Things I think I think

1. News surfaced Tuesday that Disney/ABC/ESPN is wanting to usurp broadcast rights of BCS games from Fox. According to Sports Business Journal, ESPN is prepared to offer $500m for a four-year contract. That's a 50-percent hike over the current Fox deal.

What would make this unusual is Disney doesn't want the games for ABC. Instead, all the BCS games - including the title game - would air on ESPN and ESPN alone. Some see this as a natural progression of sports leagues to pay cable and satellite channels and, then, eventually, the Super Bowl airing exclusively on PPV.

Frankly, I don't care about the machinations or future implications. I just want ESPN to take over the BCS games because of the horrid job Fox does with them. The announcing crews are second-rate at best and hamstrung by not doing college football games for most of the year. Fox keeps its best technical people (directors, producers, cameramen, et al) locked on the NFL. So the broadcast quality of BCS games often looks just a hair better than the PPVs produced by the UA's new media partner, ISP.

ESPN has fashioned itself into the ultimate destination for CFB coverage. It's the logical place for the BCS.

2. Did you see Mike "I'm a man!" Gundy's trick for signaling in the plays against Texas Tech? It's the old Gus Mal-a-zhan ploy of holding up cardboard signs with symbols and letters and such but writ large. Very large.

Anyway, I guess the Cowboys' defense didn't read the sign on the left.




3. This might be the best defensive line play we'll see this season ...



This might be the worst ...



4. Get your licks in on Tennessee now, before the Vols hire Leach or Muschamp.

5. SJ.com's Top 25 is consistently hilarious ... http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/index.php/topic,59980.msg2161740.html#msg2161740

As is Awful Announcing's Pammy Standings ...Awful Announcing: Your Pammy Winners And New Standings After Week Eleven

Magic 8 Ball Prediction

With no Arkansas game this week, M8B is like a rudderless ship. We thought about asking M8B for some predictions on other CFB games. But, frankly, there aren't any that are all that interesting. So, instead, we asked a more important question ...

Are you embarrassed at being below .500 in your predictions?



(Views expressed by the Magic 8 Ball do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog, the blog owner nor this post's author. Advice from the Magic 8 Ball is for entertainment purposes only and not for actual wagering ... especially since Magic 8 Ball is 3-4 in predicting Arkansas games.)