Lover of blogs everywhere, Barry Jackson of the MIAMI HERALD, does his best to bury the lead today in his sports media notes column by reporting on an interesting ESPN programming decision:

“Largely because of Tim Tebow’s popularity, ESPN will carry the Gators’ spring game at 1 p.m. April 12, with Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit on the call. A two-hour edition of College GameDay will precede it.“

Wow. That doesn’t sound like a great idea by the WWL. But we think we know the real reason why ESPN would make such a nonsensical decision. Read more…

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Read more…

Must have been just another one of Al Davis’ senile mood swings. The Raiders are now denying reports that they wanted to kick out Lane Kiffin.

ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported Friday that Kiffin was asked to resign, but refused to do so. Now the ASSOCIATED PRESS reports the Silver & Black are taking it back. Oakland exec John Herrera retorts, “There is no issue here. There was never an issue here. There’s nothing to it.”

Kiffin himself told the Worldwide Leader, “I’m not going to comment on anything that has transpired in the past three weeks.” Sounds like Lane isn’t going to let the rumors ruin his wonderful weekend in Mobile, Alabama, coaching the Senior Bowl.

It’s no surprise that the Raiders are denying the whole thing, since it’s rather embarrassing - especially considering Kiffin refused to step down. So we aren’t about to enroll Mort into the Kirk Herbstreit school of reporting coaching moves.

AT LEAST HERBSTREIT DIDN’T LET LES MESS BOTHER HIM: By now we all know about Kirk Herbstreit incorrectly reporting that Les Miles was going to take the Michigan job - and Miles publicly flogging him about the misguided reportage last Saturday.

Missing on a story happens to the best of them, but apparently Herbstreit is now hanging up his reporter’s hat, but not before throwing ESPN executives under the bus.CONSTRUDA has this from Herbstreit while guesting on WDFN-AM this week in Detroit: “I would much rather talk about what teams are doing on the field. One thing I can assure you, you will never see me gathering news and reporting information ever again.”

“Honestly, the best way to describe it is by the time Friday came around I had some information that trust me on this it was very accurate base on not a source but someone that was going to be involved in the situation.

“I made the mistake, I guess telling the ESPN bosses it and in doing that they are journalists and they said you’ve got an obligation to talk about that and go with it. You guys know, I as a former player really pride myself on my relationships with coaches and players and just not real comfortable in breaking stories, leave that up to Pat Forde and the others to do that stuff.“When they talked about that and really thought it over and over because it was going to happen they didn’t want to get beat on the story and they suggested that I go with it.”

We agree with Herbstreit on two fronts: ESPN executives deserve all the blame for the debacle - as do they for the weather in Bristol in February, the hiring of Jemele Hill, and the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage industry.And we also concur when it comes to him reporting news. Why risk providing provocative information that might make people want to tune in when you can make the same amount of money changing out Lee Corso’s bib five-times-a-GameDay?

‘COLLEGE GAMEDAY’ WON’T GIVE UP BIG TEN TO HANG TEN: Sure, ESPN College GameDay will go to Williamstown, MA, but they won’t waste their time with Waikiki:

The HONOLULU ADVERTISER reports that the college football show won’t be setting up outside Aloha Stadium any time soon. They will, however, head for the New England town this weekend to watch Williams College and Amherst College meet for the 122nd time.GameDay host Chris Fowler notes that bringing the program to Oahu would require lots of logistical planning, while dealing with high costs and limited facilities.

But that doesn’t bother Kirk Herbstreit: “I keep telling Chris and Lee (Corso) we need to get out there for GameDays.”

Fowler added he would love to hang in Hawaii and have a great time, “if you promise me that fans will show up at 5 in the morning.”In getting his words in, Corso kowtows to the company line, proclaiming, “It is cost prohibitive; I’d never go out there if I was running ESPN.”

Yeah, the network needs to devote that money to more important projects, like “Who’s Now”.

It’s too bad the crew isn’t coming. Corso could’ve worked on his tan.

WHO WANTS TO HAVE TO TRACK DOWN LEAVITT’S CELL #? We’re starting to believe that ESPN doesn’t want any part of the best stories in college football this season: The South Florida Bulls and Kentucky Wildcats. MEANINGLESS COLLATERAL