Say it ain’t so, Ron.

Color me depressed.

The classy style of Ron Franklin, ESPN’s voice for Big 12 basketball and a longtime college football announcer, will be missed by sports fans if he goes through with plans to retire when his network contract expires in April.

After 44 years in sportscasting and 22 years at ESPN, Franklin, said he’s “98.5 percent sure” he will retire after broadcasting the 2010 NIT championship.

First Munson, now Franklin.  Damn, that’s sad.  If the WWL has any class at all, it’ll let the man go out calling the Rose Bowl.  (The televised broadcast, that is.) Not that I’m holding my breath.

If you want to know what the sound of college football is like, here’s Franklin’s introduction to the ’05 Georgia-Auburn game:

Uncle Ron, you’ll be missed.  And if you ever decide you’d like to keep your hand in things by doing a little radio play-by-play, I’d be more than happy to help carry the water here with a little campaigning.

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Do you know the way to San Jose?

San Jose State University has now dumped two schools it scheduled to play in 2010 in favor of two others willing to pay a bunch more money.

A million dollars from ‘Bama and $900K from Wisconsin – there’s gold in them there cupcakes.

Monday morning buffet

Get your week started with these:

• People keep questioning the Mountain West Conference’s manhood.  Really, if the fight is over money, why would you think the MWC would walk away from it?
• Mark Bradley thinks Jim Donnan just needed a break or two.  What Donnan needed was a competent defensive coordinator.
• This is a pretty cool stat.  I hope it catches on.
• More thoughts on whether BYU could play in the BCS title game this year if it ran the table, with the pro-playoffs folks sounding pretty close-minded about the idea.
• David Hale posts about Georgia’s defensive end situation.  Demarcus Dobbs’ light at the end of the tunnel notwithstanding, there’s still a ways to go at the position.
• If ESPN is the Devil, what does that make Tommy Tuberville?
• And in a shocking development, Patrick Nix can’t find a football job since being canned by Miami.

The CliffsNotes Version of SEC Media Days

The fun begins Wednesday.  If you feel like it, you can find ten questions that’ll be asked at Hoover.  Or you can find five questions.

The reality is, though, that eighty percent of what’ll be discussed there boils down to variations on two questions:  (1) Lane Kiffin, reflecting on the last ten months, do you think that making a complete ass out of yourself has helped or hurt the Tennessee program? and (2) Tim Tebow, what’s it really like walking on water?

In the immortal words of the Talmud, all the rest is commentary.