RON FRANKLIN BENCHED
Ron Franklin, the stentorian voice of Saturday night football on ESPN, has been benched. Kanu at Dodgy At Best captures the moment with lucid fury:
Ron Franklin is the best voice in CFB by a mile, and he certainly is the voice of the big Saturday night game on ESPN. My sis donned him “Uncle Ron” about 10 years ago because his voice is so great and comforting/comfortable that he sounds like your favorite uncle calling the game for you at a weekly family gathering. As damn near all things ESPN related have turned to complete and utter shite around him the last 15 years, he had remained one of the very few great things that remain at now-shittastic ESPN.
Uncle Ron will now be have the honor of broadcasting day games between major conference foes and their 1-AA scheduling gimps. Here’s hoping he leaves, signs with FOX, and takes the Musburger route to renaissance when the “Bread and Circuses” network gets its claws on college football.
College football on FOX, with “The Running Man” at halftime. Who do you love?
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[...] for some reason, ESPN has steadily soured on him over the past few years (he’ll be calling Big XII games this year - lousy time slot), so maybe [...]
Pingback by Post-Munson idle speculation « Get The Picture — June 21, 2007 @ 5:02 am
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Once Adrian was gone, you knew the dream team couldn’t last forever. I will say this: I made absolutely no plans on college football Saturdays when Ron Franklin was doing games. This includes driving home from and then returning to a scout camping trip with my son. Nothing better on God’s green earth than Ron Franklin doing a Saturday night game. In contrast, I had plans last Saturday night and I do again this Saturday night.
One of Ron’s trademarks was his insistance at calling the snap of a field goal back to the holder a “pass”–which it is. He is also one of the few people associated with football that correctly knows that there is no such thing as what is commonly referred to as a lateral. There are backward passes and forward passes–no such thing as a lateral.
Before there was such a thing as the yellow line, Ron was always careful to tell us that the “line to make” was on every play. We needed that.
Mike Patrick is not a bad guy. And the much maligned Paul Maguire isn’t so bad on the college games. Is it possible that Theismann may have been the problem on those Sunday night games?
I only hope that Ron Franklin knows how much he is loved. And missed.
Comment by Brandon Lang — September 22, 2006 @ 11:43 pm