Well, this Dana Jacobson situation has certainly spiraled out of control. Would you believe it if we told you that yesterday, for much of the afternoon, the No. 1 search on google was Dana Jacobson? (Yes, above Heath Ledger!) We had fun with the story initially – an ESPN employee was allegedly drunk and acting goofy at a comedy roast! Big fun! Then, we heard her antics were actually quite bad, and if video surfaced, it would be detrimental to her job. Then video surfaced, but it was a letdown. So how did she go from in the clear to suspended for a week to on the verge of losing her job? After the jump, we string together a timeline of the last week.

On Friday afternoon, an anonymous tipster told Deadspin that Jacobson said, “f… Notre dame” “f….touchdown Jesus” and – the step-aside-because-lightning-is-about-to-strike… “f…. Jesus.” It seems as if – and we have no confirmation of this – ESPN decided to suspend Jacobson either late Friday or over the weekend. (She apparently wasn’t on First Take Monday or Tuesday.)

The story seemed to remain dormant until Sunday, when ND Nation posted an item on the situation and decided to make a massive deal out of it. It quickly spread to the Notre Dame message boards by Monday, at which point Catholic Extremists (full disclosure: The author of this post is Catholic) caught wind of it. On Tuesday, something called World Net Daily put out a press release with the headline: “ESPN anchorwoman: ‘F— Jesus’.” A few people sent us that link Tuesday, but we completely ignored it because there was no sourcing on the quotes (don’t these people know how to cite blogs?) and the whole story seemed to lose steam after the weak video had surfaced. The most troubling aspect of the World Net Daily press release was that, Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League (and man who actually protested the movie Dogma), felt compelled to get involved.

At this point, Jacobson was backed into a corner. If she confirmed the comments, the Catholics would call for her head. If she denied the comments, and more video surfaced later, she’d be cooked. How to react? (USA Today notes that Mike Golic, one of the roastees, attended Notre Dame, and Irish coach Charlie Weis was reportedly in attendance. Jacobson attended rival Michigan.)

On Wednesday, the Chicago Tribune reported that Jacobson had been suspended for a week, and part of the story revolved around the alleged ‘F Notre Dame’ quotes. We searched and searched for the source of these quotes (they weren’t in the Atlantic City paper, which was present at the event), and kept coming back to the Deadspin tipster. Jacobson apologized, but it had the effect of putting a band-aid over a bullet wound.

Right now, ESPN is under assault from the Catholic Extremists, who generally don’t stop until they get what they want. (Click here for some history.) And now, they want her fired. Which is why she needs a life preserver, and Weis can provide one. Remember how Tiger Woods tossed one out to his ‘friend’ Kelly Tilghman last week? If Weis feels compelled to do so (maybe someone from the GameDay Crew could give him a nudge?), he could easily diffuse the situation and perhaps save Jacobson’s job.

Unless, of course, he felt the comments were not in jest, and she deserves what she gets. And though we don’t think she should be fired, people have to be responsible for the junk that flies out of their mouth, drunk or sober. We weren’t there, so we have no idea what the quotes were, and what the context was. But it will be interesting to see if the Catholics back off after the dual mea-culpas Wednesday: front-page ESPN link and the on-air Sportscenter mentions (6 and 11!).