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Earlier we published the NFL Network programming notes for Super Bowl XLIV Week. Here is the accompanying broadcast schedule from today (January 31, 2010) through Monday, February 8, 2010.

Years ago, many years ago, before the advent of cable television, one had few choices where to get their pre-Super Bowl information fix. Now that some people have access to the NFL Network, they can get a totally football-focused fix. So here are the NFL Network Programming Notes For Super Bowl XLIV Week.

Super Bowl week is upon us, starting with the (meaningless and unnecessary?) Pro Bowl tonight on ESPN at 7:20 PM ET. It will culminate next Sunday with the CBS Sports broadcast of Super Bowl XLIV from Miami, FL. Sadly, this game will mark the 30th anniversary of the last Super Bowl broadcast by CBS Sports Analyst Tom Brookshier, who passed away this past Friday. Hopefully CBS Sports will mark his passing with some sort of tribute during the pre-game broadcasts.

Here is the preliminary schedule of pre-game programming as announced by CBS Sports a few days ago (all times Eastern).

12:00 NOON, ET: ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL - Celebrating its 40th anniversary as the longest-running and most honored (28 Emmy Awards) annual sports special, ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL, re-lives the 2009 NFL season. Culled by NFL Films producers from more than 1.7 million feet of game footage to 980 feet, the one-hour special also includes audio from more than 400 hours captured from 133 exclusive coach and player on-field wirings. Original orchestral music, including a 60-person choir, was used in producing the show. ROAD TO THE SUPER BOWL debuted following the 1969 season,

1:00 PM, ET: PHIL SIMMS ALL-IRON TEAM: SUPER BOWL EDITION-CBS Sports' lead NFL analyst and former N.Y. Giants Super Bowl XXI MVP Phil Simms, and his broadcast partner, Jim Nantz, host the eighth edition of his All-Iron Team. This year these men make up Simms' All-Time Super Bowl team that best represent the qualities of Iron Men and have defined their roles in their teams winning a championship. Traveling all over the world from Hawaii to Ireland, the PHIL SIMMS ALL-IRON TEAM includes the first broadcast interview in 20 years with Jake Scott, a safety from the undefeated 1972 Miami Dolphins team and Super Bowl VII MVP, who now lives a simple life in Hawaii; and looks at a day-in-the-life of Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who is currently serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Ireland. Also included in the show is an in-depth look at legendary defensive guru Buddy Ryan, architect of the famed "46-Defense" which led the Chicago Bears to victory in Super Bowl XX and father of New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan. The All-Iron Team consists of six Hall of Famers, 37 combined Super Bowl wins, 46 combined Super Bowl appearances, seven combined Super Bowl MVP Awardees and four combined NFL MVPs. [The All-Iron Trophy is an old fashioned iron emblematic of Simms' obsession with ironing. According to his mother, as a child Phil pressed his football and baseball uniforms, and to this day remains committed to creases.]

2:00 PM, ET: THE SUPER BOWL TODAY-James Brown, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Shannon Sharpe and Bill Cowher anchor the Network's pre-game show live from Sun Life Stadium in Miami previewing all the football and excitement leading up to Super Bowl XLIV. Reporters Lesley Visser, Sam Ryan, along with Steve Tasker and Solomon Wilcots, as well as contributor Dick Enberg, will cover the pre-game activities. Other special contributors include CBS News' anchor of THE CBS EVENING NEWS Katie Couric.

Sponsors of the pre-game show include: Ritz (2:00-3:00 PM, ET); Doritos (3:00-3:30 PM, ET); Monster.com (3:30-4:00 PM, ET); Pizza Hut (4:00-5:00 PM, ET); Callaway (5:00-5:30 PM, ET) and Vizio (5:30-6:00 PM, ET).

6:00 PM, ET: SUPER BOWL ON CBS KICK-OFF SHOW

The SUPER BOWL ON CBS Kick-Off Show will be sponsored by Hyundai.

6:28 PM, ET: SUPER BOWL XLIV - Kick-off of Super Bowl XLIV live from Miami on the CBS Television Network.



Immediately following "The Intel SUPER BOWL TODAY Post Game Show," CBS premieres its new reality series UNDERCOVER BOSS.

UNDERCOVER BOSS-CBS's new reality series that follows high level corporate executives as they slip anonymously into the rank and file of their own companies. Each week, a different executive will leave the comfort of their corner office for an undercover mission to examine the inner workings of their corporation. While working alongside their employees, they will learn about themselves, the effects their decisions have on others, where the problems lie within their organization, the perception of their company and discover the unsung heroes of their work force. The post-Super Bowl XLIV premiere episode on February 7 features Larry O'Donnell, C.O.O. of Waste Management.

There is one thing that will drive producers, directors, Chyron operators, and viewers nuts during the live broadcast of a sporting event. We have become so dependent on this, we cringe when it is not working properly. This thing is the score bug (the persistent score and clock that displays during the broadcast). If it fails, the job of updating the score falls to the Chyron (or VIZ) operator. This appears to have happened during today's broadcast of the exciting De Paul - Syracuse game.

Stewart Mandel of SI.com is in Washington, D.C. today to cover the the Duke - Georgtown game. Instead, he got to cover a presidential pow-wow at the Verizon Center. Here is the photo he snapped of POTUS (i.e. Barack Obama) and Vice-POTUS (i.e. Joe Biden), followed by some of his tweets from the game.

Former Philadelphia Eagle and NFL analyst for CBS Sports Tom Brookshier died Friday at the age of 78. Brooksheir was partnered with Pat Summerall and called three Super Bowl games in his career.

The cover story for this week's Time magazine is "The Most Dangerous Game: The Problem with Football." As the volume level about the inherent danger and relationship between playing football and debilitating brain injuries increases, Time offers a glimpse at what the issues are, and why they need to be addressed sooner than later, especially for children and teens being taught the wrong way to play the game.

Darren Rovell has written that a CBS-rejected Super Bowl ad has the sponsoring company (ManCrunch.com) up in arms. A spokeswoman for the company, Elissa Buchter, says that the the rejection of the ad is because of a "gay issue that the network doesn’t want to touch."

ESPN just keeps on locking up and/or retaining sports property after sports property. The latest deal, announced today, is a multi-year extension with the Horizon League for "enhanced coverage of basketball across numerous ESPN platforms, making ESPN the exclusive national cable home for Horizon League men’s basketball events through 2013."

Will it be much longer before they geab the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament from CBS Sports?

Cornell University (16-3, 2-0 Ivy League, RPI: 40 (Palm), 39 (Sagarin) opened the 2009-2010 mens's college basketball season with a then stunning 71-67 win over Alabama (13-7, 3-3 SEC) on the road. The Big Red, ranked  also played Kansas (19-1, 5-0 Big 12) tough on the road before losing by a score of 71-66. Harvard (13-3, 2-0 Ivy League, RPI: 58 (Palm), 70 (Sagarin), has played a weaker schedule and does not have a signature win.

The question is: If these two teams run the Ivy League (except for their games against each other), should the Ivy League get two bids to the 2010 Men's NCAA Tournament? Feel free to offer your opinions in the comments section. Just keep it clean and civil.

Just in case anybody has not noticed. the growing use of social media and social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook is changing the rules of who gets to break news and when. A couple of months ago, happenstance put the sports information director of a Division I basketball program in South Bend, Indiana when a major announcement was going to take place about embattled Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis.

With this tease, the The 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award for Using Social Media to Scoop ESPN goes to...

Dear powers that be at the NCAA,

I have to say up front that as a height-challenged college basketball junkie with a left-handed hook shot that nobody fears, I have always wanted to go to a Men's Final Four. I have been to lots of sub-regionals, and one regional championship, but never to the last dance. I am wondering that since your organization has graciously invited Olathe (Kan.) Northwest High School head girls basketball coach Joel Branstrom, and his family, to the 2010 Final Four as your guests, can my family and I be invited as well?

When I first saw the headline "Sport Science Special on ESPN to Kick Off Big Game Weekend" (emphasis added), I stopped for a minute. Cannot even ESPN use the term "Super Bowl" in a headline related to promoting one of their shows? Well sure enough they use it in the text of the release. Nonetheless, the EMMY award winning Sport Science has moved from Fox Sports Net (FSN) to ESPN. It is really a cool show that might actually get your kids excited about science (except for the darn narrator that all of these style shows seem to use).

Sirius XM Radio has announced that subscribers will have access to 14 different broadcasts, in 10 different languages, of Super Bowl XLIV.

Here is the press release issued by Sirius XM Radio.

ESPN has announced their coverage schedule for Super Bowl XLIV Week. They kick it off with the Pro Bowl at 7:20 PM ET on Sunday, January 31, 2010 on ESPN, ESPN HD, and ESPN Deportes.

Here is the full press release from ESPN.

ESPN has announced the schedule for the 2010 FIFA World Cup from South Africa. For soccer fans in the United States, this is their Nirvana as ESPN will air all 64 matches across the ESPN Family of Networks, with the finals not on cable, but on ABC.

