Rose Bowl will be on ESPN in 2011

It was bound to happen sure as Wrigley Field got lights.

The Rose Bowl will leave its home on ABC and be televised on ESPN starting in 2011. "Monday Night Football" made the move from ABC to ESPN a couple of years ago.

ESPN had already announced it would televise 15 other Bowl Championship Series games, including the Fiesta, Orange, Sugar and BCS National Championship, as part of a new, multi-year agreement also beginning in January 2011.

ABC will televise the 2010 Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, and the 2010 BCS National Championship Game in Pasadena, Calif., on Jan. 7. The Rose Bowl has a separate contract from the other BCS bowls.


“Having all BCS matchups on one home, especially within ESPN’s year-round college football environment, is the very best scenario,” said John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president, programming and acquisitions, in a news release. “Fans will welcome ESPN's all-encompassing approach, and the additional opportunities and value resulting from our multi-platform presentation will benefit the college football community and our business partners.”

BCS mess a lovely problem for college football

College football fans say they want a cut-and-dried national champion, but do they really? Do they really want just two powers in any given season? No, unless their team is one of them.

Remembering real football heroes on Memorial Day

Football is rooted in militaristic terms: the blitz, bomb, cannon arm, shotgun, trenches, and many others.

Game strategy is often likened to battle strategy: offensive, defensive, the audible.

But football is football—ultimately my favorite game and spectator sport. War is...well, hell, as Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman famously said.

This story is personal. My father was a Marine in World War II in the Pacific on islands such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa. He was one of the first ground troops into Hiroshima and Nagasaki mere weeks after atomic bombs were dropped.

Those days, he said, were among his toughest.

He was one of the lucky ones who came home. As he and almost every war veteran says, "The real heroes are still over there."

My son, 19, is now in the Marines and at Camp Pendleton for his first permanent duty station. He chose this path of his own volition and as a complete surprise to everyone who knows him.

But on this Memorial Day, we remember all those who died serving their country, specifically the nameless and faceless heroes.

Here are some famous football players who died in service.

Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffin says he was just joking

Lane Kiffin said he meant no harm to fellow SEC coaches with his shenanigans since taking over for Phil Fulmer as Tennessee football coach. He was merely trying to stoke the embers on Rocky Top and get people talking about his Volunteers. Okay Lane, the ploy worked—man, did it work.

At the SEC meetings in Destin, Fla. on Tuesday, Kiffin even joked that he requested a joint room with Florida coach Urban Meyer.

Meyer was Kiffin's main focus when he accused Meyer of cheating in the recruitment of Pahokee standout Nu'Keese Richardson, a Tennessee signee. The SEC reprimanded Kiffin, who publicly apologized to the Florida athletics department.

When you become a head coach, you take a specific plan into that job. Each job is different," Kiffin told The Gainesville Sun. "As I looked at this one, we needed to have a spark immediately as far as national exposure."

"There aren't six-year plans anymore. We had to make an immediate impact and get players immediately. We couldn't sit back and take it easy and say we'll have a top 10 recruiting class next year. Do I love everything I had to do to get us to this point? No, I don't."

"But my job is not to love everything I do. My job is to do the best thing for our university and the best thing for our people, our fans, and our players."

Kiffin also told the Knoxville News Sentinel that Mark Smith, the strength and conditioning coach, is still on the Volunteers' staff.

"We have not parted ways," Kiffin told the News Sentinel. "There has been nothing done. I evaluate him like I would anyone else on our staff."

Smith has been rumored to be on his way out. Aaron Ausmus, a former Volunteer track star and the Mississippi strength and conditioning coach is the leading candidate to replace Smith.



For more on Lane Kiffin, click here.

College Football's Ultimate Neutral Fields

Notre Dame and Army are interested in playing games, perhaps against each other, at Yankee Stadium.


Here are other football fields of dreams that we would love to see.


Who fits best at the Statue of Liberty? Army-Navy? Maybe nearby Rutgers?


Perhaps the Liberty Bowl in Memphis may consider switching to the gateway of the nation—The Jets and Giants could also be part of a doubleheader.