreneman81) August 20, 2026ESPN notification intern you had me in the first half I won’t lie pic.twitter.com/X16JTZVr6J— Shelby Hilliard (@ShelbyCHilliard) August 20, 2026I think we’ve lost the plot on what is worthy of an ESPN push notification pic.twitter.com/8g2ABd13MO— Dawson Eiserloh (@EiserlohDawson) August 20, 2026Little different than the normal ESPN notification pic.twitter.com/Pby8ow8CW6— Sports Talk 336 (@SportsTalk336) August 20, 2026One of the ESPN notifications of all time pic.twitter.com/1FFY5jnT1n— hdsn. (@hdsn_live) August 20, 2026There’s simply no way espn just sent me this notification pic.twitter.com/XqKODdFfbg— NASCARDegen (@nascardegen) August 20, 2026In case you were wondering, Eric Morris said his home is in the country so there were no laws or local ordinances broken. And armadillos are not a protected species in Oklahoma. However, he did note that he sent a text message to his neighbors for potentially waking them up with a gunshot at 2:30 a.m. ET when the pesky varmit met its demise. That was very thoughtful because neighbors hearing gunshots at that hour are probably assuming the worst.As for the ESPN push notification, it’s not the first time we’ve seen a questionable news update from the platform, but it is definitely the weir