Here is the ESPN broadcast Schedule, the groups, and the ESPN Press release.

When I started blogging as part of the IBM Lotus Software community back in late 2002, I was immediately part of a group of people that understood (and still understands) the inherent value of community building and collaboration. In many ways this is unusual among blogosphere genres, and the sports blogosphere has been no exception. That is, until someone came up with a great idea to bring sports bloggers and mainstream media professionals together to meet, greet, debate, and exchange ideas. Eye on Sports Media is pleased to present the 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award For Sports Blogger Community Building to...

President Barack Obama must be trying to throw a fix in college basketball to help the Big Ten and the University of Illinois. It has to be a fix. Either that or is he just a deranged basketball fan going over the top.

First, he calls the University of Kentucky basketball team to thank them for their work for Haiti. Lots of other, lesser known groups have done remarkable work for Haiti, but he did not call them for a media opportunity. After all, they weren't undefeated and the number one team in the country.

Earlier I wrote about some technical/design issues with the MLB.com web site. But there was something else on the web site home page that made the my hair stand on end. They have officially teamed up with UNICEF to provide assistance to Haiti.

When it comes to designing web navigation and URL structures for web sites, simple is usually better. This is usually lost on companies hosting web sites for college athletic departments. But in the case of Major League Baseball, the design is almost comedic, and the "MLB, MLB" might take you back to the classic "Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger" sketches on Saturday Night Live.

Behind the scenes. one of the harder jobs in television sports is working in media relations. No one outside of the media knows who you may be or what you may be doing. That is until Deadspin decides to launch an all out attack on you and your network because you were doing your job. With that, Eye on Sports Media is pleased to announce that the 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award For Courage Under Deadspin Fire goes to...

The National Football League (NFL) does not take kindly to people, groups, organizations, and businesses that like to infringe on their Super Bowl trademarks. So here are ten ways you might refer to the game or the day it occurs on, and avoid the wrath of the NFL lawyers.

Pitchers and catchers do not report to Major League Baseball spring training quite yet, but ESPN has announced the initial schedule for ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. It should not be a surprise that the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies will appear in six out of the 12 games that are locked in place.

Football was king in New Orleans this past Sunday as their beloved Saints beat the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 in overtime. Although I would not call the game epic given how badly the Vikings protected the ball (and should have won the game running away), it was still a great win for the Saints and all of the NOLA region.

For the FOX Sports broadcast, NOLA delivered the highest local rating ever for a post-season NFL game, and FOX Sports got the most watched conference game since 1982.

Here is the full press release from FOX Sports.

FOX SPORTS CAPS OFF RECORD-SETTING NFL SEASON WITH MOST-WATCHED CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP GAME IN ALMOST 30 YEARS


58 Million Viewers Tune In To See Unforgettable Vikings/Saints Epic Overtime Thriller; Second Only To Cowboys/49ers “The Catch” Classic in 1982


Contest Posts +40% Gain Over Last Year’s Eagles/Cardinals NFC Title Tilt

New Orleans Delivers Highest Local Rating for a Postseason NFL Game Ever

Yesterday’s epic 2010 NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME on FOX between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings delivered an extraordinary 30.6/45 household rating/share and averaged over 57.9 million viewers, according to fast national figures released by Nielsen Media Research. The overtime battle not only produced the biggest audience ever for an NFC Championship Game on FOX, it is also the second largest audience for any conference championship game, trailing only the 1982 Cowboys-49ers (Montana-to-Clark “The Catch”) NFC Championship Game (68.7 million viewers on CBS). Excluding Super Bowl broadcasts, last night’s average audience of 57.9 million ascends the 2010 NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME to television’s most-watched program since the 1998 “Seinfeld” series finale (76.3 million viewers). It also ranks as the eighth most-watched show in the history of FOX, trailing only the network’s five Super Bowls and two Super Bowl postgame shows.

Last night’s fast national rating of 30.6/45 is a +40% gain over last year’s 21.9/41 for Eagles-Cardinals in the early window and the highest rating for a conference championship game in 14 years (33.3/58 – Packers/Cowboys in 1996.) Ratings climbed to Super Bowl-like levels as the game progressed toward overtime, peaking at an astounding 34.4/48 rating and 65.2 million viewers from 9:30 – 10:00 PM ET.

New Orleans delivered a 63.2/82 last night, the highest local rating for a postseason NFL game ever, beating the home market rating of every team that has ever played in a Super Bowl. Viewing in New Orleans peaked at a 67.4/86 at 10:15 PM as Garrett Hartley drilled a 40-yard field goal to send the Saints to their first-ever Super Bowl.

Minneapolis posted a 58.7/80 last night, which is in its own right the third highest local rating ever for an NFC playoff game on FOX, trailing only New Orleans for yesterday’s game and Milwaukee in the 1997 Championship Game. Milwaukee was yesterday's No. 3 market at a 47.4/64 as Packer fans tuned-in in droves to watch Brett Favre's championship bid.

The 2010 NFC PLAYOFFS go down in the record books as FOX’s most-watched ever. FOX’s four NFC Playoff games averaged 40.2 million viewers, besting the previous mark of 37.3 million set in 1995. Not only is this FOX’s largest NFC Playoff viewership ever, it is the best for the NFC Playoffs on either FOX or CBS since Nielsen introduced the people meter during the 1987-88 season. This year’s four NFC Playoff games averaged a 22.4/38 household rating/share, a +24% gain over last year’s 18.1/33 and FOX’s best since 1997 (23.7/48).

Friday, January 22, 2010 was a sad night for Conan O'Brien and his fans. Fans are also sad that the videos of Freebird have been removed from YouTube, but have they forgotten about Hulu? Here is the end of the show featuring a great cover of "Freebird" led by Will Ferrell, backed up by great musical talent including "CoCo." There is no guarantee how long this will stay on Hulu, so if you come here and cannot see the video, it means that NBC has pulled it.

When fans of the University of Tennessee men's basketball program see that Coach Bruce Pearl has a Facebook page, they ask to be his "friend" so that they can see and read his thoughts and doings. Unfortunately, there is a problem. Coach Pearl has no idea where the page is located or what is on there. You see, he had nothing to do with its creation, or with updating it. While the page is within the "letter of the law" for Facebook, there is what many would call a violation of the social contract of social networking.

Last night's NFC Championship game between the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints gave FOX an estimated viewing audience of 52 Million people, and a huge audience share in the 18-49 demographic.

Chris Berman’s and Tom Jackson’s over the top adulation of Brett Favre on ESPN’s NFL Tonight NFC Championship post-game show set off a serious of hilarious tweets with a hashtag of #ESPNFavreRulesForAll.

Perhaps someone can explain how having "General" Larry Platt sing "Pants on the Ground" in the Vikings locker room will inspire the Vikings to victory tonight against the Saints? Nonetheless, here is the video.

This evening the scrappy but unlucky University of Georgia Bulldogs (8-8, 0-3 SEC) host the eighth-ranked University of Tennessee Volunteers (15-2, 3-0 SEC) at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, Georgia. FSN South will be carrying the game at 5:00 PM ET.

This will be a semi-live blog of sorts that will integrate tweets from various people as the happen (or as fast as CoverItLive! updates the feeds).

Moving along with our second annual edition of the Bloodshot Eyeball Awards, Eye on Sports Media is pleased to announce that the 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award For Best Online Media Guide Solution goes to...

Yes friends, it is that time of the year when we start announcing the 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Awards, honoring excellence in sport media both old and new. Eye on Sports Media is proud to announce that the 2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award For Best Contribution to Sport Media Dialogue goes to...

Imagine your full time job was to do nothing but watch every sporting event covered by every network in a calendar year. OK stop now before you explode with glee. You just couldn't do it because you would have to cram over 20 years of your work life into a single year. That's right, in a report issued by The Nielsen Company entitled “The Changing Face of Sports Media”, the national broadcast and cable networks provided over 43,000 hours of live event coverage in 2009.

ESPN college football analyst Craig James should get a thank you card from me. The controversy involving his son Adam and ex-Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach has generated so much traffic to this site that all of our previous single-month visit and page read records have been blown away. But the amount of noise generated by email and telephone calls to ESPN Ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer was not what he wanted to see or hear.

Nielsen has come out with results of a study that shows that 51% of the annual Super Bowl audience tunes in for the commercials, and not the game. This is interesting because the ratings an event draws drives the prices advertisers pay for an ad placement. So does this mean that the more successful an ad is at drawing eyeballs to the game, they more they will pay the next year?

Until today, Steve Babik was pretty much an unknown name to me. But as we found out today, he had been suspended by Florida in late November when they found out he was being investigated for child pornography possession and distribution. His employment status changed yesterday when he was formally charged in Federal Court.

So just what was going on, and why should readers be concerned about the whole sequence of events?

Here is the NFL on FOX Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes release for this weekend's 2010 NFC Conference Championships as issued by FOX Sports. Broadcast and production assignments for both of this weekend's games are also available here.

