Today's Calls: Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma, Utah vs. BYU, Eli Manning vs. Kurt Warner, Pats vs. Fins, Texas Tech vs. Sportsmanship, CC Sabathia vs. Hank Steinbrenner and More.

The Opening Pitch: You want a college football playoff? This is about as close as you're going to get to one. Sort of, in that "sort of" cluster-frack that only college football can provide:

Texas Tech plays Oklahoma, with the winner in a control-their-own-destiny position for the national-title game.

If Texas Tech wins at Oklahoma, the path to an unbeaten season and a spot in the national-title game is all but assured. (Of course, they could always lose to Baylor and/or Mizzou in the Big 12 title game. But let's not go there.)

If Oklahoma beats Texas Tech, the Big 12 is a complete mess, but some observers think that OU would leapfrog Tech and even Texas in the BCS rankings to control its own destiny. (This, despite the fact that Texas beat Oklahoma head-to-head.)

Another week, another "Game of the Year" coming out of the Big 12.

As always, call it "playoff-ish." Wanna bet the President-elect will be watching?

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Today's Calls: Ball State vs. the BCS, AI vs. Billups, Greg Oden vs. Plus-Minus, Mike Mussina vs. the Hall of Fame, Pacman Jones vs. December, Michigan State vs. Expectations and More.

The Opening Pitch: There are all sorts of good ideas floating around this morning ...

Lobbying to keep Ball State out of the BCS? Worthy cause.

Making MLB's LDS round a one-game playoff? I'm in.

Reminding Oden fanboys to check +/-? You bet.

Mike Mussina into the Hall of Fame? Clearly.

Alas, my favorite idea of 2008 won't be happening: With MLB announcing that final bids for the Cubs are due December 1, what we won't see is a consortium of a million fans putting up $1,000 each to make an unbeatable billion-dollar bid.

In this era of social networking — when Barack Obama can raise $640M for his campaign, mostly through small individual donations — this was doable. It even had a built-in catch-phrase: "Yes We Cubs!"

All it was missing was a centralized administration, and I think that as fans — no matter who you root for — we'll look back and regret that.

But, hey, Shaq is on Twitter! Talk about a great idea. We'll take what we can get.

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Today's Calls: Stephen Curry vs. Blake Griffin, Mack Brown vs. Will Muschamp, LeBron vs. New Jersey, Dustin Pedroia vs. Nellie Fox, A.J. Burnett vs. CC Sabathia, Ryan Dempster vs. Jake Peavy, Greg Oden vs. Anthony Morrow, Roger Goodell vs. Pacman Jones and More.

The Opening Pitch: Erin Andrews is NOT going Hollywood.

That said, she told SN's Chris Littmann in an interview that she is "not really looking to get into entertainment right now."

Right now. So she's not ruling it out?

EA's future is big news, because she is arguably the biggest celebrity in the sports-media world — certainly the biggest one among younger consumers (and producers) of sports blogs, for whom she has driven untold tens of millions of pages of traffic. (Cough.)

I find the obsession with Andrews — particularly with her looks — to be kind of ludicrous. "Hot for sports TV" is absurd, not to mention demeaning. Do people take Kirk Herbstreit more seriously than Lee Corso because he's a better-looking guy, or because he's a great analyst?

I hope EA doesn't go Hollywood — even though I'm sure the offers are there — because it undercuts her consistent argument that she is a sports freak who loves her job as a reporter.

Now, that's not to say she can't have an expanded role for ESPN. In fact, the company would be crazy not to make that happen.

She could be the network's Rachael Ray, taking advantage of her populist appeal, particularly with younger viewers. Send her around the country (even more). Give her her own daily show, something so obvious that I cannot believe it hasn't happened yet.

Rather than "go Hollywood," EA should go for a more substantial accomplishment — becoming the first female sports talent to crack the "top tier" of Bob Costas, Chris Berman, Dan Patrick and Tony Kornheiser.

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Today’s Calls: Mark Cuban vs. the SEC, Phil Dawson vs. Rian Lindell, Joey Porter vs. the Pats, Albert Pujols vs. the A.L. MVP, Stephen Curry vs. Blake Griffin, Tracy McGrady vs. Mindy McCready and More.

The Opening Pitch: The first rule of scandal management is to make the scandal goes away as quickly and quietly as possible.

Mark Cuban is pursuing neither.

It was predictable that sports’ biggest Maverick would push back at the Feds over this insider-trading lawsuit. But Mike Florio makes a good point that this probably isn’t the best strategy, because it sets up an “either-they’re-lying-or-I-am” dynamic that rarely works for the target of the G-men.

Compare that to the way the NFL is reacting to (yet) another baffling officiating mistake, from the Steelers-Chargers game. The league reacted quickly, not only committing to reviewing the replay policy in the offseason, but potentially implementing changes before this year’s playoffs.

Battling the government isn’t quite like battling gamblers who faced a $64 million swing (or irate fantasy GMs who really needed that TD from the Pitt D), but the rules of engagement are the same:

Admit error. Fix quickly. Move on.

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Today's Calls: Romo vs. Rodgers, McNabb vs. OT, Warner vs. Haynesworth, Jimmie vs. Cale, Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma, Sabathia vs. Big Unit, Dirk vs. Amare, UNC vs. Duke and More.

The Opening Pitch: Mediocrity rules in the NFL!

*Tony Romo squeezed five fingers' worth of production out of four for 14 points of offense to go with 2 INTs, but a Cowboys win in D.C. somehow signals that the "'BOYS ARE BACK!!!" (Hardly, but really, what does last night's loss say about the Redskins?)

*The Packers clobbered the division-"leading" Bears, so now there's a logjam of so-so 5-5 teams at the top of the NFC North, where the division champ might not crack 10 wins.

*Hey, the league's first 11-10 result ever! Thrilling! (Pay no attention to yet another officiating blunder, which led to that history-making final score.)

*The "hottest" team in the league, the Dolphins, eked out a win over the hapless Raiders.

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