The new college football season is upon us and thank god money is never involved in any of the decision making by the different conferences or else who knows how much corruption might come into play? (he said with a tongue in cheek the size of Godzilla’s!) 🙂

One thing’s for sure, the new Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott is just what the doctor ordered. After his first two years in charge of the old Pac-10, Scott has led the conference through expansion for the first time since 1978 by adding Colorado and Utah. And now the best marketing commish in the biz has created a Football Championship Game for the first time in conference history while securing agreement for equal revenue sharing for the first time ever. He very importantly delivered a huge media rights agreement with ESPN and Fox giving more national exposure for his schools than ever before, and created the Pac-12 Network and Pac-12 Digital Network. Besides all that, he’s been sittin on his a$$ LOL since leaving the WTA (Women’s Tennis Association) behind 3 years ago-and how they still succeed with their incompetent media relations and marketing is a miracle? (and for discussion another time) Just don’t be suprised if acquiring Oklahoma and Okie State are next on his agenda and possibly even Texas after that?

Meanwhile at the recent inaugural Pac-12 football media day in L.A., I got the chance to sit down with a few head coaches (you’ve already heard from Kiffin and Neuheisel) like Washington’s Steve Sarkisian who’s trying to be a So-Cal guy that puts the Huskies back on the football map and Cal’s Jeff Tedford who I spoke with more about his Super Bowl MVP prodigy Aaron Rodgers than anything, although Coach T did mention his school’s hopes for this season as well. Aaron has always praised Tedford around me, so I thought it was time to give Jeff a chance to respond to his guy who is now King of Green Bay these days!

But the most fun I had was having lunch at the same table as Heisman Trophy favorite Andrew Luck, who’s as nice and genuine as anyone you’d like to meet (almost Manning-like in his obvious quality up-bringing). Along with a few other media types who came and went, we gabbed about so many things for at least 30 minutes (unfortunately too much of it not recorded) but I did get some of his thoughts for your listening pleasure including why he came back for another year at Stanford? He also told me a great story (off mic) that his dad Oliver (Ex-NFL QB) who played with Archie Manning, actually baby-sat for Peyton which Andrew used to love to tell his teammates about. I also asked Luck if he knew of the beard that Bill Walton once wore with the Portland Trailblazers? And he said vaguely…so I told him to google the guy because his newly-grown facial hair resembles either Walton’s or Paul Bunyon’s…you be the judge! It will be verrrrry interesting to see if the next year’s likely #1 NFL draftee’s new beard is either good or bad LUCK?… 🙂

Steve Sarkisian with Ted Sobel:

Jeff Tedford with Ted Sobel:

Andrew Luck with Ted Sobel: