Even in the booth, nothing gold can stay

Laugh to keep from crying, Rod Gilmore? ESPN has broken up the GilTess team. (US PRESSWIRE) College football's transience is at once its greatest design flaw

Laugh to keep from crying, Rod Gilmore? ESPN has broken up the GilTess team. (US PRESSWIRE)

College football's transience is at once its greatest design flaw and a patience-shoring comfort. We spend well over half of each year awaiting its arrival, and prize each game all the more for getting only a dozen or so chances to watch each team. Can't stand your alma mater's mouthy wideout? Take heart: You won't have to live with him for a generation like you would a Brett Favre. Treasure your most favored program's huggy killbear of a nose tackle? Treasure him hard: You'll get two or three more years of watching him in those colors at most.

It's much the same with the folks who bring us the games. Did you enjoy Bob Davie pronouncing Will Muschamp's name "Muscamp"? Hope you savored it, now that Davie's gone to New Mexico. Are you an American with a pulse, and therefore someone who loathes Craig James to your very marrow? He is no more! But then:

"Joe Tessitore and Matt Millen will serve as the announcers for a new package of additional Saturday night games, primarily on ESPN."

ESPN is breaking up GilTess, and sincere congratulations to Tessitore for landing a Saturday gig. But slotting Carter Blackburn in Tessitore's place alongside Rod Gilmore will leave our Fridays a little less madcap, and we can't help but feel we'll be spiritually poorer for it.* So WACtion sank to grief, y'all.

Other items of note from the annual announcer shuffle: Erin Andrews' sideline replacement for the Herbie-Musby ABC primetime crew has not been named. The addition of David Pollack to the Rece Davis-Jesse Palmer booth makes Thursday night college football the best hair night in sports. Jemele Hill will join that Friday team, and Samantha Steele takes the Thursday sideline gig. Still intact: Nessler-Blackledge-Rowe for ESPN primetime.

And yet: See Stewart Mandel's Tessitore feature, and note who is slated to call Mike Leach's Washington State debut. Hope is kindled.