SouthEastern Sports Blog: Random Thoughts

With special thanks to lawvol at Gate 21.net for our fancy new logo...

The CBS College Sports Network is my new favorite thing
The problem with ESPN Classic, aside from their weird desire to show old poker "highlights" and obscure Wide World of Sports moments, is that they're both trying to cover the entire sports landscape, and they're tied into ABC/ESPN. So while you can sometimes catch a classic Tennessee football game on there once in a blue moon, my TiVo suggests that ratio is usually multiple repeat showings of the '99 Fiesta Bowl (which is worthless if you already own it on DVD) and only two or three other games a year. Since CBS has had the SEC rights since 1996, most of the very best Tennessee games since then never find their way to ESPN Classic.

Enter CBS College Sports Network.

I knew CBS had bought the old CSTV, but hadn't heard any of what they were doing with it. Then I hear from my grandfather that, while trying to find the umpteenth (and still entertaining) repeat of Game 4 of the NBA Finals on NBATV - Channel 610 on DirecTV - he accidentally skipped over to 613, the CBS College Sports Network...and found the '96 Vols playing right in front of his eyes.

TiVos at the ready, boys and girls...because just about anything you've ever wanted to see in recent Vols history is probably going to be before you in the next seven weeks.

At this very moment, I'm watching (for the first time since being present in the Georgia Dome) the SEC Championship Game from last season. And this may be a positive for some and a negative for others, but CBSCSN doesn't do what ESPN Classic does and hack the game down to 90 minutes - they're showing every single play in three or four glorious hours, depending on what you want to see.

And the thing is, "CBS College Sports" are essentially the SEC and March Madness. All kinds of goodness going on here. In the fall, based on the ads I'm seeing, I think they're going to be the home for Conference USA Football.

This weekend concludes "Championship Week" on the network, where they're showing the best of the SEC Championships and March Madness. But starting next week and running through kickoff, they're going heavily towards college football...which means they're going almost exclusively to SEC football.

And in the meantime...they're planning on showing every single game from the 2008 NCAA Men's Tournament starting July 21, which means at some point in there you can catch the Tennessee/Butler game (and sadists can watch the Vols lose to Louisville). And even before that, you can see the '08 Tennessee/Kentucky game from Thompson-Boling on Monday at Noon.

The current schedule only runs through next week, though their website mentions the glory that is to come over the next seven weeks...but here's what you can see of the football Vols next week:

TENNESSEE ON CBS COLLEGE SPORTS - 7/14-7/20
Tue 9:00 PM - 2003 Tennessee at Alabama (5 OT)
Fri 9:00 PM - 1996 Alabama at Tennessee (Jay Graham)
Sun 12:00 PM - 2007 Tennessee at Kentucky (4 OT)

You can also see the 2001 Georgia/Tennessee game this week, but you'll have to do the work on that one yourself, because I simply can't deal with watching it.

Also, if you're the traveling sort like me, XM is now the official satellite radio home of the SEC and will carry every single game this fall. This means no more praying that I hold the AM feed from New Orleans while trying to listen to the LSU-Florida game on my way back from Knoxville. The end of an era, really.

Are the Braves really going to be sellers at the trade deadline?
With Mark Teixeira in his final year and differing opinions about the Braves' potential to resign him, and the club currently 43-49 and 6.5 back of the Phillies in a year where the wild card possibilities are probably long gone...could the Braves really cash in their chips at the deadline to at least get something in return for Teixeira?

Atlanta is in San Diego starting tonight for three before heading to the All-Star Break, where I'd wager such decisions will be made...and yeah, if Atlanta gets swept and the Phillies sweep Arizona to put them 9.5 back in three days, this is a different conversation. But if history holds, the Braves will still feel like they're in it and hold onto their pieces; they traded for Teixeira when they were behind in the chase last year (thought not six games below .500 and the losers of 24 straight one run games on the road).

James Hulka at Bleacher Report has a solid piece with all the information and potentials described for Atlanta...I continue to stay optimistic that I can go see them play in August with something still to play for. We'll see.

Football Season Begins Tuesday
I was out yesterday and saw a high school team across the border in West Virginia running sprints and sleds and doing what's probably "voluntary" workouts. As mentioned, my sports motor has been running from the Cal game last year through Bruce Pearl and finally to the NBA Finals, before taking a short few weeks off...but when Tuesday rolls around and I take my annual day off for the release of EA Sports NCAA Football 09, it'll be go time again.

Custom covers are again all the rage...the best one I've seen for the Vols so far comes from Ghettoshark at Utopia NCAA Strategies, where you can find tons of them for your team of choice: