Like your lovable 24 year old frat brother who you can't imagine college life without, the Pam Ward Chronicles have returned for a sixth season!  While we've lost half of our Mount Rushmore this season with Pam Ward and Craig James out of the booth, that doesn't mean we can't have the best Pammies season yet.  We still have Matt Millen alive and well.

If this is your first time (first of all, where have you been all our lives?), here's the rundown.  Leave us all the best, weirdest, most humorous, and most awful announcer quotes from anyone covering college football in the comment thread below.  We will update the Pammies as we are able to with your comments in the thread and Tweets to us at AA throughout the day.  Use the hashtag #PWAA to send in submissions via Twitter or leave a comment below.  We'll update the thread Saturday morning and bring you the nominees on Monday to vote and meet here every week until Craig James is no longer the reigning Pammies champion.  

Enjoy your opening week of college football down on Real Street!

Your Week 1 Announcing Schedule

"I'm putting my biggest guy on his nose, and jumping him." - Glenn Parker (via sctvman)

"He is a small package, he's only about 160 pounds." - David Pollack (via AA)

"I don't know what disconcerting is." - Aaron Taylor (via sctvman)

"Alabama is used to playing on national TV, Michigan is not." - Mark May (via WebbNHD)

"When he's good, he's good.  When he's bad, he's bad." - Andre Ware (via NotFakeRichardH)

"He's a FOOTBALL player." - James Bates (via sctvman)

"He's possessed by things unseen, and he's running the wrong way. Why does Towson tackle him? Why don't his own teammates tackle him?" - Scott Van Pelt (via Daniel)

"Discount double check down" - Rece Davis (via JKoenAU)

"There's a ginormous height differential." - Jesse Palmer (via sctvman)

"I don't think that was holding. I saw no hold there. I'm not so sure about that." - Matt Millen (via Daniel)

"The Irish people, they're used to watching hurling, which looks like a mixture of lacrosse and second degree manslaughter." - David Feherty (via AA)

Minnesota and UNLV kicked off the season in a game that took three overtimes to decide late last night. It was a sloppy game between two teams that combined for five wins last year that you could have watched if you stayed up until nearly 3 a.m. in the east and happened to know that the CBS Sports Network channel is something that actually exists.

At the end of the game, possibly one of the more disastrous football plays you can imagine nearly happened (although it's not quite as funny as running the wrong way attempting to return your own punt). It was a tie game with 41 seconds left in the 4th quarter when this play happened. Pay special attention to color commentator Aaron Taylor's reaction to the play.

Earlier today we examined the lay of the land in the cable & satellite arena where networks and leagues are battling out with media conglomerates with your sports viewing options and a few dollars at stake.  If you missed Part 1, make sure to read it here for what's currently happening in the distribution world, how it effects you, and what's happening in the distressing battles between BTN & Dish Network and NFL Network & Time Warner Cable.  Part 2 examines regional networks like Longhorn Network and the Pac 12 Networks that have their fates in the hands of securing carriage.

Longhorn Network:

The Situation:  Texas starts the season ranked this year so they are hoping fans will be more up in arms that nobody has the channel compared to last year. Texas' first two games versus Wyoming and New Mexico are on the channel and then after that, some lower quality basketball games are all that's left.

ESPN, who owns the channel, has made revenue guarantees to Texas, but is losing money big time right now on the venture. Texas is taking heat from all sides because nobody gets the channel. Last night, AT&T U-verse finally jumped on board, giving LHN a glimmer of hope and moving it past an audience equal to voters for Craig James. There are rumors of possible deals with Dish and DTV, but nothing confirmed. TWC has the most subscribers in Texas and isn't even at the negotiating table on this one either. A third game is likely to be added to the channel to extend the negotiating window and give leverage to LHN.

What They Are Saying: From The Austin Statesman:

"Dodds also said he thinks ESPN, which owns the LHN and controls distribution rights over a 20-year agreement with Texas, will eventually land a distributor.

"I think they'll get it done," Dodds said."... Obviously not getting it done (before the first two games of the season) is going to impact some people, but it's a 20-year deal. It will be worth it, what we're going through. We're going to win in the end."

Best guess at what the deal is: ESPN is fronting $300 million over 20 years to Texas and right now it looks bleak. In fact, if things don't improve quickly, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think ESPN would look at utilizing possible out-clauses in the agreement to dissolve the relationship at some point in 2013 or 2014.

Holy moly!  Watch as Andre Parker of Kent State returns his own team's punt by running the wrong way in their season opening game against Towson.  In spite of what the announcers say, the kicking team can't advance a muffed punt even if it's backwards towards their own endzone.  Almost as crazy as Parker running the wrong way are the Towson players tackling Parker as he's trying to score for them!  For the record, Kent State won 41-21.  Let's hope Kent State gives Parker a chance to return a real punt the right way sometime later this season.

(H/T Kegs N Eggs)

For the last week or so, I've been tracking the various sports channel distribution battles that are taking place across the country thinking I'd write a post on the status of those various negotiations. We'll get to those fronts, but first let's take a couple of minutes to chew on the lunacy and inefficiency of the cable and satellite industries and think through some of the trickle down anarchy and implications that are tied to these high stakes pissing matches.

