ESPN

AUSTIN, Texas -- College football analyst Craig James, who starred as a tailback at Southern Methodist University and with the New England Patriots in the 1980s, left ESPN on Monday and entered the Republican race for the open U.S. Senate seat in Texas.

James, who appeared on the cable network's weekly game broadcasts, had been flirting with entering politics for more than year but has not held public office. He submitted his paperwork to the Republican Party of Texas Monday, the last day of the normal filing period.

At the risk of being repetitive -- I've said this before and I'll say it again -- weeknight college football stinks.

Yeah, there are two sides to every coin, I know. And "coin" is the operative word here.

LOS ANGELES -- Hank Williams Jr. is gone from ESPN and "Monday Night Football." But he is not going quietly.

The country singer of ESPN's "Monday Night Football" theme song who parted ways with the sports network last week after making comments on "Fox & Friends" comparing President Barack Obama to Hitler made his first appearance since leaving the network on Tuesday's edition of ABC's "The View," showing much of the outrageous and rambling personality that was on display during the Fox News Channel program.

Wearing a New York Yankees/Mickey Mantle jersey and orange-colored sunglasses, Williams took several shots at Disney-owned ESPN, saying at one point, "Mickey is a mean mouse." Though he insisted he was misunderstood and was using an analogy between Hitler and Obama to make a political point, he declined to apologize or take back his earlier statements.

Lee Corso was just another out-of-work football coach when ESPN threw him a lifeline back in 1987.

In Corso's 15 seasons as a college head coach his teams at Louisville, Indiana and Northern Illinois lost more than they won. His one-season stint as coach of the Orlando Renegades of the United States Football League ended 5-13 the year the league went belly up in 1985.

And so while Corso trolled for coaching jobs, he broadcast indoor football for a season before being parked on a 30-minute ESPN studio pre-game show to work alongside Tim Brando and Beano Cook on the fledgling College GameDay.