The kicking situation for Virginia, like Pitt, has yet to be resolved.

The kicking positions “are right up on the same bar of importance with the other positions,” Virginia coach Al Groh said. “The one guy I might want back more than anyone else is Connor Hughes.”

Hughes set a new standard for dependability at the placekicking position throughout his four years at Virginia. He made 83.5 percent of his career field goal attempts and set school records in points (332), field goals made (66) and extra points made (134). Of the 12 field goals of 50 yards or longer in Virginia history, Hughes kicked five of them. He was signed by the New Orleans Saints this summer but was released last week and is currently looking to catch on with another NFL squad.

Smith may have received less attention than Hughes but was equal in importance. Of his 66 kickoffs in 2005, 38 resulted in touchbacks and the average starting position for Virginia’s opponents was the 21-yard line, tied for the best mark in the ACC. He was picked in the sixth round of the NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers.

The Cavaliers will look to junior Chris “Beep” Gould and senior Noah Greenbaum to handle the kicking duties. Gould carried out the punting duties for Virginia the past two seasons, a role that may be filled by junior Ryan Weigand this year, depending on how the competition shakes out.

Gould was a reliable punter averaging 40 yds/punt. That they would move him to kicking duties and go with a guy who did no punting for them last year suggests they don’t have much else they can rely upon.

A junior receiver expected to be on the 2-deep for the Cavs left the school for personal reasons. This in addition to the loss of star WR Deyon Williams with a foot injury. Add in a new starting QB and RB, and a bunch of new personnel on the O-line and the Cavs could be as offensively questionable as Pitt.
Groh expects Pitt to be fired up with the honoring of the 1976 National Championship team.

Wannstedt said he’ll probably ask some of the Pitt legends to address the current team this weekend.

“It’s going to be great to have them in,” said Wannstedt, who has two degrees from Pitt and was a graduate assistant on the’76 team. “The timing is perfect, so it’ll be a good night.”

…

Saturday night’s game marks the start of Al Groh’s sixth season as coach at U.Va., where his record is 37-26. Groh expects a “a little more juice in the atmosphere” than usual at Heinz Field, where Pitt went 5-1 last season.

“It’s going to be center stage in Pittsburgh, a big dog-and-pony show,” Groh said. “All of that is going to make it very challenging for this team.”

And of course there is the coaching controversy of Al Groh hiring/promoting his son Mike to Offensive Coordinator. I don’t see why. Just think of the successful father-son HC-OC deals like Joe and Jay Paterno, Bobby and Jeff Bowden, Lou and Skip Holtz. Why would there be questions?

Well if you live in Charlottesville, you can go to the campus arena and watch the game — since few without a dish don’t get ESPNU.

Obviously that won’t help most people. So this might be of interest.

ESPN launched a new website Monday to package all the network’s college sports content.

ESPNU.com is designed to be a companion for the ESPNU television network, the company said.

It will include news, scores, columns, video and audio highlights, podcasts and the live streaming of games.

The streaming will include both live simulcasts of televised games and events that will be exclusive to the Internet, the company said.

[Emphasis added.]

Now, looking on the site, I couldn’t confirm that they will actually live stream the game on Saturday. For all we know, that is still a pending feature. The other thing to remember is that if they do, it will still be the somewhat less than smooth streaming if the prior previews I’ve watched of live game streaming on ESPN Gameplan and Fullcourt are any indication. Still, if it’s all there is, it’s better than nothing.

I’ve sold out.

I’m blogging for the man. Or in this case the media conglomerate.

AOL has hired me to write about Pitt — along with a slew of other college football bloggers — this season. The “official” launch of the AOL CFB Fanhouse Sportsblog was supposed to be yesterday, but it has been delayed until this coming Monday. Write now it is a big mash-up with the focus on the NFL (seems to be a popular place for ex-college players to go, might catch-on).

When the AOL CFB blog is up and fully running there will be it’s own place and you can even narrow it by the particular team or even place — meaning you can follow just Pitt or all Pittsburgh teams that are blogged on AOL. You should also be able to pay attention by conference, so you can follow the other Big East sellouts bloggers and their teams.

The clincher for me to do this wasn’t the money or more exposure. It was also being asked to be the lead blogger for the Big East. Meaning, I help keep an eye on things for the conference and talk with the other BE bloggers. I can be a bit of a control freak, so that appealed to me. Besides, it’s important for a Pitt guy to be one of the CFB bloggers with a modicum of influence (not that I’d abuse power and authority, much).