Many years ago I had a part-time telemarketing job with the Republican National Committee that lasted one week. It ended when I could not stomach the script when I called a potential donor. It is probably a script that would not have helped Sports Illustrated (si.com to be specific) columnist Jeff Pearlman, as we will see in a bit.

The National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association (NSSA) has announced that former long-time ESPN Baseball Analyst Peter Gammons and John Madden have been selected for induction into the organizations hall of fame. In addition, Jim Nantz has been named a repeat winner of the National Sportscaster of the Year , and Bob Ryan as the National Sportswriter of the Year. The induction ceremony will take place on May 3, 2010.

Come on now, admit it. You, and others, got so frustrated with all the Brett Favre hype when he signed with the Vikings, you wanted it to end. But if you are in his age bracket like me, he is making us all feel young again. It's OK, you can say it.

And with that said, here is the broadcast information and assignments for this coming weekends's AFC and NFC Championship weekend. We will add the Westwood One radio assignments as soon as they are confirmed.

Twitter can be a game changer for many brands, both in a positive and negative way. ESPN Mobile was the beneficiary of the positive yesterday, as several thousand of the IBM Lotus Software faithful gathered in Orlando for a small annual conference called Lotusphere.

Turner Sports Interactive recently announced the launch of a web site/blog for analyst TNT NBA Analyst Mike Fratello at http://mikefratello.com/ . One of the headlights of the site being emphasized by Turner is video from the "Czar of the Telestrator." But his telestrator videos are not embedded in the site. Instead, there is a screen shot that redirects to the NBA web site. Is it possible that, even though Turner produces NBA.com, they suffer the same fate as every other ordinary blogger in the free world: video from certain league owned sites cannot be embedded in the site?

Across the United States, today is Martin Luther King Day. The NBA on TNT is offering up a triple-header of games. Before the start of the Phoenix Suns vs Memphis Grizzlies game at 5:30 PM, NBA legends Oscar Robertson and Alonzo Mourning will be honored with the National Civil Rights Sports Legacy Awards.

Next weekend will bring hockey fans the 2010 U.S. Pond Hockey Championships. The event will take place from January 22-24, 2010 in Lake Nokomis, Minnesota. The event has been featured in Sports Illustrated, and is one that takes fans back to the roots of the sport.

If you want a peek at some of the drama and conflict that went on before the start of Lane Kiffin's "farewell" press conference at Tennessee, then you must watch this video on from YouTube. Unfortunately, embedding was disabled so we can only link you to the video.

Lane (and Monte) Kiffin's agent, Jimmy Sexton, has updated his web site to reflect the new employer of his clients. But from a public relations standpoint at both Tennessee and Southern California, he might want to get some fresh pictures of the younger Kiffin. You can look at them yourself and form your own opinion of course.

Seven months ago, Canadian-based Score Media lauched ScoreMobile for BlackBerry® smartphones. In this short time frame, the free application has been downloaded one million times, which Score Media reports as "a significant milestone for the industry-leading mobile sports application."

With a version also available for the iPhone®, Score Media told Eye on Sports Media that over 60% of the application users are actually from the United States (This cannot make ESPN very happy), and that the service is available from any location.

There is nothing many people in public relations would like more than to be a fly on the wall at NBC Universal these days. After all, how many times do you get to see a self-made public relations disaster? Well, except for Tiger Woods and Lane Kiffin. Dan Levy, writing for The Sporting Blog, has a solution that is, umm interesting and scary at the same time. But it might lead to a different idea.

Back in 2002, I worked with the State of Georgia's Governor's Honors Program to set up a blog template based website to publicize information about the program. It was part of my job, but the most intangible reward that meant more than anything from that project came from the students in the program (the content was different back then). As a gift of appreciation, they gave me a CD with images from their six weeks at Valdosta State University. Something similar has happened with Eye on Sports Media, something which makes me feel really great about unintended uses of this site.

One of the harder interviews to get in sports is with public relations and media relations people. One of the reasons is that they feel it is their job to be behind the story in the background and not be the story itself. That being said, Heather Whaling, owner of Geben Communication, recently had the chance to talk with Lauren Moran, media relations coordinator for the New York Yankees (and last year made her debut as the press-box announcer and official scorer for Yankees spring training games in Tampa)

ESPN begins their coverage of the 2010 Australian Open on Saturday, January 16, 2010 with a marathon of "7 Great Matches" on ESPN Classic. Play gets under way at 7:00 PM ET on Sunday, January 17, 2010 and continues into the wee hours of the morning.

Here is ESPN's broadcast schedule for the ESPN Family of Networks and for ESPN360 (which will have the Boys' and Girls' Finals at 9:00 PM ET on Friday, January 30, 2010.

NBC Universal may be saying that the network will lose close to US$200 Million on the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, but that does not mean diminished coverage. In an announcement today, the network said their family of broadcast and online properties will air a record 835 hours of coverage for the event.

When the Southeastern Conference (SEC) released a draft of their digital media policy this past August, the backlash was fast and furious. Since then, I have had conversations with Charles Bloom, Associate SEC Commissioner for Media Relations, about the policy and the SEC use of social media in general. My position was, and still is to an extent, that the SEC is having a hard time getting their arms around social media.

NBC Sports has now posted the full U.S. broadcast schedule for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. You are asked for your zip code, the method you use to access television, and to confirm your local NBC Affiliate. You can also download a widget like the one below when you are done.

Driving home from last night's Ole Miss - Georgia basketball game, I was listening to Jay Bilas offer his opinion on the Lane Kiffin situation and the college coaching contract breaches. His position was that the fault lay with the president's of the NCAA institutions. He said that they simply had to pass a rule stating that they could not hire a coach that is already under contract. My first thought was that for a lawyer, this was pretty silly thinking.

Here is the NFL on FOX Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes release for this weekend's 2010 NFC Divisional Playoffs as issued by FOX Sports. Broadcast and production assignments for all of this weekend's games are also available here.

The University of Georgia (8-6, 0-1 SEC) is coming off a huge week in which they upset Georgia Tech on the road, and then played Kentucky hard over the weekend. Tonight, the Bulldogs host the 23rd-ranked Ole Miss Rebels (12-3, 0-1) in their home SEC opener. The game will be broadcast on the SEC Network at 8:00 PM ET

Although I will not have a lot of time to update this during the game, I will do the best I can. I will also add in relevant Twitter feeds and other information if and when possible.

This semi-live blog will tip off around 7:45 PM ET or so, but may start earlier. Feel free to jump in and join the conversation! If you are tweeting and want your feed added, let us know.

Ruper Murdoch's News Corporation has just announced a restructuring of all FOX Sports properties. They will all now report to David Hill, Chairman of FOX Sports.

"All sports operations, including FOX Sports, the company’s 19 regional sports networks, The Fox Soccer Channel, SPEED, Fox Sports en Espanol and FUEL TV will be under the supervision of David Hill, Chairman and CEO, FOX Sports, as will the company’s joint venture sports businesses STATS, LLC. and Big Ten Network.  Both Rice and Hill will continue to report to Vinciquerra."

Here is the full release issued by FOX Sports a few minutes ago.

News Corporation Announces Restructuring of Fox Networks Group Operations

Fox Broadcasting Company and FX Networks to Report to Peter Rice, Chairman, Entertainment, Fox Networks Grou


All Sports Networks to Report to David Hill, Chairman, FOX Sports


Both Executives Report to Fox Networks Group Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra

______________________



Los Angeles, CA, January 13, 2010 – In a move designed to better align the company’s creative leadership, News Corporation Deputy Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey and Fox Networks Group (FNG) Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra today announced a restructuring of the company’s entertainment and sports television operations.

Fox Broadcasting Company (FOX) and FX Networks, (FX and the Fox Movie Channel) will now be overseen by Peter Rice, Chairman, Entertainment for the Fox Networks Group.

All sports operations, including FOX Sports, the company’s 19 regional sports networks, The Fox Soccer Channel, SPEED, Fox Sports en Espanol and FUEL TV will be under the supervision of David Hill, Chairman and CEO, FOX Sports, as will the company’s joint venture sports businesses STATS, LLC. and Big Ten Network. Both Rice and Hill will continue to report to Vinciquerra.



John Landgraf, President and General Manager of FX Networks, will report to Rice, while Randy Freer, president of Fox Sports Networks; David Nathanson, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Fox Soccer Channel; Hunter Nickell, President of SPEED; Dermot McQuarrie and Raul De Quesada, Senior Vice President and Co-Assistant General Managers, Fox Sports en Espanol; and CJ Olivares, Senior Vice President and General Manager, FUEL TV will report to Hill.



Rich Battista, President Fox National Cable Networks, is in discussions about a potential new role within the company.



“News Corporation is the world’s leading content company with the country’s number one broadcast network and powerful cable networks across the board. We have great management teams driving these businesses,” said Mr. Carey.

“This reorganization is not targeted at short term change, but at maintaining our momentum while better aligning us in key content areas for long term growth as we take these businesses to new heights over the coming years.”

“David Hill and Peter Rice are two of the most successful executives at our company,” said Mr. Vinciquerra. “Not only do I admire their creative prowess, but they have both done a tremendous job of growing their respective businesses and their continued leadership will place us in an enviable position as we move forward.”

