FanHouse

... as the knives are sharpened in Bristol ...

In an interview with the Detroit News about ESPN's botched "Les Miles to Michigan" call:

[Herbstreit's report] was wrong on so many levels. As a former player, unless I spoke to that coach and he told me it was cool, I would never have done that because he was still coaching a team that's about to play in a (SEC) championship game. ... His team, the first thing they saw when they woke up was that report. It was not fair to him and not fair to the players.

He's got a point given that he's on Michigan's search committee and literally spends every Saturday with Herbstreit. All it would have taken was a simple call to a well-placed colleague to add another layer of proof.

Are Howard's days at ESPN numbered after this? Who knows, but Maize N Brew nicely outlines the college football zeitgeist at Bristol ca. 2008.

I'll be curious to see if there's any fallout from this one. Herbstreit really is the face of Game Day at this point and is clearly being groomed to take over as ABC's lead commentator for college football, if he isn't already. He's the golden boy and Howard just took him to task.

The World Wide Leader in Sports is known to have an itchy trigger finger when it comes to dissent. Desmond is a good, but by no means irreplaceable commentator. It will be interesting to see if Desmond's comments do more than just kick a dead horse.