Miscellany on a mid-summer's afternoon

Nice day for some yardwork and some football talk on the radio.

First, though, USA Today released their pre-season top 25 Coaches’ college football poll.

Rank Team (first-place votes) Record Points Final 2007 rankings
1. Georgia (22) 11-2 1,438 3
2. Southern California (14) 11-2 1,430 2
3. Ohio State (14) 11-2 1,392 4
4. Oklahoma (3) 11-3 1,329 8
5. Florida (5) 9-4 1,293 16
6. LSU (3) 12-2 1,163 1
7. Missouri 12-2 1,143 5
8. West Virginia 11-2 1,008 6
9. Clemson 9-4 999 22
10. Texas 10-3 979 10
11. Auburn 9-4 888 14t
12. Wisconsin 9-4 747 21
13. Kansas 12-1 714 7
14. Texas Tech 9-4 644 23
15. Virginia Tech 11-3 568 9
16. Arizona State 10-3 560 13
17. Brigham Young 11-2 547 14t
18. Tennessee 10-4 506 12
19. Illinois 9-4 422 18
20. Oregon 9-4 399 24
21. South Florida 9-4 350 NR
22. Penn State 9-4 313 25
23. Wake Forest 9-4 203 NR
24. Michigan 9-4 112 19
25. Fresno State 9-4 91 NR

(apologies for the cluttered nature of the chart. That's what "cut'n'paste" gave us)

No big surprises, though, we think LSU is ranked a little too high considering their losses to the NFL and projected starting QB Ryan Perrilloux being dismissed from the team for excessive knuckleheaded-ness

Some squawking from SC fans thinking they’ve been dissed at No. 2. Relax. Take care of business against the Buckeyes on Sept. 13 and try not to lose more than one game in conference and things will take care of themselves.

Beano Cook phoned-in to ESPN’s radio show this morning. Mel Kuiper and the host were running down the WAC and the Big 12. The Colorado Buffaloes coach, Dan Hawkins has his son, Cody, at starting QB. Beano was asked if there has been any other head coach to have his son start for him at QB. Without missing a beat, Beano replied that it was the 1950 Army team and the legendary Red Blaik whose son Robert called the signals for the Black Knights of the Hudson. It turns out, also, that Robert was one of 51 players who were dismissed from the team the following year for Academy honors violations. But, 58 years ago and Beano remembers it like it was yesterday? That’s why we love the guy.

Looks like Brett Favre is seriously considering that $20-25 mil/10 year hush-money contract to just go away. Then again, maybe he isn’t.

Its Hall of Fame weekend and NFL Network has been running its own back-to-school commercial of sorts by Reebok which features a beautiful backround melody. Great imagery – very nice song. Click on image to play.





The artist is Vashti Bunyan, an English folksinger and the song, "The Train Song" was released in…. 1966. Click here for the original version. Its got that Enya vibe, no?

Major League Baseball needs a stronger drug policy.

The continuing will-he-or-won’t-he saga of Brett Favre’s return to the Packers averted a meltdown as Favre did not report to camp on Sunday…. only to be prolonged by the possibility of Favre showing-up at camp on Wednesday. Favre spoke by phone with General Manager Ted Thompson who reiterated what the Packers have been saying all along: Aaron Rogers is now the man at QB and the Packers have moved on and out of the Brett Favre era. Thompson begged-off Favre until Wednesday hoping to “get something worked out” in way of a trade but implicit in the message was “Please stay away.”

Favre’s threat to show-up at camp and “compete” for the starting job struck us as somewhat creepy…. Like showing up at your ex-girlfriend’s first date, post-you.

We hope that Favre just returns quietly to his farm down in Mississippi where we can think of him running around with his dog and playing two-hand touch football with the extras in Wrangler blue jeans commercials. With training camps opening across the country, there is too much good football information to get into, dissect and discuss without having the drama queen dominate the news cycle to the exclusion of everything else.

To wit: Only the NFL Network could take a mid-season 10-9 snoozer between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers and have it featured in their “Mic’d-up” series (where selected players and coaches including head coaches Mike Nolan and Brian Billick.. oh joy!.. are wired for sound) as it did last night and transform it into pure drama. Our sympathy is near-bottomless towards those NFL fans who live in the blight of a NFL Network-less cable company regime.

Peter King of SI.com has more of the Favre saga here.