Carey added, “Rich Battista is a valued member of this company and we hope to find a new opportunity for him in the near term.”

David Hill has been Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, FOX Sports Television Group since 1999, which includes FOX Sports, America’s No. 1 sports network for 13 consecutive years and FOXSports.com. Hill also served as Chairman and CEO, Fox Broadcasting Company from September 1997 to June 1999, overseeing all programming, marketing, advertising sales and business affairs. In December 1993, armed with FOX’s first rights agreement to broadcast the NFL, Hill arrived in the U.S. to create FOX Sports and serve as its first president. FOX Sports grew from a concept to a fully functional sports division in just eight months, utilizing state-of-the-art studio and on-site broadcasting facilities. Hill’s creativity led to such innovations as the FOXTrax computer enhanced hockey puck; the FOXBox constant-score-and-clock graphic; in-base microphones, “Diamond Cam,” "Catcher-Cam," Gopher Cam, “Crank It Up” audio segments, “The Adventures of Digger & Friends” carton series and merchandise and most recently, a series of mid-day programs on FOXSports.com under the umbrella “Lunch with Benefits.”

Before his arrival in the U.S., Hill held several News Corp. posts in the U.K. In 1988, he helped launch Sky Television and Eurosport. When Sky Television merged with British Sky Broadcasting in 1990, he took charge of BSkyB Sports Channel and created Sky Sports in 1991. Hill relocated to Great Britain from Australia, where he had been Vice President, Sports, with the Nine Network since 1977.

Peter Rice was named chairman of entertainment in March 2009 and was given oversight of Fox Broadcasting Company. The network recently finished the fall, for the first time, as the No. 1 network among Adults 18-49, a position it retains due to its stable schedule and new hits like GLEE and THE CLEVELAND SHOW. AMERICAN IDOL returned strongly last night and the new series HUMAN TARGET will preview this Sunday, along with the new season of the critically-acclaimed 24. Prior to his post as chairman of entertainment, Mr. Rice was president of Fox Searchlight, where he served as the driving force behind the success of the specialty film genre, bringing to the screen some of the industry’s most successful films and award-winning films, including Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways and Juno. Before that, as Executive Vice President of Production for Twentieth Century Fox, he worked on a wide range of films including Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet and X-Men.

News Corporation

News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV) had total assets as of September 30, 2009 of approximately US$55 billion and total annual revenues of approximately US$30 billion. News Corporation is a diversified global media company with operations in eight industry segments: filmed entertainment; television; cable network programming; direct broadcast satellite television; integrated marketing services; newspapers and information services; book publishing; and other. The activities of News Corporation are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.

As the dust barely has time to settle, if it can settle, from last night's announcement that Lane Kiffin is packing his dad up and going back west to Southern California, there is only one winner in this situation. And it is the same winner every time there is coaching upheaval in college football. That winner is Jimmy Sexton of Athletic Resource Management, because if you want to hire a coach or want to be hired as a coach, all paths seem to run through Sexton.

Here is video of ESPN's Pat Forde expressing how stunned he is that Lane Kiffin was able to leverage mediocrity to land when of the premiere jobs in college football. Maybe it is just because no one else wanted the job?

Here is video of ESPN's Joe Schad discussing why Lane Kiffin walking out on his players, recruits, and school is a good thing. Good thing? The only good thing may be that the Southeastern Conference is rid of his distractions. You might also want to check out Chip Towers' Atlanta Journal-Constitution blog posting on the reaction of Georgia-based recruits that had committed to Tennessee.

PGA Tour Veteran Brad Faxon, who has won around $18,000,000 in his career but only has made 10 cuts in his last 44 events going back to 2007, is joining the NBC Sports' golf team. He will be "an outer tower commentator at multiple events in 2010."

When the University of Georgia hired basketball coach Mark Fox from Nevada last year, not much was expected because no one knew much about him. But with a depleted squad he inherited from Dennis Felton, the Bulldogs have beaten Illinois and Georgia Tech, and pushed Kentucky hard last Saturday in Lexington.

The play of the year for Georgia has to be this dunk by the 6-4 Georgia sophomore Travis Leslie (G) on 6-11 Kentucky Freshman Demarcus Cousins (F).

There has been a lot of online speculation about what would be the next site to launch as part of the new ESPNLocal.com initiative. There has been debate as to whether a site for Miami or New York would launch next. We jokingly said Tulsa would be next in a recent sports media best practices story. Well it looks like it really will be ESPNNewYork.com, based on a line contained in a recent ESPN press release about their digital media properties.

ESPN has announced another record setting year for their digital media properties in 2009. A couple of items to note. The first is the "announcement" that ESPNNewYork.com will be the next local ESPN site to launch, and that will happen in the spring of 2010.

NBC Sports has announced the schedule for their 2010 NHL Sunday Game of the Week package, which begins this Sunday with the Chicago Blackhawks taking on the Detroit Red Wings at 12:30 PM ET.

NBC Sports will be dropping the puck for their 2010 NHL Game of the Week package this Sunday. The Chicago Blackhawks will head a wee bit north to take on the Detroit Red Wings at 12:30 PM ET. Mike “Doc” Emrick (play-by-play), Eddie Olczyk (analyst) and Pierre McGuire (inside-the-glass reporter) will call the action. The game will be produced by Sam Flood.

Last well I scratched my head when NBC Sports announced that former Redskins coach Joe Gibbs and former Redskins quarterback Joe Theismann would join Tom Hammond in the booth for the Jets-Bengals game. At the time of the announcement I wrote that "this three man in the booth combination is either brilliantly conceived or some kid of bad practical joke." It turns out to be somewhere in bbetween as confirmed by Richard Sandomir of the New York Times (thanks to David Hale of the Macon Telegraph for the link).

Following Mark McGwire's admission to long-time steroid use, ESPN interviewed Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa. Here is some video from this interview.

The news of Mark McGwire's "coming clean" about his steroid use is dominating sports news tonight. Here is a video from ESPN with reactions to his admission.

I saw a tweet pr Facebook posting from Mike Humes of ESPN Media Relations a couple of days ago. Someone had asked him if there was a web site where they could see the ratings for all of the college bowl games, including the BCS Championship. Mike replied that there was none. It turns out there is a reason why.

Now that ESPN has rolled out its new local sports sites in Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and Boston, people are wondering what city will be next. Will it be Atlanta or New York or Miami? Well how about Tulsa? Why not, since ESPN owns the ESPNTulsa.com domain name? But let's not jump so quickly in shock, disbelief or dismay. ESPN owns the rights to at least 770 other domains. And there are some cities they do NOT own the rights to.

After last nights overtime thriller withe the Green Bay Packers throwing a win away to the Arizona Cardinals, we are ready for the 2010 NFL Divisional Playoffs this coming weekend. NBC Sports is done for the year, so now we are down to CBS Sports and FOX Sports. FOX has not yet announced their production assignments. With that in mind, here is the schedule, broadcast information, and assignments (that are known) for the games.

Tom Clancy, best-selling author of the Jack Ryan series of spy novels, and ESPN play-by-play commentator/anchor Sam Gore share some unusual things in common. Both sold insurance (pronounced IN-surance here in the south) before moving on to major media careers. One wrote books and told stories, the other tells stories on the air. One went on to build an empire worth millions, and one works for an empire worth millions, if not billions. You can probably guess which one is Gore.

Texas Tech University introduced former Ole Miss and Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville as their new football coach yesterday. The most refreshing quote from the press conference, for me, was Tuberville candidly acknowledging that being a college football player is a full time job:

Listen, this is the first time and only time in your life that you'll have two full-time jobs. Academics will be full-time here at Texas Tech University. It is going to be hard. It's going to be time consuming study halls. You will have to earn a degree. Then you have to turn around and have a full-time job in football, and that's going to be just as hard. And if you can survive those two, you know, you'll leave here not just a winner and with a degree, but a better person.

Here is the transcript from the press conference which also included Texas Tech President Guy Bailey and Athletics Director Gerald Myers.

Texas Tech University Media Conference Introducing New Head Coach Tommy Tuberville

January 10, 2010

THE MODERATOR: I'd like to welcome everybody here today. We'll turn it over to Dr. Bailey and he'll start with opening comments.

GUY BAILEY: Thank you very much. Thank you all for being here. I'm Guy Bailey, president of Texas Tech University. I'd like to welcome you all to one of the most beautiful college campuses in the world.

This is a great day to be a Texas Tech Red Raider. Before I begin, I want to do just one quick thing. I want to thank our players. The last three weeks have been very difficult on them. I'm extremely proud of our players and our staff for the way they've conducted themselves. It makes you proud to be a Texas Tech Red Raider. We really appreciate everything you all have done.

Our primary purpose here today is to introduce you to Texas Tech University's next football coach, Tommy Tuberville. When we began this search for a new football coach, we were looking for a proven winner against competition of the highest caliber. For someone who could take Texas Tech football to the next level and for someone of the highest character. And we found that man in Tommy Tuberville.

