Good news, it will be on either ESPN or ESPN2. The unknown is when. The WWLS won’t be making their decision until Monday, Dec. 1. It will either be a noon start or 8pm.

ESPN casting call for college basketball commercial. It’s time to stereotype.

ESPN
Promo
SAG
PAY RATE: SAG PROMO RATE

Director: Matt Aselton
Casting Director: ERICA PALGON
Interview: Thurs 11/13 and Fri 11/14, Mon 11/17
Fitting: 11/21
Shoot: 11/24, 25
Location: New York

SUBMIT ELECTRONICALLY LIZ LEWIS CASTING PARTNERS

EVERYONE MUST BE STRONG WITH COMEDY/IMPROV. PLEASE WRITE ANY ADDITIONAL NOTES, IN THE NOTES PAGE, ABOUT ACTOR’S COMEDIC/IMPROV EXPERIENCE/TRAINING, THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL IN LOOKING THROUGH SUBMISSIONS

All roles are ages 18-22 yrs old. WITH THE EXCEPTION of PERDUE.

The concept: The spots take place in the ESPN College Basketball Call Center (CBBCC). All of these guys are there representing their schools, calling people on the phone to get them to watch more College Basketball. Basically they are selling college basketball.

…

[ PITTSBURGH ]
FEMALE. Pittsburgh is a tomboy. She obviously grew up in the neighborhood and isn’t going to take any guff from anyone and she’ll wallop you in the eye with a crowbar if you suggest different. So don’t. Think Tina Fey type.

Ohhhh-kaaaayyyyy.

Here’s some more from the Big East schools:

[ CONNECTICUT ]
MALE. Connecticut is all things Connecticut. He’s a little bit older.
He’s a little bit thicker around the waist. He’s WHITE. He’s also competitive. Very. Waspy, blue blood.

…

[ LOUISVILLE ]
MALE. Louisville is very true to place. He’s short. He’s HISPANIC. And one day he hopes to carry on in proud Louisville tradition and race thoroughbreds.

…

[ VILLANOVA ]
MALE. Villanova is the poor man’s Duke — he’s not quite as handsome, he’s not quite as rich, he’s not quite as dapper. After 2 or 3 beers though, who cares? As he’s friendly enough.

[ NOTRE DAME ]
MALE He’s an ASIAN kid who is in to all things Notre Dame, ridiculously so. Oh, and he’s always fighting. Every time we encounter him he always has some words or another, be it the faint traces of a black eye, or a scab or whatever. He epitomizes the fightin’ Irish.

…

[ SYRACUSE ]
MALE. Jewish kid from Long Island that is loving the college experience. It has opened up a world he never knew existed. All you can eat buffets in the cafeteria — who knew? To Syracuse, everything is a party.

[ GEORGETOWN ]
FEMALE. Georgetown, a 4.36 GPA who’s lived in 9 world-class cities, but all the time in her sister’s shadow (her GPA is 4.37). She’s sort of the female Duke, except most people like her. Think Reese Witherspoon.

…

[ MARQUETTE ]
FEMALE. Marquette, on a scale of 1-10, she’s a six. A B-, C in every category you can define a person by. Her defining characteristic is you don’t really remember her. You’re not breaking your arm to get to her, but you’re not chewing it off to get away. She does have a winning personality though. Midwest, sweet girl.

Apparently the plan has already been torched according to Awful Announcing’s update. ESPN apparently outsourced the plan and denies all responsibility for the stereotyping casting call.

I know, you are thinking, why get up early? Why fight traffic? All for a noon game that most are not as feeling optimistic, as they were prior to the start of the season. The game is on national TV on ESPN2. It all seems very enticing to just stay home and watch the game.

And there’s your reason to go to the game. If you watch the game on TV, you will be treated to the play-calling crew of Pam Ward and Ray Bentley. Spare yourself. Make the trip to the game.

I can’t say this surprised me one bit. I expected a noon start for this game. The mouse monopoly hasn’t decided at this point whether it will be on ESPN or ESPN2.

That depends in part on what/how Iowa looks in their in-state rivalry game with Iowa State this weekend. If they lose to the worst of the Big 12 North, expect this one on ESPN2.

Looks like another game of heading to Pittsburgh before sunrise.

Q: When is homerism good?

A: When it’s your guy who is being the homer.

Give the WWLS some credit for finally grasping that they should let the video clips be embeddable. Now if only they would cut a deal with RedLasso.

Media blitz day for LeSean McCoy.

Both Pittsburgh dailies had stories on him. You know he’s been well coached… in media relations.

“It isn’t about yards, about touchdowns, about accolades for me. The only numbers that matter are 5-7 and I want to do everything in my power to make sure we improve on that,” he said of Pitt’s record last season.

“If we go to a bowl game, win a lot of games — that’s how you can judge my season because that’s my focus. Maybe teams will key on me — that will open stuff up for [fullback] Conredge [Collins] or the passing game.

“I don’t know if I can do better individually, but as a team, we all want to and know we can do better.”

Not that McCoy isn’t confident in himself.

McCoy, for one, believes he’s a more complete back after spending a full year in the weight room and conditioning under strength coach Buddy Morris. Most of all, McCoy said he’s become a student of the game by watching more film.