I’ve already been doing some posting, and you can find just my posts here if you want to limit to just me. As you can see, I’ve already done some posting. I am sorry not to have broken the news earlier, but AOL wanted this to be a soft launch initially and build up some content.

So what does that mean for this shiny new blog? Not much is changing. I will obviously be putting some posts over there, but this blog is not going anywhere. The AOL Blog is just for the season, not all year. Additionally, they want the posts somewhere between 100-400 words. So, unlike many of the posts here, they should be a little shorter.

Plus with Keith W. helping during the season, I think the impact will be minimal.

Remember last year when Herb Pope was apparently going to transfer to a prep school in Florida? Apparently it may be happening again, or the coach of that prep school is repeating himself.

Morgan’s team also has another, more highly regarded prospect in forward Herb Pope. Louisville, Pittsburgh, UConn and Kansas State are on his list.

Pope’s potential caused Morgan to make a telling slip of the tongue. “No question he has the tools to be on the next level,” the coach said before adding with a chuckle, “I mean the next next level.”

Now here’s where it gets interesting. No one knows again. Including his AAU Coach J.O. Stright.

The question of where Pope will spend his senior year should be answered soon, as school begins at Aliquippa today.

Aliquippa basketball coach Marvin Emerson was uncertain of Pope’s enrollment status, as was athletic director Mike Zmijanac.

“I honestly have no clue,” Zmijanac said. “I guess we’ll know by Wednesday.”

Pope’s AAU coach, J.O. Stright, said he has not seen or heard from Pope since sending him home from a tournament in Orlando after an on-court altercation.

“I know he looked at going there (Country Day) last year but didn’t pull the trigger,” Stright said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he has (transferred).”

Rex Morgan also has plenty of close ties to Bob Huggins. Taking Stright at his word for the moment (and considering his willingness to flak for Pope and other players in the past, I’m actually willing to), it seems Pope has a little more independence from Stright and is still immature enough to not like being disciplined.
Regardless of his talent I think most Pitt fans are hoping to avoid this potential headache.

Well the news conference to announce it was “exclusive” ESPN360 content, so I didn’t see it. Here’s the media release from the Big East.

For football.

A minimum of 17 home games involving BIG EAST Conference teams will be televised on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2, including four Thursday night games and two Sunday night games on ESPN or ESPN2. In fact, this commitment represents the largest number of guaranteed appearances on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 in the history of BIG EAST Conference football.

At least one conference game will be a part of ESPN’s Saturday Prime Time package and two games – one on ABC or ESPN, the other on ESPN2 – will be on Championship Saturday in December.

In addition, ESPN Regional, the nation’s largest football regional network reaching more than 30 million homes, will broadcast nine games and will continue its Game of the Week package, which is syndicated throughout BIG EAST markets and beyond. Most games produced by ERT are also offered as part of the ESPN GamePlan pay subscription service.

Finally, the conference will also have a minimum of five home contests televised by ESPNU. The minimum number of football games involving BIG EAST teams on television increases further when taking into account appearances in non-conference away contests.

Now for basketball.

The BIG EAST will continue to be the only conference in the country to have each and every one of its men’s basketball tournament games televised by ESPN. There were record audiences for the 2006 BIG EAST Championship, including the final game, which was the highest-rated cable tournament final of the year (2.58).

In addition, ESPN Regional will carry a minimum of 80 games (66 conference and 14 home non-conference) and continue its weekend Game of the Week package, which reaches approximately 30 percent of the nation’s homes and has a total household reach of more than 30 million. Most games offered by ERT are also available nationally as part of ESPN Full Court, the pay subscription college basketball outer-market service.

…

Minimum 60 games on ESPN or ESPN2

• 49 regular season games – 41 conference and eight home non-conference
• 11 BIG EAST Championship games

110 additional regular season games broadcast on the remaining ESPN platforms

• 80 games on ESPN Regional (66 conference and 14 home non-conference)
• 30 conference games on ESPNU/ESPN360

Minimum of 10 conference or non-conference games on CBSThe above gives the BIG EAST a minimum grand total of 180 television games each year.

The BIG EAST will continue to be featured each week during the conference season on ESPN’s Big Monday. A new element to the agreement will allow ESPN to also feature a BIG EAST Conference match up on Thursday each week. The agreement also provides that each BIG EAST team have a minimum of 10 games telecast on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic or ERT.

Short-term (the next couple of years) very good for the Big East and its members. The money will be nice. Long-term, it puts the BE schools further behind the other schools in terms of growing revenue streams and control.

The agreement will also cover content to be provided on broadband and cellular services.

And guess who has the control?