In ten years at Auburn, Coach Tuberville had an 85-40 record in the conference that's won five of the last seven BCS Championships. He won an SEC Championship and National Coach of the Year and five Western Division Crowns, beat his primary in-state rival 7 of 10 times.

He did a remarkable job before that at Ole Miss with a team handicapped by a small number of scholarships. He was defensive coordinator at Texas A & M the year they were undefeated, and defensive coordinator at Miami University the two years they won National Championships.

I don't think we could find a better fit for Texas Tech University than Tommy Tuberville. This man is a winner. A man of the highest character. We're absolutely delighted to have him here.

Now to introduce Coach Tuberville, I'm going to introduce Gerald Myers our athletic director. Gerald?

GERALD MYERS: Thank you. I'm here to introduce our new coach. And I want to say that he's got great experience and great success at one of the -- in one of the best conferences, best football conferences in the country.

He's won championships. He's played in BCS games. And along with all of you, our staff, Chancellor Hance, our student-athletes, all of Texas Tech, we want to wish him the best in developing a program that all of us hope that he can work and do here at Texas Tech. So it's my pleasure at this time to introduce Tommy Tuberville as our next football coach. Tommy, if you'll step up here, I want to give you a Texas Tech hat.

COACH TUBERVILLE: Thank you. Thank you very much. Only football could get this many people out when playoffs are going on, you know. It shows how important it is here at Texas Tech University
.
First of all, I'm glad to be here. I'd like to introduce my family: My wife, Suzanne; my mother, Olive; and my two sons, Tucker and Troy.

You know, it's an exciting day for me. I've been in coaching for a long time. Made some changes, made some moves. But when you make a move as a head coach and go to a new university, it really enlightens you. I'm excited for the opportunity. What a great opportunity to come to a state that loves football so much, to a great conference and a university that loves its football team.

This football team, you'll never hear me say this is my team or anything like that. This is Texas Tech's fans', alumni and students' and faculties' team. I'm here responsible to make sure it has an opportunity to grow and get better.

I know there are some things in the last few weeks that have been a small bump in the road, but that happens in life. I'm here to take the challenge on. We're going to go forward. We're going to be successful.

I'm excited about the opportunity. I'm excited about the things, obviously, that have happened at Tech the last few years. There's a criteria here now that offensive football and the football in general is fun to watch. And I'm here to build on that, and I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be a great challenge.

I'll be the first to tell you, being in this business a long time, being a head coach for 15 years, this is hard. This is a very hard job. Not Texas Tech University, but college football is hard. A new generation of kids coming up each year, dealing with different type of problems. A lot which I'm looking at in this room - the media -- (smiling). I'm just kidding (laughing). But it is a challenge.

The first year -- a few weeks ago my wife and I were talking. Everybody knows I've been out for a year, and I've rejuvenated myself. I've been going around trying to learn different things, knowing I was going to get back into the business. And my wife has obviously gone through two moves at Ole Miss and at Auburn, starting over again in difficult situations. Both were very difficult, as this has some difficult situations.

But she said, Are you sure you want to do this again? You remember how tough it is especially the first year? And it is. Getting in, getting arranged, organized, getting people around you that you feel are going to be good for the program and getting everything started with the players, the fans, and getting off on the right foot. It's a long process, but we'll do it right. We're not going to look back.

Dr. Bailey and I want to thank him and Coach Myers and Chancellor Hance, I want to thank them for that opportunity. But as I told them, we're not going to look back, we're going to look forward.

There's been some success here. I've had some success, but that doesn't make any difference. What starts right now forward is what's important. The first thing that's important to me is the players on this team. They've gone through a tough time. And I'll reach out to them when they get back next week.

We'll have our first team meeting at 4:00 o'clock on Wednesday. I'll introduce myself to them. They don't know me from Adam. But I want to let them know that I'm here for them.

I'm not here to win football games, per se. I'm not here to get them a degree, per se. My job, I'm a teacher. And the one thing that I want them to learn and understand and the parents when I recruit these kids to come to Texas Tech University, is that when they leave here, they're a better person. You know, that means more than education, that means more than football.

They understand the difference between right and wrong. He they understand work ethic, attitude, and how to maintain a steady life in the future to get the most out of life. Because what these kids are facing in this generation is going to be tougher than what most of us had.

So I think football is a great sport and it builds on that. You know, football is a true team sport. I've told many people this. It takes more than one person. You know, you can take a Peyton Manning and put him on this football team that we have, and not put many people around him. You're not going to win many games. You can put Michael Jordan on a basketball team, and you can win a lot of games. So it takes a lot of people in any football program to have success.

So my job is to build a team that's going to be positive. Positive attitude, plus effort, equals performance. That's been my motto for a long time. I hope to bring these kids in here - the new recruits, the players that we have on the team - to mold them as a team that's going to play well and do things on and off the field well. That's very important to me.

I'm the type of person that believes in being responsible to their teammates, being responsible to the people in our building, being responsible to the faculty and the students on this campus. And as we all know, if one football player, one basketball player makes a mistake, usually it's national headlines. So that's a priority for me also.

I believe in a team concept. And basically that's my philosophy of building a team from the ground up. Understanding that you're going to need that guy on the right side of you. You're going to need that guy on the left side of you because you can't do it by yourself. And we'll do that starting today.

I know everybody's going to talk about and want to visit about the offense. The offense will not change. The defense will change somewhat. My plans for the next few days is to go out -- I have several people lined up for interviews on offense and defensive coordinators. We will select those, and I will select those guys I feel like, number one, offense. That knows this offense, that understands it, and that can continue what we're doing offense and maybe enhance it a little bit in some areas.

I am a true believer, and most of you have probably heard this. I like to run the football. Sure, I like to run the football, but I like to win. I've looked at the players on this team, and I feel with all my heart, we continue to do what we're doing and add a few new wrinkles, it will continue to make it better. But we are going to be fun to watch.

So those that are out there thinking well, he's going to change everything we're doing on offense, that's wrong. We'll make some subtle changes. Most that you won't even recognize when we get to spring practice and we get to the fall.

But one thing I like to do is I like to be well organized in what we're doing. I like to control the ball, and you can do that in the air as well as you can on the ground.

Defensively, we're going to also be fun. We're going to try to make things happen. We're going to be very aggressive. You'll see a total change in that. We'll have a defensive coordinator that comes in and has a lot of my philosophy. And we'll bring kids in that I really don't care how big they are, as long as they can run. Speed wins for you in the game of football on both sides and on special teams.

So we're going to be fun to watch on offense. We'll be very fun to watch defensively. And special teams is a big part of my philosophy. If you're going to win championships, you have to have all three phases. You have to have that. You can't have one, you can't have two. You have to be good in all three.

You don't have to be great. If you go back and look at my resume over the years we've won the majority of the games we've played against Top 10 teams. Many times we have been overmatched. But having talent is one thing. Going out and playing with talent in all three phases of the football is what's important. We'll do that with discipline, hard work and attitude. We'll do it year round.

That's the one thing that's changed in this game of football that I love so much that I've competed in and coached for a long time. That in college football now it is 365 days a year. Used to be it was four or five months. Now players have to be totally dedicated.

And my understanding of watching and talking to the people here, these players love the game of football. And you pretty much all have to do that to survive in this sport.

What I tell the recruits when I recruit them with their parents sitting in front of me - I say, Listen, this is the first time and only time in your life that you'll have two full-time jobs. Academics will be full-time here at Texas Tech University. It is going to be hard. It's going to be time consuming study halls. You will have to earn a degree. Then you have to turn around and have a full-time job in football, and that's going to be just as hard.
And if you can survive those two, you know, you'll leave here not just a winner and with a degree, but a better person. That's what I always look forward to in seeing those guys put the cap and gown on and walking down that aisle, getting that degree and going off. Then coming back and being great alumni and great fan supporters of the team that they played for.

But, again, I am so excited about the future. Again, I'm going to be everywhere the next six months. I look forward to going out and reaching out not just to the recruits and players on this team, but also to the fans, to the alumni, to the fellow players that have played here, the lettermen.

I can remember growing up in Arkansas. One of the best players I ever saw growing up was Donny anderson. He changed, really changed, a lot of things of what I thought about football of a guy could do so many things. So I'm looking forward to meeting Donny, and a lot of the other lettermen that have been a big part of this program and put it to where it's at today. Questions?

Q. What do you say to fans that are still disgruntled over those bumps in the road that you mentioned earlier, Team Leach, all those supporters? What do you say and how do you rectify that situation?
COACH TUBERVILLE: The thing I say about that is because people are disappointed means that they love this program, and they want to see it get better. I convinced the chancellor and Dr. Bailey and Coach Myers that I was the guy that could do it. Again, I've done it before.
I like that people are disappointed. They should be. I'm very disappointed when we lose a game, but it's not the end of the world, because there is another day. And I'm telling Texas Tech fans right now that we're going to be exciting. We're going to be fun to watch.
But it's going to be your team. I think you're going to be very proud of what we put on the field. I can't tell them how many games we're going to win or how many games we're going to lose, but you'll see a team that will play very, very hard. And it will be well-coached, you know, from the time they step on the field to the time they leave. And you'll be very proud of how they do things for their university.

