Random stuff you might know / should know / forgot about

- If you can make it in Flint (or out of Flint), you can make it anywhere! WJRT Channel 12 alum Rece Davis will host College Football Live on ESPN, a weekdaily (new word?!) 30-minute college counterpart to NFL Live, and it starts airing in less than a month - sweet! Details as follows:

"Looking to capitalize on college football's growing popularity, ESPN plans to launch this summer a weekday series, College Football Live. The 30-minute show will kick off July 23 and run through bowl season in January, says David Berson, ESPN senior vice president of programming.

Modeled after the network's daily NFL Live, the new show will be hosted mostly by Rece Davis and feature breaking news, features and analysis. Davis will be joined by a rotating mix of ESPN's college football talent, including Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit from College GameDay, Lou Holtz, Mark May, Bob Griese, Doug Flutie, Todd Blackledge, Craig James and Ed Cunningham.

The show will come on at 3:30 p.m. ET Monday-Friday on ESPN. When Monday Night Football starts, the Monday edition will shift to 2 p.m. on ESPN2. To make room for the new show, the first half of ESPN's afternoon programming block, including Outside the Lines First Report, 1st and 10 and Best of Mike and Mike, will start 30 minutes earlier."

- Did you know?... “On September 2, 2006, Mobile ESPN streamed the first live sporting event ever delivered to a mobile phone in the United States. Fans watched live coverage from Ann Arbor as Michigan defeated Vanderbilt, 27-7.” We’re in the history books, baby!

- This was discussed over the past few months, but here are the “officially official” rule changes for next year, and the “logic” behind them. In short, we’re going back to normal – no more weird clock rules. Also, we’re going to have to deal with this in 2008, so store it somewhere in the back of your brain:

“[S]tarting in 2008 the committee approved a 40-second/25-second play clock combination. The committee, reviewing strong support for a 40-second/25-second play from coaches, officials and administrators, approved this move to achieve a more uniform pace of play.”

Based on some limited Google searching and common sense, it seems as if the play clock will start at 40 seconds at the conclusion of a play, as opposed to starting at 25 seconds after the Referee marks the ball “ready for play.” Unless I’m missing other details, this play clock (not the game clock) will be identical to how the NFL play clock works. A key question, though, will be whether the “game clock stops upon earning a 1st Down” rule will remain in effect. Nothing has been mentioned regarding that. I guess the two clocks (play and game) are separate issues, but this might create the type of confusion and inconsistency that the NCAA is allegedly trying to avoid, where the play clock is continually running but the game clock is still subject to the Referee marking the ball ready for play.

- All-American, 1997 National Champion, and generally awesome (former) Defensive End Glen Steele is on the Michigan coaching staff this year as a Defensive Graduate Assistant (“after working in the weight room last year”). And ladies… he’s single!!