Whiffs of autumn: Mark May's got a crush on Tennessee

Hey! Do you see that? Right there. Up on the horizon. It's not a mirage. It's the 2008 football season finally coming into view.

ESPN just kicked off College Football Live, its daily college football show. Brent Musberger was perfectly awkward anchoring the thing, and the filler was quite evident in the form of a Rapid Fire segment in which Musberger asked Bobby Petrino a series of questions like the last book he read and the last movie he saw (The Secret and Dark Knight, by the way), and a viewer poll about which team between Texas Tech and Oregon, I think it was, had the best helmet. Okay, then.

But it was football.

Todd Blackledge and Mark May joined Brent in the studio, and Kirk Herbstreit chimed in from somewhere in sunny Cal to fawn continuously over Matthew Stafford's delivery. Okay, then again.

But it was football.

The news of the day from an orange perspective, though, is that Mark May included Jonathan Crompton in his list of QBs to watch this year and also named Tennessee as his sleeper for the national championship "due to the offensive line." Woo for Mr. May.

CFL isn't the only whiff of autumn in the air, though, as SEC Media Days starts today with the following schedule:

Interview Schedule for Wednesday, July 23
FLORIDA GATORS (1:10 - 3:10 pm) Urban Meyer QB Tim Tebow OT Phil Trautwein	MISSISSIPPI STATE BULLDOGS (1:10 - 3:10 pm) Sylvester Croom QB Wesley Carroll LB Jamar Chaney	LSU TIGERS (3:10 - 5:10 pm) Les Miles C Brett Helms DE Tyson Jackson	VANDERBILT COMMODORES (3:10 - 5:10 pm) Bobby Johnson S Reshard Langford WR George Smith

The SEC Sports site says that they're offering free live video and audio, but it's not working for me. Perhaps it's just too early.

So, bullets:

• Will anyone be able to hear anything Urban Meyer says if he's speaking at the same time as the thunder-voiced Sylvester Croom?
  
• What do you think is the relative size between the room booked for LSU's 3:10 session and the one booked for Vandy's 3:10 session? Especially in light of the fact that Les Miles is the only coach likely to say anything truly interesting and Vandy is, well, you know.
• Prepare your templates for generating your own news: Coach A: "We're really excited this year about our [most experienced unit of the team.] We have some concerns about the [least experienced unit of the team.] We have a tremendous opportunity to do something special this year, but [opponent X] is really going to present a challenge.
• [Note by Joel, 07/23/08 9:02 AM EDT ] DawgSports has a list of questions he'd be asking the SEC coaches if he were there. I wish he were.
• Also, Garnet and Black Attack has credentials, man, and he's live-blogging the thing.

Tennessee's up tomorrow, by the way. They're a sleeper for the national championship. don't you know.