Q. I know you met with your staff last night. Can you tell us which members of the staff you plan on retaining?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, I really don't he know yet. In my dealings over the years -- I learned under some great guys. Jimmy Johnson, Dennis Erickson, R.C. Slocum, Larry Lacewell, some of the best coaches probably in football in my generation. And the one thing that you have to do in this business is you have to give responsibility to coaches.
I'm a believer of having a great offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator. But I also believe in letting them have the opportunity to interview coaches, to make sure that they fit into their beliefs and how they want them to coach, either receivers, running backs, quarterbacks, offensive line.
So what will happen is my first order of business, as I told the coaching staff last night, the present coaching staff, is that I will hire those two coaches first, and then we will sit down with each coach here on the staff. We will evaluate them and we'll evaluate other people.
If we think that there's somebody out there that may make this university's football team better, we'll go in that direction. If we think that the people on this staff are the people that we think can get us to the next level, get us to the championship game to win a conference championship, we'll do that. You know, that's the bottom line.
Again, I told all of them last night, they have an opportunity it's just they have to wait until they get those coordinators and we'll start from there.

Q. Can you, without giving too much away, talk about what those wrinkles might look like in the offense?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, we'll sit down. When you put together a football team the biggest thing that you want to do, and a lot of coaches have a problem with this, you look at the talent that you have on your team, and you fit your football team to that talent. Year in and year out it will change.
So if you look at this team next year coming back, obviously there are a lot of good players coming back, lot of speed at receiver. But we have very good running backs.
I want to be exciting. I want to be versatile. Again, I've been a defensive coach all my life. But the one thing I will tell you is that all of us that are defensive coaches all think we're better offensive coaches than the offensive guys because we study so much of offense.
The thing that's given me problems over the years of defending is multiple offenses, sets, motions out of the backfield, motions from wide receivers, different personnel. Fast-paced offense. I can't really tell you at the moment what we'll look at in terms of changing. But, again, it will be very subtle in what we do.
We're going to air it out. We're going to keep the air raid. I think it's something that Tech has hit upon that gives them that identity to recruit and we all want to have.
We've got a great product to sell in this university. Texas Tech University is a great product to sell. I'm a salesman. I will go out every day and sell Texas Tech University. But you have something that those high school kids look at. They say I fit in there. I like what they do. I like this offense. It's given Texas Tech an identity over the last few years. A lot of these schools, not only in this state but around the country, run the same offense and it gives you an opportunity to recruit.
So there's not a player in this country that's been around this type of offense that hasn't said, you know what, I know what Texas Tech does on the offense. But you can't say that about a lot of other teams. You know, they might be west-coast offense, they might be option. But most of the time the good players across this country can recognize Texas Tech from one thing, and that is the air raid, throwing the football, making big plays and exciting. And so we're going to continue that.

Q. Given the timing of all this, how does it put you in a hole in terms of recruiting here?
COACH TUBERVILLE: You know, it was very good. Got in last night. Quick day, very excited. At 12:06 central time, Coach Myers called me and offered me the job, and I accepted. I guess about six-and-a-half hours later I was here in town, on the phone with almost -- not all -- but all the players that I could visit with on the phone about their commitment to Texas Tech or their looking at Texas Tech with some possibilities of going on other places.
The reception was great. I don't have a big ego. But the great thing about myself over the years, I have done what Texas Tech has done with an offense, I've created a name. Most players know who I am because I have been on TV a little bit, been National Coach of the Year, done a few things, and that helps. You know, when you're in recruiting, it helps to be able to sell your offense, sell your defense, but also sell the name of the university and the coach that's selling all that.
So it went very well last night on the phone. I'll make more phone calls today. It was a great response. Nobody said, coach, I've decided to change my commitment. It was very, very positive. Again, we've still got a lot of work to do over the next few weeks.

Q. Welcome to Lubbock?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Thank you.

Q. Want to get your assessment of the Big 12 compared to your old stomping grounds, the SEC, what do you think?
COACH TUBERVILLE: The main difference of both conferences is as we speak and it evolves rapidly, but as we speak, the SEC's known more for defense, and the Big 12 is known more for offense. That is the bottom line.
You're looking at three of the top teams in the nation offensively were from the Big 12 this year. If you look in the SEC, there probably wasn't one in the Top 10. I can't think of one right now.
But it just goes in cycles. But I like both conferences. It really excites me to have the opportunity to come over again. I was in one of the last few years on the staff at Texas A & M of the old southwest conference. And a couple years later evolved to the Big 12. But, again, in our profession and in any profession, you look forward to doing things, what people enjoy.
And in this state and in this conference and in the SEC, people love college football. It gives you a shot of adrenaline. It makes you work harder. It makes you compete harder. It would be hard to compare both conferences.
But if you just looked at the standout things, I would just say right now offensively that things are going much better in this conference defensively overall probably than in the SEC a little bit better.

Q. How do you make a defense nationally prolific like the offense has been since you are a defensive coach?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Number one, you have to have a plan. You'll find out pretty quick that I will have a plan from day one when we put our offense and defense in. We stick with it. I'm a fundamental and technique coach.
When we bring players in, with we're going to teach them how to play our offense. We'll teach them how to play our defense. We're not going to take anything for granted. Again, it all starts with hard work and all those things. And to play for me, they're going to have to have that.
But I believe in consistency. And if you look at all the top teams in the country, they're based on consistency. Not changing one week or one year. Hey, this looks good. Let's go to this. You change subtly.
But we'll have a base offense. We'll have a base defense, and we'll build from that each week. When we play on Saturday, we won't be complicated. We'll be simple in the fact in terms of what our players think. It will look a little bit more complicated in the naked eye.
But I love for our players to go out on Saturday, have fun, play hard, play fast and play with a lot of emotion. And you can only do that if you know what you're doing.
Each week, again, we'll have a game plan. By the time we get there on Saturday, it will be a game plan that they'll know inside and out. But to get back to your original question, consistency on defense, consistency on offense, makes you better.
Obviously, you have to have players but you can play very well with average players. When we recruit players there's two types, there's uncommon players and there's common players. Uncommon players are the Peyton Mannings and the Emmett Smith's, and Hershel Walkers, those type of guys. The common players are guys that might not be that talented, but they've got it in them to get out of it. And if you give 100% and put it together as a team, you've got a chance to be successful.
So we'll look for those uncommon guys. They're not out there very often. So what we have to do and most teams across the country, even the National Championship teams, you go out and take players. Try to predict what they're going to look like in three years when you sign them. Which is very hard, by the way. But you bring them in, you try to teach them how to play. Play consistently, and if you do that, you'll make for a better football team.

Q. Wondering what can the players expect from you as their head coach as far as your coaching style toward the players?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, I delegate authority. I'm in on everything. I love to coach special teams. I think I know a lot about offense. What I do and I tell the players this, I coach coaches. I hire guys. I don't care who they are. They know what they're responsible for. They take care of that responsibility and they relate it to their players. If they can do that, then we've got a chance to win.
The thing about coaching in this profession, you have to keep consistent. I think, you know, the players will enjoy what I do. I'll know every one of them. I try to every day in practice, try to go by, pat every player on the back. Say something to them. Ask about their mom, girlfriend, how's school going.
I think that's important because in college football and pro football, everything is separate. You have offense and defense. They never do anything together. I'm a true believer of them knowing their head coach. That I care about them. I bring them in one time a month, each player, in my office. We sit down, we talk, we visit. And most of the time it's not about football, it's about life, academics. The little things that are bothering them. To me, that is the role of a head coach - to continue to mold players, get them on the right direction and know them all.
I'm not fond of kickers over the years (smiling). But I really am. Kickers have given me a fit over the years. But I enjoy working with them because sometimes they don't feel like they're part of the football team because they're off on another field and nobody knows their name other than one time, when they go out there and miss a field goal or have a bad snap, everybody knows them then.
But I try to make everybody feel like they're a total part of the team from the scout team guy all the way up to the starting quarterback that gets all the publicity.

