I'm normally against the whole "50 State" tour thing, but when you come up with a new angle like ESPN has in this case, it might actually work. College Football Live is planning on going to each state this Summer, but they'll be doing so with a famous college athlete from that location. Via ESPN PR....

Every state has a football story, memorable moment, legendary coach, great players, rivalries, or esteemed high school. ESPN’s College Football Live will offer a daily showcase of the best and greatest of amateur football – college and high school -- from all 50 United States and the District of Columbia with “College Football Live 50 States Tour” from June 1 to August 7.

College Football Live, a weekday afternoon studio show dedicated to college football aired weekdays generally at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPN, will explore topics specific to every state, including greatest plays and games; and best coaches, players and high schools across 43 episodes. Some episodes will focus on two or three states while select states will be spread out over two shows.

“College Football Live 50 States Tour” will feature live interviews related to the state, including with prominent football figures, current coaches, and local writers. The shows will also include debate between analysts and an online component for fans to pick each state’s best coach, player and team.

Definitely a great idea, and when you look at who's lined up for the first week, you can see why I'm a bit excited about this idea. Here's the schedule for week one....

June 1st: Michigan - Desmond Howard and Charles Woodson
June 2nd: Tennessee - Peyton Manning
June 3rd: Delaware and New Jersey - Joe Flacco
June 4th: Oregon - Mike Belotti
June 5: Oklahoma - Barry Sanders

The Irish are certainly improved, and Charlie Weis is just now starting to play with his own recruits, but this bet might not work out so well for Regis Philbin. The talk show host was on College Football Live this afternoon, when he decided to take a little wager thrown out there by host John Saunders....

Ummm....11 out of 12? They do get USC, Washington and UConn at home, but Purdue and Pittsburgh on the road aren't exactly gimmes. Heck, they could lose their first game at home to Nevada. Let's just work on besting last year's six regular season wins first. Okay Rege?

I know everyone was extremely disappointed when news broke that the Lou Holtz' Pep Talks had been scratched, but I'm throwing my hat in the ring for the Dr. Lou segment right now. Anytime you can get Lou taking messages from Bobby Bowden AND Regis Philbin....you've got a winner.

"Remember, when people need love and understanding the most, is usually when they deserve it the least."

It just doesn't get any better than that and those are words to live by my friends. And the, "wasn't a good honeymoon," line at the end was priceless. I love me some Lou.

I knew that ESPN used this person online, but I didn't know she was going to be on television as well. Who is this person you ask? Well it's the College Football Live's new online content manager and go between for the studio, one Molly Qerim.

ESPN uses someone similar during certain mornings on First Take (Amy Nelson), and now they've added Molly as their College Football liaison. Here's a look....

She obviously provided nothing exciting outside of an online poll, but she might just be enough to distract me from the 8,000 Tebow and Tressel interviews they will have this season.

Ooooh....just typing that headline just got me all excited. You know it's almost time for College Football Season when ESPN starts rolling out all of it's programming on the Sport. Hey, and lookie here....this time it's with 100% Brent Musburger! Well at least for the first two shows.....

ESPN’s College Football Live, a weekday afternoon studio show dedicated to college football which debuted last year, will return Monday, July 21, and will now be aired year-round. Brent Musburger will host the first two shows live from ESPN headquarters in Bristol, Conn.

The 30-minute program will be aired each weekday at 3:30 p.m. ET with primary host Rece Davis and some of the most knowledgeable and experienced college football analysts. The show will examine every aspect of the game with highlights, analysis, breaking news, features, press conferences, interviews and more. ESPNU’s recruiting trail will also take a weekly look at the recruiting battles over top high school football players. In addition, the program will now be aired year round; last season’s show ceased production in January.

Year round? I approve! Also there's a whole set of great guests starting next week including but limited to: Jim Tressel, ABobby Petrino, Bobby Bowden, Les Miles, Rich Rodriguez, Pete Carroll, Phil Fulmer, Mark Richt, Tim Tebow, Texas Tech QB Graham Harrell, Pitt RB LeSean McCoy and Kansas QB Todd Reesing.

Not a bad list. The show kicks off as I said above with Musburger in the saddle along with Jesse Palmer and Todd Blackledge. Rece Davis will be your host on July 23rd and the show will feature the likes of Palmer, Blackledge, Mark May, Desmond Howard, Andre Ware, Bob Griese, Trevor Mattich, Rod Gilmore throughout the season.