Despite all of the PR positioning, posturing, and finger pointing that takes place, for the most part the majority of these things are really a war of attrition and who will tap out first.

With most of the sports world's attention on the opening of the college football season, we shift gears and focus on this week's final grand slam tennis tournament of the season on the podcast. We welcome Aussie tennis legend Rennae Stubbs of the Tennis Channel, NBC, and ESPN from New York to talk about this week's tournament and her transition from playing career to media career. Rennae also chats with AA about...

-Her decision to forego playing at the London Olympics and work for NBC. 
-How she works her humor and personality into her media career. 
-The experience of working for ESPN, NBC, and the Tennis Channel. 
-Andy Roddick's retirement and his legacy and the retirement of Kim Clijsters this week. 
-The present state and future of American tennis. 
-Which favorites have been most impressive in the tournament so far. 
-Picks for the men's and women's draw.

In case you've missed any of our podcasts, check out all of our interviews by subscribing to the AA Podcast on iTunes or our AA Podcast RSS Page.  For more from Rennae, follow her on Twitter @rennaestubbs.

It's almost September, and the college football season is hours away.  Fans across the country are preparing for the upcoming season, and the excitement is heating up.  It's early yet, but even my Golden Gophers might be able to win a game or three this season!  ESPN recently examined the ratings in the Top 56 metered markets around America from 2000 to 2011, and the results may be a bit surprising (see more below the jump for the cold, hard facts.)

I'm a sports betting kind of guy, but I never would have bet on the home of the #1 team in the land, USC, being only the 43rd highest rated college football market in the country.  Granted, Los Angeles has a lot going on and USC has had recent troubles, but a 1.4 local rating seems really low.  Another powerhouse in San Francisco, Stanford, finished 44th behind LA with a 1.3 rating.  Do people out west dislike college football? Or perhaps they just have better things to do with their time? It is California after all.

Probably a lot less surprising to the majority of college football fans, was the utter dominance of the South and the SEC in the 2011 ratings (as well as on the field).  Birmingham, Alabama finished 2011 at #1 overall, with a 5.9 rating.  Greenville, South Carolina (Clemson) finished 4th with a 4.1 rating, and New Orleans (LSU) and Atlanta (UGA) finished tied for 5th with 3.4 ratings. Despite their lackluster barely-better-than-.500 record, Jacksonville (UF) still finished 7th overall with a rating of 3.3.

Click "Read More" for some interesting facts from ESPN, and to see the Top 25 markets for 2011 after the jump.

Dish Network is at it again. They pulled MSG and MSG+ in October of 2010 (and still haven't restored it), dropped SNY on Opening Day of the Mets 2011 season, and have had issues with various other regional sports networks. I'm not even taking into account the current dispute that has resutled in AMC being pulled off the air, right before the start of season five of Breaking Bad. Now, Dish is going at it with another sports network: the Big Ten Network.

Dish is scheduled to drop BTN on September 1st. That's this Saturday, or as sports fans know it, the first college football weekend of the year. To BTN's credit, they've created a very informative and detailed website (as well as a dedicated Twitter account) about the dispute, outlining the points of contention between the network and Dish. The BTN site is also showing fans which games they'll miss this football season if the dispute isn't resolved, and shows a nice summary of Dish's previous disputes with other networks.

Some of the responses by Dish on Facebook have been.... interesting....

And voila: IMG confirms that Allen Pinkett will not be part of #NotreDame radio broadcast this weekend.

— Brian Hamilton (@ChiTribHamilton) August 30, 2012

IMG spokesman on #NotreDame-Navy in Dublin: "The event deserves to be free of distraction." Further decisions on Allen Pinkett made later.

— Brian Hamilton (@ChiTribHamilton) August 30, 2012

Allen Pinkett won't be part of #NotreDame broadcast and "Further decisions on this matter will be made in the coming days," IMG says.

— Brian Hamilton (@ChiTribHamilton) August 30, 2012

Brian Hamilton of the Chicago Tribune reported on his Twitter page that Notre Dame radio analyst Allen Pinkett was being sent home from Dublin and taken off the opening broadcast of the season against Navy.  Yesterday, Pinkett controversially said in a radio interview that Notre Dame needed more criminials and bad guys off the field to gain more success on the field.  That theory has never been provable.  In spite of a true lack of correlation or causation, the academic and cultural standards at Notre Dame have been used as an excuse for their lack of success in recent years.

Clearly, IMG, who broadcasts Notre Dame football, didn't appreciate the controversy created by the former Fighting Irish running back.  Pinkett offered an apology, but tt's unknown whether or not he will return at all as it now appears his future as Notre Dame analyst is up in the air. 

NBC Sports Network continues to add layers to its programming in an effort to make a push for a larger share of a lucrative market.

One month after it was announced that the all-sports channel would be launching a morning highlights show, it was revealed yesterday that Mike Florio's ProFootballTalk.com would be given a one-hour daily TV spin-off during the NFL season. 

Florio and Erik Kuselias will host the aptly named Pro Football Talk starting Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. ET. Florio notes that NBC personalities Rodney Harrison, Hines Ward, Doug Flutie, Ross Tucker, Amani Toomer and Peter King will also contribute.