Q. Wanted to ask you to talk about your year off in coaching. How much did that help you as far as your coach philosophy?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah, the year off from coaching was good. Last year at the end of ten years being in a tough profession, really after 14 years being at Ole Miss, I felt like it was time to give somebody else a shot. I worked it out with the athletic director and president of Auburn, and talked to my wife and family.
We took a year off. It was good. Had a good time. After the first two weeks my wife said I changed all the light bulbs in the house and was looking for one to burn out. Then she actually came home one day at 3:30 and she said for 17 years I've been able to come home and I've been able to come home and read a book with nobody here. You're here. Don't come home anymore in the afternoon. You stay gone.
So I spent a lot of time obviously with my wife, Suzanne, and I. We've traveled some with the kids. They play basketball and football. I turned into a regular dad for a while and ran the bus every morning taking them to school. I really enjoyed that.
But also spent a lot of time talking to coaches on the phone. I worked for ESPN, traveled some for them. Learned your side of it. And that was fun. But I also went to several of the colleges. Watched them practice. Looked at different techniques, talked to coaches, watched film. That was a lot of fun, but I missed it.
You know, when it gets in your blood, you want to get back into it. But I knew that from date I got out. The I was preparing from the day I got out at Auburn to this day. It was exciting to me. It's kind of like starting over. I'm excited about this opportunity, and this university. There is no doubt in my mind that we can take it to the next level.
I know a lot of people are disappointed in what happened. Lot of people probably don't care who I am. But my job is to get out there and sell this program over the next year. By the time we kick off, I think everybody will be on board. One thing I will tell the Texas Tech family, if you look at teams across the country, if you're going to win championships, bowl games or National Championships, not just the players or coaches or administrators, faculty or the city, everybody has to be on the same page.
I know everybody gets disappointed when things don't go right, but if we can keep everybody on the same road to success, it will make it a lot easier.
I listen to a lot of people. Again, I will be out selling this program many nights and many days over the next six, to seven months until we get to two-a-days. And I'll let everybody know what we're doing, exactly what we look like. Because, again, this is Texas Tech program, the fan's program, the alumni. I want them to know what we're getting into. And then we'll go from there.
We'll have some shortcomings, but we'll have a lot of fun. And I plan on getting us to the next level.

Q. Coach, regarding staff, will any of the current assistants be candidates for the coordinator jobs?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Yeah. We've thought about that. I've got four or five guys on each side of the ball that are not on the staff that I want to talk to first. They'll be short interviews. What I'll do is I'll cut those down.
We are meeting tomorrow as a staff. I'm going to meet again tomorrow in or land doe with the current staff. We'll have breakfast. We'll talk about things. I've got to get to know them a little bit better. Because then when we get into negotiations of who we're going to hire, there might be somebody that might impress me in terms of football that we talk about just in this staff.
But as we go through it, you know, I'll just have to wait and see if anybody strikes something in me that I feel like, hey, I think they can get this job done, because we're going to talk offense and defense at these breakfasts the next couple of days.

Q. What will your base defense be? What defense will you run?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Here you've been based on a four-man front. And I coached four-man front for 15, 16 years. I thought there was nothing else. Then everything he involves. And probably over the last seven or eight years we've based out of a three-man front with four linebackers.
And we did that because of adjustments. When everybody was playing two backs and throwing it 15 times a game, a four-man front was pretty good. Gave you an opportunity to get lined up, not real complicated. Then when everybody started spreading it out, it makes it easier to play nickel and dime defenses out of a three-man front. Replace a linebacker or two linebackers with two corners that can cover all these wide receivers that teams are putting on the field.
So I like the three-man front. Now probably about 30%, 40% of the time you'll see us in a four-man front. You have to be multiple. But we'll be aggressive. We'll attack the line of scrimmage. You'll see blitzing. You'll see zone blitzing.
It's hard to zone blitz out of a four-man front. But, again, we'll have to evaluate how much of the three-man front we'll put in depending on the personnel.
I mean, we're not going to force anything. We're going to look at the personnel. And the big thing about playing the style of defense that I like to play now, you have to have great corners. Not in terms of speed and athletic ability, but be able to learn what's going on, because there are techniques and fundamentals that they have to do, playing inside receivers, outside receiver, so they have to pick up quickly.
The two teams that you saw play in the championship game the other night run the exact defense that we'll be running, that we'll start to run. But a lot of it, again, will depend on what we run into in spring practice. But I would hope that that would be what we would base in.

Q. You talk about championships and national titles, conference titles. How close is Texas Tech to all those things?
COACH TUBERVILLE: Well, I think if you look, there's been times when Tech over the last few years has played as good as anybody. But you could say that, too, about Auburn when I was at Auburn. You could have said the same thing about LSU over the last few years.
It all goes back to one thing: Consistency. Also the ball has to bounce right for you. But, again, the more consistent you are, the better chance. Again, I think if we continue to improve the offense, bring the defense to a level that's a championship.
You can't win championships unless the defense plays. You can go back and just look at the schedule of a lot of teams this year. If approximate you live mostly on the offense, sooner or later you're not going to play very well. The weather will be bad, your quarterback's going to have a bad day, your receivers drop balls. That's pretty hard to stay consistent, but you can play defense consistent. You can win games 13-7, 10-6. That will have to happen some here.
When you play the better teams, you're not going to light it up every week. But your defense can show up because your defense is nothing but wants to to go out and get the job done. There's not a lot of execution. It's just mental and running the football.
So that's what I want. I want to get the team defensively to that point. If we can keep the offense continually to grow. Add a little bit of a running game, more running game than what you've had in the past, I think it will even help everybody. Then again, everybody leaves out special teams. But it is so important special teams.
Now they do call me the Riverboat Gambler and I don't mind you calling me that, and we'll take a lot of chances here. But everybody says, Coach, why did you go on fourth down? Why did you kick that on-side kick? What did you fake the punt for? Lot of times people think you're doing it to look good or whatever. That has nothing to do with it.
I do it for momentum. If I feel like we're losing momentum in a football game and usually it's on the road or even at home, the guys are not woken up and they're just playing sluggishly, I'll pull something like that. I'll go for a foot on our own 15-yard line, fourth and a foot. I know you're used to a little bit of that (laughing).
But, again, my thought on that is to gain momentum, get the players into it. A lot of times when you do something like that, the players go, This idiot is actually trying to win this game. Let's help him out.
But over the years I've pulled some good ones and some have worked, some have not. I like for it to be fun for the fans. I like for the fans to understand, if you go on a punting down to get you a coke or a bag of popcorn, you might miss something that's going to be fun.
So from the time the ball's kicked off, anything can happen. And we're going to do everything we can to give us more points than the other team by the end of the game. Thank you very much.

Knoxville (TN) area radio host/production director Chris Cannon (WIHG - 105.7 FM - 'The HOG) found this picture on the Facebook page of a friend of his who said to share away (we do not know the original source). If you look closely, you will see that Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffen makes sure his players work on academics, even during games. This player is on top of it, mastering (or refreshing) his kindergarten skills!

In the world of college basketball, the University of Georgia Bulldogs are 15-0 (2-0 SEC) and ranked eighth in the country. No, not the men, but the women. The Lady Dogs are off to their best start ever after outlasting Kentucky (12-2, 0-1 SEC) 61-60 in overtime the other night. Florida (9-6, 2-0 SEC) will be visiting tonight and the game will be broadcast live on ESPNU at 6:00 PM tonight.

Almost immediately after Alabama sealed their victory over Texas in the 2010 BCS Championship Game, people started searching Google looking for information on where they could watch a replay of the game online. Unlike FOX Sports, which has not yet posted its 2010 BCS games on Hulu yet, the championship game is available online.

Over on Flickr, there is a group called "The Alabama Football Photo Project". The purpose of the group, as stated on Flickr, is to present "an archive of Alabama football photos, past and present, accessable (sic) to all who wish to view them."

Here is a slideshow of the images displayed by the group.

After an hour-long machine gun attack on the Togo national soccer team bus by Angolan rebels left two people dead, the team is withdrawing from the Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

According to a report on CNN, Togo striker Emmanuel Adebayor "told his English club Manchester City that the Togo players were now heading home to their families after deciding to leave Angola."

There was pandemonium in Georgia Tech's Thrillerdome (ala Alexander Memorial Coliseum) today as Tech (12-3, 1-1 ACC) did the unexpected. Coming off a loss to the University of Georgia (8-5, 0-0 SEC) earlier this week, the 17th-ranked Yellow Jackets upset 5th-ranked Duke today by a score of 71-67. Coming into the game, Duke had won 11 of the last 12 meetings at Alexander Memorial Coliseum.

Georgia Tech Basketball Sports Information Director Mike Stamus was in the middle of the post-game celebration on the court, took this photo, and posted it to Facebook.

College football fans in Birmingham, Alabama have been leading the country this year when it comes to what markets have had more people watching bowl games this year. On Thursday night, they shattered their own records with a 67.4 DMA rating. This is definitely a WOW number, but perhaps not totally unexpected as the Crimson Tide of Alabama was playing for the national championship.

Since NBC Sports will be done with NFL Coverage after today's NFL Wildcard games, it is time for them to take a small breather before the 2010 Winter Olympics begin this month. Part of that is filling air-time with figure skating. Tomorrow, this means they will be airing taped coverage of the Progressive Skating & Gymnastics Spectacular at 4 p.m. ET.

The Professional Bull Riders Association kicks of their 2010 season with this weekend's Madison Square Garden Invitational from New York City. The event will be telecast on VERSUS and NBC Sports.

Here is the full 2010 PBR Television broadcast schedule.

NBC Sports will be showcasing PBR tomorrow, and it's not beer. It is actually taped coverage Professional Bull Riders’ New York City Invitational from Madison Square Garden. VERSUS coverage of the event, which is taking place this weekend, will air at 8:00 PM ET tonight. NBC Sports' coverage will air at 2:30 p.m. ET tomorrow (Sunday, January 10, 2010).