(Via ESPN)

Awesome....

I would expect something like this to happen in hour 8 as the hosts approached 3am, but I'm afraid this happened right at the top of hour 3. Rece Davis thought they had Florida Head Coach Urban Meyer on the phone. Turned out to be Offensive Coordinator Dan Mullen. Rece caught it right away, but it took the graphics department a little bit longer to figure it out....

I threw the Mack Brown one on there just for the fun of it. It's going to be a long night for Rece Davis.....especially if Mark May keeps chiming in with gems like, "Do an imitation of Urban Meyer!" That gets you the Rece Davis "Hand Wave" Mary May. You be careful son.....Anything could happen at 5:30 in the morning big boy.....anything (Lou Holtz jacked up on Red Bull is not something you want to mess with).

The Programming Details For ESPN's 25-Hour College Football Gimmick (Awful Announcing)

Update from the Comments: "The ESPN.com front page right now...none of this is overkill. No, not at all."- Vegas Watch

Nope....not at all.....

I already said my piece about this item in a post last night, but here are the details if you're looking for them. The 25-hour coverage will start August 29th at 7pm and lead up to LSU-MSU at 8pm the following night. Rece Davis will be your host throughout the whole ordeal, and will host every college football show and segments of non-college football programs (i.e. PTI, ATH, SC, etc).

There will be a 25-hour "chat room" set up for all of you computey types, and a roundtable featuring former Notre Dame coaches. Other features to include: Coach and player interviews, Pep Rallies, Reports from VT on how they are coping with the shootings (they actually put that in the press release), and many other "roundtable" discussions (Best QB, toughest place to play, etc.).

I'm still hoping that ESPN can take this stunt into a money raising event for New Orleans and Virginia Tech, but as of yet they are only considering themselves. The event is officially titled.....

25 Hours of College Football Presented by TIVO

Here's the schedule if you care to plan to stay up for the Hawaii interviews at 3am....

8/29	7 p.m.	College Football Live: Live shots from the ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU Thursday night game telecasts; live coverage of the USC practice and interviews with coaches and players; live coverage of Louisville, Florida State and Mississippi State pep rallies plus interviews with coaches and players from both teams; live interviews with various coaches, including West Virginia’s Rich Rodriguez; Notre Dame coaches roundtable with host Brent Musburger and former coaches Ara Parseghian, Lou Holtz and Charlie Weis.
8/29	11 p.m.	SportsCenter
8/30	midnight	College Football Live
8/30	12:30 a.m.	NFL Live
8/30	1 a.m. to 3 a.m.	SportsCenter
8/30	3 a.m.	College Football Live: Live updates with live interviews with Hawaii coach June Jones and Hawaii quarterback Colt Brennan
8/30	5 a.m.	SportsCenter
8/30	Noon	College Football Live
8/30	3 p.m.	Outside the Lines
8/30	3:30 p.m.	College Football Live
8/30	4 p.m.	NFL Live
8/30	4:30 p.m.	Rome is Burning
8/30	5 p.m.	Around the Horn
8/30	5:30 p.m.	PTI
8/30	6 p.m.	SportsCenter
8/30	7 p.m.	College Football Live
8/30	8 p.m.	#2 LSU at Mississippi State

I hope Rece can survive this nonsense. That's a lot of programming.


USA Today Breaks ESPN Press Release On 25-Hour College Football Telecast (Awful Announcing)

So College Football Live is off to a roaring start, and my complaints are already piling up. Not really on the show, but more on the "talent". In this clip Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit, and Mark May are asked who their "Off The Radar" Players and Teams are. Kirk and Marky Mark give us relatively good sleepers, but Lee Corso just assumes because a team plays late at night (when he's dreaming of pencils) that no one has ever heard of someone...

Hmmm....let's just Google News Mr. Brennan and see what comes up.

(Results 1 - 10 of about 198 from Jul 18, 2007 to today for colt brennan)

That's just the past week. The guy was a 2nd Team All-American and was a finalist for the Davey O'Brien award. He was USA Today's player of the Week in early November, and holds 19 NCAA records.

Yep, that's under the radar. I'll be happy when Corso just goes back to putting on Mascot heads.