Unverified Voracity 10/7

Our long national nightmare is... hopefully nearing its merciful end. Via Deadspin comes the treasured news that Stephen A. Smith's "Quite Frankly" is a ratings disaster:

“The power of marketing, mercifully, is not unlimited. Stephen A. Smith’s Quite Frankly, which premiered in August with as much fanfare as ESPN could muster, came into a 6:30 p.m. ET time slot where a hodgepodge of stuff had averaged 0.3% of TV households. Not exactly big shoes to fill. And yet humble hodgepodges don’t always get the credit they deserve: Smith’s show is averaging 0.2%.”

I do miss Trick Shot Magic, now that I think about it.

You are also breaking my heart. Deadspin is also all over this ESPN thing, pointing out this Business Week article that will probably have the staunchest capitalists wondering about maybe applying that communism thing to certain sections of the economy having to do with large people running fast. I mean, if you had asked me to choose the most depressing sentence in the English language, this would have been a strong contender:

All around it, companies are imitating ESPN's cool and edgy packaging of sports.

As Dr. Z says, "Broadcasters should remember the play's the thing."

Breakin' the law! I claim fair use on this snippet from Joe Schad's weblog ($):

HARRIS POLLING: Traditional powers Notre Dame, Penn State and Alabama are all back in the polls. The bad news? This week, one Harris Poll voter wrote in the same team twice. Another didn't vote at all. Baffling BCS commissioners now is the revelation that the company monitoring the poll can add points for teams they believe were inappropriately left off ballots. Penn State coach Joe Paterno said this week: "We lost the last good Pole with the Pope." Funny.

Emphasis mine. They don't have a web entry form? The freaking BlogPoll is more sophisticated than the Harris Poll? I'm speechless.

Cato June, NFL Star is definitely the most surreal thing going for Michigan fans at the moment. June was the first guy to don #2 after Woodson (hallowed be his name) but spent large portions of his career standing over an opponent someone else had tackled after he whiffed, looking fierce. A severe knee injury as a sophomore may have had something to do with it, but Cato June turned into the canonical Clueless But Good At Lookin' Durned Fierce safety by the time he graduated, so when someone says this...

"Bill comes back and says, 'Boy, I saw a strong safety at Michigan. He really looks like a heckuva player, and I like him. He might not be fast enough to play safety, but I think he could be a weak-side linebacker,' " [Colts HC Tony] Dungy recalled.

"We watched the tape and got Cato June."

...you look around for the Candid Camera people. "Did I just read that in the newspaper? This is verified voracity? Is this a put on?" Yes. Yes. No. Good on yer, Cato, and congratulations, but I swear I'm hallucinating whenever I see you in a Colts uniform. No offense intended.