The 2010 NFL playoffs kick off this weekend with the wildcard games. NBC Sports has a double header tomorrow with the Jets - Bengals at 4:40 PM ET, and the Eagles - Cowboys at 8:00 PM ET. For the early game, NBC has brought Joe Gibbs and Joe Theismann into the booth with Tom Hammond (bio), and also borrowed FOX Sports NFL director Artie Kempner (bio) for the game.

After losing to Alabama (14-0) 37-21, Coach Mack Brown, Jordan Shipley and Sergio Kindle of Texas (13-1) sat down to take questions from the media.Here is the transcript the Texas' post- BCS Championship Game press conference.

Q. What did you tell your guys after the game?

COACH BROWN: I told the guys that they had a great run, 17 straight, 26 out of 28. They came into this game, I thought this they were prepared. I thought they worked really hard. After Colt got hurt, obviously we were limited in some of the things we could do, and the play before the half they tried to throw a little shuffle pass and tried to take a shot in the end zone because we knew points would be hard, that one went against us.

They actually got at the back of the game with a chance to win end of the game. I told them I was proud of their fight, I was proud of their toughness win games like this and tournaments. Turn them loose.

Q. Was this one a little tougher to take because of the unknown as far as Colt's injury? I know you had to deal with injuries, but the fact that you just don't how it could have went?

COACH BROWN: Losing is tough. We're proud to be in the National Championship game and still equally as hard to lose it.

Q. The communication with your team, I know it's painful right now, managing going forward, to see the freshmen get some work, but there's a continual healing process, won't there be?

COACH BROWN: Yes. Again, there's 120 teams that tried to get here tonight and only two were here, and congratulations to Alabama for winning the National Championship, and these five-year seniors have been here twice now. They understand what it takes, and we've just got to go back to work and try to get back here. That will be our goal.

Q. What did you say to Garrett or what did the coaching staff say to Garrett at halftime because he was a whole different quarterback in the second half.

COACH BROWN: Yeah, can you imagine just being put out there against a great defense in this setting when he wasn't planning on playing? We didn't know whether Colt would come back or not but it didn't look good when he came off the field.

What we told Garrett to do was just keep playing. You're a good player, it's a hard learning curve, learn fast, and at one point I thought he was going to come back and win the game. I'm so proud of Sergio. They played their tails off. Understanding we had a tough time scoring, and Jordan could have gotten frustrated, the whole bunch could have gotten frustrated and quit, and they didn't, and I think that's what I'm most proud of.

Q. This is for Coach and Jordan. Just talk about the way Colt ended his career, obviously painful. Talk about what you feel for him knowing that he didn't get to play in the championship game like he dreamed of?

COACH BROWN: Colt has got a career at Texas that is second to none, 45 wins. It's unbelievable. He has played so tough and so hard all year, and he was trying at halftime to get back in. I knew he wasn't healthy, and he wanted to play, and he shouldn't have. But that's how tough he is.

You look at some of the great quarterbacks in Texas football history, and Colt will go right down the middle of them, and a lot of his reason is Jordan sitting over here next to me.

Q. You were talking about Colt. Did you have to just say no, Colt, you can't play? Was there ever a discussion where he was saying, coach, let me back in?

COACH BROWN: No, it never got to that, but he was really in pain at halftime, and he and his dad were sitting there with the doctors. I never even asked the doctors because I could tell, he didn't need to be back out on the field.

Q. What adjustments did you make at halftime to slow down the running game because they really gouged you the second quarter but you shut them down the second half.

COACH BROWN: We really gave up three plays in the first half that filled us, the 55-yard run by Richardson, the little slant that was intercepted that cost us points and then the last play of the half was an absolute killer. We should have been a lot closer at halftime than we were. Our defense has not gotten the credit that they deserve all year, and I think tonight had he showed they're really good.

I thought we played really hard and stopped the Alabama running game most of the night and we got shorthanded offensively and had too many turnovers.

Q. Were you a little surprised to see them in the pistol formation?

COACH BROWN: No, we weren't surprised. I thought we had a pretty good feel of what they were doing. I'm sure they felt the same way.

Q. About Gilbert's ability to kind of regather himself in the second half.

COACH BROWN: He's such a smart young man. He's a four-point student, and I think he won all but one game in high school and won two State Championships, and we think he has a chance to be a really special player. Here's a guy standing there on the sidelines cold as can be, and all of a sudden in the National Championship game, it's like, okay, son, you've got it. I can't even imagine. It's a credit to him, the kids around him and Coach Davis for putting him in a position where he came back and actually had a chance to win the game.

I really hate the fumble there at the end because it made the game look a little more out of hand than it was. I actually thought when we got the ball back at the 5 that he was going to take us down and win, because that's what our team has done so many times.

Q. You took the time out and went ahead and ran the play there at the end of the first half. Did you consider letting the clock run out?

COACH BROWN: We did. We knew we were going to struggle with points, and we felt like we had 15 seconds left so we called the safest thing that might squirt. We called a little shuffle pass that I had never seen intercepted before, and I certainly hadn't seen it intercepted for a touchdown. We felt like we had great receivers, and Garrett had a strong arm. We were at about the 40. So we were going to try to run down 10, 15 yards and then take a shot in the end zone. That's what we were trying to do.

Q. Could you just give some final thoughts on your senior class?

COACH BROWN: Yeah, just unbelievable. I think they tied for the winningest senior class in school history. Very few people ever get to be in a National Championship game or play, and for this five-year seniors, the seven of those guys, to be involved in two, is just an amazing experience for them. Just like Sergio deciding to come back. He created havoc tonight, Jordan, a six year guy that fought through so many injuries.

What Colt has done has been amazing. You could go through the whole senior class. Next year's bunch has got a lot to live up to be as good as these guys have been through their whole run.

Q. Jordan, what was going through your mind when Colt got hurt?

JORDAN SHIPLEY: Well, I think all of us were definitely concerned when Colt went out. But I think the good thing is that Coach Davis spent so much time preparing here that he came in, and obviously started a little bit slow, but I can't imagine what it was like for him to be throwing there in the National Championship game.
But I think Colt had an unbelievable career and Garrett played really well tonight.

Q. Sergio, talk a little bit about the attitude of the defense when you saw Colt McCoy go down. Did it change the conversation on the sideline or your expectations of the defense considering you guys might be struggling to get points?

SERGIO KINDLE: I mean, we came into the game with the same game plan, whether Colt went down or not. We wouldn't have recruited Garrett if he wasn't capable to get done what he needed to for points. We knew he was ice cold and what not, and being a freshman in the biggest game of the year against the best team in the nation right now, it was going to be a struggle.

But we knew once he calmed down and got the read, checking his keys out here, he'll be all right. He'll be slow but he'll be okay. We just had to stick to our game plan. We had to stop the run and it would be better.

Q. After you scored the second touchdown, the two point conversion and got within three, were there thoughts of what happened five seasons ago going through your head as well as the rest of the team about the tremendous comeback?

JORDAN SHIPLEY: I think everybody on our team believed that we were going to win the game, and it's been that way since I've been here. I think that's something that that team helped to establish was just that belief that we're going to win the game no matter what.
To come back from -- especially at halftime with the play right before the half, and I'm just really proud of everybody, and I think we fought really hard and just came up a little short.

Q. Jordan, this is for you. When did y'all officially make the transition to the way Garrett threw the ball, because he obviously throws it a lot harder than Colt does. How difficult was it for you, and what pass do you think kind of turned it?

JORDAN SHIPLEY: Well, I think both quarterbacks throw the ball really well, and I think both of them were capable of getting the job done tonight. You know, I think you've got to give a lot of credit to Garrett for coming in and playing as well as he did, especially in the second half. I was really impressed, and I think we were all really impressed.

Q. Sergio, could you analyze the Alabama running game with Ingram and Richardson?

SERGIO KINDLE: You mean like describe it? Well, I mean, they won the game, and they scored running the ball. You know, we got into our groove in the second half, but you know -- I don't know. I mean, we lost, so they were doing something right.

Q. Jordan, what do you make of -- Alabama will return a lot of guys next year. What do you make of their potential so to speak?

JORDAN SHIPLEY: I think Alabama definitely is a great team, and I guess we've got a lot of respect for them, and I think they showed that they're definitely the best. With a lot of guys returning I'm sure they've got a chance to be really good again next year.

You've got to give a lot of credit to them for what they accomplished tonight, and it was a hard-fought game.

Q. Is it more empty feeling, the fact that you guys really don't know what would have happened because of Colt's injury? I mean, does this make it a tougher loss just because you'll really never know?

JORDAN SHIPLEY: Well, I think there's always -- with anything that happens in life, any loss, there's always things that you can look back on and wish they were different. But I think Sergio and I were talking about it, I think sometimes you've just got to look at all the ways you've been blessed. And I think we've been blessed in so many ways and just thankful for those. It was a great opportunity to be here, and we're thankful for that.

THE MODERATOR: Guys, thank you.