Catch my interview on the Today Show.

FOOTBALL

Finally, today is the start of the NFL season.  Last year’s Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers will host last year’s top record holder in the AFC, the Tennessee Titans.  It should be a defensive battle, and the experts are calling this game right down the middle.  It’s anybody’s game.  You can catch it on NBC at 8:30PM ET.  Yes — football is back!!!!!!

In other NFL news, it looks like the Cleveland Browns finally have their starting quarterback.  Their was a very public QB battle in pre-season between former Notre Dame phenom Brady Quinn and Derek Anderson, and head coach Eric Mangini gave no clue as to who the starter would be.  Well, yesterday he announced it would be Brady Quinn, but didn’t stick around to explain his decision to the press.  The name Brady Quinn doesn’t exactly send pulses of electricity through the veins of football fan (although he is awfully cute), but he does mark the start of a new era in Cleveland.  Perhaps they could surprise some teams this year.

NBA

During the course of the summer, a lot of players found new homes.  However, the one name that stayed homeless was former superstar Allen Iverson.  We knew that Detroit didn’t want him back, and there were rumors that Charlotte was interested, but nothing happened.  Then the Clippers came calling, and it looked like Iverson would be LA bound.  But, at the last minute, that didn’t work out either.  They just didn’t have the money.  Well, yesterday, Iverson finally found a team.

He will be joining the Memphis Grizzlies.  Now, it may not look exciting on paper, given that Memphis is a small market team that has no shot of winning a title.  At the same time, they have a huge stable of exciting young talent, and Iverson’s leadership could be just the thing to make them jell and get them to the playoffs.  This could be huge for the city of Memphis to see their team become one of the most likable young teams.  They’ve got Rudy Gay and O.J. Mayo as emerging all stars, and they grabbed big man Hasheem Thabeet with the #2 pick in the draft.  Plus, they nabbed a decent power forward in Zach Randolph.  With Iverson running the show, they become a very exciting team on the court.  This could be very interesting, and that squad has potential to pull a big upset in the first round of the playoffs.

BETSY ON THE TODAY SHOW TALKING FOOTBALL

FOOTBALL

In the college football world, the BYU Cougars went from being #20 all the way into the Top 10 after upsetting #3 Oklahoma on Saturday.  Yep, they’re ranked #9 in the new poll.  This is great news for BYU!  While they are always a threat to pull an upset every season, this year they definitely look for real.  Oklahoma is anything but an easy win, and beating them was a true statement for BYU.  They could be this year’s Utah, who last year went undefeated, nabbed a sweet spot in the Sugar Bowl, and ousted Alabama, who was #1 the entire year.  Congrats to BYU.

Out of the NFL, it looks like Michael Vick is fulfilling his promise of being a local Philadelphia community leader.  Yesterday, Vick spoke to a group of 200 freshman entering Nueva Esperanza Academy.  He told them to not listen to “peer pressure”.  Vick noted that so many people were pulling him in the wrong direction, and he opted to listen to them instead of just going his own way.  This resulted in heinous crimes against animals, 18 months in prison, and the loss of a ton of money.  The students listened to every word, and you can bet the Eagles and Vick will organize a host of these type of events during the course of the season.

Finally, an update on the Tila Tequila drama.  On Sunday, San Diego Chargers defensive back, Shawne Merriman was arrested for allegedly choking and throwing Tila Tequila.  Well, in Merriman’s side of the story, he told police that Tila was drunk and he tried to restrain her from getting in the car and driving.  Now, Tila’s lawyers are saying that this was nothing but ’spin’ — that Merriman is just trying to get himself out of trouble.  Tila’s lawyers expect Merriman’s story to be discredited.  And if you want to play detective, it was reported that Tila Tequila had ‘gone quiet’ on her Twitter feed after the event.  Clearly something serious must have happened for her to cease the only thing that makes her popular… online communication.  For those that don’t remember, Tila’s fame came from having the most friends on MySpace during its heyday.  It led to an MTV reality show, and now she is pursuing other mass media projects.  So for her to “go quiet”… something’s up.

What a sports weekend.

FOOTBALL

The big story, aside from everybody’s fantasy football drafts (which mine is tonight), was out of the college football world.  Oklahoma entered this season looking to get back to the National Championship.  And at their helm was last year’s Heisman Trophy winner — quarterback Sam Bradford.  They hoped to really make a statement against BYU on Saturday.  Well, things couldn’t have gone worse.

Their Heisman QB went down with an injury, and withered in pain on the field.  And on top of this, they fell to BYU.  Losing your first game of the season doesn’t mean that you’re out of the championship running, but it sure doesn’t look good.  They definitely can’t afford another loss.  And this is before they even get to the truly brutal Big 12 schedule.  It’s reported that Bradford will be out between 2-4 weeks, and the Sooners will need to try and stay afloat.  Meanwhile, BYU got a chance to do their team victory dance after the big win.  Perhaps they are on a road to a Big Bowl game.  BYU 14, Oklahoma 13.

Elsewhere in college football, it looks like one of the college football’s biggest dynasties is BACK.  The Miami Hurricanes, who used to always loom around the Top 3 in the rankings for the past 25 years, look to be a forced to be reckoned with… again.  They were unranked and took on #18 Florida State last night in the battle of the state.  Well Miami’s quarterback, Jacory Harris, absolutely went off.  He threw for 386 yards and 2 touchdowns, and allowed the Hurricanes to narrowly edge the Seminoles.  They’re off to a good start.  Miami 38, Florida State 34.

And in the NFL, the Lions perhaps got a piece of inspirational news.  They went 0-16 last season, and the franchise looked bleak.  In the off-season they even changed their logo hoping to gain the perception of a new image, a new team.  With the #1 pick in the draft, they took Georgia’s QB Matt Stafford.  Well, he’s an unproven QB, but the Lions felt confident enough with his pre-season play to name him the starter for Week 1.  Sure it doesn’t guarantee anything, but it does show that they’re committed to a new start.  That they’re taking winning seriously.  Let’s hope that Matt Stafford makes it happen for an ailing Detroit.

Finally, it was reported Sunday that San Diego Chargers Shawne Merriman was arrested for allegedly choking former MTV reality star Tila Tequila. However, Merriman says he didn’t do it.  His claim was that Tia Tequila wanted to drive drunk, and Merriman tried to restrain her from doing so.  For now, it’s just words, but we’ll keep afloat of this developing story.