If you gave the fans playoffs in any format—4 teams, 8, 64, whatever—they would forget the Rose Bowl ever existed. It would be bigger and better than even the 2005 Rose Bowl. So I could see why the Rose Bowl folks cling to it, but not the network. It’s truly astonishing.

That said, there’s a way to have the plus-one and still keep all that garbage for them. Why they won’t budge is mind-boggling to me.

But let’s look at the other side of the free-ride story. First, some facts regarding Ray Ray McElrathbey, and then some outrage from ESPN.com’s Jemele Hill. Now, as we all know a scholarship is not a 5-year contract; it is a 1-year promise to pay for everything, and each year every player is re-evaluated to see if they should stay in the program. While Ray Ray is in a very unusual circumstance in the fact that he is raising his 12-year old brother, Clemson can’t keep him around forever when he isn’t that good. Also, Clemson is offering Ray Ray his scholarship through the summer (when he is scheduled to graduate) and then a position on staff as a grad-assistant. So, the negative press on this story only points out the facts that college sports are as much of a business as the professional leagues they feed.

We’re very glad that they were able to get most of the details worked out—and that for the first time in almost 90 years, someone taller than 5’ 11” will be able to walk to their seats and not have to worry about hitting their head.

* Did you honestly believe that USC would ever play their home games at the Rose Bowl? Neither did we.

In the pre-season, I made a list of analysts and announcers that I liked. Now, I took serious heat for my Danielson and Ward opinion. After watching them in 2007, I must have been drunk or not watched a game that they had broadcast since 2003. Danielson and Nessler were great on ABC, but Gary and Verne Lundquist were nearly on mute by halftime in every SEC game I watched. Pam Ward should never be allowed in a booth for a football game ever again (of course having Ray Bentley as an analyst does not help at all).

Top Game Announcer: Ron Franklin (ESPN/ABC)—Please give him back the primetime ESPN game and send Mike Patrick to room with Britney in the psych ward.

Top Game Analyst: Pat Haden (NBC/Fox)—I know that no one saw his work since ND sucked and the Orange Bowl was pointless, but Pat Haden makes smart opinions and really puts up with a lot as an SC alum watching ND every week.

Best Host: Chris Fowler (ESPN/ABC)—He is the best in the business and I am sure that he is excited about getting to work tennis for the next 8 months so that he can get away from Corso.

Best Studio Analyst: Jesse Palmer (ESPN/ABC)—Best hire in the past five years in football broadcasting. Jesse was excited, he brought insight and was always on top of what those watching needed to know. (I agree with Awful Announcing about the International Bowl, he was awesome and needs to get more face time in 2008, maybe replacing Flutie and James???)

Final notes: Brent is slowly getting worse. Kirk, please decide if you are going to be a game analyst or a studio show guy—your work at both is suffering. And Corso really needs to retire.

This week Herbie gets a home game as Gameday is in Baton Rouge and he and Musburger will call the game on ESPN (ABC is running NASCAR).

On tap: ESPN’s College GameDay preview show has viewer interaction — like when fans in the crowd behind the set use their cellphones to call buddies to find out where to move to get in TV camera shots.

But starting Saturday, there will be new, more formalized interactive elements. Analyst Desmond Howard will be chatting online throughout the show — except when he goes on-air — and viewers can vote in online polls whose results will be shown on-air. Also, viewers can vote via text messages for the games they want ESPN’s analysts to predict.

I don’t want to hear Desmond talk in the first place; why on earth would I want him to chat with me during Gameday? He adds nothing to the show. Come to think of it, neither does Corso—he should retire and they should just let Fowler and Herbstreit handle the whole thing.

Here are the highlights:

• Tomorrow, ESPN begins to completely whip our ass with the 25-hour pregame nightmare.
• Then we get LSU and Miss St with Fowler, Flutie, and James (are you kidding me that we have to put up with Craig James in the booth now?), and the lovely Erin Andrews.
• On Friday, just watch baseball—Washington at Syracuse might be unlistenable with Colin Cowherd in the booth.
• Best games on Saturday:
  • Georgia Tech at ND
  • Oklahoma St at Georgia
  • UCLA at Stanford (if you can ignore the awful FSN whiteout effect)
  • Tennessee at Cal (BRENT and the Musburger Drinking Game)

P.S. Early Saturday will be very Virginia Tech intensive on the Worldwide Leader.

If you haven’t yet checked out SI.com’s new partner, FanNation, it’s got a pretty cool feature where two users can challenge each other to a “Throwdown.” SI.com NFL producer Andrew Perloff and [Mandel] are doing just that today, debating an eternal question that I’m sure readers here will find of interest: Which is better, college football or the NFL?

Today, CBSSports.com (the Sportsline.com site), runs—you guessed it—a feature pitting college football vs. the NFL as its top story (not counting Ron Mexico news).

Now all we need is ESPN.com to put up its own reasons for each side and America won’t read that either. College football rules Thursday night and Saturday, and the rest of the fall days are for the NFL and the stories involving the #1 sport in America. I love college football as much as anybody, but facts are facts and no talk about bands, cheerleaders and student-athletes is going to change people’s minds.

My USC and LSU of play-by-play guys, if you will, remain the same — Ron Franklin and Brent Musburger. (Don’t start with me, Brent haters. I’m not ashamed to admit I still get a kick out of hearing those three words: “You’re looking live.”) Unfortunately, ABC/ESPN has marginalized Franklin — the undisputed voice of prime-time SEC football for a decade — by shifting him to ABC’s afternoon Big 12 games (and replacing him with Mike Patrick?? C’mon. If I wanted to be preached to for three hours, I’d go find a church). Both decisions baffle me, as does Dan Fouts’ decision to become a play-by-play guy.

Amongst color analysts, Bob Davie has really grown on me the past couple of years, and Kirk Herbstreit has ascended to undisputed status (in my opinion at least) as the most insightful in-game commentator. So if I were to redo those lists three years later, my play-by-play guys would remain mostly the same (No. 1 Franklin, No. 2 Musburger, No. 3 Brad Nessler, No. 4 Verne Lundquist and No. 5 Sean McDonough), while the analyst list has changed to: No. 1 Herbstreit, No. 2 Todd Blackledge, No. 3 Davie, No. 4 Charles Davis (the surprise star of FOX’s first BCS broadcasts last year) and No. 5 Chris Spielman.

Call me a Brent hater if you will, but Brent Musburger has to be in the top 5 worst. When he hosts an event, it’s fine; but when he’s in the booth, all liquored up and cheering for the side he has a grand on (or giving away hand signals), it is simply awful. The second biggest mistake of this list is Charles Davis as the 4th best analyst. Frankly, Charles’s analysis on TBS games was so bad that the only way to watch those games was in silence. Charles needs to go back to the Golf Channel and the Grey Goose 19th hole and stay away from college football.

With that off my chest, here is my list of the best announcers and analysts for college football (national only). Feel free to provide additions or deletions in the comments.

Announcers

1. Brad Nessler
2. Ron Franklin (we agree with Mandel: he has been screwed by ESPN)
3. Pam Ward (she never steps on the analyst’s words, and she is unbiased)
4. Verne Lundquist
5. Sean McDonough

Analysts:

1. Gary Danielson (his work with Nessler was the best)
2. Kirk Herbstreit
3. Todd Blackledge (except that he gets killed by Mike Patrick)
4. Chris Spielman
5. Pat Haden (even better when not with Tom Hammond on the Notre Dame swallow-a-thon)

Sideline:

1. Erin Andrews (that’s it—that’s the list)

* Although you should read Dan Jenkins’s Saturday’s America first.