Paul Maguire is certainly one of the elder statesmen in College Football, and at 70 years old, he's not getting any younger. Well according to USA Today, the ABC announcer will be get a bit of a break next College Football season. Not only will Maguire have a reduced slate of games, but he will be appearing on some studio shows as well....

Although not formally announced, ESPN's Mike Soltys confirmed Sunday that college football analyst Paul Maguire, 70, will have a "reduced role" this season. Rather than having a full slate of games, says Soltys, Maguire will work only "the occasional game and do some studio shows and radio."

Maguire goes pretty far back in the sport. He played tight end at The Citadel and led the nation in touchdown receptions — in 1959. After being a linebacker and punter in the old American Football League, Maguire worked for NBC before becoming ESPN's original college football lead analyst in 1979 and in 1984 began working ESPN's first live college football — after a U.S. Supreme Court decision had loosened the NCAA's control of TV rights, which let ESPN get live games.

Maguire returned to NBC and, as part of its lead NFL teams, called Super Bowl action. But after NBC lost NFL TV rights in 1998, he returned to ESPN for its Sunday night NFL games. In recent seasons, he's worked ESPN college games with Bob Griese and Brad Nessler in three-man on-air teams that included Maguire being stationed in TV production trucks and on carts that rolled along sidelines while covering games.

If you're not around on the weekend for the Pammies, there's a running joke that we have. Brent Musburger is so ridiculously random, and occasionally slurs often enough that we like to think he's drunk in the booth. Well apparently the same thing is true in Basketball.

Nearing the end of last night's OSU-IU game, ESPN did a split screen with Musburger and Steve Lavin. Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes were on the next game, and after a few pleasantries, Musburger decided to talk about red wine and the fact that he might be drinking alone following the game.

Darren Rovell at CNBC noticed during the FSU-Florida game this past Saturday that the team of Nessler, Griese and Maguire had a "Did You Know?" that said that Florida State and not U of F was actually credited with inventing the Sports Drink Gatorade. Being extremely confused, since he wrote an entire book on the subject, Rovell set out to find the truth and these were his findings....

Neither had Dr. Dana Shires, one of Gatorade’s four inventors, who was actually watching the game at the time. “Of course I’ve never heard of it,” Shires said. “It’s just another stupid stunt from the guys at Florida State.”

If I were a researcher for ABC, I doubt I would go with that story after I found only 41 hits for “Seminole firewater.” Or after the doctor who supposedly invented the stuff—an R.A. Johnson —only came up when this “Seminole firewater” was referenced.

The story probably came from a jokester who put it up on Wikipedia. Then, a site called the history of branding, which doesn’t even exist anymore, put it on their site and then it hit all the message boards and voila–a creation becomes a fact.

The University of Florida is so concerned about this new revelation that they are supposed to issue a press release later today, perhaps to quell what has become the hottest new smack talk in Florida.

A hilarious exchange took place during the UNC-MD game this evening. As Brad Nessler was talking about the Minnesota-Wisconsin game he tried to mention the trophy that both teams play for in the rivalry, Paul Bunyan's Axe. Nessler, however, called it something else and Bob Griese was there to question him....

The good people at EA Sports decided to forward me a behind the scenes clip of how the announcers are brought into the mix. While I normally try to stay away from pimping products, EA actually directly thought of the readers and relevance of the clip before sending it along. I check it out, and it's certainly worth a look. If not for the technical aspects and voice overs, but at least for Erin Andrews. Enjoy!

The chatter last week was about Erin Andrews and Kirk Herbstreit's allegiances when covering College Football, but I think everyone completely forgot about Bob Griese. The team of Brad Nessler, Griese and Paul Maguire were at Purdue when the stadium decided to get Bob to get his alma mater hyped before the fourth quarter. Here's the video evidence via Brahsome....

This had the potential to be disastrous but in the end it just came out awkward. Brad Nessler, Jimmy Dykes, and Steve Lavin were calling the College Slam Dunk and 3-Point Shootout Contest this past evening when the camera crew decided to show a mother and child.

Turns out that the very attractive blonde you see in this clip is Mrs. Jimmy Dykes and his daughter. Steve Lavin then just decides to make things extremely uncomfortable....

So the Jimmy Dykes duet with Vince Gill went down as planned last night, and I have to say I was pretty impressed. I'm not the hugest Country fan in the World but JD seems to know his way around the mic....

Whoo Vandy Basketball!!! F**k You!

Many many thanks to reader Adam for sending this gem in. Here we have last evening's Kentucky-Tennessee game and Rece Davis throwing the Sports Center update back to Brad Nessler and Jimmy Dykes. Rece had mentioned the boot and flowers story and Nessler wanted to add his two cents.....

ESPN actually did a pretty cool thing during the Georgia-Georgia Tech game this afternoon. Brad Nessler switched booths to work with Georgia Radio's Larry Munson whom Nessler used to be partners with awhile back.

While that was all fun and good it was the exchange of goods between Nessler and Munson that caught the eyes of Nessler's partners Paul Maguire and Bob Griese.....

I think this could be the first time I'm ever going to buy a game just to check someone out digitally. I mean it's strictly for the site of course (or at least that's what I'm telling myself), and I think the cost is worth it.

As for Erin Andrews the Voice Talent… she is one of the best at what she does but I’d also like to add that she is one of the top voice over talents that I have worked with (and I have worked with a few over the last 9 years). Her level of professionalism and desire to deliver perfect lines of commentary was second to none. Brad and Dick do well but she was determined to out due them. Unfortunately, we didn’t have all three of them in the studio at one time. If they were, it would have been comical. Video would have been mandatory. I actually had to play middle-man between the sessions, because Dick had inside jokes and greetings to pass on to Erin and she had ‘words’ to pass on to Dicky V.

Well last night sucked as far as picks went. I was 2-3, and I think I'm going to simply pick by conference now.

No offense to the teams playing, but today is by far the worst day of the Bowl Season. Navy v BC? Boring. Texas v. Iowa? Blowout. VT v Georgia? Well there's not a team I hate to watch more than Georgia.....but BC and Iowa are close.

As the title suggests......I can't stand Maguire. He was doing the Champs Sports Bowl last night with Bob Griese (who is okay) and Brad Nessler (who is above average). Griese and Nessler kept laying into him and all he could come up with is some dumb joke about how he won't bring Griese coffee next week. Griese was pretty funny though at times.

"I think it's an honor to sit next to a Hall of Famer"- PM
"Umm, I wish I could say the same"- BG
(insert lame coffee joke)

Had Maguire never played the game, his broadcasting career alone would earn him hall-of-fame status. On the other hand it is precisely because Paul played the game that his analytical instincts are so sharp, his observations so relevant, his criticism so knowledgeable.