1. The Atlantic has a long piece about ESPN's efforts to continue its Worldwide Leader mantra as most of its audience shifts its gaze away from its television to its phones and tablets.
For evidence, look at this chart from KPCB internet analyst Mary Meeker's study of American media consumption:
Television still tops the list, but the combined forces of desktop and mobile computing have turned the Internet into the primary source of media in America.
Again, this chart is from just four years ago. Not some ancient time like 1999, but just four short years ago. This begs the question: what will this same chart look like in 2019?
2. This news came out over the spring, but you are forgiven if it slipped your mind in the interim. We've all slept since then. But beginning this fall, the NCAA has approved - on an exploratory basis - a medical spotter armed with permission to stop a game and remove a player if suspected of suffering a head injury.
Don't expect medical spotters to be a recurring character this fall. Between referees, medical personnel and coaching staffs, medical spotters will be something of a failsafe. But they'll be there.
3. In an interview with Syracuse beat writer Stephen Bailey, new 'Cuse offensive coordinator Tim Lester revealed that last year's outfit used one cadence throughout the entire season. One. For the whole year. "You can't just use one. Which is what we did," Lester said. "We had other ones, but we used one. We have to use them; you're trained to do that."
Consider this a warm salutation to the Orange offensive line for allowing only 24 sacks and 82 tackles for loss in 2014.