“I understand the game of football. It’s more than just raw talent out there,” McCoy said. “I’m a little more confident now that I know what’s out there and what I have to do. Last year, I was curious about what I had to do and what was going to be out there for me. I was just playing, just trying to do what I do best and just run. Like coach said, I left a lot of runs on the field, a lot of long ones. It was me trying to do too much.”

Well, given the offense last year, McCoy had little choice but to try and do too much.

It’s the in-story in the offseason. ESPN’s Outside the Lines story on Penn State’s off-the-field issues. I was only able to get around to watching it this evening (I really love having a DVR). There have been enough people e-mailing me about it that I will write something.

There was nothing too earth-shattering in it. That Penn State has had a lot of criminal charges filed against the players in the past several years is not a revelation. This sort of report has been building as it has carried on each year. Suggesting something in the team culture, rather than just the “bad apple” argument.

Joe Paterno’s insistence on denying everything shouldn’t have been a surprise. Even his overall cantankerousness. It’s Joe Paterno. Big shock that he’s old and cranky when the media isn’t asking the questions he wants. I had a sense that if Steve Delsohn — the reporter — held up a blue paint sample and asked him what he thought of this shade of blue, Paterno would have denied that it was actually blue by the end

Remember what I wrote last week about Iowa’s problems? Well, here’s the key bit.

More than that, though, it also becomes an issue of how the fans face such things. Do they look at it solely in what it means in wins and losses? Do they circle the wagons and descend into lunatic-fringe paranoia – seeing conspiracies and attempts to bring down their beloved program at every turn? Do they demand accountability from the program and their school?

That’s what Penn State fans have to address. Is it all just an ESPN hit piece? Numbers without context? Really? The PSU Football team has been a top-510 resident of the Fulmer Cup the past two years. What does that say?

Programs like Penn State, Notre Dame and Michigan love to talk about a special way of doing things and all that tripe in the past. Their fans eat it up and parrot it. Really, what they want is to win. Period. When convenient they will rationalize it with “everybody does it” themes to minimize things. They will accuse all others of being jealous and just trying to bring them down.

It doesn’t go both ways no matter how hard they try. Either accept that the old ways are long gone and the program is just like every other program out there. With periods of bad behavior and problems. Or mean it when you claim the program is different. Demand and act accordingly when the bad crap happens.

I’ve been debating the waste of time that was ESPN’s “Face of the Program” gimmick. Essentially trying to pick one player or iconic image that would define a program at its best. It’s been mostly lame. For several schools they have been stuck with just the logo.

Pitt was a no-brainer for ESPN in going with Tony Dorsett. Not only was he the school’s greatest running back, won the Heisman, wore the cool uni and was a hall of fame pro player. He also led a Pitt team to a national championship.

That’s the one thing that trumps all the other poll choices in Dan Marino and Hugh Green. Larry Fitzgerald and Curtis Martin never had a shot.

Yes, that I even wasted a post on it is an obvious sign that news and info is drying up just before the July 4th holiday.

Unless it is absolutely explosive, this will hopefully be the only mention of this on the blog.

Mark Wogenrich, one of our Penn State football beat writers, tells us that ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” investigative TV show is pursuing a story about the legal issues involving the Lions’ football team since April 2007.

It’s such an easy target, it almost seems surprising that they hadn’t done the piece yet.

That said, they hardly seem worse than so many other teams. But like other schools/fans that play the self-righteous, higher standard card any chance they get, they really can’t turn around and claim they are no worse than any other school.

You can’t have it both ways. Either you are no better/different from other schools and their fans, or you are on a higher standard and have to deal with extra scrutiny when those standards aren’t met and even ignored.

As ESPN.com’s Bruce Feldman noted, mixed-martial arts is making plenty of mainstream news in the last couple of weeks. So, he does a Q&A with Pitt punter and MMA practitioner Dave Brytus (subs. only).

Q: Who on your team do you think could be a good MMA fighter if he worked at it and why?

A: Scott McKillop could be a great fighter! He was one of the best wrestlers in the state of Pennsylvania in high school. He also has good size and speed. If he worked on Jui-Jitsu and learned how to strike, he could be a force in MMA.

Dorin Dickerson could also be good in this sport I think. He is the most athletic guy on our team and is also one of the strongest. He could cut down to the 205-pound division and wreck people if he learned how to strike and use submissions. Anyone who is that athletic and has the kind of power he does at his weight class is dangerous.

Feldman, generally, is bullish on Pitt this season.

From Dan in NYC: Give me a sleeper team and sleeper Heisman pick for 2008.

Feldman: I’ll double up. I think LeSean McCoy would be my sleeper. I don’t think he’ll win it, but I could see him getting to New York, and Pittsburgh will be better than most people think. The Panthers lost a lot of key guys to injury for most or all of 2007 (QB Bill Stull, WR Derek Kinder, OT Jason Pinkston and DT Gus Mustakas) and now they’re back and McCoy will be the engine of a much-improved offense. Plus I think the Big East is really up for grabs.

Feldman has been one of the few mainstream writers from the start that liked Pitt hiring Wannstedt, and never jumped off that bandwagon. He had his doubts after year 2, but I think everyone did.