The days of me having to listen to Tide games on radio because 1/2 weren't on TV are long gone, so I've rarely taken in games with Eli Gold but by the same token even when I have, color me a bit underwhelmed. No, I didn't/don't despise the guy, but he has a tinny voice that sounds like it was produced by a computer and designed for AM radio, meaning he would have been perfect to call our games in the 60s and 70s but not so much the last, oh, 20 years or more. (This is not just an Eli/Alabama thing; most of the schools that have a radio voice fella whom I've listened to sound like the medium is stuck in the AM radio days). I thought Jim Fyffe was okay, Larry Munson, and Jack Cristil as well, but wasn't really a fan of the guys who replaced them (I'm sorry, I know this is gonna sound cruel given his current location, but I was never that impressed with Rod Bramlett, either, although next to Stan White he sounds like the best loops of Keith Jackson and John Facenda combined).
Having said that, I also tend to think someone who has been at a place 35 years should be treated with a bit of dignity, too. And maybe it's just me but this "it's hard to work with a different home and road crew," well, the Dodgers did that for years with Vin Scully, but whatever. Indeed, Scully was working partial games in his final years and only at home.
If I hadn't basically left the sport,
I'm available, folks, and I can make all 15 games for the right money.
This doesn't rank high up there with things like NIL or free agency or meaningless bowl games or the uselessness of the NZAA, but it's another symbol that we'll be reading about college football right alongside the Ottoman Empire and ABA at some point.