Looks like the stupid NCAA rule change limiting the length of media guides to 208 pages has finally started getting noticed.

In the rough and tumble Big 12, Missouri is always looking for an edge to impress recruits.

The Tigers thought they had found one with a mammoth 614-page football media guide – unofficially, the largest in the nation – that is mailed to prospective student athletes. But now the NCAA is taking it away with an edict that colleges trim their media guides to a maximum of 208 pages for next school year.

The new rule has sports information directors across the country scrambling to decide what will make the cut when a hundred or more pages in some current guides must be scrapped. And many of them aren’t happy.

“Our football coaching staff believes putting together a first-class book helps sell the program,” said Chad Moller, Missouri’s director of media relations for athletics. “Now we will have to find other creative ways to make our book stand out from the crowd.”

Schools such as Nebraska and Georgia are faced with the prospect of cutting their football guides in half before the start of next season. Publications go to print this summer.

The article is filled with complaints about how records and information will be cut. Of course, I made that observation a month ago. Catch up, you slackers.

There is still the potential positive of forcing schools to do a better job of utilizing their websites as a repository and database of school records, information and history.

You want another prediction of how schools will get around this? An enclosed CD in the media guide with all the stats, history, records, photos and more. Digitize it, baby.

I’m not too surprised by this.

Pitt football coach Dave Wannstedt does not intend to release back-up quarterback Joe Flacco from his scholarship should Flacco decide to transfer.

Flacco, a 6-foot-6, 220-pound sophomore, has expressed a desire to transfer, but, according to Wannstedt, has not made an official request for a release.

“We’ve told him, ‘We want you back and we aren’t going to give you a release to another team,’ ” Wannstedt said Friday. “He hasn’t said he’s leaving. He has talked about the possibility of not returning, but he hasn’t taken the next step.

“Joe’s an important part of the team. I told him we need him, and I told his father the same thing.”

If Flacco had expressed a desire to transfer in January or February, he probably would have been freed. That’s a general courtesy extended to some players when there is a new coaching change.

Also, with Wannstedt still just settling into the job, he likely would have been a little more flexible about things.

Of course it is all still speculation since Flacco hasn’t actually asked for a release or stated that he is transferring.

Unlike Luke Getsy, from last year, Flacco has no logical school where he can transfer. He’s from New Jersey, and Walt Harris is now at Stanford. It’s unlikely he wants to go across the country, who knows if he has the academics to transfer to Stanford, and who says Harris wants him?

Still, I will blatantly hedge by saying, I’ve been wrong plenty of times before, and don’t see any reason for that to change.