We already knew that John Saunders, Bob Ley and Chris Berman, would be hosting, but ESPN has now released most of the details surrounding their 30th Anniversary Sport Center show. Via ESPN PR....

On the eve of ESPN’s 30th anniversary, its three SportsCenter anchors of longest service – Chris Berman, Bob Ley and John Saunders – will team to host a special edition of SportsCenter Sunday, Sept. 6 at 11:30 p.m. ET.

The show will be reaired the following morning, Labor Day Monday, Sept. 7, starting at 4:30 a.m. and will be seen five times through noon. Live updates with the latest sports news will be inserted.

The 90-minute show will primarily focus on the sports news of the day, and will also include retrospective segments on three decades of ESPN, the trio of veteran anchors and the sports they covered. Ley joined ESPN two days after its September 7, 1979, launch, while Berman soon followed in October. Saunders came to ESPN in 1986.

“These ESPN pillars are three of the most respected professionals in our business,” said Norby Williamson, ESPN’s executive vice president, production. “Their contributions to ESPN are endless and it’s great to have them together on this special day.”

I really like this approach to this event. It's great to have the three elder statesmen on the show, and even better that their sticking to that day's games and highlights. You only really need a small retrospective, and then you keep the train plowing forward.

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'd been looking for this clip all morning, and thanks to reader AS, it has been found! Last night during a Sports Center Right Now segment, John Saunders brought up the Barry Bonds documents that were released yesterday. Well Saunders threw it back to Mike Patrick, who was calling the Duke-Clemson game, and being one who's not shy about expressing his opinion (see: Spears, Britney), Patrick decided to chime in.

Wow. He's not playing around, is he? Just send that f'er right to jail! My favorite part though are the reactions from the rest of his team. Jay Bilas doesn't even know what to say, and then Heather Cox says she "doesn't know how to follow that." You know you've said something crazy if you render your entire crew silent.

Too funny.

A quick programming note for the weekend: I am insane enough to live-blog all four playoff games this weekend, today's with company over (and they understand completely). So, make sure to join me here later this afternoon. Now, to everyone's first real exposure to Turner Gill and his miracle Buffalo Bulls squad, going up against the NCAA's leading rusher in Donald Brown and UConn.

Game: International Bowl
Teams: Buffalo Bulls (8-5) vs. Connecticut Huskies (7-5)
Location: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Time: Noon EST
Announcers and Network: John Saunders, Jesse Palmer, and Doug Flutie, ESPN2
Favorite: UConn (-6)
S2N's Pick: Going with the Huskies; they'll go with a big dose of Donald Brown and try not to turn the ball over.

Back on August 20th I passed along the information that ESPN was bringing back an incarnation of NFL Primetime. Well today the "Leader" released all of the details surrounding the new, er....old show, including the reunion of Berman and longtime co-host John Saunders!

In his 30th season covering the NFL for ESPN, lead studio host Chris Berman – joined by his longtime partner Tom Jackson – will team with veteran ESPN anchor John Saunders to co-host the Sunday 7 p.m. edition of SportsCenter throughout the NFL season, beginning September 7. The move reunites Berman and Jackson with Saunders, the trio that worked together during the first three years (1987-89) of NFL PrimeTime, cable television’s highest-rated sports studio show for 19 years (1987-2005). The pairing also reunites Berman with Saunders, who regularly co-anchored the 11 p.m. Sunday night SportsCenter together during the late 1980s and also teamed on ESPN’s Major League Baseball and ABC’s NHL Stanley Cup coverage.

While presenting all the day’s highlights, news and events from the world of sports, Sunday night editions of ESPN’s flagship program will bring an increased focus to all the day’s NFL action with highlights, discussion segments, analysis, coaches’ press conferences, interviews and post-game reports from ESPN correspondents covering games. The program will also preview the Sunday night primetime match-up.

Now I know all of that information isn't really THAT exciting, and that ESPN will more than likely mess it up, but it was really just an excuse to post this video they attached to the release. What's a Tuesday evening without a look back to the early 90s on the "Leader"? I give you Jimmy Johnson's first year with the Cowboys, Bobby Hebert, and a creamsicle orange jersey wearing Vinny Testaverde in action, all while a normal Berman, a joyful John Saunders and the ever-steady Tom Jackson comment on the highlights....enjoy!

ESPN To Bring Back "Primetime" To Counter NBC's Sunday Night Football (Kind Of) (Awful Announcing)

So at halftime of the MSU-OSU game on ESPN they decided to give a live look-in of the USC-TENN game. South Carolina hit a basket to go up one and Tennessee decided to call timeout. What happened next almost made me cry I was laughing so hard....

Ha....I love how Digger is looking at Hubert and John Saunders like they're crazy and they're doing the same in return. The only problem I have is that Saunders and Davis seemed scared to call him out. Tell him he's an idiot if he's acting like one.

Too funny.

I know it's just the International Bowl but I've been thoroughly enjoying this team on the call. You've got the two Canadians in Saunders and Flutie and Jesse Palmer and he might be one of the best analysts I've heard in awhile.

Anyway, here's the highlight of the game (and no it's not Ray Rice's 260 and 4 TDs through 3 quarters). Wait for it...Waaaait for it...

I'd love to hear the producer on that one....."Okay, Camera 2 to the Go Rutgers sign.....wait ABORT! ABORT!!!!"