The new contract extensions give ESPN, which is on the cutting edge of new media technology, the right to distribute its BIG EAST inventory on any new potential consumer-based platforms. “We will be on the crest of the wave of the future,” Tranghese said. “The BIG EAST is proud to allow ESPN to explore new ways to give the Conference even more national exposure through innovative technology.”

Thanks for giving that property away in this contract. ESPN controls the rights, content and control over the most important long-term media area.

That’s where the big growth areas and new revenue streams are. I know some of you think I’m being ridiculous about this, and my notes that Mountain West premiere’s its channel this week and that the SEC is planning its own cable channel along with the Big 11 in the next couple of years.

I asked this question back in June when the BE deal was first leaked.

It’s a real concern to me that this conference seems to lack any foresight or desire to try and see what is coming. All it seems to do is react and get into a defensive stance.

This next TV deal is supposed to be for a lot of money, and that’s great. But does it consider the distribution of content in other ways? Does it take into account possible broadband video and audio distribution, podcasts and whatever else is next? Or did it all get left in a vague terms that would require a lawsuit later to resolve actual ownership, distribution, fee rights and such?

At least part of it was answered. It’s not vague at all. Disney gets it all.

Pitt’s running into that now with its “Panther Access.” They are expecting $70/year subscriptions for people to get Internet radio broadcasts for football and basketball? ESPN won’t be giving away the internet TV rights to those things. They have their full court and gameplan packages to sell. But the SEC, Big 11 and Mountain West will all be able to do that. They’ll be able to offer conference and team packages for seasons online. They’ll be able to offer a download to watch the game later — an online TiVo.

Hell, guess what? The Big Sky conference is already doing it online. That’s right, the Big frickin’ Sky conference.

This season, the entire nine-school Big Sky Conference will webcast all football, basketball and volleyball games, using technology from Salt Lake City-based SportsCast Network LLC.

Fans will be able to choose which team’s audio feed to which to listen. Games will be archived and can be downloaded to portable devices like Apple Computer Inc.’s iPod.

“This is the future,” Big Sky Commissioner Doug Fullerton said. “The fan will decide what they are going to watch and when they are going to watch it.”

Northern Arizona does TV broadcast of its games online, and the rest of the conference is following suit. The Ivy league is also doing it.

“We can produce our own television and reach, literally, the entire world on the Web, without having to go through the issues of, is there cable availability? Is there satellite availability? Is there advertising support?” said Jeff Orleans, commissioner of the Ivy League.

He expects most of the league’s sporting events will be online within seven years.

Seven years. Remarkable coincidence. That’s how long the BE contract with ESPN runs.

You know the ACC and Big 12 have been paying attention to these movements. They have their contracts coming up and they will follow suit.

By the time the BE contract comes up for renewal, all the other schools will already have established their channels and their broadband outlets. The BE, once again, will be reacting and playing catch-up.

For those of you who are thinking that the good thing is that the BE will become that much more important to ESPN and more games will be shown on the mouse family, no. They still have their TV deals and will show plenty of games. That’s why the BE will only have 17 games aired, with only a few guaranteed for non-weekdays. Not an encouraging sign.
It’s just that the other conferences will have more control over their content and the revenue from it. The BE football will continue to be used like the Mountain West was to fill programming on the weeknights.

The kicking job is still up in the air, and it doesn’t make anyone feel better about it improving when the back-up punter, redshirt freshman Lucas Stone is now getting mentioned into the mix.

Senior WR Joe DelSardo was back with the team and practicing. He’s still suspended for the opening. DT Mick Williams was also back on the field after dealing with headaches and problems after sustaining a concussion early in training camp.

The Big East has the audio of the weekly coaches teleconferences (link on the right side of page, about halfway down). No archives, but they will keep each Monday’s conference up for the week. There’s something amusing about listening to the whole thing as you hear which writers are looking for their storyline. Not to mention, some strangely loaded questions — one WV based writer — with a long deliberate drawl — asked WVU Coach Rodriguez if “his boys were ready for the intensity in the Marshall game.” Nothing like a leading question to get the sort of quote needed.
This writer was after comments on the screwed up new rule in the game where the game clock will start after a change in possession rather than from where the ball is kicked.

Strangely, Bob Petrino didn’t get nearly that many questions you would expect. Petrino seems like a decent quote. I wonder if it’s because of the rest of the BE is still uncomfortable with the newcomers. Dave Wannstedt faced more questions. The most questions and plenty of media beyond simply the BE Beat writers was of course for Rich Rodriguez. They eventually had to cut off questions.

USF continues to have issues. More players suspended, and their starting QB has been dealing with back spasms.